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Interview with Lord Dunmore Nickens

	Citation Please feel free to use the information from this transcript in any scholarly work. The full citation for this document is : Lord Dunmore Nickens, interview by Tonja Chaney, October 3, 1998, OH019, Oral History Collection, Frederick Community College, Frederick, MD. Abstract Lord Nickens was born August the 6th, 1913, and was one of fifteen sons. Lord Nickens grew up in Frederick, and recalls race relations with the city as a child and during his young adult life through his work experiences. Mr. Nickens has been and is still an active member of the Frederick County NAACP chapter, the MRA, and he was a member of the United States Army. Here he discusses race relations and segregation that he experienced while working in Frederick, in the U.S. Army while stationed throughout the world, in education, and in the private sector after he was discharged from the Army. He does a good job of discussing the social and economic aspects of growing up during segregation, the depression, and World War II, as well as discussing local desegregation, local white and black persons who had positive or negative effects on segregation locally, court cases, prominent Civil Rights activists in Frederick County, and his interactions with Thurgood Marshall. Mr. Nickens also comments historically on important black persons who have had worthwhile contributions to American history, and on the recent Maryland legislation on the Confederate flag emblem on state license plates. Transcript TC = Tonja Chaney (interviewer) LN = Lord D. Nickens (interviewee)
LN:	I'm named after the first governor general of Virginia Lord Dunmore. My father was a minister he died at the age of 107 in 1963. My mother was a Brooks. My father was married twice and he had two sets of children: two by the first wife and thirteen by the second wife. And I'm one of the boys by the second wife [inaudible]. I was born in 1913, August the 6th. We lived in Virginia until 19 until December the 19th, 1919 then we moved to Frederick County. My first encounter with segregation knowing what it meant to be black happened at a place called Point of Rocks, right at the junction where the trains all stopped that came from Washington, that were going West and coming into Frederick. So we had to catch the train into Frederick. I was just a little six-year-old lad, had never been to school before because we didn't start school until we were seven years old. And parents were leaving Virginia during the exodus of forcing the blacks from the Southern states, deep southern states, and to keep from paying the poll tax and, also, buying schoolbooks, and clothing, and so forth for the youth. When the money was then very, very scarce. So, at the train terminal, I had to use the bathroom. I went into the, not being able to read and write, walked into the one that had the sign up there "white people" or "white only." The conductor, it was the first time I was ever hit, thumped, or kicked real hard. He kicked me in my rear. My mother went on him and another conductor came up and took up for my mother. That was my first encounter with segregation, and I began to bubble and boil. And as I started the first grade in school and we were treated by them, the community leaders, and one of those community leaders was named Dr. U.G. Borne, Sr. And Dr. Borne, Sr. was just like a father to us children. Later, I became more closely associated with him down through the years of we worked in the civil rights movement, because he would always come and get me. He called me son to go along with him uptown to get straightened, to help straighten out some of the things that were happening in the black community that the white community was frowning upon. We in the, then we attended kindergarten at South Bentz St., then the 1st through the 6th grade, we were transferred then to the 7th grade, which all the boys were sent to Seventh St. School. Then from Seventh St. School, at that particular time, right after Mr. Bruner, in the early '20's, had asked the superintendent of this black schools, of all schools, in fact, in Frederick County, for a black high school because we had to leave the state to go to, if we wanted a high school education or to further that education we had to go out of Frederick County. And he asked the superintendent, at that particular time was named Huskmaster, he… let him start a black high school, well high school, at that particular time, was only two years but it was equivalent to the time that the white's spent in high school. And he did. On West All Saints Street we have a marker there marking the place and giving Mr. Bruner credit for his foresight in seeing the future of black children being educated in Frederick County. After we grew up within the community, everybody was poor in the community. There was nobody working in what they call a professional job, other than Dr. Bourne, and Dr. Brooks, and Dr. Snowball. Dr. Snowball was a dentist, the other two doctors were physicians and they practiced their medicine and so forth on both races. They lived in Frederick County.
TC:	What did your mother and father do?
LN:	My mother… my father was a preacher, and he preached, his church was in Virginia. My mother was just a homemaker, at that particular time. She had been a teacher in Virginia, but then she was just a homemaker. And she took care of the children at home, especially, on the weekends and so forth when my father would leave and go to Virginia. During the early '20's, there was a young black lad named Charles Robinson, at that particular time they bound the blacks out to whites to help supplement the family income or to help and put bread and meat on the table. It was a cheap, posely, measly sum of money that the parents received, but yet every penny then counted. And some of them were bound for as just as much as the least as two dollars a month, but that was two dollars more than most of the families would have had, had not you know the children had not gone out to work. There was no child labor law then and the child worked, if you could get a job on the farm you worked on the farm for two dollars, if you could any job, that if you were black you got the dirty jobs, the measly jobs and cooking, at that particular time, was a black job. Most of the mothers in the community cooked for the white families uptown or across Patrick St., to put it that way, or up on Clark Place and for five or six dollars a week, and besides cooking, they did the house cleaning, and took care of their children. It was a little rough, because no houses were insulated then, and you had to put extra clothes and some of your clothing on the bed to keep warm, because snow sifted in through the cracks in the houses. And you had to brush the snow off you sometimes when you got out of bed. You had the old wood stoves that you, burned the wood and coal in. And we as youngsters used to sell the corn cobs, they didn't grind them then along with the grain to feed the stock, they would always shell the corn off and the cobs would be given to us to keep away from the mills. We used to go out to the railroad to pick up coal, we'd catch the, down where the Visual Arts Center is now, the trains used to back in there on the trussel, and they would empty the fire boxes, and as the coals would cool down we would get the cinder and that was the same was coke, and we burned that also in stoves in the winter time to keep warm, we also sold this. We'd sell the bark off trees from the coal yard or wood yard, which is right across the street from the Visual Arts Center, and we'd sell that for 10 cents a hundred pound bag. And we sold the Frederick Newspaper, we'd pay a penny for that and we got two cents for that. The Baltimore Sun, we'd pay 2 cents for that and sold it for three cents. Some of the customers were good and some were bad, some of them still died and still owe me yet for a weekly newspaper, delivering the weekly newspaper to them. We, the schools being separated… the white children had to come pass the schools and they would holler and call you all kinds of names cloud, the word n, negro, nigger, and black boy-sunshine and all this you know… well, you had to take it as much as you could. And yet you were growing bitter, and bitter, and bitter, and bitter, and bitter, at the so called, 1896, so called separate, but equal doctrine that was passed and enclosed upon you, the blacks at that particular time.
TC:	Did you have any white friends?
LN:	We had white friends, we lived down on West South Street then. 498 West South Street, corner of West South and called Telegraph Street then, not Jefferson Street. And there was three white families on South Street that befriended the blacks. That was the Keifuvers, Brightners, and there was the Millers. Now not the one set of Millers that owned the general store, but the set of Miller's lived… and when we'd go up and down South Street we boys would have to fight they didn't bother the sisters, the girls, but they would fight the boys. And so these Brightners, Keifuvers, and Miller boys used to come out and take up for us. And so we wasn't worried as long as they were around, but there was a fight every time they came around because they would come in gangs, and they talking about gang busters, they were gang busters at that particular time. Because, they were nasty. One lady had... ran a store that had a old Paul Parrot, and she had taught the Paul Parrot the derogative name that they called us that Webster so confined, as one of his pet peeve's that they all fell for the word nigger. And she taught Paul Parrot to say that when a black came in the store or a colored as we were called then, as to say, "Mama there's a nigger in the store."
TC:	The parrot did?
LN:	Yes, the parrot, the Paul Parrot did. "Mama there's a nigger in the store." "Mama there's a nigger in the store." And so, a white girl heard the parrot one day and she said, "What is that parrot saying?" And when the lady went out, she took a stick and killed the parrot. And the old woman tried to blame it on us, I mean Mrs. Hoffman, she tried to blame it on us. It was on the corner of South and Degrain Streets, but the girl told them that she killed it, we didn't kill it. And, so, we never had that problem again until that store was removed.
TC:	What do you think made her kill the parrot for you?
LN:	Huh?
TC:	Why did she kill the parrot for you?
LN:	Because the parrot was calling us niggers and she didn't like that, and she was a white girl. I was telling you about this youngster that was bound out to this couple, up in the Myersville area. And he was six or seventeen years old when he was hanged. He was supposedly to have killed the mistress of the house and set the house on fire. But he, my father, was his counselor at the jail, but he always swore that he was innocent, but they still hanged him. And when they were going to… and then the Klux Klan would came in one day, and then to… one night and called themselves going to take him out and lynch him. So, a black militia from Washington came up here, and they rounded up blacks, and my father and all of them were on top of the houses down on South Street, surrounded the jail. And the sheriff then got scared and took the man out of town. Well they went on with the execution of Charles Anderson the next morning at six o'clock. Years later, lady came to me and was working at C. Thomas Kemp's store. Lady came to me and said, "Did you hear the latest about that young black colored boy that they killed over, hanged over at the jail?" I said no, she said, "Well… her husband has admitted on his death bed that he did it." So, Charles Anderson was next to the last person that was hanged in Frederick County. Then they began to take them down to the penitentiary then to hang them. But they would take the school children into see these convicted people, condemned. We had some good, there were some good white people in Frederick and some nasty white people in Frederick. And they're still some nasty white people in Frederick and they're are still some good white people in Frederick some of the originals, of the older people that are living today. After we left Seventh St. School, we went to 7th grade. We went to Lincoln High then. We went to, it was called junior high then, seventh and eighth grade. We were given diplomas from the seventh grade and then we were ready to go to high school, they extended the number of years then to three. And, so, then black children could go three years. But most of these children had to quit to go to work. And we worked on farms, we cleaned corn for ten cents an hour, we made hay for ten cents an hour, then you combine would go long and cut the wheat and would shuck it, and make sheaves of it and you had to put the sheaves in the shock. And when they got ready to harvest it, you go back and put these sheaves on the wagon take them to the barn and feed them into the machine, that would separate the wheat from the straw. And then make what they called straw lips in the barn, and feed the cattle and make bed ticks fill in the bed ticks and everything with fresh straw and so forth because feathers were hard to come by. You raised your own chickens, pigs and so forth even in the city of Frederick up until in the early '40's, I think it was when they passed an ordinance that you couldn't raise chickens, and hogs in Frederick City. So, we butchered every year, we had our own chickens, and my father would bring home cabbage and stuff and we would work and help to supplement the family income by selling our newspapers, and selling the corn cobs, and bark, and coal and coke. And now that was the coke from the trains, burnt coal not the coke that…
TC:	That they selling today?
LN:	That they selling today.
TC:	Right.
LN:	And then we, when we got older sixteen, seventeen. And, we were eligible then to go to work at a regular job, if you could find one. So, I found a job that in 1930, just before the crash of the stock market and depression set in, when it was just about settling in and it got dry [inaudible]. I went to work sometimes at the C. Thomas Kemp's, on Patrick and Market Street corner. And I worked there for two, three years. Because [inaudible, Ann Marie?] came in and I was up to five dollars a week and we had to work at the store, janitors work, print show cards, and helped the develop the, to decorate the windows and displays and so forth in the store. And in the spare time, when the store was slow had to go out to the house and, worked in and round the garden all for five dollars a week. I went to walk through, then the WPA had started Roosevelt had been elected, and he started the WPA and the boys work force. I couldn't get in the boys' work force. And I was working at the store, finished the store had to go out to the house to work in the boss's flower garden, his wife's garden, and clean up the basement. So, I started through where the Boat Lake is over to the bathhouse to go up College Avenue, because they lived on College Terrace. That was the shortest route, walking. Everything was walking then. Those that didn't have horse and buggy, well you walked. Because you didn't have money to buy a car you know, so I was going across the boat lake, and I heard this whistle blowing and I turned around and looked and here was this policeman hollering "get outta there boy, get out of there boy." The dumbest cop on the force, his name was Cabbage Burrs. I saw his name in the paper the other day…
TC:	Is he still alive?
LN:	No, he's dead. But his brother worked at Kemp's with us and his brother was nothing like he was. And Cabbage got on his little motorcycle with the sidecar, came around up to, well I kept on walking, he came up to where the bath house and said "boy what are you doing walking through that park you know you know you not allowed in there?" My father was a taxpayer, owned his property on Saints St, paid taxes every year, and I said "Why this is public property and my father pays taxes, I can walk across there." "Your kind is not allowed in there." He gave me a ticket for $2.50, for trespassing on city property. So, I turned the ticket over to my boss and he got after Alton Bennett. Alton Bennett then gave me, he gave it back to my boss, he gave the two dollars and a half back to my boss, and that was a half of my week's salary. And we gave of our week's salary, six days a week, Monday through Saturday we worked for $5.00 a week. Gave one day's wages of that to the Federated Charities and they were supposed to look out for you if you got out of a job. But when I was laid off or fired, as you may say, at Kemp's for a lady saying "That little colored boy you got dressing those white mannequins in the window it will give the inclination to grab white women." So, the lady said, "If you don't let him go I'm going to tell all my friends not to cater to your store no more." So, he had to let me go, I didn't blame him. But I blamed this woman you know. And, so, I went to Federated, the snow was about three feet in the streets including Market St. And they hadn't shoveled the sidewalks off yet, so we had to climb up to get to the corner and get up on top of the snow to walk the next block and they were paying ten cents an hour to, for men to shovel the snow off the streets. And she said "Lord I'd like to give you a job but I have to give it to married men first." I never got a job. I couldn't get into CC Camp, because the CC Camp was all filled up. I had a brother in there. So, I left Frederick, went to Washington and went to got a job at an apartment house for seventeen dollars a month.
TC:	Did you have family in Washington, is that why you went there?
LN:	Yes, I had family in Washington too, but I didn't stay with the family. I got a room, you could get a room for seventy-five cents a day, I mean seventy-five cents a week. And I worked there for a while and then my mother called me and said that she had a job, there was a job in Frederick, the lady wanted me. So, I came back to Frederick, and went to work for a lady by the name of Tina at a millenary shop. Delivering, cleaning up the little one room store and delivering packages and so on, so forth. Then they got, the white women, got everything on approval, everything, most everything they bought was on an approval first before they could try it on. Blacks couldn't do that. Blacks had to go into the store, know your size, if you didn't know your size and you bought anything and tried it on, you had to pay for it - that was yours. You couldn't return it, but the whites could and you were probably getting a lot of clothing and so forth, hats and shoes, things that had been worn over the weekend, that whites had worn and you had to pay full price for them because they were still listed as new in the store, see. And so we…well I went to work for her, and the fellar upstairs over this place, A&P store was at the bottom, she was on the side and Stroder's Men Shop was next door, and SEARS was next door in the back. And over the top of them was a studio, and this Fellow, Fellows said to me, his name was Fellows, he said to me that "Lord, how would you like to work part time with me and I'll teach you photography?" So he…I said " Ok, fine." So, he taught me photography.
TC:	Did you keep the other job also or did you quit the other job?
LN:	No, I didn't quit the other job, I kept the both of them because there was only twice a day that I delivered materials and so forth for the woman down stairs, and cleaned the shop up in the morning and that was it. I was finished with her for the day, I only made $8.00 a week but upstairs I got a commission and I could make $15.00 to $20.00 a week upstairs in the studio. And then he and I would go places and we take all kinds of pictures. That picture of Francis Scott Key monument, that you see, that was of the first pictures that we took. And he made those for the Chamber of Commerce. And so, war was being, becoming so strong in Europe and America was becoming involved by the sinking of the mercury ships and so forth. And I decided that I was going to go into the service. And what I was going into the service for was not to fight to preserve then what we considered American democracy, I was going to fight, to learn how to combat racism.
TC:	So you already knew this?
LN:	Yeah, I knew that because I was as bitter as the devil from being kicked in the slacks at the terminal in Point of Rocks train station at the young age of six. And at the way and the whites were treating the blacks.
TC:	So what did your mother say about, during this time period?
LN:	My mother was of the same philosophy that I was. She didn't show her bitterness to the children, but she would always tell you be careful of this, be careful of that, don't go here, don't go there because this will happen to you, that will happen to you. And our hands are tied, your mother and father's hands are tied, when it comes to the law because they are going to take their word for it and not your word. And, so, that was one bitter philosophy that that… that was really adhered to. Because they would arrest a black just for anything, and they would put him in jail regardless of his age and so forth. There was a, well Dr.Borne, before I decided to go into service, around 1936. He decided to run for, this Dr. Borne, Sr. decided to ran for the House of Representatives of the Delegate to the Maryland General Assembly. And he did, and he was the first black in Western Maryland to run for political office. And he lost, but he wasn't disappointed, he wasn't disgusted because he knew that he was one of those type people that was a pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement. And he taught me a lot. And I really appreciated it because I was becoming so bitter. And he asked me when I signed up to go into the service, my name came out in the Frederick Newspaper, one of the first volunteers, there were five of us, two black and three whites and he said "Son what are you going over there fighting for them for?" I said " Doc, I'm not going to fight for them, I'm going to learn how to fight them." And, so, he said, "Ok, good, that satisfies me." So when it came time to, I may, I mean, I know I'm leaving out a lot because there was a lot that happened and it would take me days you know to sit down and go through 80 years of my life. From the time I came to Frederick at 6 years old until now, see that's 86 years and to go through eighty years of my life, I know I'm leaving lots out, but you can get lots that I leave out from different tapes and you have quite a few of them at the community college. And there should be some at Detrick, we were also pioneers at Detrick. When they were enlarging Detrick in the early 40's, the late 40's not the early 40's, because I was in the service overseas. They were ignoring the blacks and the contractor had outside privileges. The contractor that came there in the late '40's and early 50's to build the new buildings and so forth at Detrick. We were going to work in the pilot plant and he had outside privilege, separate privileges, for black and white workers. So, another lad and I, named Sam Palm, went to the colonel and we told the colonel and we complained to the colonel about it. So, the colonel immediately removed the signs off of the toilets, the ones that said colored and white, he made them remove the signs that you could use any of them. That was one of the first things that was at Detrick. But blacks at Detrick then had a hard time getting a job. They would hire what they considered professionals. And the word professional irks me, because I don't think anyone on earth is a professional. And not anyone living is a professional. He may excel in the position or in the work that he is doing, but he is not a professional. He does not know all the intricacies of that particular work. That word professional irks me. And, so, they wouldn't hire what they considered a professional black. One of the first blacks that they hired there, after we complained bitterly, was a Ph.D. And when the Ph.D. got in there, black Ph.D. you could ask him a question, he would ignore blacks. We had, then what we called, a nepholometer and I was asking him a question about the mechanism of a nepholometer and he said to me " I know how it works, I paid for mine now you go pay for yours if you don't know what it is" but I asked a white Ph.D. and the white Ph.D. went over the entire intricacies of mechanism of that [nepholometer] and what the final consensus was of that [nepholometer].
TC:	So, why didn't the black guy do it?
LN:	We went to bat for him to get him there, and he was stuck up. You know what an Oreo cookie is?
TC:	Yes.
LN:	That's what I consider him as. He was black as hell on the outside and tried to be white or black as hell on the inside tried to be white on the outside [inaudible]. So, we were giving the opportunity then to go to school, I had a hard time getting in, a permission to go to school from my supervisor and the overall supervisor of the labs and pilot plants. So, I went to the colonel again and the colonel said, "if the white lad can go, you can go." So, I was going to school learning bacteriology, tissue culture, virology, chemistry, and all at the age of 56… at the University of Maryland with the field extension courses, same as this white lad was. And I, eventually, got promoted because of the knowledge that I was gaining by going to school within these fields. I then got promoted and was then depended upon quite a bit by the various labs and things because one of the works I was doing there was stock culture person for all of the viruses and bacteria we were using. And I kept all those cultures growing and issued them out to the different places. The personnel directors at Detrick were what you want to call PP's.
TC:	Which stands for what?
LN:	Piss Poor.
TC:	Okay.
LN:	And neither one of them wanted to hire blacks. But when you got colonels in there that are interested in not the color of your skin, but the type of work that you could do. They had to hire you and they had to promote you and, so lots of us were promoted and lots of us weren't. When Richard Nixon closed down Detrick, I went to personnel at Lenten Bionetics, so I went there. My schooling was instrumental in getting that job there. I went to work in personnel first, but I told them I'd much rather work in labs and if ever the opportunity presented itself in the labs I wanted to go back to the labs. Well… I worked in personnel. I was given a 13% minority quota that I could hire. When I left personnel a year and a half later, I had hired 15% minorities at Lenton Bionetics. I don't know how it is now there, but that's the way it was then when I left. I left the, I worked a little bit longer. Left at the age of 62, retired, I had a growth in my jaw and I had to go to have it removed. And after I had this removed, I couldn't take any [inaudible, analgesic?] compound. And that was some of the things we had to take then. But all the shots we were pioneers with. Because, what was it…Totoremia, Binds disease, food poisoning, Anthrax, you name it we got all of them. In the beginning, not knowing if they were going to work or not, but they work because those who took the shots none of us, several of us came down with Tularemia or Manes disease, but none came down with anthrax. Only, we had one fella in the lab, died from anthrax and he did that himself. But there were several other workers from the field and they didn't have to take the shots, so they, they worked in maintenance. Two or three of them died. I was given many accommodations that, from the Department of Defense for materials that I had sent out, made, and some of the products they were shipping them all over the world at that particular time. And I was given many accommodations by DOD. And it made you feel good, because the complex at Detrick had changed to the point where in a black, so called, non-professional or, professional, so called, could get jobs there within the fields that they were working in. And I spent 5 years in the service, one year in the states and four overseas. But I got four combat medals, in the four combat zones. We left the states, we left the states, we were headed for the Philippines, but the Philippines fell, and we went around Australia to New Guinea, I mean Indonesia, and came back then to Southern Archipelago and the name of that place was Tongatapu. There we trained for future operations in the Pacific with Admiral Nimintz until we got under McArthur. You didn't have to bother about shining your shoes because that the [inaudible] cut the shoes up in the sole and the monopoly on mosquitoes were so bad, that and you could grow a beard and that would knock them off your face. But under McArthur we had to do both. Shave and shine your shoes. We got to Finchhaven, New Guinea and in Finchhaven, New Guinea we were supposed to pull in there for a rest before going on into Northern New Guinea to prepare to go into the Philippines. And the commandant assembly, we hadn't seen a female service, not a female in the service, not even a female in the Red Cross until we got to Finchhaven, when we got to Finchaven they had a high bamboo fence around the ocean front and we wondered what that was there for. And the one lab that had been at Finchaven said, "Oh, women are behind there." We said "What women?" Looking at a woman was like looking at a thousand-dollar gold piece, you know. And you'd just stop and you stare, because you hadn't seen one for so long. Not even a Navy woman. And so, the commandant got on the platform had us all assembled on the parade field. And he said, he read to us a directive, that if you as much as said hello to one of those girls in the service they would hang you. He would personally see that you were hanged for intimidating.
TC:	Is this everyone or only the blacks he said this to?
LN:	Only the blacks, so we had white officers at that particular time. The only black officer we had was the Chaplain. And we said a, I said, I was the Battalion Sergeant Major of the 938th Automatic Weapons Battalion, so I said to my Colonel "Colonel it's time for us to get the hell outta here because there will be all hell that breaks loose like it did at Ft. Dix." And we were shanghaied outta states. And he said, "I'm with you Sergeant." And so, he went to headquarters to the Commandant at Finchhaven and we boarded back up ship that evening, started taking our equipment off and loaded that back up. We boarded ship and went on up the northern part of New Guinea that same day and prepared then. Got ready to go into the Philippines on D2, D+2 and I got, finally I got my orders to come back, that I was being relieved and that I could come back to the States. I came back to the States to Ft. Dix, Fort…ah, in Hawaii. I was in charge of getting food for the ship to last us the trip back to the States, 11 days back to the States. And they send a battalion of MP's along, a truck load in front, a truck load behind, and a truck load on each side us, blocking the streets so we could get down to the depot to get our rations to last us back into the States, because there was around 6,000 troops on the ship. And got back and took us to Angel Island out in California, had the Japanese prisoners in the cage they through raw fish over to them and they got to fighting over there that night, and, so, we boarded trains coming back east. Next morning, nine trains coming back east [not audible] because the cesation and hostility were already existed in Europe and they were bringing those young soldiers over to the Pacific and such. So, we were given orders then not to get off in Mississippi, no place in Mississippi, not to get off in Alabama, you could get off in New Orleans, but just for an hour, that's all, because you like to get up and walk and stretch your legs and that first journey going over was 57 days on the sea. And they used us as gunners on the ships because they didn't have enough Naval personnel, and our Automatic Weapons Battalion fell right in there, see. So, I got back home, got back to Ft. Meade, that's where I started from. And they cut my orders, and they cut a white lad to Martinsburg, West Virginia on my orders, and I was his overseer to see that we both got back to 2nd Army, which was stationed at Camp Jackson, South Carolina. Well, I spent the 30 days, got married, and went, boarded the bus in Washington, D.C., got to Richmond. Wanted to get a soft drink, couldn't get it. There was a white lady on there from Orlando, Florida, she and her husband. I was at the back of the bus, US soldier in the Army, spent almost five years all, but three days overseas. Came back and couldn't buy a dag-burn can of soda in the restaurant. So, this white lady from Orlando, Florida she and her husband they said " Sergeant, we're going in, we'll get you one." So, they went in, they bought me a soda back on the bus. She said, "Do you want anything to eat?" I said "yea, bring me a fish sandwich if you don't mind and I'll pay you when you get back." And they brought it back, but wouldn't take any pay for it. So, we traveled overnight, got to Orangeburg, South Carolina. The next morning, around 7 o'clock, the bus driver pulled into the restaurant right on the corner, I don't know what street it was. But a month before that, just when I was coming back to the States, there was a black soldier that had come back from the European Theater that the whites had blinded there for looking at a white gal. Now they had a leering law in North Carolina and South Carolina that if a black looked at a white girl they could hang them, or execute him for leering. That was a law, a law, just think of that. Looking at something that was going to walk before you and you had to close your eyes otherwise you could be put to death for it. That was our country! That was America! That was why we were so bitter. All our freedoms were taken away from us. And the lady said to me "Sergeant, I'm going in and get my breakfast, when I come back out do you want me to bring you anything?" I said "Yes, bring me back a egg and bacon sandwich and cup of coffee if you don't mind." She said, "No Sergeant, I don't mind." And she went on in and our brought back our stuff to the bus, she and husband, she was in front and husband was behind. The bus driver said, "Who is that for?" And she said " the Sergeant back there." And he said " you ain't gonna, ain't no white lady gonna serve a nigger down here." And he knocked it outta her hand, and stepped on it. And the husband said something to him and he said, "shut up nigger lover." They came on back to the bus and she was crying, and I said " don't cry, that's America for ya, that's the way they appreciate us going overseas fighting for them." So I got back, got back on the bus, the bus went on we stopped in Columbia disembarked in Columbia the Army vehicle picked us up, carried us to the headquarters, got to the headquarters. And we both sit there for about 10 minutes, they called the white lad over to the Sergeant Major, the white Sergeant Major [inaudible] he went over, they put him on the bus and sent him on out to his outfit, I still sit there. Quarter of six that evening I said to the Sergeant, Staff Sergeant, I said " Sergeant, when are they going to send me to my outfit?" I said " I've been here all the morning and I haven't had anything to eat yet not even a soda to drink not a glass of water even." And he said "Sergeant I don't know you have to ask the Sergeant Major." Well I went over and the Sergeant Major said, " You'll have to ask to talk to the Lieutenant." I went over and saluted the little bird. And he didn't salute back and he said, "What can I do for you?" I said, " I was just wondering when you, when I was going to be sent to my outfit, I haven't had anything to eat today nor have I had anything to drink." And he said " Let's see," he picked up a paper and he turned it over and he said "We don't have no place for niggers in the 2nd Army." When he said that I hit him in the mouth. I hit him in the mouth and drew blood. He jumps up, he's going to Court Marshall. Major walks out of his office, because they were all one, two, three, all like that. And says "if there is going to be any Court Marshall here lieutenant its going to be you, your gonna get a Court Marshall." Said to the Sergeant Major "Sergeant Major get this man's orders ready, this soldiers orders ready and send him back to Ft. Bragg. The mans been overseas all this time come back fighting for people like you Lieutenant." So, they flew me back to Ft. Bragg, I got back to Ft. Bragg, that's where I did most of my basic at, there and Ft. Huachuca, AZ. Because they had activated the 34th Brigade and we were the 77th-76th the two black units, regiments within the 34th Brigade the other one was a white unit and we never came in contact with each other [inaudible]. And, so, I got back to Ft. Bragg and 7:30 that evening and went into headquarters and gave them my credentials and the Sergeant in there, he was white said "Sergeant go ahead and get in the line and get something to eat because we know you hungry, we understand you haven't had anything to eat today." And I said, " No, I haven't nor drink either." So, he got me, they had a soda machine in there, he got me a Pepsi-Cola out of the soda machine and I drank that, went and got my mess kit out of my bag and left my bag sitting in there and went on over and got in the line, and there was a double line of German prisoners. And I know those lines stretched from my house to the bridge down here around the roadway and it was a little after 8 o'clock when I got up there and the white Sergeant, staff Sergeant said "What do you want?" And I said, "I would like to have something to eat and I was told this is where I could get something to eat." "We ain't gonna serve no niggers in here." Feeding the German soldiers and didn't want to feed me. So, I went back across the street to the IG because everything there all ran in a circle round there. I told the IG he came over there and ript the stripes off the Sergeant and told him to report for overseas duty they were going to Korea then, he reported to this outfit that was leaving out the next day to Korea. I don't know if the poor fella is dead or what, got killed over there or what. But I do know that was a heck of relief off of me. Went in, next day I reported to the Colonel over the 12th Artillery they sent me to the Field Artillery instead of coastal artillery because he didn't need any coastal artillery over there. So, I reported to him and he looked at me, he looked at the badges I had on me, looked at the hash stripes I had on my arm. He said "You been over seas all that time?' I said "Yes, Sir." He said "you been over there quite a while, then said "Sergeant fill these orders out here, so that John, Harry, or whatever his name is, can go back to his hometown, home county and pick his boss's cotton." And I said "Oh." And he said, "hurry and get him away cause we wanna get that nigger back there." And then, I had been classified as essential and I went to the IG again and asked him about a reclassification, so that I could be discharged because I knew if I stayed there I wasn't going to last long.
TC:	Right.
LN:	So they reclassified me, and two weeks later I had my discharge and I went back home.
TC:	You came back here?
LN:	I came back to Frederick.
TC:	Is that when you got involved with the NAACP?
LN:	I was involved with the NAACP before, I was involved with the NAACP, I started with the NAACP when it was activated in Frederick County in 1934. Mrs. Juanita Jackson, this man's grandmother here and John Mitchell's mother, Congressman John Mitchell's mother. That she initiated the Frederick County chapter and with Dr. Borne, Donald Baton, Dr. Snowball, [not audible] Brown, Mr. Pindell who was then the principal of Lincoln High School.
TC:	We just learned about him.
LN:	Okay, Mr. Pindell was, and we worked for him, was discharged, fired from the principalship at Lincoln High School because, at that particular time, we were fighting the Scottsboro case and, also, the equalization of teacher's salaries. Equalization of teachers' salaries began in Frederick County and spread all over the country. The black teacher's were making 1/3 of what the white teachers were making.
TC:	Right. I read about that.
LN:	Mr. Bruner was the supervisor of the black schools, all black schools in Frederick County, and they were everywhere in Frederick County. And he was making $48 dollars a month. $48 dollars a month as supervisor…. We collected money to fight for the non-Scottsboro boys and we did it. And it was the first time I had met Thurgood Marshall. And Thurgood Marshall was our National Counselor for the NAACP. In later years I was glad that I had met him then because when I became President of the Frederick County Chapter he was a Supreme Court Justice and his wife and Chief Justice Douglas's wife were good friends with me. And we could take our problems of Frederick County to them and get a legal answer from their husband's through them to come back and fight these little punitive law enforcement officers that we had here in Frederick County.
TC:	So what do you think was your biggest accomplishment with the NAACP?
LN:	Huh?
TC:	Your biggest accomplishment… When you became President what did you see that you wanted to change?
LN:	I wanted to change the hearts of those hard core segregationists in Frederick County, I don't know whether, I know I haven't achieved it fully, but from what I hear people telling me about the change, being a pioneer of change, racial changes in Frederick County, it makes me feel good because in so doing that fighting and putting my life on the line, which has been threatened many a times. I wasn't worried about myself I was worried about the brother or sister that had to suffer the same under the same conditions I had to suffer in, in order to survive in a country that is supposed to be free, in a democratic democracy, a country where the constitution says we are equal but where we had been declassified as an equal being by one of the Chief Justices and I almost said something else there one of the chief Justices of Frederick County.
	[End of Tape 1]
LN:	The majority opinions in the Dred Scott case decision and it said that a black was not a human being. If you've read, I have it in the room there, his answer to the decision of Dred Scott I am pretty sure you have read about Dred Scott. What [inaudible] moved to Missouri. There was supposed to have been a free compromise country, with no slaves and so forth and this Dr. wanted to carry, was sold, and his new owner wanted to take him back to Louisiana and he then said that he was a free man. And, so, it went to the Supreme Court and Chief Justice Taney of Frederick Maryland issued a majority report and said that blacks were less than human. And that he was still a slave. And…
TC:	What year was this?
LN:	1854, well 1856, I can't recall. And, so, as I was saying that Chief Justice Taney was a Justice then. And you can go through his museum there on South Bentz St. The Historical Society of Frederick County, the Historical Trust heads the museum there and its open to the public. And you can go there and go through it, the wine cellars, and slave quarters in the back and so forth and all. And the so-called historian of Frederick's County, now is Paul Gordon, said that "He had discharged his slaves before slavery had ended." And every book I got in the room in there says he had promised to discharge his slaves before the war ended. Like Hasslebach, right at Claggett Center right across the hill over there, where they're building the retirement center now for Senior Citizens. Hasslebach was of the same opinion, he was a money man from Baltimore that bought 400 and some acres over there and let his son have $10,000 and then cut him out of his will. And left everything to his grandson because he, his son was, or he thought was instrumental in letting two of his 27 slaves escape and he never caught them. And he left in his will then, that if they are ever caught they are to be impinged for the rest of their lives.
TC:	What does that mean?
LN:	Slavery, for the rest of their lives. He was then getting ready to free his slaves. He was freeing the men at 27 and the women would have to go three years beyond the men in order to be free.
TC:	And why was that?
LN:	Who knows? I have my theory as to why.
TC:	And what's your theory?
LN:	You know how we've got a different color?
TC:	Oh, okay.
LN:	That's my theory. And so, we have, Frederick has a deep history, the historical, of white historical events, but they don't have a deep history of black historical events. We have… we go back to different times, time periods, and I've got something here of Mark Twain and… also this lad here. Theophilus Thompson was one of the world's greatest chess players back there in the 17th century. We have slaves who escaped in Washington County that used to teach at the first black high school in Frederick County, Penington. James W.C. Pennington, he went to New York and educated himself. And we have this lad here from New Market who was given the Congressional Medal of Honor for his valor in the Civil War. We have here… (to Tonja Chaney) you can lay those down on there on the floor if you want to because you will have a lot to hold. That write up there is about Martinsville, (to Tonja Chaney) do you know where Martinsville is located? Out I-70, East on I-70, first little town you come to after you get to the Monocacy Bridge.
TC:	Okay.
LN:	A black slave founded that place. We have Mark Twain and his black friend… And those are a few of the old ones, we have here a break down in 1797 of a census that was taken, and you know we've always been left out of a census.
TC:	On everything from TV shows to what we like to eat.
LN:	But that's supposed to be corrected under the President who, that they are trying to hang now, Clinton.
TC:	So, what did you think when they desegregated the schools were you excited?
LN:	No I was, no I was elated. Elated when the schools were desegregated and I was most pleased at the way that Thurgood Marshall and his staff handled the situation. If you read all through the, line you'll find there that it started in South Carolina. And the blacks in South Carolina didn't want Thurgood Marshall and his staff to come in with them because they thought it was making it bad on them, that the white people would take it out on them and wouldn't give them no jobs. But those people wanted somebody to do the hard work, manual work, they wasn't about to get out there and pick no cotton and do that type of stuff. So, they didn't have to worry about that. So, after Thurgood Marshall went back to South Carolina, three years later, he said he was at the meeting at the same place same building, same meeting, he said to the group "I hope that the colored people" 'cause we were still called colored then, "Hope that the colored people will forget about the 1896 ruling." This is before the so-called Brown vs. Board of Education, [not audible], and he said " I hope that we can talk to them this time and we can all be on one accord." And this one black fella gets up and says, "Mr. Marshall, you don't have to worry now. All those Uncle Tom niggers than gone North and we're here and we're with you." [inaudible]. We had huh… outlaws in history, we have this lady here Vinist Grinage the kindergarten is named after her, the black kindergarten in Frederick County is named after her. And her husband was a photographer and artist, he painted the picture of Francis Scott Key that hung in the hotel for many a year, and they wouldn't accept it because a black painter painted it. But in later years they did accept it and now it hangs in the retirement center, where the Francis Scott Key Hotel is today. This was a slap in the face, I considered it, from the Frederick News Post on the new monument. And this guy that wrote this I gave him particular hell about it, because he says "Maybe it would be better to forget about those monuments. Try to let time blur those mistakes who needs a reminder of those painful times when the white majority didn't feel the black minority needed a higher education." I called him and told him "You're stupid man, you're just out of this world and you had no rational at all for humanity for writing such an article there. That sentence is bad in your mouth."
TC:	And what did he say?
LN:	(recalls his words) "Well it was something that I was doing to express the feelings of the white people."
TC:	So, in other words he was trying to get out of what they've done to us all these years?
LN:	Yes, for all these years. That's what a majority of them here in Frederick County are still trying to do. And here we had, as I said Mr. Grinage's studio is on West All Saints St. Mr.Bruner was an outstanding educator and also, served as superintendent over black students. Henson, I'm not too particular about him, because Henson was a yes man from Baltimore. He took Mr. Pindell's place. They hired him, Mr. Pindell, they could tell him [Henson] what to do and he'd jump and do it and he said, he made the statement, that if they put him under the stairwell when they integrated the school out at Frederick High, his office under the stairwell, he would still go and be Mr. Charles C. Henson. Unknowing that he would be degrading to the fact. And Benjamin S. Daily… now Benjamin S. Daily was of those blacks that volunteered during the Civil War. And he was from Rockville, but he eventually moved to Frederick and I have a book in there of all the blacks from Maryland that fought in the volunteer units for the Union Army. Now, some of the Nickens's didn't fight for the Union Army. Some of the Nickens's were those type that you find that, if the white man told them to stick there head in a fire were just like the other blacks they would go do it, in order to please a white man. And some of them fought for the Southern Army in the Civil War.
TC:	So, what do you think about the Confederate flag, now that Maryland can have the little Confederate sticker on their tags, it's now legal. Do you think that hurts black people?
LN:	It's a slap in the face to not only to the blacks that fought against the Confederate, but the whites also that fought against the Confederate. The only thing it's doing is telling the youth that the Ku Klux Klan still survives. You know, undercover it still survives. That's the only thing it's doing and the youth are the ones that we have to convince now that color of the skin means nothing. As Dr. Martin Luther King said in his speeches a long time ago that "The day that we reconcile and you see a little white kid, a black, a white child not a kid cause a kid is a goat. A white child and black child walking hand in hand down the street that's the day of glorification. And that's the day that we are all looking forward to when all of the black kids, children and white children will walk hand in hand and think nothing of it." My parents went through it, your parents had to go through it in order to survive in a country that didn't want them.
TC:	Okay you've told me your worst experience as a child, tell me something good that you enjoyed as a child. [Pause - Telephone rings].
LN:	No, I wouldn't consider any of this bad because it's a time period that you go through. You will be going through a different time period and you'll find that one of the things about black history is that Chicago, Illinois, is the only place in the United States that teaches an integrated history. And one of the things that I would love to see, and one of the things that I've been fighting for all along is an intergrated history and one of the things that, one of the educators with the National Office Association for Advancement of Colored People came out with some years back is "What should I tell my children who are black" and in this little booklet here it gives you a difference in things that are left out of history books that are real pertinent to relieving what, we consider, the older people consider as the tension of animosity that's held against us. Of course, there's a lot right now that even you can't do and get away with in the justice system or in the military. That they can violate a law and they won't prosecute the individual for that law. [Pause - Telephone rings]. Now as I was saying, we were talking about intergrated history, in this little pamphlet here "What should I tell my black children" it goes from the beginning of the first black in America on up through 1978 and that's when it was published. And we have a lot more that can be published into that. And in here you will find just everything from politics, to sports, to war to… you name it, to patterns, and inventions, and so forth to time when the first slave was brought into America to the time that slavery ended, and it's a chronology of facts. And you can't just ignore something that is a fact. Some of the fruits of the work that the pioneers have done, I don't know if I'm considered a pioneer among most of them or not, but some of the work that we have done is to supply youngsters or young people like you, writing your papers for school or writing your theses for your degree or writing books and so forth, is a vivid picture of what life has been like being black in America. And, as we say, that you are overjoyed at many, many instances or things where things happen that you make you feel as though you are doing the right thing towards humanity, trying to promote one of those three loves that Christ brought to the era, and the one that he asked us all to abide by is the agape love. And if we do that then we could live in an atmosphere that the Mojos's of Alfa [not audible]. We could either live in synergism or disenergism and we should live in synergism because we are all living in the same environment and we have to depend upon each other. So, when we say that we are a Conservative or Liberal, or a Republican, or a Democrat, or an independent, we're living in the synergistic world, and we're not happy. But we can say that in a world, which we all assume that's created by someone or something, or some power greater than ourselves or greater than power or single that we have seen in this universe, then we can say we are living in synergism, we're living together in peace and harmony. Now in all my deliveries to various groups, this is one thing that I try to bring out that we are human beings. We weren't created by ourselves, we didn't create ourselves, we were created by that power and there is only two ways that, that can be interpreted and one is through the scientific world and the other one is through the world that we say the god created. And we have to, we have to put the two together and look at all the facets of those two in order to be happy people. As I said before, I was bitter, real bitter until I joined an organization called MRA. And MRA is an organization that's known all over the world. And we have a place in Switzerland that the members from the United States go each year for a month and meet. And there was this book, is by an English lady, white lady, who lived in Rhodesia when Zimbabwe was Rhodesia. And the Mau Mau buried her father alive. I was invited to the table where and the Mau Mau leader was sitting, in Coastal Switzerland for dinner. We had dinner with them that evening. This is a place in the world where you forget about the outside world and you can live in synergism in a synergism atmosphere in peace and harmony and not worry about your neighbor sitting beside you. And at dinner that evening a hand, a right hand, went out across the table, a round table, ten people at a table. And Emily said to Stanley that he was a leader of the Mau Mau. Stanley said to Emily not Emily to Stanley, but Stanley said to Emily "I want to tell you something, and I hope that in the eyesight of god that you can forgive me. Let's go further than that I hope in your eyesight you can forgive me." She said, "What is that Stanley." He said "I was the individual who gave the orders to bury your father alive, to kill a white man to let them know that we Africans are still strong." He had spent 14 years in Russia and didn't like it in Russia, so he came back to Zimbabwe then and what you saw was a black hand going out and a white hand reaching and they shook and forgave each other. And [inaudible]. So now if those people can forgive each other why is it that we can't make everybody happy in this country? We call it the free world and live in a synergistic, in synergism as god had intended for us to live on this earth that he created or which we consider scientific here. Why can't we live here and be happy? So, that evening I had a change come over me and lots of my bitterness disappeared. So, I stopped blaming my white brothers for the philosophy that they had and I only tried to change them and that's what I'm doing here today to show you how that change has come over an individual that was so bitter, so bitter, I mean bitter, bitter against the white world. But I'm no longer bitter. I can look over, I can dialog with an individual now and I can show that individual by me being black is not something that I created or he created, but it is the work of that man that we all so love and peace, to…God.
TC:	So when your were in the NAACP did you feel that bitterness then?
LN:	That bitterness then. The bitterness was there. The bitterness, I guess I was more bitter then, then Du Bois was.
TC:	I was going to ask you what your opinion was of him.
LN:	I think he was a well-qualified student of theology, the theological advancement of human beings. Booker T. Washington was just the reverse. You could look at those two, the philosophies of the two and you could see why Booker T. Washington's philosophy although it gave the black man something to do right then it didn't prepare him for the future.
TC:	What about in the long run when DeBois changed his mind and kind of said we should start settling a little bit more?
LN:	He really didn't change it. That way he left the country because the country wouldn't change. But he himself was a...he is the author of this magazine 'The Crisis' and we get that every month in the, as members of the NAACP. Where Du Bois was a very strong willed man and after he got the white lady to go on with him then that made him stronger, because she was of the same school of thought as Du Bois was and they founded the NAACP in 1909. Before it was a Nigera movement and every place they's go they were pushed out because they had no whites in it. Booker T. founded Hampton and both of those were schools of manual labor at that particular time. Since then they have changed because we have. And this lady she is dead now…Cancer, Edith Alfred also [not audible] also in the paper where she'd passed. And both of them were [not audible] real beautiful voices and they sang a duet at conference in Georgia and, also, Coastal Switzerland. And the little girl that wrote this book is one of those we were so happy to help, because she is a youngster and we wanted to pass on the memoirs of Frederick County and she is a local girl.
TC:	Have you ever talked to anyone from the KKK?
LN:	Oh, yes.
TC:	What is your opinion of them?
LN:	They are… I showed you a picture in there a newspaper clipping where the Klan joined the NAACP. They thought they had joined a local chapter and came in. We marched on this same Klansmen. We marched on their last rally just before the judge issued this finding. We sued the county for issuing permits, segregated permits, where the Klan could have segregated rallies and no tax money in the county is supposed to go towards that. And so, we sued them, the Frederick Court, Judge Kaufman found that the Ku Klux Klan of the county could not be issued those permits and they were stricken down for issuing them permits. And they had to pay $120,000 legal fees to cover our case in Frederick Court now this was the first document that…
TC:	Do you think things will ever change with that group or they will always be that way?
LN:	There's always going to be people in the world that are out for the dollar bill. You have congressmen you have what they call themselves now as Conservatives. I had a write up here from a black that was criticizing me for saying that no black could be a Conservative. He calls himself a Conservative. Now what do blacks have to be conservative about?
TC:	What do you think about Clarence Thomas?
LN:	Nothing. Clarence Thomas is… I wouldn't even use him, his skin to cover the rug on my floor. But as a human being he is one of God's children and I have to love him. I've sit right between Clarence Thomas and, I'm trying to think of the guy that Reagan appointed over Civil Rights from Baltimore and who moved to San Diego, California, anyhow, this guy was delivering a speech that morning at one of our breakfasts at the NAACP state convention. And he introduced, he was married to a black woman, which I have no fault at finding that out because I have sons that are married to white girls. And he, this guy was married to a black woman. He divorced the black woman and married a white woman, because he said "It would advance him further in the field which he was in which is Republican." He's dead now, died of a heart attack can't think of the guy's name for nothing. Anyhow that morning he introduced his white wife, his mulatto daughter, and his son was sitting right beside me on the left, Clarence Thomas was sitting on my right, and I said to the lad "Is he going to introduce you?" and he said " I don't know that's my old man." His son was going to Harvard, had two years at Harvard. And Clarence Thomas said, "What are you worried about? [phone interruption]. That's his prerogative if he don't want to introduce his black son he don't have to he don't have to acknowledge him." I said "What kind of man are you?" Clarence Thomas they had ran him out of the convention in Georgia. And he said when got up, he was supposed to speak the next convention, he got up and said, "I hope you all don't run me out again." They ran him out.
TC:	So, can I set up another interview?
LN:	Yes.
TC:	Thank you so much.