from the Library of Congress and the
Smithsonian National Museum of
culture okay today is Wednesday April 27
2011 we're in Atlanta Georgia at the
Artmore Hotel in midtown Atlanta with
Miss Jamila Jones um to conduct an oral
history for the SMI onian's national
museum of African-American history and
culture project entitled The Civil
Rights history project my name is Joe
manier of the Southern oral history
program at UNCC Chapel Hill and our
videographer is Mr John Bishop Miss
Jones good morning thanks so much for
sitting morning thank you for having me
appreciate your effort to get up with us
um during this Atlanta visit it's really
nice to see you thank you um let me
start today um as we enter enter into a
conversation about um your work in the
southern Freedom Movement um in the '
50s 60s and and and even thereafter um
talk a little bit about about your
family start there can you tell me a
little bit about growing up in uh in
Montgomery and your family your parents
and okay I live with a mother and a
grandmother um I grew up with a sibling
my sister Daris
crow and a brother a little younger
McLoud and I guess key
to the
movement is the fact that my sister and
I rode the montgomer bus
line so we
experienced on a daily basis during
school the harassment that came from the
um bus
driver uh and so I guess that inspired
us or was something in
us that uh made us relate to of course
the montgomer busb guy can you talk a
little bit about um how you came to know
um Miss parks and to join the youth
chapter the local
NAACP uh yes in fact my sister was the
one who introduced me to Mrs pars uh as
we join the end of youth group NAACP
youth group uh my sister was vice
president I was just a member of that
group uh she would have us into her home
we would sit on the
floor and she'd give us bits and pieces
about life actually and people ask quite
often if I remember things that she said
and I do not uh but I know she read from
uh papers from from the uh national
office of the
NAACP and she taught us uh that we were
important I can remember that and that
uh it was key that we uh learned our
rights and that uh voting was an
important aspect of uh our lives and I
can just remember those things about the
conversations that had she had with us
and she also taught us that um it was
important to carry yourself in a good
responsible uh
way uh after we would meet she would
give us uh
certainly uh Miss Jones you mentioned
your sister dor scaw can you talk a
little bit about about her you mentioned
she was vice president and just describe
her a little bit yeah she was like a
leader of the bunch and whatever she did
basically I did uh there was a
difference in Us in that I I was uh
mostly interested in the music portion
of things that happened and she was more
of a the leadership fighter type um movement
movement
person but um she somehow had interest
from a very young age in uh rights and
what was right for you and she led me
down that path so you must have been
about 11 years old when the boycott
began there about I was 11 years old
when the boycott started yeah um what
are some of your you know from this
distance what are your some of your most
Vivid most Central important memories
from that experience I know that um the
youth and this is not often
said had their own kind of individual
movement that we let kind of let
ourselves around what was happening with the
the
movement and that we organized ourselves
to get across what we call across town
uh when we were no longer riding the
buses and we we had to find our own way for
for
survival my sister being the leader that
she was wouldn't allow us ever to go and
get a ride uh she said we'd be taking a
space from an adult and we were going to
walked
and some measure of success was realized
in some measure on that narrow question
of of
busing what was your
feeling it was a joyous feeling of
course and no longer we felt that we had
to take the
abuse uh that we had experienced on
those buses since I was 6 years old cuz
I started to ride the bus at age
6 and had done that to age 11 and we
found our ways to survive through that
uh it was piercing to see adults have to
leave uh the bus and go around to pay
their money and then get off the bus and
come to the back of the uh
bus uh I almost never had to do that
because we were the first stop
so we always found ourselves with a
seat but curious as we were there were
times we tested to see what would happen
if we sat in the front of the
bus and we
did and uh then they would ask us of
course when one white lady got on the
bus I can never forget her she had red
hair long hair and when she entered the
bus we would have to get up even
though um there were a number of seats
and she was the only white to get on that
that
bus so I think that was so piercing to
us that it never I never forgot it and
uh when the bus Bo cart started of
course that lived within me and I knew
that I would walk 300 and
what however many days actually did that
uh it would
take and to a six-year-old you just
basically are so curious about why is it
that we have to get
up that often I would sit behind
her and uh she would choose the same
seat each time she got on the bus this
white woman this white uh woman I don't
know her name I just remember her face
and her red hair but when she got on the
bus I decided um several times s to just
feel her hair see if I could put my
little fingers uh on the top of the seat
to see if it was a difference what is
the difference with her and the rest of
us and I did I would just kind of feel
that hair like it was an accident I
don't know what I concluded from that
except that it just gave me a feeling
that uh I feel she's really no different
this hair ha is not so much different
from ours and um that was just my little
childhood curiosity and how I answered it
sure um so that just that one white
lady put such uh curiosity in
me and I wanted to answer that so much
that I uh knew that I was going to walk
the length of the time it would take for
us to get to uh our go yeah um when and
how did you start singing started
singing We were um Elementary School
students at Alabama state laboratory high
high
school and uh each
Friday we would have a
and we formed this group uh three girls
uh actually was four four of us from the
beginning form this group so that we could
could
compete each Friday in the uh Talent
contest somehow it was something in us
that made us want to do freedom
songs and I can't answer today why we
chose that because we're about the same
age as um di Ross but when we went
outside to practice we practiced freedom
songs and that's what we would
sing so when the Montgomery Bus Boycott
came we formed this group at uh around
the age N9 and 10
10
uh we would kind of
ready and so because of the songs we
were singing it lent itself to the
Movement we were asked to come to sing
at practically every tea that was held
in my government you know uh during that
time they had a lot of tees that raised
money for the movement as well as other
things for the
churches and they would invite us to
come and I felt like uh it couldn't be a
te or they felt like uh they couldn't
have a tea if we didn't come so we went
all over town to tease on Sunday to
participate and we were kind of carrying
the message of the
movement um through our
songs and we were relevant for the time
and that's why they called on us so you
were this was a group of four girls all
11 12 years old I guess we were um in
that moment and in that moment we were
11 do you remember the names of the
other girls I do it was glad as Carter
because we formed the group and we
uh all through he of school we kept the
group uh Gladis
Carter and many Hendrick now MC we were
the three girls who
lasted among the
four uh we decided we were going to not
only practice at school but we would
practice at each other's homes and
that's how the fourth girl dropped out
because her parents wouldn't allow her
to each evening or the evenings that we
had set for practice
and thus it became the four three did
you all I'm sorry did you also sing in
church we did we were singing church but
because we mostly sang at school at first
first
because uh we all went to different
churches which was your church uh mine
Church was any of the girls um at uh
Reverend King's
church uh none of us was were uh members
yeah of Reverend King's church Manny MCC
was a member of uh Reverend aanats
church I was with
um revend say C
say um who
was had the first meeting for the
Montgomery Bus sport c um and he was
very active
as a matter of fact there are things in
your life that cause you to this I guess
these s total of things cause you to be
what whatever you are in life and uh he
talked each Sunday about accomplishments
they had
made uh toward needs of the black
community and I would hear what he had
to say uh so that was one of the
influences that I had in terms of my
life and uh fighting for freedom of
struggle yeah yeah um let's see you must
have entered high school around
57 50 fall of 57 fall of
58 I I finished in 62 yeah okay um and
can you describe
um the I think the late 50s because at
some point if if um I've read a couple
different accounts but um one indicates
that you traveled to Highlander Folk School
School
I did but that was before high school it
was like Junior High I think it was but
um I was
singing along with the uh my sister
being very active we were selected to go
to do a kind of a like a cultural
Exchange in terms of our music we would
share the kind of songs that we were
singing and gu Caro headed up that um the
the
workshops and people from around the
world actually because we met people
from Africa there uh would share the
kind of movement songs they were
doing it was because we our repertoire
of songs of freedom songs were uh great and
and
extensive that he asked that we come to
um um New York to do uh freedom songs to
raise money for the movement Southern
movement and that's how we got to con
Hall with RM shadsworth and others to do
that uh
fundraiser and from that came one of the
first albums of Civil Right
songs uh to be uh used uh
for fundraising and that kind of thing
and so we were uh the Montgomery
Montgomery
Tri we did not have a name we went all
over Montgomery before that time never
thought about a name uh they would just
say the girls we got to have the girls
or the girls this and when we got there
um they say for this album you got to
have a name so we debated and debate
about what could be our name and came up
with the Montgomery go P
Trio how old were you at that time when
you went to New York I want to say I
often you know around 16 yeah just into
high school yes
yes
um can you can you talk me through the
your your high school years because
obviously the the movement will shift
into a very active phase while you were
in high school and um uh the um Freedom
singers will come into being towards the
end of your high school year so I'm
interested in how you move through those
years singing protesting as an activist
yes and uh what happened is that
Montgomery when you have a large scale
movement like that
um quite often there are lot of
wounds that
occur so Montgomery um
adults could not sit down sometimes in
the same room let alone talking
about a movement and so the youth were
used so when James Beville and all the
people came into Montgomery and by the
way we did meet James bille and uh
Bernard Lafayette were the other group
that came to uh do the concert at con
Hall so we had already met them but they
came into Montgomery
first with the uh freedom
riters and so because we knew them we
had gone to uh Rend ab's house and
waiting to get the C to go pick up the
Freedom Riders as they came in because
at that time we still active in movement
and still
singing and Mrs abatha uh said uh we
don't have anybody to pick them up now a
lot of adults will tell you that they
did but that day we stole a car we said
well oh we got to go uh find a way to
get the uh Freedom
Riders and uh there was a girl her name
was antonet Carson and she had her
license at the time and her father
grandfather would leave his car
in the garage every day so we scheme
together and said we were going to steal his
his
car and go pick up the Freedom Riders
and we did we said how in the world we
going to get this car back in here so
what we did was we took some chalk
School chalk and Mark where the tires of
his car
were and took the car picked up the
Freedom Riders went back and put that
car right in the tracks of those marks
that we had made
made
and it was such an eventful day to see
how they were beaten and how they were
treated uh when getting off of those
buses and we had a car load up when we
when we left yeah yeah were you um
yourself uh ever so close to violence
that you really feel feared for your own personal
personal
safety it's something about
youth that even when you have
fear and it's something about having
live that kind of life that your fear is
bundled and it's
there but it does not
outweigh the need to
so that there were times when we had we
fear we had fear in fact the night that
the freedom riters came in uh we went to the
the
church uh carried them to the church and
we were there for the mass meeting that
night and when we went
in there were no
whites when we sat there a while the
church was completely surrounded
as far as you could see were
um uh mostly males on horses and um
carrying long guns and sitting outside
waiting on us to come out and that was
the night that we in fact spent the
night at the
church so it was a fearful
night but not enough fear to stop us
from doing what we need needed to
do s I was just going to say that uh
Rend uh say said that night uh to
me we were eating some food had come in
sandwiches and that kind of thing and he
was sitting on the steps at the church
on the
inside and I said R say what what are we
going to do cuz as far as we could see
all these people surrounding
we going to do like the doodle book and
I said what do you
mean he said Doodle cuz he called me
doodle quite a bit we going to do like the
the
doodle and I was an adult before I
really understood what we was saying but
we played this game in
Montgomery and we would sing The
Doodlebug Song it was back a back D back
back your house is on a
fire your children's
burning back a back dood back
back and I had to think about it as I
became an adult cuz I really didn't know
at the time what he was saying and I
thought about how that song said your
house is on a fire you in trouble but
you going to be just like the doodle B
and the doodle B when we was singing
that song the doodle B would back up
just bag out of uh the
sand and uh as if he was so small but as
if to say I'm protecting my
own let's pause for just excuse me just
one sec if we could
John we're back we're back after a short
break can you tell me about um M joh can
you tell me about the founding of the um
the freedom singers well
actually the freedom singer as you know
them I was not a part of that group I
joined after leaving the montgomer trio
but remember I went to school at Alabama State
State
University so that uh we kept the group
and so did uh the other two girls and so
we kept the group going during the time
that we were fighting to for a voter
registration and that kind of thing I
may have mentioned that um a lot of that
was done by the youth because a lot of
adults no longer wanted to participate
for whatever their reasons
were uh so when James Beville and those
people came into
Montgomery they called on us to sing
before the meetings that we would have
in the rural areas as well as in the
city of Montgomery so we would travel
around with them and we do the scene um
at the churches before the speaker would
of course speak so we kept our group The
Montgomery Trio going up until that
time and um after
which I came to
Atlanta uh got with Bernice
Reagan uh it started I guess I have to
back up to say that uh she had asked
that I participate
in the what they call the penny
festival and that's where the the M the
community and the school that was so SE much
much
separation that they had formed this
penet Festival to come together with the
community to put on a performance each
year yes and uh snck did that and when
Bernie rean asked me to
participate we did the music for for
that first P Festival that we would uh
we were
doing and um after I said goodness I
haven't been singing and this was so
good to participate in this kind of
thing so myself along with another
singer that uh was in the harambe singer MADD
MADD
Casey uh Pierce
now went to Bernice's house knocked on
the door and said we'd like to just
continue to sing let's continue to sing
and thus for uh was started
the harambe
singers so I wasn't in that uh Freedom
grp singers with bernes but in the
harambe singers with
her let me take you back tell me about I
want to ask about repertoire and what
you most like to sing say in the early
in the in the gospel Trio in Montgomery
later in the when you're in college and
then later with her back it depended on
what was happening at the
time uh that determine what we would
sing and what message we would cuz we
learned at highand that these songs not
only could carry a message for the
movement in Montgomery but songs carried
wherever and that when we went to um
um
Highlander we would sing and and uh our
songs uh This Little Light of Mine which
became one of the famous songs of the
movement and it's interesting to note
that we were singing that for the
movement at 11 years
old um and became one of the songs on
the the uh album that we did but that
was one of the important songs we got we
are soldiers in the Army was one of the
songs we did oh Freedom so we were doing
all of these songs at 11 years old for the
the
movement songs which later
became the bulk of the songs and uh the
basis of the songs for that upcoming
Civil Rights
Movement what you excuse me what part
did you s
I sing uh basically the melody but we
did interchange and I do a lot of the
lead singing on the uh songs all the verse
verse
singing tell me about um that work um I
think with
um uh about 66 1966 forward the par
singers and tell me about how that group
evolved and and you you work there I
will um I do want to say a bit more
about Highlander and how our songs began to
to
uh attended those workshops with G
Carolin and
all if you go back to the songs you'll
see that we were singing songs but
basically we didn't write the song There
is a a Montgomery song that represents
that movement that was written by one of
the professors at Alabama State
which for me for that era was the first
actual song that was written for
movement and I like to get that in
because people think it happened later
on but no right at that time he wrote
that song but when we went to Highlander
we were singing some of the song
basically the freedom songs basically as
they were done
traditionally and we are traditional
singers uh and we would add a word in in
a verse or a line to represent our
movement or sometime we would change a
line but we Wen actually changing whole
songs until actually we got there to
highand and saw others do it and then we
thought we were equipped we were going
back then writing songs and doing our
own you know version of the songs but we
kept it traditional and in terms of how
we would sing the song so if you hear
our album or any of those things you see
we kept um the traditional ways of um
doing that but I want to add that
because I want to give them credit of
how songs change doing the
movement that kind of
thing now what happened in in particular
what's that song that he wrote there's
one song that you're he wrote uh uh
and some it's interesting how he wrote
that song but some because sometimes now
when I'm singing it are we are
performing that song people look and say
did y'all say hell yes that's the way he
wrote the song because he wrote it from
a traditional song that
um I think the song is ain't going to
rain no
more and in that song it says how in the
hell do the old folk know it ain't going
to rain no more and he said how in the
hell don't the white folk know we ain't
going to ride them buses no
more I have read two different accounts
for how uh you are credited with adding
a very important verse that we shall
overcome can can you share that s with
us you know what I don't know how much
light I can uh place on that
because you have to remember that I was
at Highlander when I was probably 14
years old and we weren thinking at the
time oh I said this I did this that was
not Upon Our Minds so that I can
remember that uh when we went to
highand uh we had workshops to prepare
us for different things that we would
face and one of the things that revend
say who drove us there um said to us is
that we're going to leave by
night and the reason for that is when
you get into mono Tennessee the
population of uh
blacks is the population is just one and
that was Septima
Clark and so to go in by night we would
not be noticed as we would go in so we
went there by night and we came back by
night but one of the things that
happened when we were there is the
policeman from the city came in uh we
were having a movie I believe that night
uh songfest and uh they came in they
turned out all the lights from the city
they turned them out so we were in
complete darkness that
night and um we could not see each other
we didn't know where I didn't know where
my sister was I didn't know where many
was we were just there wherever we were
at the time when the lights went out you
know that's where we sat and so all
these policemen came in and all we could
see basically is the Billet
club uh waving and the uh the butts of
their guns you could see it
shining on that whole stuff um and they
told us to see you know of course uh
stay seated be quiet or what have
something
said we are not
we and you could hear people come in my
sister who is not a singer I knew she
was safe cuz I heard her little out of
tune voice coming in and I could hear
many's Bas come in about we are not
afraid and we got louder and louder with
singing that verse until one of the
policemen came and he said to me if you
have to sing and he was actually shaking
do you have to sing so
loud and I could not believe it here
these people had all the guns the biller
thought and he was asking
shake if I would
not sing so loud and it was that time
that I really understood the power of
our Mo of our
music how powerful it was that this it unnerved
unnerved
ask that I not sing so loud and I can
just tell you that I got
louder and
louder and
somehow even the nature out there in
that Darkness because everywhere was
dark but look like our voices Blended
that night to the point
point of
of
complete Harmony and
beauty and from then on I
I
knew exactly how
powerful our songs
were can you remember singing in a can
you tell a story about singing in a
particular place that really stand at a
moment and a place that stands out in
your memory very now that stands out um
but uh there are a number of them but I
can say that we were in Montgomery I was
in college at the time
time
and we would uh King was going to take
us from his
church uh he was no longer living at the
time but he had come back for I can't
even remember what the movement was all
about but we were going to uh March to
the uh capital in
Montgomery and as we uh we got to the
top of the
steps and you saw all of these white the
people had they had taken the males had
taken off their
shirts and they were just bare chested
standing up there with uh rifles and
riding the horses and again I saw I face
these horses coming down on you when I
got to the top of the steps it made me
sing that verse again we are not afraid
and we started singing it now I can tell
you that my knees were actually shaken
that day when I looked out to see all of
them and we were going to you know try
to um march to
to the
capital but singing that song and that
verse helped to kind of stud those needs
at that time and I can remember that
particular verse at that time and that
particular uh
movement tell me let's just um shift for
just a moment and I'm interested in your
experience in college can you describe
your well those College days were spent
as I said uh SCC had formed and sent
James Beville and James orange into
Montgomery and what we worked on at the
time was uh voter registration again
even though I had handled voter
registration at uh 12 years old with Mrs
Williams in Montgomery and
um um during my high school days we just
continued that whole thing of uh going
to Kings hill we ventured out into other
places besides Montgomery cuz Montgomery
was so tighted that time after having
gone through that Montgomery bus boy car
and the other thing we were working on
was uh
cins and so we would go to the church
and play as youth with with uh James Bev
and James orange how we were going to go
to the 5 and 10 cent stores and
um they taught us at that time they had
gone through training sessions on how
how to protect your head and that kind
of thing and what happens if someone
spits on you and um really they taught
us nonviolence to a great extent and so
that's those were the kind of things
that we worked on but let me just go
back and say at 12 years old um Miss
Rosa pars and Mrs
Williams uh taught us how to fill out
20s seven page
questionnaires uh so that we could go
into the homes of adults and teach them
how to fill out those
questions uh to become
voters that's what you had to do at the
time just silly stupid kinds of
questions we had to learn the preamble
to the Constitution but they set us in a
little shop uh behind her house she was
a a hairdresser and we would the youth
would go in there sit on the floor and
we learn how to fill out these at 11
fill out these
um uh and answer the
questions and uh we would knock on doors
yeah by the mid-60s Civil Rights Act has
passed Voting Rights Act has passed but there's
there's
been tremendous violence and difficulty
and I'm thinking about the founding of
the harbe singers and
um how did your perspective at that time
say 66 maybe cons compared to your
perspective earlier in the in the 60s
were you what was your what was your
overall sense and feeling about the the
movement at that point and its progress
and its challenges and its
difficulties uh personally I started
paying more attention to I guess what we
call black power and thean pan outwardness
outwardness
movement and so the songs that we
performed as harambe singers were what
we call very radical type songs uh move
uh on over or we'll move on over you and
the songs took a different tone and
became also
International we were very in tune to
our heritage at the time and um as I
said black power
and um so when we went our hair was afro
and this kind of thing and our songs
took on some of that same mentality at
the time so the Haram singer song we
never did the songs that um was
performed by the Montgomery Trio but in
fact uh panfis type
songs can you tell me a little bit more
about excuse me about the group's
repertoire um in terms of the songs um
hands off in kruma was one of the songs
that we did because at that time as I
say we had a pan-africanist perspective
to what we were doing in
song and uh so that was important to us
as uh the movement was going on in Ghana
we uh
did do that song of hand off and
Kuma uh that's what the people say hands
off and Kuma
Kuma
um and uh we talked about the CIA in the
song so we start attacking other
elements of not only uh this country but
happening I go into things uh there are
other elements are things that come to
um unless you have some questions about
the things uh want me to expand on
things that already been said I just
kind of think you know don't you we've
done pretty well is that what you I
would think I think it's been fabulous I
I I did want to I didn't want to maybe
go back and just ask about um the
question of whether or not uh your
mother and your grandmother ever had to
try to pull you and your sister and
brother back a little bit for out of
fear for your
safety is that a good
question because it's just yeah but I
I'll start with our community and just say
say Okay
Okay
WR okay we're gonna we've had a short
break and we're going to come back and
talk a little bit more about about
family and Community yes um our
community were uh was filled with
people who had participated and struggle
in some type way uh we had Flora Grant
who had one of the large debits in uh
Atlanta life insurance company and who
kept herself close to movement things
that's happening in the community who
would come to my home and sit with my
mother to talk about those things as I
sat under the table and they played
cards but uh and I would hear a lot at
that time because she was very
knowledgeable as to the kind of current
things happening in the Montgomery
community so we had Flor Grant and we
had the young lady who wrote uh See How They
They
Run um we had Sullivan
Rogers who was one of the first black jockeys
jockeys
and uh we saw him train his horses and
he would tell us
stories uh and we had my aunt who lived
with her us and her name we called her Bessie
Bessie
b now Bessie b was the Storyteller in my
family and she would tell us about all
kinds of
struggles and the story that I
remember from her was about old
John and when she talked about old John
she said that he uh worked hard from sun
up to sun down to take care of his
family of the family but at the end of
the day or the week he had no meat he uh
had very little food and it would bother
him so much that he had taken care and
raised the food for his uh
owner uh as he
sharecropped but uh he could not pay his
bill at the end of the week and so old
John found ways to uh ever so often get
his family a
chicken and she told us a story of how
John trained his younger son to come
with him as they would get one chicken
out of from the white folks chicken
CP and he said John this night I'm GNA
teach you how to prize and you going to
prize the chicken coup while I go under
and get this one chicken cuz there's
something about black families that told
them that they would get whatever it was
to survive but not more than that and so
he would get this one chicken uh for his
family so he married uh Little John I
guess uh was about the age of 12 I think
she told
us and they would get this long stick to
pry up the chicken
coup and um this particular night he was
saying prize boy prize boy as John was
shaking and almost to drop the chicken c
um before John could get the uh chicken
from the chicken coop
and he did was PR boy PR and my aunt
would just shake all over in her voice
as she was telling the story about priz
boy and um he dropped the chicken coop
could no longer hold it and John said
run boy go tell your mama you done uh
you done lost your prize and so later on
in life uh from that story I never
forget uh that John could not feed his
family working from sun up to sun down
something in my head did not you know
set well with the fact that he couldn't
feed his family and that story so later
on I wrote a song that says prize boy
prize boy prize boy
prize run fast go tell your mama J lost
so the people in the
community and I as I say and tell young
people the psalm total of what you
select to do in life would determine
your life and I think it was the psalm
total of these people and their impact
on our lives that kept us even today as
I sit here 6 to7 years old um still
involved in uh fighting for free
so is those kind of things and and I
tell uh even seniors today I work with
seniors that we have to keep ourself
close to the young people cuz it's the
older people that had this impact in our
lives that caused us to be the people
that we are
today really want to thank you for
joining us this morning it's been a real
this has been a presentation of the
Library of Congress and the Smithsonian
National Museum of African-American
