Dan Tibbs and William Hampton
Recorded
April 9, 2014
42:35 minutes
0:00 / 0:00
Id:
mby012005
Description
Dan Tibbs Jr. (91) tells his friend William Hampton (53) about growing up outside of Huntsville as the son of a prosperous farmer, his memories of Jim Crow and the nearby trial of the Scottsboro Boys, and voter registration drives during the Civil Rights Movement.Subject Log / Time Code
DT talks about his parents' experience as black landowners during Jim Crow. He says they grew everything themselves and didn't have to depend on white people. There were white sharecroppers across the road who borrowed from the Tibbs family, and the Tibbs family went to their house to listen to the radio.
DT says he rode the first school bus for blacks in the county. The students had to help start it. The driver did not receive a retirement pension because he was black.
DT says his only bad childhood memories he has are of the bad dreams he had during the trials of the Scottsboro Boys. He worried that a similar fate could befall him. He says he would see white girls and wonder what could happen to him.
DT remembers incidents of Jim Crow, including having to give up his place in line to buy groceries to any white person no matter how long he had waited. He mentions three black women who worked at the white-owned farm next to his father's, who were lynched.
DT remembers his love for school and books. He attended a "Julius Rosenwald school," and took French there.
DT talks about voter registration in 1965. He oversaw a 5-county area for the NAACP and got 1000 people registered. He says he first voted in 1948 because the white principal of the school where he taught insisted that all his teachers be voters.
DT sings a bit of a spiritual that was one that he sang with his brothers.
Participants
- Dan Tibbs
- William Hampton