An Oral History

With

State Stallworth Sr.

Interviewer: Stephanie Scull Millet

Tougaloo College Archives

This interview was transcribed as part of the Civil Rights Documentation Project.

Funding for this project was provided in part by the Mississippi

Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and

the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

2000

Biography

Mr. State Stallworth Sr. was born in Beatrice, Alabama, on July 24, 1933. He was the only child of Caldonia Black Stallworth, who separated from his father when Mr. Stallworth was very young. Except for one year he spent at St. Peter's Catholic School, Mr. Stallworth attended Pascagoula Negro High School from pre-primer through twelfth grade. Enjoying athletics, Mr. Stallworth played all the team sports available during his school years. After high school graduation, Mr. Stallworth married, and he went to work at International Paper Company, joining the International Brotherhood of Pulp, Sulfite, and Paper Mill Workers (now the United Paperworkers International Union). In 1954, Mr. Stallworth, without incident, registered to vote.

After beginning his career, Mr. Stallworth became active in the union and in the civil rights movement. He ran for the president's office in the union, and he won. Later, he joined and became president of the local NAACP. After meeting Thurgood Marshall and Jack Greenberg, he became a community aide for the Legal Defense.

In 1961, with the legal counsel of the Honorable Fred Banks, Mr. Stallworth filed a class action suit against International Paper Company for racial discrimination in employment and in unions, finally resolving the case in 1971. In ensuing years, Mr. Stallworth filed similar suits against banks, post offices, city hall, and merchants.

In 1964, Mr. Stallworth was the member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party who sat in the first roped-off Democratic seat on the convention floor. Additionally Mr. Stallworth helped bring the Head Start program to the Gulf Coast. As a result of his civil rights activities, Mr. Stallworth was the victim of death threats, including a drive-by shooting into his home. Currently, he serves on the Jackson County Democratic Executive Committee.

Mr. Stallworth retired from International Paper Company four years ago. He is the father of four children, and he and his wife have been married forty-seven years.

Table of Contents

Childhood 1

Pascagoula Negro High School 3

Segregation at International Paper Company 10

Working on the loading dock 11

Getting active in the International Brotherhood of Pulp, Sulfite,

and Paper Mill Workers and in civil rights 12

NAACP 15

Legal Defense 16

Filing a class action suit against International Paper Company

for racial discrimination in employment and in unions 17

Resolution of case 18

Suing banks, merchants, institutions 20

Medgar Evers 25

Thurgood Marshall 26

Racism in childhood 27

Registering to vote 32

Bob Moses 34

The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and

the 1964 Democratic National Convention 35

Senator Dwayne Morris 37

Mr. Stallworth takes the Mississippi seats, Atlantic City, 1964 37

Lyndon Johnson 40

Fannie Lou Hamer 41

Head Start 45

Reprisals 51

AN ORAL HISTORY

with

STATE STALLWORTH SR.

This is an interview for the Civil Rights Documentation Project. The interview is with Mr. State Stallworth Sr. and is taking place on May 25, 2000, in Moss Point, Mississippi. The interviewer is Stephanie Scull Millet.

Millet: This is an interview for the Civil Rights Documentation Project of Tougaloo College and The University of Southern Mississippi. The interview is with Mr. State Stallworth, and it is taking place on May 25, 2000, in Moss Point, Mississippi. The interviewer is Stephanie Scull Millet. And first, I'd like to thank you, Mr. Stallworth, for meeting with me, today.

Stallworth: Well, you're welcome.

Millet: Taking the time to talk with me. And I'd like to get some background information, which is what we usually start out with, and ask you to tell me, state for the record, your name, and where and when you were born, please.

Stallworth: My name is State Stallworth. I was born July 24, 1933, in Beatrice, Alabama.

Millet: Is Beatrice close to a city that we would remember or recognize?

Stallworth: Monroeville. Close to Monroeville.

Millet: Monroeville. And do you have siblings? Do you have brothers or sisters?

Stallworth: No brothers. No sisters.

Millet: You're an only child?

Stallworth: Only one.

Millet: Lord, have mercy! (Laughter.) And what about your parents? Your mother's name and when and where she was born?

Stallworth: Alright. My mother's name is Caldonia Black Stallworth. She was born, also, in Beatrice, Alabama. She's deceased, now. And my father's name was George Winter[?] Stallworth. I think he was born in Beatrice, Alabama, also. But my mother and father separated when I was young.

Millet: When you were young. About what age? Do you remember?

Stallworth: I don't remember.

Millet: And, who did you live with, then?

Stallworth: My mother. My mother raised me, and, well, they both are deceased, now. My mother and father are deceased, but I had no relationship with my father.

Millet: None, whatsoever. Uh-huh. Well, that sounds like it might have been a little tough, then, for you as a kid, growing up with a single mother.

Stallworth: Well, it seems that way, but really it wasn't. No, she did a great job.

Millet: What was your childhood like? What would you like to tell us about your childhood, that maybe a hundred or 200 years from now you'd like future generations to know about the way you grew up?

Stallworth: Well, one way I grew up, like I said, my mother raised me. And, more or less, I was a spoiled brat. (Laughter.) Yeah. I didn't want for anything. Like, I had all the toys that a boy could have. I had a natural boyhood life, really. I didn't have no real diehard to want for anything. I had a good relationship with my other friends around the neighborhood, and I had a good relationship with all the other parents around the neighborhood. And I just had a growing-up, just like a boy. And so, I didn't have the problems that one would think that I would have just by not having any brothers and sisters and not having no relationship with my father.

Millet: Right.

Stallworth: So, my mother somehow filled all those needs.

Millet: Yeah. Were you in a country setting? Or a city setting?

Stallworth: No, I was mostly raised in Pascagoula. See, this is Moss Point. So, Moss Point and Pascagoula are so close, but as far as I can remember, I was raised up in Pascagoula.

Millet: So, your mother moved from Beatrice where you were born?

Stallworth: Moved from Beatrice, yeah, to Pascagoula. But from time to time, I would go and visit my mother's parents, who were my grandfather and my grandmother. I would go visit them real often. And I had two uncles: one was older than me and one was younger than me. So, more or less, for all practical purposes, they were my brothers. We grew up together, played together, and had a good relationship together. But from time to time, I would go to Beatrice, Alabama, to visit my grandparents. But I was raised in Pascagoula. I was raised up in Pascagoula and went to school in Pascagoula.

Millet: What was school like? Did you start out in a church school? Or the public schools?

Stallworth: No, I started out in the public schools.

Millet: They didn't have kindergarten, then. Did they?

Stallworth: No, I don't think, but the only thing I remember. I remember when I started school, I started school in the public schools. And I went to a school there we called Pascagoula Negro High School. Yeah. That's what it was. But it went from the--. Well, then, I think what we had, what you called a primer. That might have been kindergarten, but they didn't name it kindergarten. Anyway, we started from the pre-primers to the primer, and then you went on from there, on up through high school.

Millet: So, all of your school years were spent at Pascagoula Negro High School, from the first day, to the last day.

Stallworth: Yeah.

Millet: Did it go through twelfth grade?

Stallworth: Yes. It went through twelfth grade.

No. Now, for one time in my life, I might have been in maybe the third or fourth grade, I went to the Catholic school. Yeah, I went to St. Peter's.

Millet: St. Peter's for one grade?

Stallworth: Yeah. For one grade, I think. Yeah. That was because of my friends. You know. I had some friends; they were Catholic. And by virtue of them being my friends, they kind of had a lot of influence upon me to go to Catholic school. So, I went to Catholic school for about one year. Yeah.

Millet: Well, did you not like it? Is that why you--?

Stallworth: Well, yeah. I liked it. I liked it all right. But then I switched back to the public schools, and the reason I switched back to public school is because the public school was more involved in sports than the Catholic school.

Millet: Mm-hm. And you liked sports?

Stallworth: And I liked sports. Yes.

Millet: Tell me about your sports life when you were in school. What was that like?

Stallworth: Well, my sports life: I was a pretty fair athlete. I played basketball, football, softball, baseball. I played all of it. And had I followed through with it, I believe I could have earned some scholarships. I just didn't follow it up.

Millet: Some scholarships to go on and get a higher education?

Stallworth: Yeah.

Millet: I would assume that all of those were segregated sports at that time?

Stallworth: Oh, yeah. My whole--. All of my time of going to school was segregated.

Millet: Uh-huh. Do you feel that you got a good education that way?

Stallworth: At that point, I didn't give it any thought, but now, looking at it now, I would say that I had an inferior education.

Millet: You did?

Stallworth: Yeah. It was inferior. It's no doubt about it. And that's not saying that the teachers--. It was no fault of my teachers or no fault of the faculty. It was because of the facilities. The facilities really wasn't there to make it comparable to the white schools. I mean, you could see it. They had far more advantages than, and far more opportunities than we had.

Millet: Can you think of some specific examples? I know that some of the female interviewees we've had would talk about how in home ec, they loved home ec, but the sewing machines didn't work. Do you have some memories like that about other parts of the facilities?

Stallworth: Well, one thing we had, what we called a lab. You know. To take science and biology and all this stuff. And the only thing we had in our lab, I think it was a bottle of alcohol with a frog in it. That's all we had.

Millet: Isn't that something?

Stallworth: Yeah. So, that was our biology lab. So, science lab. So, we had no facilities compared to--. I know the girls had this thing with the home economics, but we had no--. And the only thing we had insofar as vocation was brick and carpentry.

Millet: Brick, like masonry and carpentry?

Stallworth: Yeah, brick and carpentry. And so, we had no mechanics or nothing compared to the vocational school, the vocational opportunities they had at the white schools. So, those and other reasons, too, that, well, you take, just like typing, for instance. That was a no-no. We had none of that.

Millet: They didn't offer typing classes there?

Stallworth: No. No typing. No music. Like I said, the laboratory labs was stripped.

Millet: What about your books? What were your books like?

Stallworth: Well, we got secondhand books. You could see they had been used; practically worn out. Some pages missing.

Millet: And so they were from the white school?

Stallworth: Yeah. After they was used.

Millet: Probably when they got their new books, they relinquished the old ones. Right.

Stallworth: So, that's all we got.

Millet: That's really sad.

Stallworth: Oh, yeah.

Millet: It makes me sad.

Stallworth: Yeah. So, that's why I say, my looking back at it, our education was inferior. It wasn't casting no reflection upon our faculty or our teachers. You know.

Millet: What do you remember about your teachers?

Stallworth: I loved all my teachers. The only thing about it, though, when I began to be a teenager, and grow up from school, I didn't want to be a teacher.

Millet: You didn't?

Stallworth: No.

Millet: Why not?

Stallworth: Well, because I could see the disadvantages and the things that my teachers had to cope with and put up with simply because of their color, that I didn't want to be bothered with it.

Millet: Can you remember some specific things?

Stallworth: Well, you take when they first started talking about the civil rights movement. See, I finished school in 1954.

Millet: That was the year Brown v. the Board of Education came down.

Stallworth: That's right. If you mentioned NAACP or anything about the civil rights movement in the schools, our teachers would tremble.

Millet: Why is that?

Stallworth: Because they felt that if it was any way that civil rights was being talked about around or in our schools at that day and time, it probably meant their jobs. That was the system's way of controlling black education, and black people, and the black community.

Millet: Economic, sort of blackmail, really.

Stallworth: Yeah. And see, at that time, the only opportunities open for blacks was to teach school, or get a job as a janitor, or a maid. Those were the only vocations open. You know. Probably, well, you had one or two in the medical field. You had one or two black doctors. You had no black nurses to speak of. None at that time that I can remember.

Millet: What were the hospital privileges like for patients and physicians?

Stallworth: They were segregated. They had special quarters for blacks and special quarters for whites.

Millet: I would imagine they weren't equal.

Stallworth: No, they wasn't. No, the black quarters were shameful. Really shameful. So, I didn't see any--. Well, as time went on, in the year 1954, we had one black doctor.

Millet: Who was that? Do you remember?

Stallworth: Our first black doctor was a doctor by the name of Dr. Pendleton[?]. I think he's still living. I'm not sure.

Millet: Wow. He would be old, now, wouldn't he?

Stallworth: Yes. Very old. And our next black doctor was a doctor by the name of Dr. Morris[?]. He's deceased.

Millet: I would love to talk to Dr. Pendleton, if I could.

So, when you came home from school, did you have chores that you had to do? Or did you go get your homework right away? Were you a good student, who would come do your homework before you'd go out to do your chores, or before you'd go out to play?

Stallworth: Well, to be honest, I was lazy about homework. Yeah. I spent most of my time, really, playing. Most of my time I spent out on the ball fields or out on the basketball court. I studied, but I didn't study hard. I studied very little. I did just enough to get by. I wasn't interested in trying to be a genius. I wasn't interested in trying to be the leader of the class. I was just interested in getting by.

Millet: That's the kind of student I was, too. To tell you the truth. (Laughter.)

Stallworth: Yeah. I just wanted to get by.

Millet: I just wanted to do enough to not get fussed at, and be able to play. You know. And have fun. That's the kind of student I was. And of course, now, you know, I look back and see that that didn't have the best consequences for me.

Stallworth: Right. Well, somehow or another, it was a point in my life where I didn't have no ambitions about education because I didn't see the use in it. I didn't see the sense in it.

Millet: If there were those three things that you could do, and you didn't want to be a teacher.

Stallworth: That's correct. So, I didn't have to have a Ph.D. to go out here to be a janitor or a maid. I didn't need it. And if I was a genius, I couldn't do anything with it. You know. So, why bother?

Millet: Exactly.

Stallworth: So, that's the way I summed it up to myself.

Millet: Mm-hm. Yeah. I can understand that. I certainly can understand that. Well, among all the subjects that you did take, did you have any favorites?

Stallworth: Somehow or another, I liked figures.

Millet: Yeah? Arithmetic?

Stallworth: Yeah. I liked arithmetic. I liked geometry. I liked algebra. I liked figures. So, I mean, with the little effort I put to it, I think I did well at it. Had I made some effort like you just mentioned to study to try to really be good at it, I could have been good. Yeah.

Millet: Well, another thing that I've learned just recently. Of course, I never learned any of this in public school, you know, about the lives of African-Americans, in Mississippi, particularly where there was so much oppression, and really, you know, a reign of terror because of the lynchings, but some schools in Mississippi did not stay in session very long. Some black schools. Do you know if your school had a shortened session compared to the white schools?

Stallworth: No, we wasn't bothered with that side of it, but I understood and I began to understand that most of that took place around the Delta and the farming parts of Mississippi. I think that was because--. I've made some acquaintances with some of my friends from around the Delta, and they used to tell me about [how] school was out because they had to go work. And they had to go farm, and they had to pick cotton. And they had to do this, and they had to do that. But, see, we didn't have that here. The difference, I think, had we had that here, we probably would have had [a shorter school year]. But by us not having it, the biggest thing that was going on here, was shipyard work, the paper mill work, and of course, they've got a lot of fishing. A lot of fishing industry was here. But that didn't affect our schools any. They had another industry here they called the woolen mill. That's where they made garments. Fruit of the Loom. BVD.

Millet: Did they actually mill the cloth? Or make the garments? Or both?

Stallworth: I think they mostly just made the garments. Now, during this period of time, the BVD didn't hire any blacks. See? Now, International Paper Company hired blacks on certain jobs, laborers and this kind of thing. Shipyard hired quite a few blacks, but mostly for the hard, backbreaking jobs.

Millet: Mm-hm. The hardest jobs.

Stallworth: Yeah. The hardest jobs. You know. And then, servant type jobs, too. So, we didn't have that season thing for our schools to close for the youngsters, the kids to go work.

Millet: Child labor.

Stallworth: Yeah. We didn't. You know. Because to work at the shipyard, they didn't need it. International Paper Company didn't need it. BVD didn't need it. So, you know, they didn't need the type work to close the schools like they did in the northern parts of Mississippi, where the black schools were closed for the kids to go work.

Millet: Because maybe it needed a little more training?

Stallworth: Yeah.

Millet: And to pick cotton, really there wasn't that much [training required].

Stallworth: No. And then most of the jobs. Most of the jobs down here were unionized jobs.

Millet: Oh. That's right.

Stallworth: So, I mean, they wouldn't stand for it, and so, but, the BVD was not unionized, but I imagine that policy just spread out over them. But International Paper Company was unionized. So was Ingalls Shipyard. They were unionized, and the waterfront work was [unionized] with the ILA longshoremen. So, they wasn't going to put up with that.

Millet: So, that's probably what stood in the way of child labor along the coast?

Stallworth: I think so.

Millet: Right. The unions. Mm-hm. That's interesting. So, we've already covered this about that you did not go on to get a higher education. So, when you were graduated from high school, were you eighteen at that time? What did you do after that?

Stallworth: OK. No, now, during the course of my life, I just fooled around in school. Well, I didn't half go to school. In other words, I went to school just long enough to play ball, and after the ball season, I would quit, and I just went to school at will. So, I lost about two years in school, so, really, when I finished school, I was twenty. So, then, when I got out of school--. Well, during my last year in school, I got married. My senior year, my wife and I got married. That was forty-something years ago.

Millet: And how old was she?

Stallworth: She was eighteen.

Millet: Eighteen.

Stallworth: Yeah. She was eighteen. I was twenty.

Millet: Y'all have been married a long time.

Stallworth: Yeah. We've been married, yeah, a long time. So, that following summer, when I graduated, I went to International Paper Company. And luckily, they hired me.

Millet: Was that pretty easy for you to get on?

Stallworth: No.

Millet: Did you feel that you faced discrimination there?

Stallworth: It wasn't easy. The way jobs worked then, it depended on who did you know. So, I happened to have bumped into a friend of mine. He's deceased, now. He had been at International Paper Company for a number of years, then. His name was Pim Dubose[?].

Millet: And was he white or black?

Stallworth: He was black. And the way these companies did, then, depending on what type job they needed, dictated as to what color employee they looked for. See, if they had a high-paying job or a good job, then they know that they had to look for a white boy or a white man. But if they had an old back-breaking job, or a laborer's job, or a porter job, or a butler job, or something of that nature, then they knew that they had to look for a black.

Millet: Something that would probably not pay very much and/or be really hard to do.

Stallworth: That's correct. So, but even at that, you had to know somebody to get that.

Millet: Even to get something that might not even be desirable?

Stallworth: That's right. So, I knew Pim; Pim knew me.

Millet: Is that Pim? P-I-M.

Stallworth: Pim. I don't know how you spell Pim.

Millet: I thought you said Kim.

Stallworth: No, Pim.

Millet: But, OK, we'll just fake it on the spelling.

Stallworth: Yeah, Pim. Dubose. D-U-B-O-S-E. I know that. So, anyway, he was already working with International Paper Company, then. Well, and he was the type of fellow that if the whites needed a black, they would ask Pim, and probably some more blacks that had been there just as long, "Hey, you know any boys out here want to work?"

"Yes, sir."

"OK. Tell them to come on."

Millet: So, they would give you a recommendation, and that's how you got on.

Stallworth: Yeah. And so whoever they recommended. That's right. That's how I got on. And that was in 1954, in June.

Millet: What kind of job did you get at that time?

Stallworth: I got a job, then, I was working on the loading docks.

Millet: What was that like? Tell me about that.

Stallworth: Oh, yeah, that was hard work. Working on the loading dock: that was all the paper that had to be shipped by train or truck. They came out of the mill to the loading docks, and they had what they called loading crews. So, I was on one of those loading crews. So, we loaded the boxcars, and we loaded the trucks. And whatever. And you had to be there a while in order to learn the different techniques that they used in loading these boxcars and loading these trucks, and the different types of material that had to go in them and how it had to be loaded, and all this. It was pretty interesting, and it was pretty hard, too, but it was interesting.

Millet: Did you have training to do that? Or was it something--?

Stallworth: No. No training. No, I mean, you trained in that crew. And you learned from them.

Millet: On the job?

Stallworth: That's right. That's right.

Millet: So, those first days of working were probably greater risk for getting hurt because you didn't know what could really happen.

Stallworth: You didn't know. That's right. Keep from getting run over. Because it was busy. It was busy. Going and coming. Going and coming. And I worked at that dock; I worked in that crew for about seven or eight years. We had white jobs and black jobs.

Millet: Was that unofficial? Or official?

Stallworth: No, practiced. See. It was practiced. Because, like I say, it wasn't in the contract, per se, that these jobs were white jobs or black jobs. They practiced [it]. You knew this. You see. Like, they had the white water fountains, and the black water fountains. It wasn't in the contract, but practiced. And you saw the signs, saying, "white" and "colored" and so forth. So, that's what brought the fight on. That's what got me involved in civil rights. See. Up unto that point, I was not involved in civil rights. Matter of fact, I didn't pay it too much attention.

Millet: Till you started trying to make a living?

Stallworth: Right. It was at this point, at this junction: the company hired a young white boy, and put him out in the loading docks. Now, sometimes, they would do this until they find a good, suitable white job. They would take him out of the loading docks and put him on the--. You see? He would just work with us until they found a place for him. So, they hired this particular white boy and put him out in our crew, and he worked with us. And I was the youngest black in the crew. So, at last, one day they told me that they was going to lay me off. And I asked them then about the white boy.

Millet: Mm-hm. "Why isn't he getting laid off? He hasn't been here as long as I have."

Stallworth: Yeah. Well, I felt like he was taking my job, because this was the black job.

Millet: Right. I see.

Stallworth: You see. That's what really got me. I could understand it if I had went over and tried to take one of the white's jobs, which there was a lot of those whites younger than me. But I wasn't talking about that. What I was trying to get them to understand was, "You've got white jobs and black jobs. Now, why is it that I've got to go home, and you're going to keep this white boy on my black job?" And they couldn't understand that. They couldn't understand what I was saying.

Millet: Now, were you a member of the union at that time?

Stallworth: Yes, but I wasn't an active member. See, I was just a dues-paying member. See, all I would do is work, draw my check, go home, and forget about it until the next day or the next whenever I go back.

Millet: You sound like you were pretty easygoing.

Stallworth: Oh, yes. You know. Like I say, I wasn't involved with no civil rights. I wasn't involved with nothing.

Millet: Mm-hm. Just wanted to make a living and have your life.

Stallworth: That's it.

Millet: So, did you talk to the union first?

Stallworth: Yes. Well, to my surprise, all the union officials--. See, we had white unions and black unions, then. See. So, we had an all-black union to represent all blacks on all-black jobs. They had white unions to represent all whites on all-white jobs. So, I go to the blacks and tell them to register my complaint, and my concern, and they were afraid. So, that further disturbed me.

Millet: They didn't want to help you?

Stallworth: No.

Millet: They didn't want you making a lot of noise?

Stallworth: No. Because they were afraid.

Millet: You were going to upset the status quo, the way things were.

Stallworth: Right. And I couldn't understand that because they couldn't understand me. See. I felt that I wasn't trying to make no waves. They had made the waves because they came over on our job.

Millet: They changed the rules.

Stallworth: That's right. (Laughter.)

Millet: Yeah. When it was convenient for them.

Stallworth: Right. And I couldn't get them to understand that. So, I got so angry and upset, then, I started being active in the union. I'm a Catholic by faith, so I took a copy of my contract up to the priest, then.

Millet: Who was the priest?

Stallworth: He was named Father Lawler.

Millet: L-A-W-L-E-R?

Stallworth: Right. Father Lawler was his name. Father E.J. Lawler.

Millet: Hold that thought, but I just want to ask you while I'm thinking about it, were you a member of a church, and what church?

Stallworth: Oh, yeah. St. Peter's.

Millet: St. Peter's. And I assume the churches were segregated, as well.

Stallworth: Oh, yeah. Yeah. St. Peter, the Apostle.

Millet: OK. So, what did Father Lawler say when he looked at your contract?

Stallworth: He told me that I was right. And I told him how upset I was and how I was concerned about it. So, he told me I was right. And he told me I should look into it; I should pursue it. And he told me that pressures would come on, but I couldn't back down.

Millet: Now, I assume he was an African-American priest?

Stallworth: Nope.

Millet: Oh, he was white?

Stallworth: Yeah.

Millet: Right on! Alright.

Stallworth: Yeah. That's right. (Laughter.) Yeah, he told me, he said, "Now--." What had already happened, he told me that, too. Said, "The people that supposed to help you are going to be afraid. They're going to be scared." He said, "But you have to go on." He says, "And the pressure's going to come on you, but you're going to have to go on. You know. You can't start this and then, because things get rough or get tough, stop. It don't work like that. In this type situation, once you start, there's no stopping. You know. Once you draw that light on you, you can't stop."

Millet: What was the next step, after that?

Stallworth: Oh, I took him at what he told me, and then I did what he told me to challenge it. So, I ran for office in the union. And I won.

Millet: Now, I don't understand how, if you no longer had a job, you could still be in the union.

Stallworth: Well, now, see, because I was temporarily laid off. See, what they would do, they didn't lay me off permanently. See, they would lay me off temporarily. Lay me off, like, if work slowed down--.

Millet: Then you didn't have a paycheck.

Stallworth: Right. See, when work slowed down, they said, "Well, but this other boy [is] still working." Sometimes I would work maybe one or two days a week.

Millet: I wonder if they were doing that to any of the other African-American workers there?

Stallworth: Yeah. Well, see, that's when I started my campaign. I started my campaign among them and among the other black workers that knew that it wasn't right, and they needed something done about it. So, I won the union election. Then, I met Medgar Evers.

Millet: What was your title when you won?

Stallworth: President.

Millet: President of the union. And what was this union?

Stallworth: Then, it was the International Brotherhood of Pulp, Sulfite, and Paper Mill Workers. It ain't no more.

Millet: What is it, now?

Stallworth: United Paperworkers International Union, now. UPIU.

Millet: OK. And you met Medgar Evers as a result of becoming president of the union?

Stallworth: No, I met Medgar Evers because Medgar Evers come down here on some kind of civil rights business.

Millet: He was field secretary of the NAACP?

Stallworth: Field secretary of the NAACP. That's right. He stayed down here, oh, a couple of weeks, or more. And I got acquainted with him. In talking with him, he convinced me and converted me. (Laughter.) Yes, he did!

Millet: Did you join the NAACP?

Stallworth: I joined it. I joined it. I joined it. I sure did. And then, I joined it, and become president of the NAACP, too. But not then.

Millet: Later. About what year was this that you met Medgar Evers?

Stallworth: I worked at the mill in 1954, and seven onto 1954, carries you to about sixty-one. Somewhere in the sixties.

Millet: Things were heating up in the civil rights movement.

Stallworth: Yeah, it was getting warm. Plenty hot. Yeah. And that's when I began to take--. Before then, I wasn't paying too much attention to the civil rights movement and its developments. I'd hear it on the radio and read it in the paper. But when this happened, then I met Medgar, I started focusing on it. I started keeping track with it; getting information about it. Started going to NAACP meetings, where I met Medgar. And then, after I met Medgar, I met Aaron Henry.

Millet: Who was the?

Stallworth: State president. Then, after that I met Roy Wilkins.

Millet: And I forget. I know he was with the NAACP, but--.

Stallworth: Yeah, he was the president. Executive president. And then after that I met Thurgood Marshall. I met Jack Greenberg. Yeah. So. Then, I became a community aide for the Legal Defense.

Millet: And Legal Defense is? Tell me about that. What is that exactly?

Stallworth: OK, the Legal Defense, the NAACP is an organization, like it says, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. They've got chapters all over the United States and probably out of it, too. And they've got chapters all on these college campuses, and so forth. They are organized. And they are community-organized, where a community group will address their community. They deal with things in their community. The college folks, they deal with things on their campuses, and around in the community there. And whatever the needs are in the community, insofar as racial inequities, they address that. Now the Legal Defense, that's a whole different ball game. That's all lawyers. That's when you get Thurgood Marshall and Jack Greenberg. All they are interested in is going to court, doing battle.

Millet: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Over inequities.

Stallworth: That's right. Over the things that's brought to them by these and from these different communities. Yeah. That's all they do. They concentrate on filing legal, whatever it takes legally. Legal, you know, lawsuits and doing interviews or what they call it?

Millet: Taking affidavits?

Stallworth: Taking affidavits and all that business. And they're into a lot of action. So, I got involved in all of that. So, after Medgar Evers talked with me--back to the International Paper Company thing--we filed suit against the International Paper Company for racial discrimination in employment and the unions.

Millet: Was it for just you? Or for several people?

Stallworth: Oh, no. Class action.

Millet: Class action. Uh-huh. Do you remember which attorney from the Legal Defense Fund would have been representing you?

Stallworth: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Millet: Who was it?

Stallworth: A fellow by the name--he's living, now. He's up in Jackson, now. Fred Banks. I don't know if you've ever heard of him.

Millet: I think we have an interview with Mr. Banks.

Stallworth: Fred Banks. He's with the Mississippi Supreme Court.

Millet: I'm pretty sure we have an interview with him.

Stallworth: Fred Banks. Yeah. Now, at first, it was another guy there before Fred Banks, Reuben Anderson.

Millet: I remember that name.

Stallworth: You remember that name? Reuben? Yeah. Reuben and Fred. It was a bunch of them. Well, some of them are dead, now. Jack Young, Jess Brown.

Millet: Right. I don't know if you ever knew Eleanor Jackson Piel? Who came down from New York, and especially in the summer of sixty-four.

Stallworth: I didn't know her. I do know Mr. and Mrs. Paul Breath[?].

Millet: I've never heard of them.

Stallworth: Yeah, that was a man and his wife. They were with the Legal Defense, but they left the Legal Defense when Thurgood Marshall got to be Supreme Court Justice. They went to be clerks for Thurgood.

Millet: In Washington, D.C.?

Stallworth: In Washington. Yeah. Mr. and Mrs. Paul Breath.

Millet: So, what was the outcome of your class action suit?

Stallworth: It took ten years.

Millet: Ten years!

Stallworth: That's right. It took ten years.

Millet: Till 1971.

Stallworth: Right. When we brought it to a resolve, the company had to do away with all segregated jobs, and oh, we went through a series of things during the course of this. You know. Like you mentioned: did they send me to a school? Did we have to take training? They set up tests and all that business. So, as a result of that suit, we proved in that suit, the only criteria was, to get a good job, was to be white. Education had nothing to do with it because we had blacks finish high school. We had blacks had college experience. We had blacks with college education, working under the supervision of whites, finished third grade. Couldn't fill out time cards. So, education was not the parameter.

Millet: Absolutely not.

Stallworth: So, we won that.

Millet: Did it go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court?

Stallworth: No. No, no, no. I think we were on our way there and somehow or another, the company worked out--this company, I'm going to tell you about. Now, it went through the Fifth District Court, down in Biloxi, and we were on our way to the United States Supreme Court. I think the company knew this, so, we worked out a thing down here in the Fifth District Court. This was the settlement that we got. The unions had to give up white unions, and black unions. So, we merged the unions. They had to give up the idea of white jobs and black jobs. So, we had to use seniority and put the blacks on the jobs, where their seniority put them. No testing. The only education requirement we had to reach, if they had a white fellow over there with a third-grade education, that's all we had to meet.

Millet: Uh-huh. To be on par with that job.

Stallworth: That's correct. See. We didn't have to have a college degree, and he finished third grade. So, that's what they were trying to tell us. But anyway, they integrated all the jobs and changed the whole seniority. See, the blacks couldn't use the seniority against nobody but blacks. You see. And so, I think the court did a good job, and come out with a monetary settlement.

Millet: Uh-huh, from all those years lost. Yeah.

Stallworth: Yeah, but it didn't come nowhere near what it should have, but it was something. It was a starter. But they did. They had to pay some monetary monies to the blacks that was there and also for blacks that tried to get jobs and they didn't hire over a period or span of time, and especially black females.

Millet: Oh, interesting. So, it was a double whammy against you if you were black and female.

Stallworth: Yeah. That's right. They didn't hire black women at all. So, they had to. I think we did a pretty good job of raking them over. I think we did.

Millet: Holding them up to standard.

Stallworth: Right.

Millet: So, you really made a big difference in a lot of lives with that decision that you came to.

Stallworth: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because, well, you could see it. Because I didn't realize the far-reaching thing to this until I did witness what you just said. I seen some blacks go on jobs making $25.00 an hour. Yeah. I've seen some blacks move up in management. You know, which, my focus at that time was right there where they had took my little, old black job and gave it to a white boy. (Laughter.) That's all I--.

Millet: Your perspective widened. (Laughter.)

Stallworth: Yeah. That's right. So, I feel really--. And then after, as far as getting involved with Medgar and Medgar converting me, and then getting acquainted with Thurgood Marshall and that bunch, and working with the Legal Defense, that really broadened my perspective a lot. I got involved in the community with the banks.

Millet: How so? Tell me about that.

Stallworth: OK. The banks would only hire blacks for janitors or maids. Make coffee and clean up. Empty trash cans. I got a group of blacks--young, black ladies together. I got them to go to all the banks and the state and federal loans and so forth. Go to every one of them and make application.

Millet: Testing.

Stallworth: Or attempt to make application. See, some, they let them make application; some of them they didn't. Some of them faced insults. So, we documented all of that, and we sent it in and the Legal Defense filed suit against all the banks, all the savings and loans, and now we've got blacks in all of them. Tellers and cashiers, and first one thing and then another. Same with the post office, city hall, all our city merchants, all the stores, and different ones. J.C. Penny's, and you name it.

Millet: All of that was done through lawsuits?

Stallworth: That's right. We went and we used the same approach: we sent people around to attempt to make applications. To make applications or attempt to. And from that point, we sued all of them.

Millet: So, in hiring practices, you just addressed each, like, different kinds of institutions.

Stallworth: That's right. Well, the first approach was--. Even I put myself on the line, which I didn't have to, but I did. I met with all of the banks at different times. I would go to Pascagoula-Moss Point Bank and ask to meet with the president, and we'd sit down and talk. And I would tell him what my business was and what I was wanting to talk with him about, and he didn't voice no concerns. Didn't show no concern. Just said, "Well, I'll tell you. We'll hire some blacks in this bank, if you find some blacks with some experience. We don't hire non-experienced people. And, you don't have nobody qualified. I mean, if you bring me somebody qualified, I'll hire them."

So, my thing to the bank then was, I said, "Well, I don't have anybody qualified, but I got some just as qualifiable as the ones you've got. You know, giving them the same opportunities you gave those people." I said, "They could do you a good job."

"No. That wouldn't suffice."

Millet: Have to have experience already.

Stallworth: Have to have experience. Right.

Millet: But he wasn't requiring that of white people who came in and applied.

Stallworth: When we filed the charges and the feds came in to investigate and pull the records of the employees they already had, the employees that we sent to them was more qualified than the ones they had. The only difference was, they were black. Because the ones that they had, come in from out of the kitchen, into the bank. They were, you know, daughters-in-law, sisters-in-law, and cousins and friends, and so forth. Where the ones that we sent to them had been to college. And had worked in other places. They had a working experience. These people had no experience working nowhere.

Millet: No, they just had--

(End of tape one, side one. The interview continues on tape one, side two.)

Millet: OK. So, the federal people said that the bank officers had lied about the experience of the white people.

Stallworth: Yeah, what they told us their criteria was. They lied. Because they challenged us with getting them somebody qualified, and told us what they had to meet. And the ones they had, hadn't met it.

Millet: And how did you settle that?

Stallworth: Well, they had to pay these people a monetary settlement.

Millet: Did it have to go to court?

Stallworth: They settled out of court. Well, what it was, see, we challenged them through their insurance.

Millet: Oh. How does that work?

Stallworth: OK. You know you've got it. If you go to the bank, you are covered by that. Your money's insured.

Millet: F.D.I.C. The Federal--. I can't remember what it stands for.

Stallworth: Right. F.D.I.C. That's what it is. See, so, we challenged them on that, whereas if they didn't discontinue the discrimination, or make this discrimination satisfactory, we had the F.D.I.C. to pull their insurance license. And if they pulled the insurance license--.

Millet: Not good for the bank. Not good for anybody's money.

Stallworth: No. That's right. (Laughter.) So, that made them settle up right quick.

Millet: That got their attention! (Laughter.)

Stallworth: Yeah. "Come on. Sit down. Let's talk. We've got to work this thing out. (Laughter.) You know, and see, can we look at it? Look here. We didn't understand what you said, you see, when you said it. Why didn't you tell us this was what you wanted?"

Millet: Oh. Yeah. That's right. You should have made it more clear.

Stallworth: Yeah. "You've been knowing me, State. You know me. Me and you can work this out. So-and-so."

Millet: Let's do it!

Stallworth: Yeah. "Hire them tomorrow." (Laughter.)

Millet: Did you say that?

Stallworth: Yeah. (Laughter.)

Millet: Did they hire them?

Stallworth: Yeah. They hired them quick as they could. They paid them. Paid them some money and told them, "Now, look, let's don't go no further. Now, give us a chance. Give us a chance."

Millet: Yeah.

Stallworth: You know, that's a funny thing. That's what all of them cried. Every last one of them cried that.

Millet: "Just give us a chance. Give us some time."

Stallworth: Yeah. "We didn't--. State, we didn't--." Look. When I first went out there trying to get them to understand, they told me, the mill manager told me, said, "I heard about you." Said, "You ain't nothing but a damn troublemaker. We don't want you working here. Do you want to work here, boy?"

"Yes, sir."

"You don't act like it. All these practices and traditions been going on around here for all these years. You're trying to change it. I'm going to tell you right now. Ain't a damn thing going to change. Do you understand me, boy?"

"Yes, sir."

And he went on, chewed me out, went up one side and down the other side.

Millet: Mm-hm. And all you could say was, "Yes, sir."

Stallworth: Just sit there and say, "Yes, sir." But the only thing I rebutted on is when he opened the door for me.

He says, "Now that this meeting is over and you understand everything, you got anything you want to say?"

"Yes, sir." Well, he shouldn't have did that. (Laughter.)

Millet: What did you say?

Stallworth: I told him, I said, "Well, you know, I understand what you're telling me about the practice and traditions, because I see it every day. You know." I said, "But, when it comes down to getting laid off," I say, "You laid me off." And I explained to him that they took the white boy and took my black job, and I'm not allowed to be black and take the white job. I said, "Now, the contract don't mention nothing about that." I say, "If the contract would have said that white people can take black people's jobs," I say, "I probably wouldn't have complained, but the contract don't say that. See. And the contract don't say that black people can take the white people's jobs." I said, "So, you know, if you had spelled that out in your contract," which I knew he couldn't do--

Millet: Exactly right.

Stallworth: I said, "Then, probably me and you wouldn't be having this discussion. You wouldn't be upset, and I wouldn't, either. But that's not clear in there. That's not what the books says, and that's not what the contract says." Well, that ended that meeting. But, now, when the feds come down, then, to, like I said, come down with this court order, now then, they understood. (Laughter.) And they wanted me to drink coffee with them. And they wanted me to laugh and talk with them. They understood now, but they didn't understand, then. And they were apologetic, and so forth.

And they promised me, told me that any time that I saw any problem going on, that was racially contrived or had any racial applications or anything in it, right then, let them know. "Don't wait. Let us know. Now, don't go filing no more complaints. Don't go telling all these others. (Laughter.) Come tell us."

Millet: "We want to know."

Stallworth: Mm-hm. And so, well, they knew that I didn't too much trust them. But they said, "Now, if we don't straighten it out," they said, "then, you go do what you want to do." Well, I made that deal, because that sounds pretty good. Said, "State, if you come tell me about it, and if I don't do nothing about it, then, you do what you want to do."

Millet: And did that work out?

Stallworth: It worked pretty good.

Millet: In the future. Did you stay and continue to work for them? Until when?

Stallworth: Mm-hm. I retired four years ago.

Millet: Wow. Did you get to be promoted and move up in management the way you wanted to?

Stallworth: No, no, no. I didn't go to management. I stayed in the--. See, if you were in management, you'd be exempt from the unions. See.

Millet: Ah. I had no idea.

Stallworth: Yeah. See, if I wanted to go to management, I would be exempted from the unions, and really, I didn't trust them that much. But, there were some blacks that did go over in management.

Millet: So, all these years, you had really three full-time jobs in between working for them at your regular job.

Stallworth: Yeah.

Millet: Working for the NAACP.

Stallworth: Right.

Millet: And working for the union.

Stallworth: That's right.

Millet: You were a busy man.

Stallworth: I was. (Laughter.) Yeah. I was. Believe me.

Millet: And I wouldn't be surprised if you were active in the sixties in the mass meetings and marches.

Stallworth: I was.

Millet: OK. Well, I'd like to talk about that. I did want to ask you about Medgar Evers and Aaron Henry and Thurgood Marshall. You know, there are already a lot of things written in history books about those men and dates that they did things, but there are probably some experiences you had with them, that nobody else knows about. But, how would you describe Medgar Evers? What kind of man was he? Do you have a memorable event that you had with him?

Stallworth: No, the only time I met Medgar and he and I had any kind of a relationship, it was dealing with the NAACP or something about the NAACP. I never met him, you know, like, when he wanted to play golf, or playing cards, or playing poker, or anything like that. I've never been with him socially. Whenever I met him, it was really on the occasions of the NAACP and its business. Now, he impressed me. He was real sincere. He was real. He was wrapped up in what he was doing, body and soul. I've never seen a man so dedicated as Medgar. He would sit here like you and I talking, and he would be talking about things and, literally, start crying. That's how sincere he was. So, that's the kind of--. So, many times, I didn't want to see him in that type of situation. I would try to find some way to get away from him.

Millet: Was it heartbreaking and intense? Was that the--?