Has There Been Progress on Racism Since the Montgomery Bus Boycott?

Show Transcript

Karen Gray Houston

[00:00:00] Bob Gatty: Was 73 years ago in 1950 that a black man named Hillard Brooks was shot and killed by a white police officer after he tried to board a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Thomas Gray, who had played football with Brooks as a kid, was outraged by the tragic unjustifiable shooting. He protested and eventually staged a downtown march to register voters and protest police brutality . Five years later, Gray led another protest against the city's segregated buses. On the front lines of the Montgomery bus boycott, Gray withstood threats and bombings alongside his brother, Fred D. Gray, a young lawyer who represented Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Claudette Colvin, a plaintiff in the case that forced Alabama to desegregate its buses.

[00:00:50] I'm thrilled today that we have with us Thomas Gray's daughter, Karen Gray Houston. An award winning broadcast journalist who's written a captivating memoir called Daughter of the Boycott, carrying on a Montgomery family's civil rights legacy. It's an incredible story that recounts how her father's and uncle's actions changed the nation's racial climate and opened doors for her and other African Americans.

[00:01:24] Now, Karen Gray Houston was born in Montgomery, Alabama, raised in Cleveland, Ohio. She spent 41 years as a news reporter and anchor at radio and TV stations and networks in Boston, New York City, and Washington, D. C. Since retiring, she wrote Daughter of the Boycott, which was featured in an edition of Oprah's O Magazine as one of the 10 titles to pick up now and in Smithsonian magazine's book of the week series. Hey, Karen, welcome to the lean to the left podcast. 

[00:02:00] Karen Gray Houston: Hey, Bob I love your podcast and I'm happy to be here. 

[00:02:05] Bob Gatty: I'm glad I really do appreciate that. To start with, I'm wondering if you can tell us why did you write the book and what's happened?

[00:02:13] Since then, I understand that both your uncle and father have been honored since you published your book, and there was some good news for Claudette Colvin as well.

[00:02:25] Karen Gray Houston: Correct. Bob, I am happy to say that I wrote this book because I wanted to continue my family's legacy. This is a personal story for me.

[00:02:38] My father, Thomas Gray, The late judge Thomas Gray was an organizer of the Montgomery bus boycott. My uncle, Fred Gray, was the lawyer for the boycott. He represented Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King, and Claudette Colvin, who a lot of people don't know about, 15 year old girl who refused to give up her seat on a bus for a white person nine months before Rosa Parks did, so and we'll talk a bit about that later. But what I wanted to do was to pay tribute to my father and uncle, and to a whole legion of unsung foot soldiers heroes and heroines who put their lives on pause, risked their lives, really. They were threatened and there were bombs and so forth.

[00:03:22] And to in a fight for racial justice and what they did opened up doors of opportunity for me and a whole lot of other people. Now for what has happened since the book came out, and I'm excited about that. My uncle, Fred Gray, a renowned civil rights attorney, was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Joe Biden at the White House last year.

[00:03:45] So we're excited about that. My dad, Thomas Gray, was inducted into his law school's Hall of Fame, the Cleveland State University College of Law, and that happened in November of last year, so those were two thrilling things. And Claudette Colvin, who was dragged off a bus when she refused to give up her seat as a teenager, petitioned a family court in Alabama, in Montgomery to expunge her criminal record because she was accused of assault against a police officer, and she did that.

[00:04:20] And ironically, it was a black family judge, family court judge who erased that record for her. And there are a couple of other things, if we have a moment, the street that my father and uncle and their siblings grew up on, jeff Davis, named after a confederate president, the name of that street has been changed and is now Fred D. Gray. So I'm thrilled about that. And then there's one more thing. My uncle's involved in a lawsuit in the city of Tuskegee, where he lives, where there's a confederate statue in the middle of the town square and the daughters of the confederacy want to keep it there, but he's involved in a lawsuit that's trying to get that out of the way.

[00:05:02] Okay. So I think that's probably enough for, 

[00:05:05] Bob Gatty: I'll tell you what. Now, do you attribute, the, your book to some of these things happening? 

[00:05:11] Karen Gray Houston: I'm not going to take credit for that. I'm just going to say these things happened and I'm happy about them. 

[00:05:18] Bob Gatty: It is a good thing to to bring attention to important events like this.

[00:05:25] And if your book helped to influence the decisions to do these things. That's great. I do have to say that this young woman who I had never heard of, Claudette Colvin, she must have been one gutsy young lady. What was she 15, 16 years old when 

[00:05:44] Karen Gray Houston: she was 15 years old, she was gutsy and smart. She went to Booker T. Washington High School and the day that this thing happened was in March, which followed February at the time, negro History Month, and she had a very progressive school teacher who taught them lots of things about what was going on and what was right and what was not in the middle of the Jim Crow South, when they were upset if Claudette wanted to get a pair of shoes, she'd have to go downtown and have a brown paper bag where the outline of her foot was because they wouldn't let her try on shoes.

[00:06:18] Yeah, just to set the tone for what was happening in Montgomery. Black people couldn't go to white restaurants, white schools, hotels, bathrooms. They set aside water fountains for white people only. So it was during that time, and she was all upset when a white person got on the bus, a woman, and wanted a seat, and the bus driver turned around, and the bus drivers then had police powers.

[00:06:43] Bus driver turns around and says, I'm going to need one of those seats. And a couple of the kids on the same row as Claudette got up and moved in the back because they knew what it meant and Claudette said, I have a constitutional right to sit here, and the bus driver summoned police officers came there's a lot of make this a short story because it came twice.

[00:07:03] And when they came the second time they dragged her off the bus and said she was Clawing and scratching and screaming and she was saying, I have a right to be here and they took her to an adult jail. It was just a crazy situation. And they charged her with disorderly conduct and with, assault against a police officer and violating the boycott law.

[00:07:26] So she was in trouble and my uncle was in heaven because he said, this is perfect. Perfect case for me. Test case. Of the fight against segregation on the buses, but there were black leaders in Montgomery at the time who felt that Claudette after a few months, we found out Claudette was pregnant. They did not want the face of the fight against segregation to be a young black unwed teenage mother.

[00:07:55] And so it was much later, and there were several women who had similar situations, black women who refused to give up their seats before Rosa Parks, but Rosa Parks was the person who had the right, persona. She was soft spoken. She was rehearsed. Yeah. She was not tired that day on the bus.

[00:08:16] Yeah, and she had met my uncle at NAACP meetings. Okay. She was the secretary of the local branch of the NAACP under the, under E. D. Nixon, who was a, famous political person, black person in town. And she was also the chair of the Youth Council. And my uncle was new in town. I like to say he just fell out of law school in Ohio.

[00:08:42] He had gone up there because black people couldn't go to law school in Alabama, and they were kindred spirits. Rose Parks and Fred Gray both hated segregation with a passion and both were gonna do something about it. And so they started meeting. She worked as a seamstress at a department store downtown, about a block down the street and around the corner from my uncle's law office, and they started meeting at lunchtime talking about what we're gonna do about this segregation situation.

[00:09:12] Bob Gatty: Wow. You know what? As a white man. Living in these days that we live in today, it is just almost impossible for me to imagine what it must have been like for someone to be told, you can't try shoes on in this store. You have to give us the outline of your foot on a paper bag so we can fit you, but you're not going to put your feet in these shoes to try them on now.

[00:09:44] That is just frickin disgusting. 

[00:09:48] Karen Gray Houston: Let me tell you what else is disgusting. What happened, all those other things that you couldn't do, you could avoid them as a black person, because you could go to black establishments. Yeah, you can go to black stores, but what you couldn't avoid was the buses and it was at a time in the 50s when everybody didn't have a car and the people were dependent on the buses to get to work, get to school, get wherever they needed to go.

[00:10:11] And so that's why people who were thinking boycott were thinking, we're going to do something about the buses because the buses are what everybody uses and when you got on the bus, here's what would happen. Bus comes up, a bus driver has police powers. You get on the bus, you put your dime in the fare, in the fare box.

[00:10:31] If there are white people in the front rows where they can sit. The bus driver could tell you to get off the bus and go around to the side entrance and sit in the back. You had to sit in the back anyway, but if there were no white people on the bus, you could probably just get on and go sit down in the back.

[00:10:48] Yeah. But let's just say that the bus driver tells you to get off the bus, you get off the bus, and sometimes bus drivers would just drive off and leave you there. Or and if they did that, you're late to your job, right? But if it's raining, you're going to get wet or cold. And it was just, it just was, it was humiliating and disgusting.

[00:11:10] And so that's why people were so angry. 

[00:11:13] Bob Gatty: Sure. And plus you would lose your fare, right? And they have to pay 

[00:11:18] Karen Gray Houston: another fare. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:11:20] Bob Gatty: Oh, man. Man, it's no wonder people got pissed off. Really? We're as we talk, we're in mid December which is a month that's got a lot of significance to this overall story, 

[00:11:33] Karen Gray Houston: right?

[00:11:35] Correct. It was December 1st, 1955 when Rosa Parks was arrested. Yeah. She, and it was December 5th when the boycott started. December 1st. When she was arrested, E.D. Nixon was, who was my uncle likes to call him Mr. Civil Rights. He was the president of the naacp head of the Progressive Democrats. He was a black Pullman porter who worked with a Philip Randolph to start the black sleeping car porters Union. So he was a big mucky muck guy. When he found out that Rosa Parks had been arrested, he called the jail and wanted to come and bail her out, but they wouldn't talk to him because why he was black man. E.D. Nixon who New people and was respected by a lot of white people, journalists and judges and lawyers and people called an attorney named Clifford Durr, who was actually a mentor to my uncle and his wife, Virginia Durr, and they were two white do gooder people in Montgomery.

[00:12:38] They were working with black folks. And shunned by a lot of their white friends and relatives, but the ED. Nixon and the Durrs went to the jail to bail Rosa Parks out that December 1st. Okay, so yeah, so these are this so it's timely and you know I'm usually in Alabama during the first week of Montgomery, when things are happening, sometimes I'm talking about my book, this past week, uh, my husband and I went down and we attended a a walk and a rally, a Rosa Parks walk and rally from the King Memorial Baptist Church to the Rosa Parks Museum. It was in honor of the fact that Alabama Congressman Terry Sewell has introduced a bill in Congress that To make December 1st National Rosa Parks Day.

[00:13:29] Wow. Which is cool. And what I learned that I didn't know is that there are no national holidays named after women.

[00:13:36] Bob Gatty: That's true. I never thought about it. 

[00:13:40] Karen Gray Houston: Can you think of one? 

[00:13:41] Bob Gatty: No, I just never thought about it. 

[00:13:43] Karen Gray Houston: So we were excited about that. And then there was another, there was Rosa Parks gala and, they gave awards to a lot of women in the spirit of the courage that Rosa Parks showed and things like that. This is a very good time for Rosa Parks to be, and the Montgomery bus boycott to be acknowledged and celebrated. 

[00:14:03] Bob Gatty: Okay. Listen, can you walk us through some of the key components of your book? What you cover and how you do it and some of the highlights of it.

[00:14:12] Karen Gray Houston: Sure. Book starts with a case of white police brutality. There was a man, a young man named Hilliard Brooks. And he actually had been a friend of my dad. They played football together. I think you mentioned that earlier played football together as kids. They were both veterans of World War Two. My dad was teaching at a Catholic school called St. Jude, where the AMVets had a program where they were training black veterans. And so Hilliard Brooks was being trained in something at the school. He was going to classes. And but one day Hilliard went downtown, he was trying to catch a bus and he got on the bus. There was some sort of exchange with him and the bus driver.

[00:14:58] And I will admit that Hilliard Brooks was drunk and disorderly that day. There are a lot of different stories about what happened. One was that, he threw the money down on the ground. The bus driver told him to pick it up. I don't know. And the bus driver decided he wanted to summon the police from across the street because of a case of disorderly conduct.

[00:15:19] One story says the police officer arrived. He gets on the bus, he walks down. He sees Hilliard, he takes out his club. He hits Hilliard on the head with the club. Hillard tries to get off the bus and the police officer pulls out his gun and shoots him. Okay. Some other eyewitnesses and I, I read different newspaper accounts of what happened and a historian's account in a book and they're all different.

[00:15:43] So nobody really knows exactly what happened. But one account says that Hilliard had already gotten off the bus and the police officer came over and pushed Hilliard to the ground. And when Hilliard was trying to get up, he pulled the officer's whistle and whistle. Then the officer took out his gun and shot Hilliard and Hilliard later died at the hospital.

[00:16:02] Okay. After he died, when my father found out about he was outraged, and he and the amvets commander, a guy named Ronald Young, who lived in our neighborhood, and my dad got together and said, Hey, we can't let these people get away with that. And they wrote a letter to city officials to the police.

[00:16:22] To the mayor, to the police commission and and other city of city council asking that the police officer be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. A police review board found that the shooting was justifiable, duh. And Dad and Mr. Young were outraged again and said, Okay, we gotta do something.

[00:16:43] So they organized a march. Hundreds of veterans, and they marched down the main street in Montgomery, Dexter Avenue. And they knew that they couldn't just hang around and be loitering charged with loitering. So they had a plan. They made these posters that said ballots will beat bullets, and they encouraged people who had not registered to vote to go into the courthouse where you could register to vote, and they did.

[00:17:13] The next day, there was an article in the newspaper, it mentioned. Not the protest, no mention of the protest, just that the clerk in the court noticed that an unusually large number of Negro men came in and registered to vote. And then nothing else happened. So that was it. It was like a kind of flash in the pan, but I saw it as, setting the stage five years later, people were angry and they remembered that Hilliard had gotten shot on a bus.

[00:17:42] And that was just one, they were already mad because of how they were being treated on the buses. And in addition to this, leftover anger from Hillary had been killed, people were ready for a boycott. 

[00:17:55] Bob Gatty: I think I, I remember reading that they made the effort to register people to vote really to avoid being charged with loitering.

[00:18:10] Karen Gray Houston: Correct. My dad said, you can't just walk down the street. And as a matter of fact, in the middle of the March lasted several days. And the first day that it happened, the sheriff's office sent a couple of deputies over and they were watching these guys. And one of the deputies came over and said, Oh, you're gonna have to put those signs down.

[00:18:27] I don't think you can march with those signs. The ones that said ballots will beat bullets. So my father's business partner, dad had a business where he sold radio and TV sets and appliances. His business partner, William Singleton went over to the guy and said, I don't think I have the authority to tell the marchers to put the signs down.

[00:18:46] So maybe you'll have to tell them, which is like the kind of confrontation between police and black people that could get you killed, really, but that's Singleton comes back over to the group and he goes, Look, they told me to tell you guys put those signs down. I don't know what's going to happen.

[00:19:03] So maybe put the signs down.. So they put the science down and they didn't carry them for the rest of the march but they did go and register at a time when a lot of black people were not registered to vote. That was a good thing. Yeah, 

[00:19:18] Bob Gatty: it was a good thing. Okay so that was really the front part of your book that you're talking about.

[00:19:24] Karen Gray Houston: 1950. So then we jump ahead. You know what I do during the book, because it is memoir, and I'm talking about what happened then. And yes, I was a child. I was 4 years old when the boycott started, but I also talk about it. And later, and I had this career. And I came back to, and I joined some civic groups and I met some people and I did some video interviews with folks.

[00:19:48] And I weave that in between how I find out about things that happened that I never knew. Yeah. But I think I talk about the first day of the boycott My, my parents always got up early. I remember that from being a kid, they'd be up at five o'clock in the morning, you could hear them in the bedroom talking.

[00:20:06] And my, and I don't remember this from being four, but I know that's their habit. And my mother I knew was upset because the night before, The police commissioner had been on TV and she saw him talking about how the boycott was going to start the next day. And they were going to be these black goon squads following the buses to keep black people off the buses.

[00:20:28] And so that frightened her because she knew that my father was going to be driving a car to pick up passengers, to keep them off the buses, to make the boycott a success. And so she was terrified, but my dad was like, nope, It's what I'm going to do. And so he did that. And the first day, my uncle, the boycott attorney, he gets in his car and he drives, they're all going to know what's going to happen with the boycott.

[00:20:54] And they're driving around from bus stop to see if people are getting on the bus. Nope. And they're not really getting on the bus. Martin Luther King and his wife lived on South Jackson street and a bus drove right past their house. So they went out on the porch to watch, to see what was happening.

[00:21:11] And then when they saw Empty buses, they got into a car, or at least Martin Luther King got in a car, and he drove around to see what was going on,

[00:21:20] and they were oh, and one more person who I met Martin Luther King's barber, a guy named Nelson Maldon. When Martin first came to Montgomery for his trial sermon at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, when he got out of seminary school and finished his, he finished his PhD the Baptist Church, Dexter Avenue sent a guy, and this is really ironic, a guy who was on their deacon board named Robert Nesbitt.

[00:21:50] Which is my husband's name. They sent this guy named Robert Nesbitt to Atlanta to recruit King to come to Dexter Avenue to preach in the church. And the day before, it's the Saturday before his trial ceremony, King wanted a haircut! So he found somebody said go over here to the whatever haircut barbershop, and it was near Alabama State University and this guy Nelson was a student at Alabama State at the time.

[00:22:16] He sees his car pull up and this guy comes in and he's thinking, my classes at 10 o'clock I could cut him in about half an hour be done. And he comes in and he is, he gets to be Martin Luther King's barber. ThAt was and if you look at the book, there's some fun stories about Martin and his sense of humor and some things he did that will be amusing.

[00:22:38] You've read them. 

[00:22:39] Bob Gatty: Yeah. They were amusing. It's beautifully done. I just have to say. Now in your book, you recount the days of the boycott, not only what happened, but, How it affected your family. I'm just wondering, as you grew older, I know that this began when you were four, but as you grew older and became a teenager, how did all of these things Affect you and your as you grew up. 

[00:23:12] Karen Gray Houston: As a young child, I really didn't know anything about it. My parents kept many of these things secret. Dad would go out and, go pick up the people and come back home. And one day he was arrested. The sheriff's people came to our house and my mother answered the door and they were looking for my father and he was out repairing some radio in the neighborhood.

[00:23:33] And came home after they had left and my mother said, the police were here looking for you. They want to arrest you. And the police came back or sheriff's deputy and said, we have a warrant for your arrest for violating the boycott law. And so my dad said, was out in the, his, the TV van, and he says can I take the van back to the shop?

[00:23:54] And, I can go with you. And they were very civilized. He said he couldn't believe how civilized they were. They let him go to the shop, drop off the car, they picked him up, they drove him, they were driving him to the jail, and they were going to stop by and pick up a guy, the minister to Holt Street Baptist Church.

[00:24:11] Because he was somebody else that they wanted to who was involved in the boycott activism, and they drove by his house and the wife came to the door and she said, Oh, my husband's not here he's probably gone, he's on his way to the church you got to pick him up at the church, so they stopped by the church to pick reverend Wilson up and Reverend Wilson was walking up the steps and looked out and saw him. They said we have a warrant for your arrest. And he said can I come back by the jail later? And they said, sure. So they left him and took my dad to the jail to get arrested. 89 people, including Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks and a whole lot, my uncle and a lot of other people who were involved in the activism and the boycott and planning and all that.

[00:24:53] Yeah, we're arrested. And my dad wore that arrest like a badge of honor for the rest of his life. Did he get thrown in jail? No, that day was he said it was a real carnival atmosphere people were going to when he got to the jail Reverend Ralph Abernathy who was King's, Lieutenant right hand man was out in front and a bunch of other people.

[00:25:13] They had a guy assigned who was bailing pay the money for the bail for everybody. So nobody really had to see it. Stay behind bars. They just went in, got fingerprinted and all that and got bailed out. And there was a lawsuit later and the prosecutors decided that they weren't going to take all 89 people to jail because that would be unwieldy.

[00:25:35] And they only took Martin Luther King to jail for that. And he was convicted and fined 500. And my uncle appealed the conviction. But it, after a whole lot of things happened, it got dismissed, and so nothing ever came of it. 

[00:25:52] Bob Gatty: Okay. So he didn't have to pay the 500 fine? Nah. That was good.

[00:25:58] Okay. So a minute ago, you talked about how your dad and others went around to check the buses to see if people were on the bus and so on. But they set up carpools, right? They were actually serving as, fill in for the 

[00:26:17] Karen Gray Houston: buses, right? A massive carpool campaign. There was a group called the Montgomery Improvement Association.

[00:26:24] Okay, where'd they get their name? Ralph Abernathy named this organization, but it was the group that organized the day to day activities of the boycott and supported the boycott. And they had their meetings. And what happened with the MIA. It was, I have so many things to tell you I can't even begin to but so what happened was initially people use their personal cars.

[00:26:47] My dad used his little green Plymouth to pick up cars and then after a while it's wait a minute we got to pay these guys because for gas or something. And then they got taxis to participate and they got hearses from funeral homes, it's like they, and then after it didn't take long, where there were sympathizers from around the world who sent money in for to, pay for the carpools and the gas and this and that and the other.

[00:27:15] And so there were a lot of people, including, and this is a man who became a really close family friend, Reverend Bob Gratz, white man. And who, and his wife, Jeannie Gratz, and they pastored, and I say they because they did do this together, a black Lutheran church, and they supported the boycott. He went in the, the week before the boycott and told everybody, so don't get on the buses, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and eventually he became a member of the MIA, and he was a white guy driving around in his car picking up black people, telling them to stay off the buses, and he paid for that.

[00:27:55] Because he got death threats and, letters and his car was vandalized, tires were slashed and things like that. And eventually, members of the Ku Klux Klan bombed his parsonage. There were three bombs, as I recall, but fortunately, nobody was ever injured or killed. And they were people, white people who were, became friends with my parents.

[00:28:21] They used to come to our house in a little division, subdivision called Mobile Heights, white people. Can they bring their kids? I don't know what the neighbors were thinking, but they would come and drink wine with my parents and play Pinochle and bridge and the kids. We would, swing on the swings and play at their house.

[00:28:38] And from a young time. A young period for me. I was introduced to integration. My parents had white friends at a time when integration was dangerous.

[00:28:50] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Okay. What about when you were in school and, 

[00:28:55] Karen Gray Houston: By the time we moved after I would think I was eight years old.

[00:29:01] Dad decided he wanted dad wanted to go to law school before my uncle, but he met my mom and she, switched around in front of him and he got distracted. And so he set up his business and my uncle went on and became a lawyer and then dad decided he was going to go ahead and become a lawyer.

[00:29:16] And so he was going to move up to Cleveland, goes, Western Reserve like my uncle and get a law degree. And the plan initially was to leave my mom at home with the kids and for her to get a job as a school teacher because she was had a college education, and she had an interview to try to get a job.

[00:29:35] And the person who talked to her wanted to know before he knew anything else, what relation she was to that Fred gray guy. That lawyer gray. And she said, Oh, he's my husband's younger brother. And he and the guy said that would have to come before the board. My mother could not get a job teaching public school in Alabama.

[00:29:59] Incredible. So we ended up moving to Cleveland where she didn't have any trouble getting a job being a school teacher. So my dad could become a lawyer and he. The plan was for him to leave there, come back to Montgomery and work with my uncle desegregating everything because that's what my uncle had been doing since the boycott, desegregating schools and colleges and he, the million versus Lightfoot, it was a voting rights case, which he argued before the Supreme Court.

[00:30:29] He was very busy. There was a lot to be done in Montgomery. But my father could never pass the bar in Alabama. Really? He could pass the bar in Ohio. He could never pass the bar in Alabama. I can't prove anything, but I don't think they wanted two black grays desegregating Alabama. Probably not.

[00:30:51] That's my thought. 

[00:30:53] Bob Gatty: Probably not. Yeah, okay. The fact that you had this long, wonderful, career in broadcast journalism. And I read that your dad had a show called songs of the South land when he was younger, right? He was on the radio doing that, right? Yeah. So you got it in your blood some way, maybe to be in, in the media or what?

[00:31:23] Karen Gray Houston: I didn't know he had that job. Until much later on, when I found out that when I got my first radio job, I was in Boston working at WHDH radio, and when I got the job, it was after I had worked for United Press International, and I think you and I both had done a little, that was my first job. Yeah. And, it's a great training ground and all that kind of stuff but I wanted a career in broadcasting, so I got this job at WHDH, and my dad said, oh, I used to be on the radio.

[00:31:53] Bob Gatty: Oh, no kidding. So it wasn't until then that you knew that? 

[00:32:00] Karen Gray Houston: I didn't, he hadn't really talked about it. I used to be on the radio. But just like he hadn't talked a whole lot about the boycott. And it's Jewish people who were in the Holocaust, connected to the Holocaust, and they come back to the States, and they don't spend a lot of time talking to their children about it.

[00:32:16] It's like You want the past to be the past. You don't, and you're moving on with your life. Yeah, so he had that job at a time when, oh, and he got the job. He auditioned for the job when he was in college at Alabama State University, which was then Alabama State Teachers College for Negroes.

[00:32:36] A. G. Gaston, who was a millionaire businessman in Birmingham, was looking for to expand his reach. He had insurance companies and funeral homes and this and that and the other. And he wanted some sort of commercial. sponsored radio program. And so he was going to audition a bunch of college kids because he figured that'd be cheap.

[00:32:58] And so my dad auditioned for this job as a a radio announcer and he got the job and it was called songs of the South land, blah, blah, blah. And it was at a time during the boycott when people would turn on their radio stations in the morning while they were frying up bacon and eggs to find out.

[00:33:18] Where Reverend Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy were going to be and where the mass meetings were going to be so they could find out what was going on, or where they could find a taxi or a ride to get to work. 

[00:33:30] Bob Gatty: Okay. 

[00:33:31] Karen Gray Houston: Okay. Yeah, I didn't know. I didn't know any of that when I got my radio job.

[00:33:35] Bob Gatty: That's amazing. I thought maybe, Somehow he influenced you into doing that. 

[00:33:43] Karen Gray Houston: The other irony, it was that when I got that job, it was during the a desegregation battle. They were desegregating the schools when I got my radio job? And when Dad got his, they were desegregating the bus.

[00:33:56] Bob Gatty: Wow. Incredible. Yeah. Okay. Tell us a little bit about your broadcast career. I know you were on WTOP radio in Washington, D. C. I was addicted to TOP when I worked on Capitol Hill. Had it on in my car, through for my commute from the Maryland suburbs to Capitol Hill every morning and every night, and my wife used to get in the car and it was still beyond and she'd go, do we have to listen to all that damn news?

[00:34:29] Karen Gray Houston: I'm a news junkie, and I was happy to have that job. That was, I was a reporter and an anchor there. And, oh, here's what was funny to me, and you probably don't care too much about this, but when I got the job, I'd come from ABC, I had anchored on the ABC radio network their FM network out of New York on hundreds of stations around the country.

[00:34:53] But when I got this job and I was used to having other people do all the technical stuff so I come to TOP and they're like, okay, we're going to give you this job but you got to learn how to run the board. What do you mean run the board? You've got to run the board and do talk on the radio and do all this other stuff.

[00:35:09] So I was, my head was spinning around and I had bought a new car that I had to learn how to drive a stick shift. So I thought I was going to go crazy, but I loved working there and I started out as general assignment reporter during the week and anchoring on the weekends and it developed into a job where I was the, uh, local, I was the, I did local politics.

[00:35:31] Bob Gatty: Okay. Tell the people what the board is. 

[00:35:34] Karen Gray Houston: iF you go into a studio, somebody has to decide when the commercials run. You have a little log that says commercials here, the weather comes here. And you have to, get to play the carts that have the sound bites that go into your news stories.

[00:35:51] So you get a stack of, they don't do it like that anymore. Everything's computerized. This is back in the olden days. Stack of carts. With soundbites, and you've got everything scripted, okay, commercial goes here, soundbite to my, I'm talking to the council person, and they said so and and I click a button, and that soundbite plays, and then I talk some more, and then I go to the next story, I would go home and scream out loud.

[00:36:15] Till I got used to it. 

[00:36:19] Bob Gatty: You said that you worked for UPI for a time. I did too. Started out with UPI in Harrisburg covering state politics and then went to Trenton, New Jersey to be bureau chief covering state politics in Trenton. I Loved UPI. Did you enjoy your time with UPI? 

[00:36:42] Karen Gray Houston: Yes, because people were totally dependent on U.

[00:36:45] P. I. We did stories that the newspapers, radio stations and T. V. Stations used when they didn't have the personnel to cover those stories. So you had to be good at your job. Bob Gatty because I 

[00:37:01] Bob Gatty: was with Yeah, I was with them for five years. I got to cover the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968. it's a great morning for you.

[00:37:08] It is for me. With UPI and it was a highlight of my life. One of one of the highlights of my life covering that thing. It was just awesome. I 

[00:37:17] Karen Gray Houston: learned a lot. 

[00:37:18] Bob Gatty: We're going to talk about you, not me. So let's although I do want to say this. I broke the color line myself. You want to know about it? Yeah.

[00:37:29] I was the first white reporter ever hired by the Pittsburgh Courier. 

[00:37:34] Karen Gray Houston: A black newspaper? What were you doing? And what, did you apply for the job? 

[00:37:40] Bob Gatty: Hell no. I was going to Point Park College in Pittsburgh, which was a two year college and I was majoring in journalism and communications. And we took a field trip to the Pittsburgh Courier.

[00:37:56] And I got to talking to the city editor. His name was George Barber. Great big guy. Nice man. And anyway, he said to me would you be interested in a part time job with us? And I'd say, I said, yeah, absolutely. So I took this part time job. I was making 54 a week. And they had me covering court cases and crime.

[00:38:25] And, um, I remember chasing a one armed politician through a drugstore trying to get quotes from him about something that he'd done. But I was very proud. I, that job only lasted about six months because they ran out of the 54 a month they needed to pay me. 

[00:38:43] Karen Gray Houston: They don't pay much in my job. I made 8, 000 that first year I worked there.

[00:38:48] But the one story I really remember was when Wilbur Mills, Yeah, was chasing after a hooker stripper and she went up to Boston and to perform at a strip club and I was working that weekend and they said, Hey, we want you to go over to, whatever that place was like to see Wilbur. And so we, a bunch of reporters sitting in this theater office of a sleazy strip joint, and a woman comes out on the stage, and she puts a towel down.

[00:39:16] It was just really horrible. And so we saw Wilbur Mills come and sit in the audience and everybody went, Oh, God, keep an eye on that guy. And he left to go downstairs to her office, which was just like, not even a wooden door that had a star on it. And we said we're going to stand here because he can't stay there forever.

[00:39:35] And he came out and he said that this stripper, what did they call her? She was a stripper from the silver slipper. I can't remember her name, but I did a story that said she had her ways and means because he was chairman of the ways and means committee. Yes, he was. Yeah, it was interesting work.

[00:39:51] Bob Gatty: He was a powerful guy. He was 

[00:39:54] Karen Gray Houston: a powerful guy. He was an alcoholic. Yeah. He had some issues. 

[00:39:59] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Oh, that may be true. There it is. But he was a powerful guy. Remember He was in the House for a number of years because after my time with UPI, I went to Washington and worked on Capitol Hill for two different congressmen.

[00:40:16] The first one was a Republican from New Jersey. Yes, that's true. I actually worked for a Republican. What was his name? His name was Ed Forsythe. He was a He was from South Jersey. And and then after five years I got sick of working for him and I went to work for Jim Florio Democrat, who later became governor of New Jersey.

[00:40:38] aNd then I left because I didn't wanna, I didn't wanna go back to Trenton. I was in Washington and that's where I was wanted, where I wanted to be. But anyway Wilbur Mills, I think, was still on Capitol Hill at least during part of that time when I was there. He was a scary guy, I remember that.

[00:40:57] Let's see, your career, though did you Oh, I get 

[00:41:01] Karen Gray Houston: distracted. Yeah. Yes. Did you have any 

[00:41:04] Bob Gatty: problems because of your race in, in, in your job throughout your career? Let 

[00:41:12] Karen Gray Houston: me say this. I was hired even at in at UPI. It was in the early 70s, 1973. I rode in on a wave of minority hiring. Yeah, it was at a time when they've been race riots out and watts, they've been, things that happened around the country.

[00:41:33] And. There were demands by black leaders, people like Jesse Jackson saying, you guys need to hire some black people at these media organizations. And if you don't, we're going to boycott you. So there was pressure. And also the stations wanted stations and newspapers wanted people who could cover the stories that they could not get their white reporters into.

[00:42:01] Okay I got an unsolicited letter from UPI after I graduated from the journalism school at Columbia, got my master's in journalism, and I really was looking for a TV job, which I could not find because I didn't have any experience, and out of the blue, I got a letter from UPI saying now that you've graduated, what are your journalistic aspirations?

[00:42:23] We have a position in Boston. So I went to New York I took a writing test, and I got a job at working for UPI, nobody ever said we're hiring you because you're a black person but I'm sure that factored in somebody they were probably went to Columbia and said do you have any, black students.

[00:42:41] Promising black students, blah, blah, blah. I got hired at the radio station in Boston. I'd been, I'd sent resumes around the world and to that station. And they said, first, we don't have any openings. And a few months later, they wrote back and said, are you still looking for work? And I got hired.

[00:43:00] The news director there said he didn't hire me just because I was black. He hired me because he thought I was smart. And I. And I sounded great on their radio station and it was a big blockbuster radio station in town. I worked there and I got hired. After that at ABC at their radio network, one of the F, the guy who hired, who managed the FM stations was driving through New England and heard me on the radio.

[00:43:28] Okay. And so he called the station. He said, Hey, I heard you. You sound really good. Can you send me a tape? Wow. And I sent him a tape and he said, Hey, can you come down and do an audition? So I went down and did an audition and they looked at me and went, Oh, she's black.

[00:43:41] But they hired me anyway. Awesome , but and I had some jobs where, you know, okay. Many of the jobs, and it's still this, it's the same now that you'll look up and you'll notice that they're a bunch of black people but they work nights and weekends. In the undesirable slots, but we're starting to see more black people in positions that are more prominent now.

[00:44:05] And so I'm happy about 

[00:44:07] Bob Gatty: that. Yeah. Okay. What are your thoughts about racism in the U. S. today? And efforts by some on the political right to rewrite history, even to the point of claiming that somehow slavery was a positive experience for some Negroes. 

[00:44:26] Karen Gray Houston: The nation is still struggling with how to come to terms with racial injustice.

[00:44:34] We don't know what to do. And what's upsetting is the, this whole thing about banning books. As an author, I'm really concerned. I don't know that my book has been banned anywhere. The book is out there. My book's around the world now, so yay, in libraries, in places you wouldn't, you'd be surprised to hear about.

[00:44:53] But thank you. But it worries me that they are trying to take books off library shelves and out of classrooms because they say things like, we don't want our children to feel uncomfortable with discussions about slavery, when no one was ever concerned about how black people felt. Black, young black students hearing about how their ancestors were enslaved, that could not have been comfortable.

[00:45:24] But nobody cared about that. And this whole whitewashing of of the story of slavery and looking down in, in Florida, where a publisher recently decided that they were going to change the Rosa Parks story so that there was no mention of race. So that Rosa was arrested because she refused to give up her seat.

[00:45:46] And no mention of the fact that she didn't give up her seat to a white person, even though she was sitting in the colored section, because she didn't think that was fair. How can you tell that story like that? Exactly. How can you tell the story without mentioning race? We're still trying to figure out what to, and how can you talk about slavery and say that it was okay for the enslaved people because They benefited from learning skills.

[00:46:12] Yeah, one of the women I interviewed in my book, Sally Mosher, the daughter of the racist police commissioner said when she learned about slavery in school. They taught her that slavery was good because the slaves did not have to go out and get a job or learn to take care of themselves.

[00:46:33] Incredible. We're still struggling to tell the story correctly. And it's, racism is so deeply entrenched in the, fabric of the country that is, Not going to go over, go away overnight and it's also passed down through generations, though, I think some of the, I'm glad to see young people now, there are more white people participating in protests.

[00:46:58] Against, white police brutality and other issues that involve racism. So I think we have to leave it up to the young people. It's going to, it's going to help that they are seeing things through another lens. 

[00:47:11] Bob Gatty: I think you're absolutely right. I think it's a positive sign that, some things are evolving.

[00:47:18] You look on TV anymore and even in advertise and even in ads. With for some large companies, you're seeing mixed race couples depicted as being normal. Correct. 

[00:47:37] Karen Gray Houston: And that was the positive thing. I think that's positive. That was one of the reasons that people opposed integration back in the day, because they didn't want to see mixed race couples.

[00:47:50] They thought that it was going to mess up the, the pure line of 

[00:47:53] Bob Gatty: whatever.

[00:47:55] It's funny because some of the most attractive people on TV these days appear to me to be the product of these couples. 

[00:48:06] Karen Gray Houston: Here's what I'm thinking. I think we talked about what's going to happen in the election. I Think, I'm a Democrat. Biden's on the right side of the political spectrum.

[00:48:19] And with the Republicans, conservative Republicans right now, I think are looking ahead to 2045 when according to the U. S. Census, this country's going to be white people will be in the minority. And so what we're seeing with these Republicans now is this like last gasp effort to reach for power, because it's going to go away.

[00:48:46] Bob Gatty: Yeah, I think you're right about that. As we look towards this election, we have Biden and Trump, and then a bunch of Republican wannabes. Have you got any thoughts about first of all, Biden? How's how has he done from your standpoint. In terms of issues that are important to you, 

[00:49:11] Karen Gray Houston: I think Biden's doing the right things and of course, I'm a little biased because he did give my uncle the presidential medal of freedom, but I think he's more concerned.

[00:49:19] I used to cover him when before he was president when I was. Covering the hill and so forth, I think he's a good guy's hearts in the right place. He's, on the right side of the issues that most of the issues that I care about. I'm going to say he's an old guy in the office and I understand people saying he's old and do we need an old president?

[00:49:41] We had Ronald Reagan was an old president and toward the end of his presidency. Didn't he suffer from dementia? That they hid from us. I would love to see younger people in the White House and on Capitol Hill. People have offices for too, they're in office for too long. I think they need shorter terms.

[00:50:02] I think they need to go in, do a little, help the country in some way, and get out and make way for somebody with a new idea.

[00:50:10] Bob Gatty: What do you think of I don't even want to ask 

[00:50:12] Karen Gray Houston: you this question. Don't even name those Republicans. I don't have anything good to say about any of them, especially Donald Trump.

[00:50:18] Bob Gatty: Yeah. It's cracking me up the way they're trying to eat each other up in these debates. 

[00:50:24] Karen Gray Houston: Trump is not present and still has, what, 70 some percent of the polling results. Yeah, 

[00:50:31] Bob Gatty: and they're going after Nikki Haley because they think that she's got the best chance to unseat Trump, but that's not going to happen.

[00:50:41] I don't think, unless the guy goes to jail and it just throws it all wide open. 

[00:50:47] Karen Gray Houston: I'm waiting to see what happens with all of the trials. Yeah. I like, I'm, I think he's got to be convicted of something at some point along the way, and then what does that do? Yeah. Give his supporters more I don't know where that leads us.

[00:51:02] Bob Gatty: Yeah. You know what I saw it cracks me up how these Trump supporters, no matter what he does, They still will support him. I saw a bumper sticker here in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where I live. Bumper sticker that said, the only way I would not vote for Donald Trump is if I found out he was screwing Hillary Clinton.

[00:51:23] How about that? 

[00:51:25] Karen Gray Houston: Those are the people who are supporting him. And doesn't that say something? Yeah, it does. Absolutely. Speaks loudly. And and what has he done for all these people who are supporting him, those MAGA people, those are people he would not welcome down to Mar a Lago. Yeah, 

[00:51:42] Bob Gatty: I wanted to ask you this the, your father's initial bus protest was prompted by the unjustified shooting of a black man by a white police officer.

[00:51:52] Now we've had so many of these instances where black people have been shot for no reason, no legitimate reason by white police officers. We've seen this happen over and over again, and we've seen these calls for police reform. Now, what do you think needs to be done on that score?

[00:52:15] During this last campaign, there was all this stuff about defunding the police and the Republicans tried to say that the. Democrats don't want police officers anymore and all this kind of crap. What do you think? What do 

[00:52:30] Karen Gray Houston: you think? I don't think we need to defund the police. We need police protection.

[00:52:33] Black people and white people need police protection. I'm I don't have the answers to what we should do. Sometimes I, justices like event, Derek Gerald George Floyd. hIs, the police officer Derek Chauvin was finally convicted and and now we see he's in prison being stabbed by people who want to take their own form of justice.

[00:52:59] So sometimes there's justice and sometimes there isn't, we, I think we thought at some point that the fact that everybody had a smartphone with a camera would be helpful and that it would be helpful for police to wear body cameras. Which is also a good thing. Don't, I'm not an expert on law enforcement and what should be done.

[00:53:20] I just, and it's not happening like I want to see it like everybody get a fair shake after somebody shot a white policeman shot a black person who was unarmed. Sometimes with the body cameras, the police turn them off. 

[00:53:36] Bob Gatty: Yep, they do. 

[00:53:38] Karen Gray Houston: I don't know. I'm that's not my area of expertise.

[00:53:41] I'm just watching it. And so are the Guardian was keeping a list. Guardian News, a British newspaper was keeping a list of the number of times white police officers were killing black people in America. And I think the Washington Post kept a list for a while. I don't know if they still are on and keeping the list hasn't really helped.

[00:54:02] It just focuses our eyes on what's going on around us. 

[00:54:07] Bob Gatty: Yeah. Okay, so these are all things that are happening in the times we're living in, and let's hope that as we move forward things improve. Now, where can people what's next for you? Before I, I get to that last question. 

[00:54:23] Karen Gray Houston: Okay, here's, you know what people always ask authors, when's your next book coming out?

[00:54:28] Yeah. I have some ideas in my head, which I'm working on, but so I don't want to say if you ask my husband about my next book, he will say that he doesn't have another book in him because when you write a book, other people are involved. And if you read my book, you will actually see him walking through a few of the pages.

[00:54:51] He was when I interviewed the Martin Luther King's attorney, Attorney Barber. There's that I'm not quite sure what's next. I'll show you something. I'm doing some things I can't talk about. Not sitting around twiddling my thumbs.

[00:55:06] Bob Gatty: I'm sure you're not. I have to say that you impress me as being someone that is not gonna take any crap from anybody.

[00:55:15] And you must have got that from your dad, right? 

[00:55:19] Karen Gray Houston: I'm sure because dad and I used to butt heads when I was a teenager, we didn't always agree on things, but he did have an influence. He wanted me to be a lawyer like him. So did my uncle Fred and I think their thought was, Oh, we'll have a family practicing you'll be in it, and Dad'll be it.

[00:55:38] I'll be in it. My uncle has a practice. My uncle is 90 he'll be 93 next week. And he has a law practice that he still goes to work five days a week. And he's got two sons who are lawyers, they're partners in the practice, and one of his daughter in laws is in the law practice. I just decided that law was not my calling, and I enjoyed journalism better, but yeah.

[00:56:03] Bob Gatty: Yeah. As journalists, we get to pretend we're lawyers in some ways. We got to read laws. We got to read bills. We got to talk to politicians. We got to understand what is going on with all of these things. And some of them are pretty complicated. So I don't know. I always thought as a journalist that it would have been cool to have been a lawyer, but I'm glad that I, Was a journalist instead.

[00:56:28] How can people reach out to you and find your book? I'm sure it's everywhere. 

[00:56:34] Karen Gray Houston: Go on my website, www. KarenGrayHouston. com And there's a book trailer on that website, so you can see that. You can send me information and your email address so we can be in touch. And it has my whole story and talks about the book on there.

[00:56:54] What else do I need to know tell them? That's how you get in touch with me and that. Oh, book is everywhere. You can buy the book wherever you buy your books. If they don't have it, they can order it. You can get it from Amazon. And that's it. It's one more thing you could do. Some people like Kindle.

[00:57:16] You can get it in hard cover. I actually narrate the audio book. So if you want to hear me tell the story, you can get the audio book from 

[00:57:24] Bob Gatty: this very cool. 

[00:57:25] Karen Gray Houston: Yeah. And if you're technologically challenged, you can get the audio CD. Okay, there you go. You don't want to download from 

[00:57:34] Bob Gatty: Audible. Alright, she's got you guys covered.

[00:57:37] If you want to get her book, you can get a hard copy, you can get it on Kindle, you can get a CD. You can hear her dulcet tones as she narrates it. And so that's very cool. 

[00:57:50] Karen Gray Houston: Daughter of the Boycott. I don't remember how many times we said it during the show. We didn't say it that often. Oh, there it is right there.

[00:57:57] Daughter of the Boycott. 

[00:57:58] Bob Gatty: Daughter of the Boycott. And you guys, if you haven't obviously you haven't read it yet, you should because it, it is extremely informative and it's an easy read. It's an interesting read. She's got great stories in there and I highly recommend it. Karen, thanks very much for being with us on our Lean to the Left podcast.

[00:58:21] I appreciate it. No end. 

[00:58:22] Karen Gray Houston: Thank you. I enjoyed it.