PODCAST 491: We Came Through
[MUSIC “Filing Away” by The Blue Dot Sessions]
Michael Garofalo (MG): It’s the StoryCorps podcast from NPR. I’m Michael Garofalo.
Many of us are settling back into our weekly routines after the long Martin Luther King Day weekend. And like so many of our holidays when we get to sit back, sleep in, enjoy a little extra time at home with our families, it’s easy to forget what it is exactly that we’re marking.
So we’re spending this episode looking back on events from the Civil Rights Era. These are stories of courage, sacrifice, and incredible resilience.
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We’ll start in Mississippi, in 1966, with the story of a man who fought for the right to vote and was murdered for it.
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Vernon Dahmer was a successful black farmer and businessman in Hattiesburg Mississippi. He was well-known, respected, a leader in his local chapter of the NAACP. And Vernon Dahmer was unsettled by what he saw happening to his friends and neighbors who wanted to vote.
[MUSIC “Watermarks” by The Blue Dot Sessions]
There had of course been a long, long history in Mississippi, and elsewhere, of voter intimidation and other practices meant to prevent African Americans from voting, including something called a poll tax. Now, the way this worked: if you wanted to register to vote, you first had to pay a certain amount of money. In Mississippi at the time, it was two dollars.
Remember, this is 1966. The 24th amendment, which banned poll taxes in federal elections, was passed in ‘64. And the Voting Rights Act, which protected voters on the local and state levels, was passed in ‘65. But, in Mississippi, the poll tax was still in place.
Vernon Dahmer could pay the tax, no problem. He had a store, a farm, a saw mill. But many in his community didn’t have his means.
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So, on December 9, 1966, a notice went out on a local black radio station saying that Dahmer would pay the poll tax for anyone who couldn’t afford it. That same night, his house was firebombed by the KKK while his wife and three of his children were inside.
His widow, Ellie Dahmer, and their daughter Bettie, who was 10 at the time, came to StoryCorps to tell that story.
Ellie Dahmer (ED): We didn’t think anybody would bother the children, but we were wrong. They intended to get all of us January the 10th, 1966. That night, when I waked up, the house was on fire, and it was so bright and so hot. You was screaming to the top of your voice, “Lord have mercy. We’re going to get burned up in this house alive.” I raised the windows up, and then your father was handing you out the window to me.
Bettie Dahmer (BD): We escaped to the barn to hide, and I can remember us sitting on the bales of hay. I had burns over a good portion of my body, and I was screaming and crying because I was in pain. Daddy was burned so much worse than I was—when he held up his arm the skin just hung down like a sheet of paper. But Daddy never did complain, he was just concerned about me.
ED: We thought we were losing you… I thought that was it.
BD: I remember us going to the hospital.
ED: You was in the room with your father. I was sitting between the two beds. And he yelled my name real loud, and then he was gone. He knew that he might get killed, and he was willing to take the risk, but it was not worth it to me. I miss him so much.
BD: But I do understand why he did what he did. Daddy wasn’t a man that wore a suit, he wore overalls. In Daddy’s world everybody had a job to do. Black people couldn’t vote, so it meant a lot to him.
ED: Some of the last words he said was, ”If you don’t vote, you don’t count.” That’s on his tombstone. We made a tremendous sacrifice Bettie. I try to go on and live my life without thinking about it, but it’s a night I can never forget. It’s been over 50 years, and seems like it were yesterday.
[MUSIC “Horizon Variations” by Max Richter]
MG: That’s Ellie Dahmer remembering her husband, Vernon Dahmer, with their daughter, Bettie. It wasn’t until 30 years after this event that the KKK leader who ordered Vernon’s killing was finally convicted of his murder. And Vernon’s wife, Ellie? She went on to serve as a long-time election commissioner in Hattiesburg.
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Our second story comes from Memphis, Tennessee. In 1968, the city’s sanitation workers, most of them African-American, went on strike to protest terrible working conditions and low, low wages. You might have seen photos of this strike: lines of marchers carrying signs that say in large capital letters, I AM A MAN.
Thirteen hundred men walked off the job that year, including Taylor Rogers and Elmore Nickelberry. Both of them came to StoryCorps in Memphis. Taylor Rogers begins their story.
Taylor Rogers (TR): Our day was awful every day. We had these tubs and we had to put this garbage in. You put that tub on your head or your shoulder, whichever was comfortable for you to bring it out. Most of those tubs had holes in them. That garbage would leak all over you. By the time you got home in the evening, you had to pull out those old dirty clothes while maggots had fell all on you.
Elmore Nickelberry (EN): I had maggots run down my shirts, and then maggots would go down in my shoes. And we worked in the rain – snow, ice and rain. We had to. If we didn’t, we’d lose our job. They said, a garbage man wasn’t nothing.
TR: It was awful. And one of the main things that really set us off real good was that two other workers got crushed in the compactor. They got in that compactor to get out of the rain, one rainy day and they got up in that compactor and they tripped some kind of lever that crushed them to death.
EN: It was rough. We seen some terrible things here. Sometimes you cry. Sometimes you get mad and get up in the morning and say, I ain’t going to work. And then see my kids, and I look at them, and then I say that I had to go to work because that’s the only way I could feed my family.
TR: All we wanted was some decency and some dignity. We wanted to be treated as men, so we said that this is it. Thirteen hundred sanitation workers, we all decided that we wasn’t going to take no more. You know, if you bend your back, people will ride your back. But if you stand up straight, people can’t ride your back. So that’s what we did. We just stood up straight and said, I am a man.
[MUSIC ”Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round” by The SNCC Freedom Singers]
MG: Taylor Rogers and Elmore Nickelberry. Taylor Rogers retired from the sanitation department, but Elmore Nickelberry remained a sanitation worker in Memphis for more than 60 years.
In the spring of 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. came to Memphis to lend his support to the striking workers. And on April 3 of that year he delivered what would prove to be his final speech at the Masonic Temple in Memphis. Taylor Rogers and his wife, Bessie, were there.
Taylor Rogers (TR): I mean it was wall to wall with people.
Bessie Rogers (BR): And it was stormin’ and rainin’. He preached and he said that uh…
TR: ”I’ve been to the mountaintop.”
BR: Oh, yeah.
Martin Luther King, Jr: Because I’ve been to the mountaintop…
TR: ‘And I’ve looked over and I’ve seen the Promised Land.’
MLK: And I’ve looked over and I’ve seen the Promised Land…
TR: ”I might not get there with you.”
MLK: I may not get there with you…
TR: ”But we will get there.”
MLK: But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land…
BR: And he was crying. Tears was rollin’ down his cheeks.
TR: Preachers were cryin’, people were cryin’, and everybody was cryin’ and…
BR: He really talked that night. I mean he really, really talked.
TR: You could tell by the expression on his face and the feeling and the sound of his voice that he knew something was going to happen. He said, ’cause, uh, ”I’m not fearing any man.”
MLK: I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord…
BR: Next day he was killed.
TR: You know, it’s kinda like you lost a part of your family. You just really can’t describe it. He stopped everything, put everything aside to come to Memphis to see about the people on the bottom of the ladder, the sanitation workers. It was just some terrible days back then. But we survived and with God’s help, we came through. And it means something to know that you was a part of this.
[MUSIC ”Take My Hand, Precious Lord” by Mahalia Jackson]
MG: That’s all for this episode.
Hear more memories of the strike and of the aftermath of Dr. King’s assassination on our website StoryCorps dot Org.
These stories were produced by Jud Esty Kendall, Liyna Anwar, Selly Thiam, and me. The podcast is produced by me and Elisheba Eitoop. Don’t forget to rate or review us on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. And as always you can give us a call at 301-744-Talk and leave a message for somebody you hear on the show. The number again is 301-744-T A L K.
For the StoryCorps podcast I’m Michael Garofalo. Until next time, thanks for listening.
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