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Container
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Title
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Tape/Side/Part
13/1/1
Time
0:00
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Introduction
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Tape/Side/Part
13/1/1
Time
0:21
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Coming to Beloit during the 1921 recession--Beloit relief
system
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Tape/Side/Part
13/1/1
Time
2:01
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Father's job at Fairbanks-Morse--nature of the work, “plum
job”--children could observe work then
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Tape/Side/Part
13/1/1
Time
7:02
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Recollections of the YMCA and John D. Stephenson--Stephenson's role in
Beloit, highly respected--Stephenson first came to Fairbanks-Morse as a fund raiser
for Tuskegee College
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Tape/Side/Part
13/1/1
Time
15:51
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Interracial relations in Beloit--blacks as a distinct
community--segregation in restaurants--no problem with inter-urban, except for dirty
F-M workers--F-M baseball team segregated
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Tape/Side/Part
13/1/1
Time
24:45
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Early years as good years--recollection of black Scout Troop Six--camp on
the Rock River, jamborees--attending University of Wisconsin football games--Madison
as a “wide open” town
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Tape/Side/Part
13/1/2
Time
0:00
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Few blacks accepted in Janesville--good impression of Milwaukee, wide open
town
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Tape/Side/Part
13/1/2
Time
4:01
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Leaders of Beloit's black community--W.S. Williams, elected as justice of
the peace--Reverend W.E.W. Brown--Dr. Marshall, the Imperial Mixed Quartet--politics
at the Williams barber shop--NAACP, Professors Porter and Crawford as key white
members--NAACP focused on national issues, little success on local issues--F-M and
Beloit Corporation as only employers of black workers, only foundry work available
until 1960s
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Tape/Side/Part
13/1/2
Time
16:35
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Problem of educated, young blacks leaving Beloit--failure of NAACP to deal
with that problem--F-M control in Beloit--blacks always asked to wait--hearing
Martin Luther King Jr.
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Tape/Side/Part
13/1/2
Time
22:01
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Meaning of “progressive” as applied to local black
leaders-visit by Chicago Defender editor, Robert S.
Abbott--vital role of the Defender and the black
press
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Tape/Side/Part
13/1/2
Time
24:22
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People respected by Mr. Gordon on the national scene--Walter White and
W.E.B. Dubois spoke at Beloit College--heard Marian Anderson in Milwaukee--defense
of Booker T. Washington
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Tape/Side/Part
13/1/2
Time
28:48
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Absence of factionalism among Beloit black people--cooperation among black
churches in Beloit
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Tape/Side/Part
13/1/3&13/2/1
Time
0:00
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Further comments concerning cooperation among black churches
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Tape/Side/Part
13/1/3&13/2/1
Time
4:31
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Introduction to side 2 of tape 13
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Tape/Side/Part
13/1/3&13/2/1
Time
4:42
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Recollection of effort to integrate Kresge's--Lloyd Barbee and segregation
at hotel restaurant, police took Ear-bee's side--Lloyd Barbee as a
“radical,” cousin of Mr. Gordon--Beloit police ignored rights of black
citizens--fear of law in Beloit, as in the South
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Tape/Side/Part
13/1/3&13/2/1
Time
13:53
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Recollection of Mr. Guy, the tailor, and his wife--the
Halliards
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Tape/Side/Part
13/1/3&13/2/1
Time
15:39
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The Cosmopolitan Club--segregation in the YWCA--Cosmopolitan Club as a
response to YMCA segregation
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Tape/Side/Part
13/1/3&13/2/1
Time
18:05
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Taking discrimination in stride
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Tape/Side/Part
13/1/3&13/2/1
Time
19:00
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Ben Gordon and religion--joining the Baptist Church at fourteen--influence
of J.D. Stephenson--church cultural programs under Celestine Smith--belonging to
the church and being somebody
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Tape/Side/Part
13/1/3&13/2/1
Time
26:41
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Work at Walsh Brothers produce farm as a youth--summer work at one dollar
per day--contract with brother
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Tape/Side/Part
13/2/2
Time
0:00
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Further comments on work at Walsh Brothers
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Tape/Side/Part
13/2/2
Time
1:03
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Recollettions of high school--encourages to finish early as was older
brother, suspicion that school was trying to deny honors to black students, both
brothers were highly ranked--another ploy with Velma Bell in 1924
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Tape/Side/Part
13/2/2
Time
7:10
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Involvement in high school ROTC, no black officers--Ben Gordon not
permitted to see shooting scores--Colonel Kennedy as head of ROTC--absence of
bitterness in face of discrimination--scholarship offer to Fisk University--went to
vocational school instead, no jobs available
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Tape/Side/Part
13/2/2
Time
14:19
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Ben Gordon stayed in Beloit to be near family, mother had died in
1929--aspirations--Frank Yerby at Fisk University at that time--many talented black
people left Beloit
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Tape/Side/Part
13/2/2
Time
20:35
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Ben Gordon's reading habits--Scottsboro
Boy--lynching in Janesville--B.G. as a newsboy for the Defender--race horse handlers in Beloit--Joe
Drummond--Alva Curtis
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Tape/Side/Part
13/2/2
Time
28:06
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Recreation for youngsters--softball team
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Tape/Side/Part
13/2/3
Time
0:00
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Segregated swimming pools in Beloit, small one for blacks--pool integrated
by a group of black youths led by Gordy Harris, the son of Neal Harris--the power
structure in Beloit, college distinct from the power structure--Johnny Watt as a
star athlete--high school athletic program always open
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