Interview Sessions
The two interviews with Jenkins, each about four hours long, took place in the Jenkins home in Racine on January 3 and 29, 1974, the first in the kitchen dining area and the second in a rec room downstairs. His wife, Mrs. Elouise Jenkins, a member of Racine's oldest Black family, the Brays, who settled in the city in 1857, often was present during the first interview and sometimes entered into the conversation. Other family members passed in and out of the kitchen in the course of the first interview and conversation among them, as well as sounds from a television in a nearby room, occasionally may be heard in the background.
Jenkins, balding, of medium height and large build, was dressed casually for both interviews and due to a recent hip operation had to use crutches to get around. He gestured frequently as he talked, sometimes emphasizing a point by pounding the table with his fist, always augmenting his verbal presentation with communicative facial expressions, and often warming to the memory of the friend or incident under discussion. He spoke with the disarming enthusiasm of a man capable of both oratory and dispassionate description but most fond of the more intimate art of story telling. While he savored through repetition the punch lines of his anecdotes, he was careful to indicate, out of his respect for the truth, how much credence he gave to each story.
Because of his long residence and varied activities in Racine, because of his candor and good memory, and because he had taken time in the weeks before the interviews, while temporarily incapacitated by his operation, to write down his recollections on diverse topics, Jenkins was well prepared for the interviews. Jenkin's written notes include information on Racine's economy, politics, and social life and on the members and activities of the city's Black community. During the first interview Jenkins often referred to these notes, occasionally reading from them verbatim. Appropriate references appear in the transcript and abstract at points where Jenkins read from or referred to his notes. A list of these notes and other documents which supplement the interview is at the end of this narrative.
The January 3 interview dealt mainly with events prior to 1940. Among the topics Jenkins discussed were the history and extent of discrimination against Blacks in Racine and other Wisconsin cities, the make-up of Racine's Black population, the Prohibition era, Depression hardships, gambling, prostitution, Black social life and social clubs, Black leadership in Racine, crime in the Black community, the Ku Klux Klan, Black occupational experiences, and wealth and status among Racine Blacks. He talked about his family and childhood experiences and about his early involvement in union activities and the labor movement in Racine.
During the January 29 interview Jenkins touched on many of the same topics, but concentrated on Racine's racial relations and labor issues in the years after World War II. He discussed Lake Ivanhoe (a Black resort and residential community in Walworth County), Black political activities and allegiances, communism and radicalism in Racine unions during the 1930s and after, union politics and disputes including the AF of L-CIO merger, discrimination against Blacks in Janesville and other Wisconsin cities, foundry work, union time-study and grievance procedures, Black militancy, and the reactions of Racine Blacks to various public figures and events. In the course of the two interviews Jenkins made comments on numerous friends and acquaintances, including brief remarks on Gaylord Nelson, William Proxmire, and Russell Oswald, a Racine native who was Superintendent of Prisons of New York State during the Attica prison uprising in 1971.
A complete transcript as well as an abstract and index of the seven and one-half hours of tape recorded during the two days of interviewing is included in this collection. The tapes from each interview are begin with number 1 so it is necessary to indicate the interview session number as well as the tape number when requesting copies.
Transcript
The transcript attempts to give, with an exception discussed later, a precise written record of the oral conversation. Words repeated several times in conversation appear the appropriate number of times in the transcript (“the--the--the man”) and words never completed due to a shift or interruption in conversation are recorded as stated (e.g., “unus--” instead of “unusual” on p. 300 of the transcript). The written record reflects variations in the way words or phrases were spoken in different parts of the interviews. Thus the appearance in the transcript of both AFL and AF of L in reference to the American Federation of Labor, and of both 'em and them. In the transcript a bracketed question mark[?] follows words and phrases which are unclear on the tape. Where the bracketed term [undecipherable] appears in the transcript it indicates a word or phrase which the transcriber and editors could make no sense of. At no point are these undecipherable sections on the tape more than a few words in length. The exception to the rule of making the transcript inclusive is that the interviewer has edited out the phrase “you know” in all instances except those where its retention seemed important to the meaning or cadence of a sentence. The general intent, however, has been to include in the transcript all comments by Jenkins and Roeder, as well as all comments by Mrs. Jenkins directed to either of these two.
Abstract
The abstract available on paper and also as part of this finding aid, lists the distinct topics covered on each tape in order of discussion, and indicates the time marking on the user tape at which point the beginning of the particular discussion appears. The time-markings indicate the point on the second track of each tape where discussion of the distinct topic listed in capital letters begins. These time-markings are keyed to a time announcement, heard at five-second intervals, on the second track of each tape.
Thus, the researcher may listen to distinct topics without listening to all seven and one-half hours of tape. For instance, the user who wishes to listen to the topic on “Residential Patterns of Racine Blacks” should locate the place on the second track of side one, tape one, where the voice announces the 11:05 time marking (the voice says at this point, “eleven minutes, five seconds”), and at this point switch to the first track to hear the discussion. The discussion on “Residential Patterns of Racine Blacks” continues until approximately 13:10, at which point discussion of the next topic (“Anecdote About Racine Woman Who Owned Property in Gary”) listed in the abstract begins.
Notice that in most cases sentences beneath each headline explain more about the contents of the topic. For example, the two sentences underneath “RESIDENTIAL PATTERNS OF RACINE BLACKS” give further details on what appears on the tape between 11:05 and 13:10.
There are many cases where Jenkins discussed a distinct topic at more than one point in the interview and such topics appear at different places in the abstract, usually without cross reference. For instance, Jenkins makes further comments on Black residential patterns in Racine at 18:50 of the second side, third tape, January 29 interview.
The abstract is designed to provide only a brief outline of the content of the tapes and cannot serve as a substitute for listening to them. However the abstract when used with the Index will help the researcher easily locate distinct topics and discussions among the 450 minutes of commentary.
Index
The index, also part of this finding aid, which is keyed to the same time announcement track (second track) as the abstract, gives a single alphabetical listing of all proper nouns (names of persons, places, organizations, and distinct historical phenomena, such as the Depression and Prohibition) which appear on the tapes. Each entry is followed by one or more four-part citations specifying the location(s) where the entry appears. For instance Attica Prison is followed by the citation 1:2:1: 16:05. This indicates that a reference to Attica Prison appears in the January 3 interview (Interview I), Tape 2, Side 1, at the point on track one corresponding to sixteen minutes, five seconds on the time announcement. Separate citations appear for each reference to a proper noun if these references occur at intervals of twenty seconds or more, unless the proper noun is used frequently in a particular segment of the tape. These cases are indicated by citing the first and last times when the proper noun appears in the segment, and connected by two dashes. See the first and last index entries under Black Muslims for examples of this.
The index includes cross references, but no subheadings. Because Racine is mentioned with great frequency throughout the interview, there is no index entry for it.
Supporting Documents
As mentioned earlier, the written notes Jenkins prepared for the first interview are in this collection in Folder 4. These notes have the following titles:
- “Racine Black Population, c.1900”
- “Racine Black Population, c.1930”
- “Early Notables” (outstanding Black athletes in Racine, c.1930)
- “Early Political Leaders”
- “What's for Entertainment” (gambling, prostitution, social life)
Other miscellaneous notes prepared by Jenkins and on file at the Wisconsin Historical Society give further information on Racine's economy, politics and Black social organizations, on violence in the Black community (crimes, murders, and suicides up to 1940), and on humorous incidents from Jenkins's youth. Filed with these materials are correspondence and miscellany, 1957-1974, and also extensive notes on racial tensions in Racine in October of 1945 following the murder of a White soldier from Racine, Charles DeLuca, by two Blacks.
