Juanita Nelson: 1939-1943—Civil rights actions as a teenager and young adult

I was sixteen years old and I went with my mother to visit her parents in Georgia, and that’s where I guess I did my very first action because our train was late for changing in Cincinnati and we were rushed into a car. By the time we got settled, I recalled, I looked around and saw that we were in a Jim Crow car. Now I’d heard of these things, and I knew about that sort of thing.

Q: Would you explain what a Jim Crow car is, for people who don’t know?

This was a time when all people who had darker-colored skin, or part dark African ancestry, were seated in a particular place and could not go anywhere else—in streetcars and so forth. In the South particularly they had fountains that said, “whites,” “colored,” all that sort of thing. It was a very much division in talking about races, which I don’t like. I think there’s one race anyway, as far as I’m concerned. So I asked my Mother if we can change cars and she said, “Oh Nita I’m just tired.” And I think that was true. And I sat and fumed, and finally I got up and sat in every car in that train because I was so upset, and my recollection-this was a long time ago, of course-is that nobody bothered me except the porter, and he was afraid that something would happen to me because he had the same color skin that I had. Then I went back and sat by my Mother and I felt better because I had expressed myself.

I guess I remember very well, when I was, I think it was in junior high school, somebody called me “nigger.” And I went home, crying, or anyway, very disconsolate. My mother said, “Why are you worrying about…you know who you are.” So…[laugh] I’ve always appreciated that.

And so I did go to Howard University, and that was where I was arrested for the first time. I went with two of my friends who were undergrad coeds, downtown in Washington, DC, which was about as segregated as anyplace in the United States at that time. I went to Howard in 1941. This was in ’43 though, at the beginning of the year, I think. And we went to a drugstore that had a lunch counter…asked for some hot chocolate. We were told, “We don’t serve Negroes.” We said, “Well, we’d like to see the manager.” “The manager isn’t in.” And we said, “Well, we have plenty of time, we’ll just sit here.” And finally they brought the hot chocolate, but they gave us tickets – bills for 25 cents, when it clearly stated on the board that hot chocolate was ten cents a cup, so that’s what we put down. And I always like to say that’s probably all we had anyway. But, then we walked out and were met by – my recollection is – seven of DC’s finest – that is, the police. And they put us in the paddy wagon and took us to jail. At that time, I guess we were sort of hyped up. We thought this was a great lark: real life! We’ll get to eat with the real convicts, and so forth and so on. But the Dean of Women came and got us out before suppertime. And I always say that that saved me from ever eating in jail. I’ve been in jail a few times since then, and I’ve never eaten when I was in jail, but I would have eaten that time, [chuckle] and I’m sure the food wouldn’t have been very good anyway.

Then I had been involved in CORE [Congress of Racial Equality]. I was also involved when I was at Howard; I’d forgotten about that. After we had this incident that I was talking about, of trying to get the hot chocolate, a woman who became a very dear friend, Polly Murray, was there. She was about ten years older than us coeds. She was in law school, and she knew about CORE that had started. And we formed the Howard’s I think it was called “Civil Rights Committee” and actually opened up a restaurant on the edge of campus, in one week, less than a week. I never had such a quick victory, [chuckle] never since that time. It was just a sort of a greasy spoon restaurant, but it was a heady victory for us. We had a picket line; we had a sit-in; lots of people agreed with us, and he capitulated.

Q: So, when you say you “opened up a restaurant…”

I mean we desegregated it, it was open to – I always forget that; people don’t know exactly what I mean. And so that was very good. So that happened before I left. I sometimes regretted having left Howard because they did some bus testing. Because you know, DC is surrounded – Virginia, Maryland and so forth, and they were all, of course, very segregated too.

Q: Will you explain the concept of “testing”?

You try to do something; like for instance, if blacks were supposed to sit from the back, you would just go and get your ticket and sit in the front and see what happened. Most often, you’d just be arrested or that sort of thing.