 The San Francisco Public Library African American Center presents a conversation with Thomas Fleming, writer and co-founder of The Sun Reporter, San Francisco's African American weekly newspaper. Good afternoon. My name is Daphne Holmes and I'm in the exhibitions and programming department here at the San Francisco Public Library and I welcome you all here and glad you could all join us this afternoon. We're here this afternoon as part of what seems to be becoming a wonderful series of appearances by this remarkable man, Thomas Fleming, who has so much history and knowledge about San Francisco and the Bay Area from everything from just how the city has changed to the civil issues that have come up for African Americans and others in this city. He is just a wealth of knowledge so we are very pleased here at the library that we have finally had an opportunity to get him here and have all of you here what he has to say. In order to do this kind of programming, we have support from the Friends of the Library and the Library Foundation and so without their support we would not be able to do this type of and this level of programming. A couple of announcements in addition is that at the end of the program, Max Millard has a book, Reflections by Mr. Fleming and a tape that will be available for sale if you're interested. We also have a sign-in book over there that we encourage you to sign so we can keep you apprised of things that are going on here and then we have a number of flyers, one of which tells you how to connect with the San Francisco Public Library's African American Center which is also greatly responsible for this particular program here today. Paul Robeson exhibit which has been extended through September 30th which is up in the African American Center on the third floor. Shaping San Francisco which is another take on the history of San Francisco is kind of an adjunct if you will to what Mr. Fleming is going to tell us and then we have a listing of African American children's books that are over there all for your enjoyment to take with you today. So I'm going to turn it over to Noah Griffin, writer for The Independent, someone that has helped us a lot with our unsung heroes programs and a number of others and he graciously agreed to be the moderator for this afternoon and we really appreciate him making the time to come here and be with us and so Noah, I turn it to you. How happy is he born or taught that sir with not another's will whose armor is his honest thought and simple truth his utmost skill whose passions not his masters are whose soul is still prepared for death and tied into a world by care of public fame or private breadth who envies none the chance death raise nor vice hath ever understood how deep his wounds are given of praise but rules of state or rules of good who god death laid an early prey more of his grace than gifts to lend who entertains the harmless day with a religious book of friend this man is free from servile bonds of hopes to rise or fears to fall lord of himself though not of lands having nothing yet half all the character of a happy life by Sir Henry Wooten really characterizes Tom Fleming the Tom Fleming that I know and have known for several decades fiercely independent a very passionate man uncompromising in his beliefs and his judgments a very loyal person a very perceptive man yet a very warm man and also someone who I think Emerson sums up as truly an individual Emerson says there's time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance that imitation is suicide that he must for better or worse take himself as his own portion though the whole universe be full of good no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given him to till trust thyself every man vibrates to that string and that is indeed what Thomas Fleming has done for over 90 years and will close this introduction on a brief poem by County Cullen I doubt not God is good well-meaning kind and did he stoop to quibble could tell why the little buried mole continues blind why flesh that mirrors him must someday die make plain the reason torture tantalists is baited by the fickle fruit declare of merely brute caprice doomed sisyphus to struggle up and then ever ending stare inscrutable are his ways and to man yet to our marvel at this curious thing to make a poet black and bid him sing Tom Fleming has been singing for over 90 years and we're very delighted to have him here and I want to thank the main library I want to thank the library foundation in Daphne for allowing us to interview this wonderful human being Tom welcome to the program I think we sell you short if you just say that you've been someone who has observed the San Francisco scene your scene goes back to many many years prior to that and won't you tell the audience a little something about yourself when you were born and where you were born I was born in Jacksonville Florida November the 29th 1907 and the earliest I can recall of my days in Jacksonville I was living with my father's mother Phoebe she was quite a quite a character my mother left left for there was a divorce in 1912 and my mother came to California I tried to explain to you how she happened to come to California then her ex-stuck mother had left Montgomery, Alabama where my mother was born as a maid for a wealthy white white Alabama family for who first took her up to New York City then they came west to San Francisco and sailed from San Francisco to Honolulu and when grandma came back where my mother had a brother living here then he'd been in American Army during the Spanish-American War and when he came back to mobilize it's probably around about 1900 he decided he didn't want to go back down to Montgomery, Alabama so he stayed in San Francisco when grandma came here she knew that he was here so he got in touch with him to prevail upon her to stay and not go back down south because going down south then it was worse than going to prison so my mother and father divorced in 1912 and my mother came to came to California as grandma was communicated with her all the time and persuaded her to come out here I was in the meantime grandma got married again because an old elderly gentleman up in Chico, California who had a lot of property up there and he came down here looking for a young wife so grandma was available so so my mother came to get me I remember the day she came to get my meet my grandmother's house and since I was the first born and a boy grandma didn't intend to let me go so she hid me and that was the day that my mother was gonna leave on a train with my sister who was just two years old and I think I was five it was in 1912 so you took the train from San Francisco from Jacksonville to San Francisco let me finish this part grandma died about about about the time I was six years old and my father went up to New York City well my father was I guess he got around quite a bit because when he married my mother he was a poor man Porter and and he'd work at sea on ships too so he wanted me to bring me wanted me to come up to Harlem where he was living then he knew all the at that time traveling in America you they had to go by by ship or train there weren't any buses in the airplanes at all and that was a coast wise a passenger ship company on the on that operated between Florida and New York City my dad knew the crews all the crews in the stewards department then because all the people working in the stewards department were black waiters cooks and waiters and cooks I mean waiters cooks and porters the chief steward was always white so he arranged with one of my with the crew on one of those ships for me to bring me up to New York because after my grandmother dad my mother's oldest brother was still in Jacksonville and I was staying with him so my dad wrote and told my uncle what day to have me down at the Clyde line docks for this particular ship well the date arrived my uncle brought me down there with my little bag and one of the porters off the ship came down and got me took me to hit me in the cruise quarters and said don't come out till the ship clears the harbor well I did as I was told and the cursor must realize I was a stowaway at the age of seven years of age going up to New York City by myself so when I got to New York to my dad met me at the pair down on West Street that you know along the Hudson River there and that's first time where I saw those Fifth Avenue buses then you know they had to double back of buses in New York City then and there was a subway and then there was the elevated railway I saw a lot of things I never dreamed about when I got up there so he took me up then up in Harlem and we lived on a hundred and thirty third Street then between Lummich Avenue 7th Avenue Harlem wasn't quite entirely all black then in 19 in 1916 because there were still you still hadn't got all black teachers in the schools up there most of the teachers were still right you'd find a black teacher occasionally then back then so I enrolled at the school then guess who was going to school there's a couple of years my three years old of me fat swallow was going to school there he was playing the piano every Saturday and Sunday at the old Lincoln Street on a hundred and thirty fifth Street and between classes all of us kids followed him around all through the campus all day well I stayed there in New York all through World War one and I saw a lot of things then because my father got a job as a cook on a ship to carrot ammunition between New Haven and New York City I think that we're getting all those you know both Remington and Winchester at you know had that their factories up there in New Haven then and that's the coast last even that's all that hall was freight so we'd leave New York every old evening we left then and go on running through Long Island Sound and I remember one night we were going there and there's a patrol boat out there in the harbor the Navy had I suppose they fired a rocket across the bar who I shipped it told us all the lower the the lights so we docked at New Haven or sometime during the night because when I woke up at the next morning we were tied up at the dock at New Haven and while I was on there that that summer of 1917 I saw my father identified all types of warships I learned what a battleship did between a battleship and a destroy it battleships the biggest then the next largest of the crews and then the destroy then there were submarines and then all the smaller auxiliary vessels well I could tell identify the class of those ships then at that age I used to watch the the kids swimming up there in the in the Connecticut River up there in New Haven and I yearn to do that but they were I didn't see any black kids there so I never did go on there but whenever we did want to swim in New York up in Harlem on once on the west side is the Hudson River on the other side is the East River we're coming through Harlem they call it the Harlem River we want to go down and swim the black kids we the the Irish kids living the Irish live on one side of us on the west side going up toward Morningside Heights on the other side going down to the East River there's all the Titans on there then a few Jews so when we wanted to go down there we making a alliance with the Irish and they'd come down there with us we all armed with swords and carved out of wood or baseball bats or whatever we could get our hands on and we'd have to find our way through to the river because the Italian kids would come out then their mothers were shouting at us in the town we didn't know what they were talking about we'd get down and we have to pull some guards out there near near that part of the river where we swam in so at that there was a the Germans were bombing London pretty heavily at that time you know from the Zeppelins and rumors were spreading across the Atlantic they were going to bomb New York City too one night so my dad was quite a practical joker he came in the building running and building one night five-story building on the hundred and thirty-three yellow Germans over the city everybody stopped pouring out well what they found out if I were bad at practice joking they wouldn't jump in but he got out of the way another thing I saw then I saw a contingent from the French Army the British Army because he used to have all those big Liberty vondrives you know marching on Fifth Avenue and then the Marcus Garvey organization was very big in New York City they're not back to Africa movement and they used to march down 7th Avenue 7th Avenue was a boulevard for us up there in New York City because also in 7th Avenue was old Lincoln Theater and out in front of the Lincoln Theater had a tree had been growing after we had to call a hope tree all the entertainers would come in and kiss that tree or something hoping that luck would change they would get you know get a date so the Garvey I choose to march down there and he'd have that that you know that cocky sound half the animals wearing a Navy he'd be standing in a car with open top and had that uniform on that coat look like a naval officers and of course that deep blacks line up on all sides of the street particularly kids running on and we would watch it and I didn't know no that I didn't realize I realized at that time what the movement actually meant it was just a parade coming on 7th Avenue I didn't realize a years later after I came to California the significance of that about that steamship that he bought so my mother had two older sisters living over in Detroit they came over there one one summer after promises oh yeah I was there with it when the Germans quit fighting and and also then New York City was blacked out every night because there's all that you know that rumors going around about the zeppelin's are going to bomb New York and then there there was a little bit concerned about the submarines prowling off the harbor well that that that summer of 17 18 when I was with my dad I remember they would make up those convoys where ships carrying the troops across the bank of you see the government either the British government that sees all the canard line ships all the white star line ships and they painted them that dark red they were taking troops over to Europe I recall seeing with when we first declared war on Germany that the the Baltic land was tied up over in Hoboken that was that that was the biggest biggest passage ship in the world and it was blown to the north German large line well if they if they had they left New York Harbour the British were gonna seize it but we hadn't got into the war yet and so it tied up over in Hoboken was soon as we soon as we declared war while the United States government sees it and it became a troop carrier also and after war later when I noticed that ship renamed the Leviathan it was what he was in the transatlantic Atlantic a passenger boom operated by the by the United States lines and of course there were two other ships I used to see in the harbor every night I saw them years later out here the Yale and the Harvard they were passenger ships that operated between the on the Faroe River line they left New York every evening and then went up the fall we touched at Newport Boston and Faroe River was the end of the line then they'd come back well they had two ships both of them name out one of them name after Yale University and the other name after Harvard so then my aunt came up then started I was playing hooky moving us going to school she wrote to my mother she better get me out of New York I'd end up in sing sing because I was playing hooky when I was going to school and I'm learning a lot of bad things you know the the the the ties with pushing those push carts run with selling vegetables on the freezer Harlem and then in the summertime that'd be the the old takin pushing those carts selling ice cream out there too and then I saw a lot of the others who come up there with the organ granades have that monkey and they'd be playing that hand organ and the monkeys they have that little cup out there begging well we used to follow that around when I was a kid so my dad finally decided to send me back down to Jacksonville in 1919 so he got in touch with the crew again the crew brought me to back back down to Jacksonville and my uncle met me and I stayed there for about three months in my mother sent a ticket from California for me to come out there at 11 so my dad came back down there to see me and I was also one of my aunt they said you going a long ways I had no idea how far away California was from from Jacksonville, Florida at all because I had rode the train some early my grandmother did you take me there to Thomasville, Georgia and also the St. Augustine and Daytona Beach used to take me there because we had relatives in a and Daytona Beach and my grandmother was born in in Thomasville, Georgia she never did talk good English I think she was what you call one of them black Seminole's because the slaves that in those days in slavery time would run away and the Seminole's will let them come in and live with them and and and the Seminole's was a tough tribe at that time because they retreated into the Everglades and the army couldn't come in there to get them and after many betrayals that betrayals they found me you know surrendered and they took him from that Oklahoma it was a very sad story well the day came for me to leave my dad was done in that and Katie came down so what they did for me to take one of those big wicker backers and full of up full of sandwiches and my old man gave me $5 so he started blubbering so I mean I'll see you and you're going a long ways away from here well they put me on the train in the conductor pin my my my tickets on the lapel of my jacket and of course I started that they had what they call old vendors on trains and they sold soft drinks candy and magazines they went to the cars you know yelling out what they had and they were selling to the pastors and who wanted it and stuff so I thought it buying a I thought it spending money right away and the first first change we made was at the Flemerton, Alabama coming to New Orleans I think I left left Jacksonville on on the on the Southern Railway and at Flemerton I got on Louisville and Nashville and which brought me into New Orleans the next morning so the conductor brought me into the depot there and terminal travel of aid and uh the and uh the travelers they took me over so the the social worker asked me had I had breakfast yet I said no so she took me into the lunch counter then fed me and then told me to stay there all day because the train to California was leaving that evenings so I sat there in a depot all day and still spending spending what little bit I had so we finally left left for New Orleans that night the train bound for California I think it was the Sunset Limited because that was a through train operated in those days I didn't know it then between New Orleans then the other end of the line was San Francisco it's only through a train that came into San Francisco because all the others from Chicago and other places they came into Oakland but this is the only one overland that came in you know that came from outside the state that came in the in the San Francisco well we got our man I thought we never gonna get out of Texas we rode all day the next day into the evening and I wonder what kind of place this is wasn't getting out of there so we were there all that day and all that night and I woke up finally got into into into New Mexico and then that wasn't too long and then into Arizona and then the L.A. well the Sunset Limited didn't come it came north to San Francisco but not the way I was going I had to get on another train then stay in the depot all day and Los Angeles so they lady I traveled as they took over again fed me and they watched me so that I got on that train that evening I got on a train called the West Coast it was headed from Los Angeles to Portland on the southern I'm on the southern Pacific now and uh so that was overnight from Los Angeles and got in Sacramento the next day and that's where I got off because that train didn't go through Chico it went up on the on the west side of the river through willows Chico was on the east side of the river and I laid over there all day so travelers they ate again took took over they took me and then fed me so the the the work asked me what was my mother's name and I address not told her she looked in the phone book there my mother's name and then Chico because then Chico used the same book the Sacramento did as well as Marysville and all those other just one phone directory for all of them so that I caught a train that either left Oakland that evening called called a senator it left Oakland and got in Chico that was the end of the line at 11 30 that night so I came on up train got in Chico so the conductor said well sonny so you come a long way he said this is the end of the journey for you and so he helped me to get together and I came out there and I saw this lady standing out there and this man and my mother says Thomas and I said yes I didn't know her of course when she left I was five years old she started hugging me and kissing me and I tried to pull away from her so she slapped me along side my head said I'm your mother what's wrong with you so Katie didn't go to bed my sister there are 19 months different between the two of us I'm the oldest mama didn't bring her to the depot she had my stepfather with her and so I came in but Katie was wide away waiting to see her brother whom she'd never seen because she was only two years old when she left Jacksonville and and then I'll say you're 12 years old yeah so I got up the next morning I look out there and saw that vacant land out then she told my mother I want to go back to New York so did she immediately enroll you in school yeah she did I enrolled because my father didn't send any records out with me anything my mother put me in the class with my sister and I should have been you know at least a half a year ahead of her and and the teacher liked me there so well because in geography they'll start talking about there wasn't very many kids in the and she called in who traveled as extensively in the countries I had so my teacher with their name was Virginia Wright and she liked me and so she arranged for me they had a bell a belfry there and and some student assigned to ring the bell every day and so miss right arrange for me to ring the bell and then she also arranged that they when they arrange to ring the bell that the students all assembled out there then I had a drum I would come out then and that they'd be assembled up and the teacher would look over then she taught me to hit it off and I thought you know the beat for people marching like you do in army so they went in and it was actually I soon learned to like you know living in a little town it was tough at first you know I yearn to go back East again but that war often I stayed in Chico and got on through high school up there how many black people in the town there were about all sexes and ages there was about 65 compared to an overall population overall population all ages as I said out of that there were about six kids in the in my age group and and I got to one on in high school my mother bought me a violin at first because I saw my dad playing a violin because I and I thought that was the thing to do to Henry Herbert got a saxophone and I said I want a saxophone too so I'd work picking prunes that summer I must have been about 13 years old and I and I'd I'd earn about 80 dollars that I had saved you know picking fruit so I went in the in the store then told them in the music store then told the owner that I want to get that saxophone so he says well he says you're too young to sign a contract he says what do you live not told me so I come out see your mother this evening so he did and my mother says well I can't let him spend the whole 80 dollars I think the horn costs about 60 dollars she says because he's got to get the clothes for schools so she said I'll finish making the payment she says I'll give you 20 dollars and I'll finish making the payments myself and that's how I got acquired a saxophone and I had a lot of fun doing that because one of the guys who was in the band and then later a babe Bowman he played trombone and he was like making all the jazz notes then we were in high school and we used to jam together and he would later played with Anson Weeks as a band which played at the Mark Hopkins here for years yeah and I'd see him a kid after I came down here but he was over at my house all the time and another thing that happened up there that probably wouldn't happen and so that I I invited white kids to our house to do them my mother fed them and they and they and tell her to invite me to house I don't say it was all it was perfect up there because you hear that word people taunt shot in the streets call you know that word in they'd call you that summer but yell about you and then of course if he looked like he's my size I'd go after him and they stopped calling me that then and I yeah so him and I handle that very well as far as race relations is concerned because he and I was ahead of about there were two Chinese in there free because that Chinese family their mother was the was the biggest bootlegged and she cool then of course that was doing the days of prohibition and those boys always had a lot of money because they mother cuz she's always getting busted but she managed to have and cuz one of them had a lot of guns that we used to go out hunting with him I was with him one time when he killed a 300-pound black bear he let me take one shot but he brought it down and uh and in that way we used to hunt all the time for our dogs every day or every other day I'd go out and kill maybe three or four jackrabbers and bring them home and then my mother would take a chop that all up makes two and feed the dogs would we had two dogs and then uh I told you about but Don and Mike and the fish but we fished all the time and uh when shad time came in the shad would come up to spawn in the Sacramento River we had a big iron hoop about that size like that and we made a basket out of that with chicken warrior they had a long pole about eight feet long that we come to the banks of the river and put that basket in my name facing downstream so when the fish would come up you feel uh you get a small bump you you know you feel the contact you'd wait maybe another couple of fish would come in there bring it up we got got free fish other times we'd go to work we'd come down there do it when the salmon ran in the fall we'd go down there with spares and spare them we didn't use no no hooks in life we spared them to make sure and while we're spared enough fish so we would have salt it down you know and I learned other things up there my grandmother's alive she showed me how you cue olives you know you can't pick olives off the tree you need it it ties your mouth all up so what my grandmother had a big open barrel there so she'd get oh maybe a couple of gallons of olives and put them in that barrel and put put live water put them in live water and they stay in there 14 days should put live water off and wash them over then she put salt in that water there and that's the way they cured olives all over put salt and then leave them in that when you want to eat an olive you take one of the barrel so tell how did you get down to San Francisco now when I finished school there wasn't any work up there I came down here the summer of 1926 and that's the first time I've met my cousin too I'd never seen him my man Kate came down here to the World's Fair in 1950 and they stayed at my uncle's house that's when he lived over in San Francisco and my cousin graduated from Lake Wilmer in high school in 1926 my uncle bought a home over there in Berkeley near the campus so I saw Tom that night I came back with my mom and Katie came down here before I did and they were down here by three weeks before I came down and I came down here and went to a dance over that in Oakland I had never seen so many so many black people dance before my life because I didn't go to dance with my little kid in New York and there must have been about 500 people that dance well it was so high up until me then where was it do you remember the name it was called McFarland's ballroom it was switches over there also but this was called McFarland's ballroom and it was some some some blacks fraternal organization was having this this convention in New York I mean in Oakland and because the dance was one of the highlights of it and so when I got there where mom and Kate room that I the the lady told me says your sister went down to the dance down there I knew it was gonna happen and so she told me how to get there and I went down there so the first thing Katie says says have you met Tom yet incidentally his name was Tom same as mine his father's name was Tom and my old man's name was Tom said well four times in our family I guess they like the name well Kate brought me up to Tom and and he said I said glad to meet you so what do you mean say we should have been knowing one another all of our lives so he says why you staying I said well I don't know where he said were you going home with me so I went home with him and early the next month cuz his mother and father heard him talking to him so they didn't know who it was they yell out who's that this is a town there's Tom who says my cousin Tom Fleming so of course they were curious to see my uncle or see his nephew whom he's never seen and I think when the old man was eating his breakfast he started saying Tom so my cousin answered he said I don't mean you I mean I mean Tom Fleming so I came out there and I said these people act like they don't like me too well just giving me one one look and so I didn't come down to stay with him I think that's the way he and his wife looked at it because I came on here looking for work well after I stayed there the second night my aunt told me she says well we could not we got friends coming out here from Boston they're gonna stay there cuz Tom's gonna sleep up on the dive and in the living room and my friends needed well I understood what it meant so I came on out and came out on over here to San Francisco and they had the same sort of shipping out here in the Pacific that they had on the Atlantic you had the Admiral line Pacific Steamship Company they had their headquarters in Seattle and the Admiral line belonged to Great Northern Railway they're the ones who put those passengers you know in the Pacific I think the farthest north they went was in a doctor up to Alaska that was only in the summer month of Darcy Alexander then there was a HF Alexander which competed with the Shasta limited between here in Seattle made the same time at sea she also competed with the Lark overnight from from here to Los Angeles same left the same time to log it got lost out of the next morning the same time and I worked on the ML exam Alexander the Emory was another ship a passenger ships had been seized by the United States after war broke out in World War one and the Admiral line acquired it well I was bellhop on there and that was an interesting job because we the first time we left here we were headed north to Seattle and we got up to I was a bellhop and I was picking up tips and because what they would pay to bellhop ten I think was $15 a month where you got your room and board on and they figured if you couldn't help still and make up the rest of it why it's just too bad but you had a place to sleep and could eat when we got to Columbia I mean to Victoria going in there at the inner Puget Sound I remember the waiters and and the bellhops was buying whiskey there that was doing prohibition days also you could get a quarter whiskey up there for two dollars so we would stock up there every time we every every time we stock in Victoria we got in Seattle later on that day and got rid of all the passengers then we went on up the sound around the sound to Tacoma Washington where the ship laid overnight and came back the next day and put passengers on then we started a return trip back and I acquired another bottle of good booze up there so we got to San Francisco the custom guards knew what they expect we'd hand them a bottle and let us take the rest of it through and we kept that whiskey for one purpose a number of times one of the one of the one of the film companies would film CC a sea scenes on these ships and that's when it was real crazy on there because most of them seem like we're crazy we're selling them that booze we paid two dollars a bottle for we're selling them for thirty five dollars steering prohibition and I don't know what they need to be old enough remember one famous actress named B.B. Daniels and Ben Lyons they were in that company filming these sea scenes and of course we picked up a lot of money in tip-screw because they wanted everything and so I stayed over made by free trips on there's a bell hop and then I got in trouble with the bell captain he wasn't as tall as I was big but big enough to be a jockey but he was he looked like he's about 35 or 40 years old I'm just 18 then and so he said something to me I said when we get up to Seattle I say I'm gonna kick your sword so he said when you get up to Seattle you're gonna kick you off this boat too so I started thinking I hadn't thought about that part of it and there was a guy who was washing dishes on there and he would want to be a bell hop so I traded with him I got to one of the under the that bell captains and so I stayed on the rest of the summer and then of course the pastor business fell down they started to reduce some personnel on those ships in and I went back up to Chico the grandma was still up there the bed was still up there for me I went back up there and that was the the fall of 1926 and now 27 and of course I have to tell you this this part about the sacrament of northern the sacrament of northern was in an urban electric line that operated between Oakland and Chico Chico was the end of the line the northern end and all electric all the way so they had one one dining car where a combination dining car club car and observation car but I think there was tables and up and there to see the but but four pastors at a time well I met the the waiter on that Bill Sherry because he was caught in a local Chico girl because the trading got in Chico every night at 1130 and uh and Bill knew I was back in town he knew I'd been spent the summer down down here in the base so he came by then February and knocked on my bedroom window my grandmother's house so he said hey come what you want a job I said yeah he said well they need a waiter on the train you know the train leaves at 730 and wants to beat out the depot well I went until grandma so well I'm leaving you again and I met the trains and so I just put on a white jacket there I didn't do anything just you know to take me down there at that time all the trains there wasn't a bridge anywhere it's on the bay the Sacramento Northern had had had had their train ferry up there just just out of Pittsburgh at Malin Island that's where it docked little farther down it was uh was Port Costa that's where the Southern Pacific had had their passenger trains of ferries so that's where I work on that ferry down there and and and you stayed on there uh you got one day off a week well I stayed on there for about uh oh until spring came anyway anyway and I overstayed my my my my leave one time when I came back incidentally a black man operated those ferries for the for the Sacramento Northern George Dunlap in Sacramento he had the concession he furnished a crew and bought all the supplies and uh and uh I had known his daughters in Sacramento so when I got back I'd stayed over uh overstayed my time he was there that time passing through he says where do you want to go back up to Chico Oakland I said I'll go to Oakland I came right back down in Oakland came down to the Southern Pacific commissary the next day and the first day I came down there was looking for dishwasher fourth cook on on on the on the dining on the sand walking flyer I got the job and I stayed with the Southern Pacific then until uh from 27 until oh about 1931 I didn't have enough seniority I got bumped all the time so then you relocated here for good I came back here and stayed and there was a guy I had you know I knew a lot of people on the campus all day because my cousin was going over there in the University of California and uh there there was a great famous athlete I don't know whether you ever heard him name uh Robert Coleman Francis they called him Smoke Francis he made all city in football at the old Polly High he was on the track team also and of course he went over to Berkeley he got made the football team over there was on the track team well I I became acquainted with his mother and his sister so uh used to go by there all the times so one day my friend said to me she said Tom you've got a good mind say why don't you go on back to school I said well I uh I said I don't have any money and I said uh I'm trying to uh trying to keep myself together this she said well there's a four-year school in Chico she said why don't you go on there I said that's right my grandma still living I went back up to Chico then in enroll and stayed up there oh free semester then I transferred down to San Francisco State then I went to University of California some I I would go there like a I'd go to intercession because by then the WPA was in business and I had worked wrote on the school paper at Chico State and also when I was in high school and I I said I thought I would let to be a newspaper man so I went back up to Chico and uh and I I wrote on the Wildcat the newspaper up there so uh uh when I came back down there I got on the WPA well uh uh uh the first time they sent me out as the common labor and then they found out I'd had a couple of years of college they said well you don't belong out here with the labor because the laborers I think was getting 64 dollars a month well I was classified as a professional they were paying us 94 dollars a month the federal writers project we did all our work up then in Bancroft live there at the University of California and I there was a couple of classes in the extension division on the campus I started taking a couple of classes up there is that where you met Carlton Goodlett I met him uh in 35 when he came out here this was before he came out here well that writers project up there you know we we stage a strike against the government we were real rebellious what were the reasons we were demanding higher wages we said there's enough money and uh and uh well they finally dissolved it and then they sent me over to work in one of the labs over there on the campus and your affiliation with the University of California at Berkeley began yeah yeah what year was that that must have been about 30 well I was working for the WPF there when when Carlton Carlton came out here the summer of 1935 he just graduated with Howard University he came out here with the chances of getting in the program for the master's degree this guy's truly remarkable but guy after he got out he decided to take the comprehensive for the PhD he passed it never never did get a master's degree passed it and did it in three years when Carlton when Carlton got his PhD Carlton was 20 22 years old he did it in three years and I never and that cat used to keep me up at night up there working in the institute child child side college up on up there on bankrupt was where it's where uh Boat Hall is not there used to be a wooden building in there where where the Institute of Child Psychology was that's where I used to go up there and study along with him we did a lot of things over together we got into a lot of mischief we were together every day on the campus we didn't if you saw one you saw the other and then a young black doctor came out here uh Legrand Lawson Coleman and Carlton read in the the California voice over there he graduated from Howard University Med School where Carlton went up we brought me down to we introduced ourselves to well he was single like we were and on top of that we knew all the young women he didn't say you had a distinct advantage how many african-americans were on the campus at Cal then as contrasted with the total student buddy that could have been then when Carlton had that's the first year it reached 100 and rolled over to the campus most graduation on a great journey I think there was 105 in 1935 maybe more than that well it was much lower than that and Carlton you know he he ran into trouble with a lot of people over there he didn't saw it didn't see any black faculty people over there and he thought there should be black faculty people over there so he tried to get some of the this thing was black uh uh graduates like uh George Johnson who later became dean of Howard Law School and Walter Gordon who was a well-known everybody a prominent lawyer over there and who was a classmate of where I won that's that's why Walter got the first Walter camp all-american yeah yeah and uh uh but they didn't seem interested because Carlton wanted to try to get a E. Frank E. Franklin Frazier on there set up a share but uh they they wouldn't buy it so but uh this guy was very sharp and had a first-class mind I never seen anyone quite as bright as him before in my life because he thought fast on his feet and uh he later became involved in in the reporter because he wasn't here I'd like to put everybody to get it clear in my Carlton had nothing to do with the founding of the of the reporter he wasn't even in San Francisco a man named Frank Logan and I started the reporter and Carlton was done in in in Tennessee that year he just finished uh on my Harry and he was doing uh practice in in Columbia uh Tennessee one year so he could get reciprocated with California he knew by go we wrote the one another every day after he left here now my Harry I mean we Harry's in Nashville yeah he started the reporter in what year in San Francisco 1944 1944 he came the next year and he didn't get in the paper right then he didn't get involved in the paper until 1947 he started lending me money right away he he and dad got to Dan Colorado to keep the paper alive now Dan Collins is the first African-American on the faculty of UC Med Center in the School of Dentistry he was 1944 is that correct yeah okay now you might want to explain to the public the before the war there were what maybe 5000 African-Americans in San Francisco the 1940 census said it said there was less than 5000 blacks living in the San Francisco and then when the war began some 50,000 the war workers started coming in I'm talking about in 1940 the census they started coming in short right after Pearl Harbor the war workers did and uh Oakland Oakland then in 1940 had a black population of about 13,000 Berkeley had about 6000 imagine that Berkeley much smaller than San Francisco had more blacks living over there than lived over here what was the climate for African-Americans in those days prior to the influx of the shipyard workers and the families well it was a little different than you'd find down south you were refused service service here just as well as you were down south you couldn't stay staying in any hotel big hotels in San Francisco you couldn't eat the same thing in Oakland you can eat couldn't eat in the best restaurants there and then in fact some of those hamburger places over on San Pablo Avenue had signs in the window says we have the right to refuse service to anyone well we knew what they meant when they had that sign in the window we just didn't go in there that's all because you know what you're going to meet now around 1946 1947 there were enough African-Americans to put up a candidate for the board of supervisors uh F. D. Haynes out of third Baptist church how did that come about well Gullit and Dan thought uh looked at it you know because both of both of them had lived in big cities in the east where they had uh you know big big black populations and they didn't like what they saw here because San Francisco and in fact like to enjoy the the reputation of being one of the most liberal citizens in the United States but it wasn't because I remember when Marian Anderson used to come here for concerts Paul Robson and Roland Hayes they could not stay in the big hotels downtown and the big restaurants even those big restaurants down in Chinatown refused the service refused them service the Chinese did the same with the majority people did it wouldn't serve you and uh so uh we saw how it was all these blacks pouring in and thought it was time for us to become active in politics so we sat down and talked about it and we uh we decided somebody should run for supervisor that year I think it was in 47 and and and Haynes seemed to like us pretty well because we could uh well good it was a Baptist he he became a member of Haynes's congregation too and a young doctor coming here in town and doing pretty well so we talked to on Haynes the runner he didn't know anything about politics very naive very unsophisticated outside of his church all right that's what I have to say so we thought this would be a good choice so we convinced him and uh that's the same year that George Christopher ran for the board of supervisors first time too well George Christopher cultivated us very heavily thought that we should form a joint ticket together which we did and then uh Frank Haverner was a congressman from here then we convinced him to convince the the the the county uh central committee to endorse Reverend Haynes it was tough doing but they reluctantly did it because they saw how the population was changing here in the city and and Haynes uh uh I think there was a I think there was about 10 candidates he's finished six highest and uh and there were only free free slots that year he finished six high well of course uh uh Christopher made it then and I can tell you some more about Christopher after Christopher was elected mayor he made certain promises to goodness what what are you gonna do about making black a partnership in San Francisco which he failed to do so this little guy he very slow he went down to the mayor's office for a day I was with him and got into the innocent and he got in there right in front of Christopher's dead and he says George Christopher you are horse's ass well I guess that the people should really understand what the uh what the climate was like in those days when the 50,000 African Americans came here to work in the shipyards the examiner had a headline that read Negro invasion and after FD Haynes ran and almost won for supervisor the Chronicle editorialized in those days that they would almost have to change the way in which you elected supervisors because in Negro almost won for the war to supervise so it was not easy and when George Christopher uh went to the head of the Democratic Central Committee to ask for his support he said a Greek can never run or win in San Francisco and that's when he changed his legislation to uh Republican yeah so it was not a liberal town no at all and so that that was really a major step forward to run the camp they kept the Chinese in Chinatown it was hard for them to get out of Chinatown because you know one thing was a tourist attraction and and uh all over California then they had what they call uh restrictive uh whether there's a covenants there's an agreement drawn up from among the well-to-do whites who live in these well-to-do neighborhoods that they would not sell to anybody else other than whites and it stuck and uh so that's a method they used against the Chinese it yeah they did it over in Piedmont in Oakland too but uh uh uh Sid Lomax who made a lot of money as a gambler over there in Oakland got a white realtor who was a good friend of his the practice of one of them luxury assailants and up in Piedmont from the trash for the deed to him. Well now speaking of gambling there are a couple of stories about establishments of newspapers in San Francisco supposedly uh William Randolph Hearst's father won the uh examiner in a poker game and turned it over to Will Hearst who was in Erdo Well getting kicked out of Harvard and he established the newspaper chain and and and Dynasty and out of San Francisco and there's this story that Carlton Goodlett uh won the Sun in part in a in a poker game as well before married with the reporter you want to explain that story to people who are here. Well the Sun started you know I avoided the army up until 1945 I think it was St. Valentine's Day because one thing out 37 and they kept saying they didn't want anybody past 35 and I was writing editorials or condemning the key system that was that was the transit system over in Oakland they also operated ferries in competition with it with their speed but they operated the commuter trains you know met their met their ferries and they also operated the street cars and and buses in Oakland and nearly had broken down I think I forgot to give an all day cool was the first black pastor civil service examiner to become a Mortimer and and and uh and San Francisco well nobody wanted to take him out and train him only one guy named Rogers went out to teach oddly how to operate a damn free car and they nobody would nobody would speak to uh to Rogers after that so he turned to drink very heavy because he used to come under some reporter office and he was a wreck then and tell me all about it well uh uh so I was writing about the key not not not hiring any blacks because I was writing such editorials that blacks are driving them big army rigs in the army I said they ought to be they've been able to drive buses so uh I finally got greetings and I you know I I was so sure and my draft board was over there over in uh over in Emoryville so I went over to see him about it one of the drivers working there said they don't like those editorials you're writing because blacks has paraded up and down to the key systems office over on Grove Street at Oakland they said I was responsible for all of that so this girl told me I never knew whether it's true but she worked in the draft board in Iron Man I never forgot that what she said well while I was going that's when uh I was going from February to August I was they they had sent me back for discharge up it can't be you and uh and Goodlett while I was in there I mean Goodlett was writing me a lot of letters telling me how to get out of the army because he was a doctor then and uh and uh I had started something in there I said I couldn't eat army chow I said all I did is constipate me constantly I said I just can't eat it so the doctor one of the doctors said what do you do in a civil civilian life I told her I took something and they said well we don't furnish that in the army so I just kept going on sick call sick call I did I stayed at the hospital one time at the Fort Francis Warren that's in uh right outside of Cheyenne I stayed in there for three weeks so they finally picked me out and one of the medics in there told me so you hit it for for because you know the I took basic training in Fort Leonard Wood and one of the things that made also made me unhappy they they brought a lot of Italian prisoners of war up in in the in the Ozark mountains in southern Missouri they could go in the px right so we couldn't go in there and wear the uniform you know they had that little place over there there had two telephone booths in there for all the blacks that they had on the camp they had banks to tell all along the wall at Fort Leonard Wood and I saw I went in there one night and the girl she told me a civilian said you can't come in here I said why can't I I said I'm wearing this uniform she said well your kind of people go over there in the area where they had an area there where well all the blacks say that in the the banks and uh and uh so I said well I'm gonna use the phone in you I said I'm gonna call my mother up in California she called two MPs and they took me out of there that that didn't infuriate me even more so I was really determined to get out so that's when I started going on those sick calls stuff fresh in Missouri and then when I got the warm and I continued until they sent me back out the camp view I guess the statue of limitations is running a mission that you make here so and one of the funny things I was corresponding with Goodlid all the time and Goodlid told me he was back in Omaha because he it finishes his year of you know practice in Columbia Tennessee and I had convinced him that California was a good place for him to come and practice medicine because when he was a student here he didn't like California he said the last frontier but I think he was killing me thinking in the in the back thought now because uh I was writing to him before uh I was writing to him before I got draft I said man this is the place to come I said blacks are pouring in here by the hundreds so uh he changed his mind so he uh uh he was when he got to Omaha he told me what day he was going to come through there I think he said he's going to come he's going to leave Omaha on a on a Monday night and come to pass through Cheyenne uh Sunday night he's going to leave pass through Cheyenne early the next morning well I probably went on sick call because I thought he's coming through on Tuesday I went on sick call after they kicked me out of the hospital and uh so I then I'd gone to the hospital that day because they fed better than they did and and and and and our in our quarters well you got gut meals in the hospital and I stayed over the whole day you know shooting a breeze with with with the with the patients in there so I came to uh back to my my barracks uh at 4 30 I know all duty was over with then and uh I got my letters because I uh uh Dan Collins assistant law was writing me letters every day to sharing me up and she couldn't get a cigarette cigarette well I was sending the the two cartoons will allocated in the army that I was sending them to her daughter in west Virginia so uh uh I when I I I uh uh uh governor said got got my nails out answered gussies let it out going over to the post office the mail I well I got over there was back up the way to my area and I saw a grand Chevrolet coming down the road then I saw somebody leaning out to win a shake in their fists it was good why don't you think why don't you think where people can find you uh so hell you told me to go come in tomorrow he said I changed my mind so he said come on over here man to shake hands I ain't seen you in seven years well he had his wife with him I noticed he gave me looked at me suspiciously that he's laid over there all day long to see who this guy was he wanted to see so he asked me how was it coming and that's the first time I got drunk while it's not good without a bottle of gin with him we set up there in the barracks and talked until uh they had guest barracks up there you know where civilian guests came in you could stay in there overnight and uh he asked me so how's it getting longer I said well the guy in the hospital told me I was headed for discharge so uh he came he left the next morning in but they still held me back there and he came through there in June and I didn't come till August and when I did get home he was in there attending to my mother he'd open up his office over here in San Francisco now did he have it first on Turk Street huh was it first on Turk no we were on uh the paper office no it was on uh no his is a medical office no it was on Philmore okay he and Dan Collins had office together Dan Dan had been here Dan came out here I think around about 43 uh he received that appointment there you know to to do research to teach up to at the U.C.'s School of Dentistry and then he was practicing and uh practicing dentistry too he had an office there so he when Goodlick came they shared joint offices together and they both were were interested in the paper so Goodlick started uh learning this Monday well the the sudden came in the existence while I was away in army when I came back it was the second paper here in San Francisco called the Sun the owner of it was a white man named Frank Lorette he'd gone on the last time and brought up two guys that I knew pretty well uh Wendell Green uh black guys to run the paper for him and A.B. Robinson so Goodlick decided after I got back uh the uh well I he probably was scheming but he didn't tell me that but Frank Lorette admired us so much he was with us every day and they'd have them poker games at Goodlick's house that stay up all night long Frank got in the hole for Goodlick for about three thousand dollars and he said I'll tell you what I'll do he said if you give me fifteen hundred dollars I'll I'll give the Sun to you that's how he acquired the Sun and we took it over well this is about as good as part as anyone somebody is as old as Tom is 90 years old and as as much of a memory is this is only going to be the first half of an interview with him obviously uh we're gonna have to allow some time for questions and hopefully we can come back here on a Saturday and get the other half but how about a hand for Tom you know I've uh been in the interviewing business in both radio and television for about 20 years you always measure and interview how well it goes by how few questions you have to ask I think that's a record in an hour I think I asked four questions so why don't we give you an opportunity to ask Tom some questions and maybe he can bring you up to date on what happened between that period of time that he ended and now or get more specific about some of the earlier points uh Tom was in the first Coro Foundation class and the question is how did he become a Coro fellow it's an internship in public affairs I was a veteran right out of the army they would emphasize emphasize uh uh uh giving those scholarships to veterans then and Seaton Manning who was the first secretary of the Urban League always here told me about it said why don't you try and I went I was interviewed that's how became uh became a you know an intern with Coro Foundation that I was in the very first class and I formed a close friendship whether you probably saw his uh his byline his name in the Chronicle for years Robert Popp and we still close friends there he's retired from the Chronicle also thank you incidentally Bob sister's retired she was on the faculty up at Chico State and I'd like to mention this opportunity Chico State invited me up there for Black History Month this year and I got a whole lot of a lot of plaques and all that stuff and and then they had me to come back again and uh commencement day this year and uh they established a scholarship in my name they wanted me to present it to the first awardee which I did I made two ships up there this year our questionnaires a lot longtime writer for the Chronicle editorial writer and now writing a history of the Chronicle yes sir oh I know him please well you have to listen to him because he's one of the world's experts on Duke Ellington so Jack's Tabern was the first place and uh in San Francisco that had jazz music in there you probably heard of Jack's Tabern well the first person they put in there was a guy named Saunders King uh I had known Saunders Saunders's father was the was a black minister in Orville in the Holy Roller Church Saunders was running by my age group because my mother was also a member of the Holy Roller Church and there wasn't one in Chico so we used to come over to Orville and that's how I met Saunders uh before that Saunders had worked uh on radio here and uh with uh free other guys and uh called Crosscuts was the name of it they sang spirituals largely then and Saunders was playing the guitar then and and he's playing in a different beat look like there's what it'd be in the church and I was surprised when when Jack says that open and put Saunders in there with uh I think it was a trio at first and uh but it was good jazz man it was good enough to attract attention of the very King back there in the in the late 30s about this this this good music there in the Fillmore and uh and there were more whites coming out that night and they were blanks at that time and all through the war it was the same way and uh then there was another play found on uh on a poster called The Club Bellabam that had good music and you know whether that branch of the bank of America was that post in Fillmore this place is right behind there and it was jammed every night such guys played in there like Jerome Richardson he later one of them became famous as one of the great saxophonists in the in the jazz business because when he left he was with Ronald Hampton's band and he stayed back east ever since then after he went back he never came back here to stay and and uh and there were some good musicians developed around here you know that great Trombonist that Duke Ellington had want to take high in Oakland and Ivy Anderson who was his first woman vocalist she used to say in here in San Francisco before she moved to Los Angeles and that's where Ellington got her picked out of the Cotton Club in Los Angeles and put it with his band and uh oh and uh that was a lot of good music but there wasn't as many clubs here to me it seems as some people seem to think because yeah just about as much over in Oakland as you had over here because one never one you had a bigger black population but even Oakland only had one well-known place and that was Slim Jenkins uh if you want to see a lot of jazz you had to go down on Central Avenue in Los Angeles most of it was down there they had a bigger population uh you had a theater down there the Lincoln Theater on Central Avenue that's where the the center of jazz black activity was on Central Avenue then because you had a hotel on there built by a dentist named Dr. Marmillian he put a supper room there on the first floor in that hotel and that's why I first heard George Dewey Washington and some of the other famous vocalists in that place and then every every Friday every Saturday night they had a show there in the Lincoln Theater called uh Midnight Rhymer and of course that's when I was working on the SP well they said uh that my train got in in the Austin 11, 1130 I'd leave the train go over there you know to the Midnight Rhymer and of course that's where you heard uh some of those famous black comedians like uh uh uh no I can't think of their names but Pig Meat Markham Pig Meat Markham I heard him there person John Mason heard him at the Lincoln Theater Momsen come out to the late 50s earlys yeah early 50s and uh and then you had another club out there called Blaine Ells out in out in Compton there was a far more activity in Los Angeles because don't forget Harley was out there and all the entertainers wanted to get into the movies that made a big difference there were also the Percivals and the Bothan during the time of the Marbury Coast and the great jelly roll Morton had a club out here until he was routed much later much later uh Vernon Alley came out here in 38, 39 and he grew up in San Francisco and he played football for commerce high and he also went to Sacramento State and but uh beyond the time of jelly roll and stuff yes sir if if we could if you could fast forward for a second i'd be interested in your take on the current mayoral administration your take on the willies administration willie browns administration the current mayoral administration i met william when willie was going to san francisco state his uncle brought him out here uh i met his uncle his uncle was a professional gambler his name was the only name i knew it's it's a Collins and uh uh he brought willie out here to go when he finished high school on in in texas to go to school because he went to san francisco state along with uh with john Burton younger the the Burton brothers they went there together and uh and uh a neighbor being close all through the years because uh and we got behind willie at the paper there when he ran ran ran for the assembly the first time so we not only gave him publicity and endorsed him but good to put money this campaign out of his pocket for willie and uh uh and and and uh that's another alliance that we formed at the papers with phil batten carton carton and phil were very close because phil used to call office even after he's elected to the to the congress called dillard every day and whenever dillard night uh want to make a long distance call we go down to the congressman's office and the president and call over that truck line so we're not paying for it call all over the country it was just in school back in back in new york right it was just in school and grammar school i saw him there because i left there when when i left there i was 11 years old and i didn't have any you know any context with him after that then i thought of the hearing his records out here and i told my sister i said i went to school with that guy yes sir three or four papers every day and i'm wondering do you think newspapers are doing a better job or as good a job as they did 50 years ago question is tom reads three or four news papers every day does he think newspapers are doing a better job or a worse job than they're then in that period of time uh i think the day day is not too far away we won't have newspapers anymore because uh when i was a kid in new york city there was 11 daily papers there they're free there now when i started working with our paper there were there were four papers here in san francisco you had you had the news called bulletin the chronicling examiner the news and the called bulletin were afternoon papers the chronicling examiner had the morning business you also had two papers in okun then of course hers had a paper called the post inquire and plus the knowland family owned the tribune and uh and look at the how the number of newspapers are going now television is taking taking a television is number one television just about 90 percent of the advertising dollar bingo so that's red red little left for radio and the news and the new and and the printed word red little left for so uh if the chroniclers didn't have that that that television station they probably be in bad trouble too and you know the harsh change started here in san francisco and he had he had he not only had the examiner he had the call bulletin an evening paper then he had the post inquire of an okun they're all gone started trying to save them one time when they merged the news and the called bulletin trying to make a single paper but you had two chains who were competing with uh with one another because uh the the news was the scripts howard paper it was a chain also but scripts howard is but dead everywhere is now but i think i think our day's gone past we have time for one more question yes ma'am the lady in the back and maybe we can squeeze you in sir not exactly a question but no mention that you might come back uh to let us hear the second half of your life experiences and i was hoping that uh that could really be arranged because i'm very curious about your newspaper career that's an excellent point maybe because that was so short we can get this gentleman in who wants to ask a question in 1944 was when the reporter when you uh you and uh the other co-founder started the uh the reporter and that uh dr goodlitt didn't get into 1947 and then you mentioned doing this card game this poker game with frank lorenne uh carlton uh got the sun so am i safe to assume that the son reporter came about do you combine the two is that have the name son recorder originated for for phonetic reason we decided to after we acquired the son they called a paper the son reporter because it sounds better you wouldn't like to say say reporter sound would you but but the the reporter is the oldest paper of the two i know because i was here well it's certainly been a rich and rewarding afternoon uh listening to tom fleming we can go on listening to him for hours and i really sincerely hope that the library will make time in the future so that we can hear some more for this very erudite warm scholarly and knowledgeable man thank you very much time and that's what duke used to say all the time when you sit uh you're all very lovely and i love you madly that's what duke all of you used to say all the time thank you very much thank you mr fleming mr griffin it was wonderful and we hope that you'll be available for when we do the second half of this for those of you who would like to see mr fleming great mr fleming sooner than we'll be able to schedule him into the library he is appearing and i don't know the date perhaps max you know the date at the freedom forum right the freedom forum is down on one market street and they are uh uh they're owned by gannett and they do programs all the time um with news journalists and authors and so forth it's free i mean you just have to rsvp so that is another opportunity to see him next month if you're around and available so we hope to see you at the forum and back here at the library for other programs on september 15th we will start an exhibition up on the sixth floor skylight gallery called free at last the history of the abolition of slavery in america and with that on september 30th anthony powell who is a historian and curator who lives down in san jose will do a program on september 30th in the caret auditorium and he will do a program over at the bayview branch at 10 30 on october 1st for children and families so we hope to see you somewhere down the line in the library system thank you all for coming