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Michelle Lanier: This is Michelle Lanier interviewing Representative H. M. “Mickey” Michaux at his office in Durham. Today is Wednesday, November the 19^(th), 2014. Representative Michaux, do I have your permission to audio record this interview? Rep. Mickey Michaux: yes, ma'am, you do. Michelle Lanier: So, as we were discussing, you shared with me that while you were born in Durham, your parents were not born in Durham. So I wanted to hear the backstory about them and what brought them here. Rep. Mickey Michaux: All right, my father was born in a little town 10 miles outside Morgantown, North Carolina, a little town called Adako—A-d-a-k-o, on Brown Mountain Beech Road, and that's up in Burke County, North Carolina. My mother was born in Washington, DC, and they met in Durham. My father came through Durham at one time to, on his way to Howard University, came back and went back up to the mountains in about 1928 or 29. He came back to Durham on his way back to Howard to the dental school at Howard University. He, there was a fellow here named John Avery who the Boys and Girls Club is named after, who comes from up in that neck of the woods. Talked my father into staying here, and he began managing property for a lot of the black property owners here, like E. R. Merrick and just a bunch of folks who, black folks who owned property here. He started managing their property, set up the company in 1929 and stayed here. My mother came down, my mother graduated from Miner Teacher College in DC, and she came down to take a job in the Durham public schools, in the city schools at the time, and met my father, and they got married in 1929, August 15^(th) of 1929. That was, I was born September the 4^(th), 1930. so there you go.

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Michelle Lanier: What church were they married at? Rep. Mickey Michaux: They were married in Washington and, believe it or not, I have a, I have a newspaper photo of their marriage, and it's interesting because one of my father's best men was Dr. Elder, who was at one time president of North Carolina Central University. And he and my father were good friends and he was the best man at my father's wedding. Michelle Lanier: Did you grow up knowing Dr. Elder? Rep. Mickey Michaux: Oh, yes, he lived right next door to us.

00:02:58.930 - 00:04:32.210

Michelle Lanier: Tell me about Dr. Elder. Rep. Mickey Michaux: Well, he was a very stately gentleman who smoked a pipe all the time. He married Louise Holmes from Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia. He came from La Grange, Georgia, or somewhere down in there. And he came here, Dr. Shepard brought him here and he and my father got to be good friends. They lived right next store to each other and my mother and his wife always shopped together, went shopping every Friday. My mother didn't drive; Ms. Elder drove. And they would, so that was a very close relationship all the way through there, even through relationship with Dr. Shepard and all. I found out later on in life, actually, I got to know Dr. Shepard through his mother. His mother lived outside of our back door and she used to always bake me black walnut cookies, and I would go over and get them, and I'd run into Dr. Shepard every now and then. But the thing was that Dr. Shepard died in 1947, his wife, Annie Day Shepard, died in 1947, and his mother, Hattie Shepard, died in 1947. All three of them died in 1947. My father was pallbearer at all three funerals. Michelle Lanier: 1947 was the year you graduated from Palmer [Memorial Institute]. Rep. Mickey Michaux: No, 1947, '48 was the year I graduated from Palmer.

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Michelle Lanier: So were you able to come home from Sedalia to go to those? Rep. Mickey Michaux: No, I remember them happening, you know, just vaguely, but I wasn't in the funerals at that time. End of file Begin file Michaux_Mickey_NOV_2014_2

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Rep. Mickey Michaux: This is Dr. Shepard's funeral program (hear rustle of paper) Michelle Lanier: Wow, looking at Dr. Shepard's funeral program from 1947. Rep. Mickey Michaux: This is his wife's program. Michelle Lanier: Annie Day Shepard. Wow.

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Rep. Mickey Michaux: And this is his mother's. Michelle Lanier: My goodness, so it looks like, let's see, from what I am looking at here, Ms. Annie Day... Rep. Mickey Michaux: That's Dr. Shepard's wife... Michelle Lanier: passed in February. Then his mother died two months later in April, and then he died in the fall.

00:05:35.880 - 00:06:26.920

Rep. Mickey Michaux: That's...yeah. Michelle Lanier: Because I can't imagine what kind of grief he was experiencing to lose both his wife and mother within two months. February 10^(th) and then April 18^(th) is his mother. My goodness. I know the whole city must have been in mourning. Rep. Mickey Michaux: You know, I guess it’s one of those things, but I was, at that time, I was 17 years old at Palmer. I went to Palmer in 1943, so I knew about them, but I don't remember that much about them, other than the fact that...I didn't know that until I found these. (phone rings) Michelle Lanier: So you're the first born? Are there other children?

00:06:29.120 - 00:09:54.080

Rep. Mickey Michaux: No, my brother was born 11 years after. I was born in 1930. He was born in 1941. Michelle Lanier: My goodness. So talk to me about growing up in Durham. You've already shared some things about going to get your walnut cookies. What was it like at that time? Rep. Mickey Michaux: Well, it was, it was a most enlightening period of my life, growing up, particularly in an educational environment. North Carolina College for Negroes, as it was called at that time, you have a lot of folks come in that I had an opportunity to interact with as a kid. Folks like W. B. Dubois, Roland Hayes, Paul Robeson, John Hope Franklin, E. Franklin Frazier, Bob Weaver, who was first black secretary of housing, first black cabinet secretary, Housing and Urban Development. A lot of band leaders, Erskine Hawkins, all these folks...Lionel Hampton, all these folks were in and out of the area and I happened to been in just a rich, that type of rich environment and got to know, got to know as a young kid a lot of these people. Fact of the matter is, I used to play trumpet. I played first chair trumpet at North Carolina Central's band back when. But my first trumpet lesson was given to me on Central's campus by a fellow named Dr. Steven Wright, who later became president of Fisk University. So all of the intellectuals came in; Dr. Shepard had them in. We were all in the neighborhood together and you ran into these folks and you met these folks and you had an opportunity, as a kid I had an opportunity to interact with them, not particularly knowing who I was, you know, what was there, until I started reading history books. And I tell folks today, a lot of the folks you read about, particularly in black history, I've met them...Langston Hughes, all these folks that would come through Durham at the request of Dr. Shepard. He was just that type of person. Being in the neighborhood, being right next door to his mother, and he visiting there, and folks just coming in and, and that was the way it was. It was, sort of like, folks ask me today, how many pictures do I have with Martin and me because we were close....I say, I don't have that many pictures. I only have but, I really only have but one picture of me and Martin together and that was with a crowd. I said, you never think, you never know how these people turn out, or what they're going to be or who they are or, you know, what they are ‘til later on in life. You know, you've interacted with them one way or another. I mean, black movie stars...a fellow named Charles Cooper. I remember that very well. The old Bojangles Robinson, Peg Leg Bates, the Nicholas Brothers, all these folks who came up in the early movies, they came through and were a part of the scene in Durham. Yeah. Michelle Lanier: What was it about Durham?

00:09:54.080 - 00:11:55.840

Rep. Mickey Michaux: The fact that Durham had a, had a black neighborhood, an African- American neighborhood that was not dependent on anything. Most of the folks worked in the tobacco factories and made good money. You had the highest home ownership among black folks in Durham than you had anywhere else in the country, during that period of time. The majority of black folks owned their own homes. I got a brochure around here somewhere that shows you homes that folks lived in. My father built a lot of those homes when he was coming along. But it was just a because of North Carolina Mutual, Mechanics and Farmer's Bank, Mutual Savings and Loan, and North Carolina College for Negroes, as it was at that time; people were drawn here. It was the Black Wall Street of the South at the time because of the business acumen that was here and because of the educational acumen that was here. Michelle Lanier: So what street did you grow up on as a child? Rep. Mickey Michaux: Formosa Avenue. I lived 408 Formosa Avenue, which is now a boarding house. Sits right in front of the science building on the named after Dr. Robinson, science building on Fayetteville Street. I could look right from my, my porch, right to that building. In fact, I saw the building go up. I used to sit on the porch, we had a swing before the house was remodeled and I used to watch the welders throw hot rivets up to the guys that were riveting into the steel beams. I've seen every building on North Carolina Central's campus go up except three, the administration building, the old dining hall, and the old part of Annie Day Shepard dormitory. Every other building I've seen go up on that campus. And had, later on in life, had a part in putting a lot of them on there. Michelle Lanier: Had one named for you.

00:11:56.060 - 00:14:53.440

Rep. Mickey Michaux: Well, yeah, I didn't want that, but that's something else. Michelle Lanier: So as a young man, as a child, what would an average day be like in terms of, well a weekday, as school day... Rep. Mickey Michaux: Well, it would be, well, actually, I went to school right around the corner from where we lived, what is now, the Emilie Townes Building that used to be Hillside High School, that used to be Whitted Elementary School, and it was right, I walked right down the street, right around the corner. Went from the first grade through the seventh grade in that building there, and then left and went to Palmer when I was in the eighth grade. But I would walk past and it was a neighborhood, it was a compact neighborhood. Ms. Shearin, who was C. C. Spaulding's daughter, lived on the corner, taught music, taught me music lessons. Booker Kennedy lived right next door to her, Dr. Elder lived right next door to them, and my mother and father lived right next door to Dr. Elder. Across the street from where we lived, Rencher Harris, who became the first black city councilman in Durham and first black member of the school board in Durham, lived across the street. Reverend Long, W. W. Long of AME Zion Church, got to be a bishop or something later on, lived next to them. Wilford Kinney lived in the house next to them. Mrs. Kinney was my sixth grade teacher, and then next to him was Charlie Holmes, who taught Spanish down at North Carolina Central and kept the grounds at North Carolina Central. His wife, Clarice Holmes, is my brother's godmother and she also was dean of girls at Hillside High School, coming along. So the neighborhood, for instance, if I did something bad in school, coming around that corner, Ms. Shearin was the first one who greeted me and I'd get a whippin all the way up the street, ‘til I got home, and then I got another whipping at home for that. I mean, that's how tight knit the neighborhood was, and it extended even beyond and over to Nelson Street. Just, we used to, where, at the corner of Pekoe and Otis Street right now there was an empty lot there. Kids from that expanded neighborhood used to all come together and meet on that vacant lot, and play football, tag football. That lot now houses the home of Dr. S. L. Warren, Stanford L. Warren, that was moved from Lawson Street to that corner. But, you know, there was a lot of history being played out in Durham at the time. Michelle Lanier: Do you remember going to the original Stanford L. Warren?

00:14:53.440 - 00:17:34.040

Rep. Mickey Michaux: Oh yeah, well, even the original library was down at the corner of Pettigrew and Fayetteville Street, and, that's where my mother used to take me. Remember, now, my mother was a teacher and being a teacher, once she married my father, she only did substitute teaching, but that's where I learned to read. At Christmas time, I used to get toys, as usual, but I got more books that I did toys, and I, my mother basically taught me and my brother how to read and how to retain and all that. So we had that in home. But the old library, was down at the corner of Fayetteville and Pettigrew Street in a triangular shaped situation there, and then later on moved down to where it is now located. I remember going, viewing the body of Dr. Warren when he died, and all I could remember was something somebody told me later on in life about colored folks and us being called colored. He was purple at the time. I mean this was, I've forgotten what year he died, but that was, his daughter married John Wheeler, that was John Wheeler's wife, Selena Warren Wheeler. But I mean, these were days that the black community in Durham was more of a self- sustaining community because of the three basic businesses and because of the educational play out that was there. We didn't have to go anywhere. We had our own movie theaters, we had two movie theaters. Michelle Lanier: Do you remember the names of them? Rep. Mickey Michaux:The Regal was one of them, that's the one that lasted. And the Booker T was the other one. There was a third one that Prof Watkins used to run on the corner of Ramsey and Pettigrew. It didn't last long, but he Booker T lasted for a while and the Regal was a mainstay and (clears throat) we used to, the Regal was it. Every now and then you'd go downtown and sit in the Crow's Nest in the Center Theater and the Carolina Theatre. Other theaters that were in town, like the Rialto and what not, didn't let black folks in at all. But that was…yep. Michelle Lanier: So what were some of the things you would do as a child for fun?

00:17:35.000 - 00:19:16.920

Rep. Mickey Michaux: Well, it was all basically in the neighborhood. We played. We played football. We played hide and seek. We played, I mean, mostly outdoor games, recreational type games. And got into devilment. We’d go around, sometimes in the evening, ring doorbells and then run away. You know, just little devilish things. And like I said, it was an extended community because the Jones family lived over on Nelson Street and we would all like come together in this one big spot, and it was just, you know, it was just regular childhood days, outdoors. We were living at a time when people didn't lock their doors, didn't have to lock their doors or anything. You could walk away from your house, leave it open, nobody would bother it. So I mean, that type of neighborhood and that type of thing that you grew up in. Michelle Lanier: What church did you all attend growing up? Rep. Mickey Michaux: St. Joseph African Methodist Episcopal Church. My father and several...was there. He was a trustee of the church. I got to be a steward of the church for a while. And we still in business. Ok. St. Joseph's, but, we, we, it was a family church. I was christened in St. Joseph and we were there on a regular basis. Still try to go on a regular basis now. Michelle Lanier: So you grew up in what some would call the old church, which is now Hayti Heritage Center.

00:19:17.200 - 00:20:01.740

Rep. Mickey Michaux: Yeah, right. That's right, yeah. Michelle Lanier: It's a beautiful church and there is stained glass in it that I understand some of it was, was in commemoration of a connection with the Duke family. Rep. Mickey Michaux: Oh, yeah. The big one in the center upstairs in the churches has a, has a likeness of Benjamin Duke in it. A lot of folks say you have that white man overlooking folks praying down there. But that's one of those things. But yeah, that's it. It's probably the oldest edifice, church edifice in town now. Michelle Lanier: Growing up in the church, I know for me growing up in the black church, there was a lot of emphasis on how to conduct yourself. Then holidays were often a big thing for children. Do you have some memories of what it was like for young people in that church, some of the activities or some of the church leaders that you would have engaged with?

00:20:01.740 - 00:22:22.120

Rep. Mickey Michaux: Well, yeah. The ministers...I played, we had a little orchestra in church. I played in that. Joe Mills was a, the director. But it was, we went to Sunday school every Sunday. We'd get up on Sunday morning. My father would take my brother and me, me for a while to Sunday School. Leave me there ‘til Sunday school was out. Go, come back home, pick up my mother and bring them, and all, we had a special place where we sat in church. And we, you know there was some interaction between the ministers to some degree. The one, the one that I had the most memories of, the earliest one was Reverend Valentine. And he, his son and I went to Palmer together in 1948, when I went to Palmer, the three of us from Durham went to Palmer that year. Elwood Goins, Leon Valentine, and me. And, but it was, but the church was the focus of just a lot of things, even outside of religious ceremonies. It was just a place to go. We had nursery schools. I attended Scarborough Nursery School, but I didn't, but later on, St. Joseph had a nursery school. It was just one of those things. Michelle Lanier: Scarborough Nursery School is really... Rep. Mickey Michaux: Still operating, right. And I have a picture of my graduating class from Scarborough Nursery School. Six years old at the time. All of us dressed in white, standing on the steps of the old White Rock Baptist Church. Michelle Lanier: So, do you remember when the transition happened, when the congregation left that old edifice and moved to this newer structure?

00:22:22.120 - 00:23:20.820

Rep. Mickey Michaux: St. Joeph? Michelle Lanier: Yeah. Rep. Mickey Michaux: Oh that's been 30 years ago. Yeah, yeah. 30 years ago. That was during the period of, what did they call that thing—urban renewal. We, actually, the city bought it, thought they were gonna have to tear it down, but it got saved. White Rock was the one that got torn down, because the freeway right now passes through what was White Rock Baptist Church, and it missed...but the city bought it. I'm trying to remember when that was. Phil Cousin was the pastor then, when the church moved. I was here then. I was well grown by then though. Michelle Lanier: I'm skipping time periods, but as I think about the roles of black churches in Durham, and your witness, one of the things I'm curious about is the ways in which you had an opportunity to see the churches get involved with civil rights.

00:23:38.340 - 00:26:13.840

Rep. Mickey Michaux: Well, I was coming to that. St. Joseph was sort of the pivotal church when it came to...we had all of our meetings in St. Joseph, basically. And it was a, I can remember when we did the boycott, everything just centered around St. Joseph. During the movement when things were, we were trying to integrate and what not, we would meet there. I can recall one night we were planning to march on City Hall, which is where the Royall Arts Center is now, and word got out and we were in the church preparing to go on the march when the National Guard showed up and lined the Fayetteville Street from St. Joseph's all the way down to city hall with soldiers with bayonets fixed. And a group of us went down into the basement. It was Howard Fuller, Howard Clement, Ben Ruffin, me, and three or four others got down there and said, “What are we going to do?” Said, “We can't turn these folks loose. If we turn these folks loose, it's going to be a massacre out there.” And everybody...we just weren't sure what, how things were going to go. So we made the decision, we better do this march, or these folks are gonna...we're gonna turn these folks loose and no telling what's liable to happen. We did the march, and maybe I think a plate glass got broken downtown somewhere, but no trouble at all. Marched down to city hall and came back. And that actually, that morphed into working with tenants in public housing. Once we got the civil rights issue out, the civil rights issues out, we morphed into trying to get public housing tenants some representation. And we started, the same tactics we used in the civil rights activities, we used in trying to get public housing tenants the things that they wanted and the things that they needed. Michelle Lanier: I wanted to go back... Rep. Mickey Michaux: That's why, when you mentioned Jack Preiss, Jack was a part of that, a part of all of that. Michelle Lanier: How so?

00:26:16.620 - 00:28:02.160

Rep. Mickey Michaux: Well, he, Jack was one of the more liberal whites in the, in the city who really took part in the, and had people's welfare more in mind, than any of the other folks that we ran across. Michelle Lanier: I want to go back to your time as a child in Durham, because one of the things I wanted to hear you describe more is your father and his work. You said he managed property. Can you describe, because some people don't know what that means, would you describe what he did? Rep. Mickey Michaux: What it entails is that you own a piece of property, you don't live in it, you rent it out. And rather than being bothered with going around every week collecting the rent or something like that, you hire a property manager to do that for you. And that is what my father did, he managed those folks’ property. Any repairs or anything...tenants didn't have any interactions with the property owners at all. All the interactions were between the tenant and the property...my father, the property manager. And as an adjunct of that, he became an insurance agent for Bankers Fire Insurance Company, which was a black- owned fire insurance company that wrote the fire insurance policies on all these houses. I used to go around the city collecting rent on a bicycle, to the liquor houses, all these houses, the liquor houses and whatnot. People rented them. Yes, I wouldn't have a bit of trouble at all. But I rode all over Durham collecting rent from these houses that folks owned. Michelle Lanier: Can you remember some of your father's instructions on what to do and how to do it in terms of collecting the rent?

00:28:06.800 - 00:29:27.820

Rep. Mickey Michaux: No, other than the fact that he sent me out on a Saturday morning. I would get on my bicycle and he'd give me a receipt book and it wasn't anything to learn how to fill out a receipt book and make your rounds. Bring the money back in, turn the receipt book in, make sure your receipts are tallied up to what you collected that day. I mean, it was just...I don't remember any instructions other than the fact that he said, “Here's your route. This is where you go.” And somebody during the week, sometime during the week after school or something like that or someone called and said, “I can't come in and bring my rent in,” he'd get me and I'd get on my bicycle and go to the house to collect the rent and come back. Michelle Lanier: How old were you when you started that? Rep. Mickey Michaux: I was about 10 or 11 years old. I used to sell newspapers, too. I sold the Afro- American, Pittsburgh Courier, and and the Journal and Guide. And the way I got my bicycle is my dad said, you make the first 10 dollars on your bicycle and I'll pay the other half. Bicycle costs about $20 at the time, and selling newspapers I made that $10 and we went down to Sears Roebuck and bought a bicycle. Michelle Lanier: So people here in Durham took the Afro-American from Baltimore and the Pittsburgh Courier?

00:29:31.460 - 00:30:10.730

Rep. Mickey Michaux: Right, and Courier from Pittsburgh and the Journal and Guide from Norfolk, Virginia. These were the three black newspapers and they had a lot of local news in them. Because you had folks like Alex Rivera who did photojournalism for all three papers. Yeah. Michelle Lanier: You said your father also was in real estate as well. Rep. Mickey Michaux: Yeah, that's real estate, property management. Yeah, and he was in construction. He built houses, too. He built a lot of the houses that middle-class black folks lived in, yeah. Michelle Lanier: Do some, do you still see some of those structures?

00:30:10.730 - 00:31:21.270

Rep. Mickey Michaux: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's one on Fayetteville Street across from, across from the student union building, which was deemed to be at that time one of the first modern houses. It's a brick house that sits next to a white house where my godfather lived. Vi Turner lived in it. Vi Turner was a trader at North Carolina Mutual lived in that house. House built around 42', 43'. And up on Pekoe, Dr. Randolph's old house on, on Pekoe Street right down from Otis… there were, the house at the corner of Otis, brick house at the corner of Otis on the right hand side going down at the corner of Pekoe and Otis, my father built that. There are about three or four houses I can point to right now that he built, still standing. (clears throat. ) Michelle Lanier: My great-great aunt lived on Pekoe, Grace Lanier Thompson and lawyer Tommy Thompson. Rep. Mickey Michaux: Oh, now see now, ok. That house was right next to the vacant lot that we used to play football on. Michelle Lanier: So you remember Grace Thompson.

00:31:21.410 - 00:33:25.050

Rep. Mickey Michaux: Oh, Lord, yes. We used to...Dr. Elder had a house at the beach and Grace and Tommy, we called him “Lawyer Thompson” at the time, lived in that house up there in...they lived right across the street from Dr. Randolph. That's the house my father built for Dr. Randolph there. Oh yeah, they were all part of that beach time. We'd go to the beach, they would all be at the beach all about the same time, down at Atlantic Beach in South Carolina. Michelle Lanier: When it was time for you all...I want to get a sense...you've already talked about some of the movie theaters. Could you run down some of the other black owned businesses, the restaurants... Rep. Mickey Michaux: You had the Donut Shop...there was a thing in the paper the other day about the Donut Shop. G. W. Logan, who owned the Regal Theater, built the Donut Shop and my father during...right after World War II, when all the veterans were returning, my father set up a thing called Banneker Radio Institute which taught veterans how to repair radios. He also, he and another fellow named Shelley set up a shoe repair school down the street. But you had, you had the Donut Shop, you had Elvira's Blue Tavern, you had…Jack Mitchell had a restaurant on Fayetteville Street. Paul Johnson was a dietician down at Central had a restaurant going somewhere around there (sirens in the background). Who else? There were plenty of places to, you know, you could go eat. Michelle Lanier: Was there a place you enjoyed going to eat?

00:33:28.710 - 00:36:21.460

Rep. Mickey Michaux: Home. We didn't do much eating out. My mother, my mother's job was to raise the family. And she made sure that we were fed and on time and everything like that. So, or there was the clubhouse, the Algonquin Clubhouse. That was another place you could get a meal. Fact when my brother was born, my mother had to stay in the, was in the hospital. We, my father and I had meals on a regular basis during that time at the Algonquin Tennis Club. The College Inn was there and they served probably hot dogs and hamburgers and that type of thing. And you, we had grocery stores. We Pridgen's Grocery Store. You had Page's Grocery Store. There were one or two, there was a Jewish-owned, so a Katz store was there. Pridgen, Katz, and a few other grocery stores owned by black folks. Like I say, the black community really was a self contained. Once you crossed the tracks and you got on Pettigrew Street and you started coming this way off of Pettigrew Street, it was a self-contained community. Michelle Lanier: Where was the Algonquin Tennis Club? MM: Where W. D. Hill Recreation Center is now. Right there. That used to be Algonquin Tennis Club. They used to have three tennis courts back there. That was, that was the mecca of black folks’ tennis at the time. We weren't allowed to play with white folks, tennis at that time, so we had our own...we had our own national tournaments. I played 25 years on that tournament circuit. One of my, one of the folks that I helped coach was Arthur Ashe and Althea Gibson. The fact of the matter is that Lionel W. Cook used to be executive secretary of North Carolina Tennis Association, died not too long ago, and I have one of the programs...I got it here on my desk somewhere from the Southeastern Tennis Association where we used to have, where we used to host the tournament here in Durham, where tennis players would come from all over the country, New Jersey, all around to play in that tournament. And every August we had a national tournament held somewhere in the country, and the last years of the tournament it was held in Wilberforce, Ohio. But a couple of times it was held at Tuske, in Tuskegee, Alabama. That's where I got to meet Dr. George Washington Carver, many, many, many years ago. Michelle Lanier: You were there for tennis?

00:36:21.780 - 00:37:04.810

Rep. Mickey Michaux: Yeah, ah huh. Michelle Lanier: Was he involved in it? Rep. Mickey Michaux: No, he was just, this was in his last years, and the tournament was held there and we had an opportunity to visit his lab with him in it down there. We were there at a time that experiment was going on at the VA hospital there. Dr. Beverly??? who was in charge of that VA hospital, his kids played tennis in the tournament. But it was, it was, like I say, it was sort of a self-contained situation. Michelle Lanier: I'm moving through time. Moving around. Talk to me about your first time becoming aware there was this young leader named Martin Luther King.

00:37:20.450 - 00:41:31.340

Rep. Mickey Michaux: Oh, Martin. I knew Martin's brother before I knew him. A. D. A. D. King was at Palmer with us and he was something of a renegade and he didn't stay at Palmer long. Dr. Brown had to call Daddy King to tell him to come get this boy; there's nothing I can do with him. In 1956, I got to be, I was back here working and I hadn't even started law school yet. I was in full time work with my father. I got to be chairman of the Trade Week program for the Durham Business and Professional Chain. We had a Trade Week program that lasted a week. It was sort of like a job fair, playing up all of the black businesses and whatnot. And I was put in charge of the program, the major program that we had. So this was at the time that the Montgomery bus boycott was in full swing and effect. And I had to put together the final program, the big program, and got to thinking about who I would get for a speaker for that program. And the bright idea came to me, I ought to try to get Martin Luther King. I knew his brother, and so I went to Louis Austin. I said, “Mr. Austin, I want to bring in Martin Luther King Jr. for the final speaker.” He said, “That's a good idea.” He said, “Let's see if we can get him on the phone.” And sure enough we sat in Louis Austin's office and called Martin that day and he, he wasn't there. His secretary's name was Hilda Proctor, who was mother of a young lady I went to Palmer with and so we called back. We came back later and called and got Martin, and Martin said, “I've always wanted to come to Durham. I've heard so much about Durham. Count me in.” And he came. I picked him up from the airport, which was a quonset hut out there for a while and brought him to the house. Mother had prepared, my mother had prepared food for him. We sat around and we talked and I think one of the reasons the friendship grew was because he liked my mother's cooking. So every time he would come to Durham after that, that's where he stayed. He stayed with us and sometimes he would come in when nobody else knew he was here. He'd come in and stay. Well, Martin and I were basically, he was about a year, he's a year older than I was, but we would talk. This is one of the reasons my brother went to Boston University. And we just got on a friendly basis, and the only reason I got involved with politics was because of him. And so, it was just one of those friendships that just, you know…. Michelle Lanier: He's been depicted in so many different ways. What are some of the things that you maybe cherish most about your memories of King. Rep. Mickey Michaux: The friendship. The fact that we could sit down and we could talk, and some things I don't talk about at all. But the fact that, for instance, he would tell me things about what would happen, thoughts that would run through his mind at a particular time about certain things. He would want me, he would call and say come on down here. We're going to do this, we're going to do that, we're going to do the other. And sometimes I'd go and sometimes I wouldn't. And the March on Washington, I remember I got a call from, what's his face, his aide at the time...I can't think of his name right now. It'll come to me.... Michelle Lanier: Was it Bayard?

00:41:31.620 - 00:46:42.280

Rep. Mickey Michaux: No, no, no, this was the guy who was actually Martin's righthand guy...called said, “Martin wants you in Washington for the March on Washington.” I said, “I'm in Chicago at a real estate meeting.” We had our convention. He said, “Well,” he said, “just come on down and see what happens.” So Bernard, what is Bernard's last name...I'll think of that, too, in a minute. Bernard said, “Well, he wants you. He'd like to have you there,” so I got on a plane, flew out of Chicago. Went to Washington. Went down to the hotel. Ran…, got up with Bernard. Talked with Martin for a little while before he went out to the march. I remember saying, I said, “What you going to talk about?” I said, “This is crazy,” I said, “you ain't got that many people...you know, folks just ain't going to come out for stuff like this.” He said, “Well, I got a few little notes here, but I'll think of something to say.” Now Martin, I would see Martin. I heard him speak one day five times and never repeat himself. Five times in one day. He spoke to students over at Shaw, spoke to the ministers here in Durham, spoke at a press conference here, spoke to some high school students, and then gave a speech that night at St. Mark Church. But, anyway, I said ok, so Bernard, Bernard Lee, that’s his name, Bernard and I went to the Lincoln Memorial and got up on the platform up, off to the right. When we got there, and I got out there and I looked and I saw all...I said, “Hey, I've never seen this many people in my life.” He just said, “Well, there's going to be a whole lot of people here.” I said, “You're right.” Martin, Martin did the march, came up. I had a couple of words with him then. Then after it was over with, I had to get back, because I had to catch...(phone rings) but, I guess... Michelle Lanier: You were saying that you knew you had to get back. Rep. Mickey Michaux: Yeah, get back to Chicago, yeah. But like I say, the only reason I got involved with politics was because of him. We would talk and we would talk about the economics of the whole situation, but he just say, “The only way we're going to get some economic parity is by becoming part of the political scene.” He said, “That's what you ought to do.” I said, “You're crazy.” I said, “Martin, you tried to talk me into a whole bunch of stuff. You tried to talk me into being a pacifist like you are.” I said, “If somebody slaps me twice, then I'm ready to go to war with them.” I mean, you know, just, you know, we were just talking in general. But that was, and then I got to meet Martin's professor of preaching, Dr. Alan Knight Chalmers. He stayed at our house, too, so. He was just a tall, white man who was treasurer of the NAACP. And, and we used to talk about Martin, too, a lot. But, you know, that was an interesting time. And part of why I got involved in politics, I ran for state house in '64, '66, and '68, and in '68 Martin got killed. And the fire went out of my belly at the time, so I wasn't going to be involved with politics anymore after that. I had been too close to seeing too many people get hurt and whatnot, so I said to heck with all this mess. But in '72 when we had, we picked up an extra seat in Durham for state legislature and I had run, like I said, '64, '66, and '68. Some folks came to me and said, “Well, you've got, your name has been out there because you've been the assistant, the chief assistant district attorney, so you ought to do it.” So I finally condescended to do it. That was, that was basically it. The weekend that Martin was killed, he was due in Durham, he was due in North Carolina that week. Reggie Hawkins who was a black dentist out of Charlotte was running for governor and we had arranged for Martin to come in to Charlotte, do Charlotte, Greensboro...Charlotte, Winston Salem, Greensboro, come to Durham, have dinner, and go to the rest of the state. Martin called me on that Tuesday or Wednesday, like Tuesday, I think, Tuesday evening, something like, he said, “Look, I've got to go back to Memphis. Some things have come up and what you do is call the office and see if we can get next weekend or the following weekend to do this thing.” I said, “Ok,” I said, “but, you know things are getting ready.” He said, “well, yeah, but I got to do this. I got to go back.” Boom, that was it. Where were you when you heard he got killed?

00:46:42.460 - 00:48:09.510

Rep. Mickey Michaux: Driving down the street, going, actually, I was passing, going to my mother and father's house where Martin stayed. I was living somewhere else at the time. Heard it on the radio and almost ran into the, North Carolina has some pillars up in front of the main entrance; almost ran into them. And then went straight to my mother and father’s. They had, mother had heard the news and she was a little upset about it and so was dad, and, you know what I’m saying…. Michelle Lanier: Do you remember the community response in Durham at that time? Rep. Mickey Michaux: It was calm. (clears throat.) Durham, Durham, Durham did not, while we were strong on civil rights at the time, we did not, we did not suffer the pangs other places felt. We had, we had reasonable folks on both sides of the fence, and we transitioned through the whole thing. So, it was, it was, it was upsetting, but it didn't set off like it set off in Washington, places like that, no. Michelle Lanier: So in '72 your name had already kind of been in the air because of your role as chief assistant district attorney. How did that happen? How did you come to be in that role?

00:48:18.790 - 00:51:23.660

Rep. Mickey Michaux: Oh, well, in 1969, Milton Reid…. I have to explain the court system to you. We, we, did not have the court system that we have now. It was different. (clears throat) We had a thing called Recorders Court, which was where all misdemeanors, it's like the district court is today, like the district court is today. And, but it was sort of on its own. Milton Reid was the, what we call the solicitor; they were not called district attorneys at that time. All of them were called solicitors. Milton Reid was a solicitor in the Recorders Court. He got the authority from the state to have an assistant. (clears throat) Cliff Johnson was supposed to be his assistant. Cliff moved to Charlotte, so somebody came to me and said, “Well, you can do it. It's paying on a per diem basis, you don't have to stay there all the time. It's like a part-time situation.” So I said okay. But then in the meantime, Milton had run to become a judge in the new, the new court system, district court. So I got to be, I got to be his assistant and tried a whole bunch of cases in Recorders Court before the new system changed over. He got to be a judge in the new system. Tony Brannon, who was assistant district attorney to Dan Edwards in Superior Court got on as the district attorney at that time, and he took me on as his chief assistant, and I stayed in that...this was like '69, '70, '71, I stayed in that position for that period of time. And then in '72, as a result of redistricting, Durham got an extra seat in the legislature. And that was how that, that all evolved. I had run before. They say, “You've been out there, you've been in the public eye, you've been trying cases, blah, blah blah, blah, blah, now’s your time to do it.” I said, “You going to pay for it?” They said, “Yeah, we'll pay for it.” and that was it. Michelle Lanier: Who's the they? Wa it the Durham Committee? Rep. Mickey Michaux: A bunch of people, but not necessarily the Durham Committee. A bunch of people, because I had, I had a little reluctance from the Durham Committee initially. But some got them straight on it, folks like Floyd McKissick and a few others, Some Durham Committee folks and some others, Howard Clement and all these folks who had been involved with me before and said, “Well, you need to do it. You want to do it, you need to do it. This is your time to do it.” I said okay. Michelle Lanier: You are positioned also in this way because you had a law degree...from North Carolina Central. So from Palmer, did you go immediately to Central for your bachelor's?

00:51:32.620 - 00:53:43.600

Rep. Mickey Michaux: Right, I did. I graduated from Palmer in '48, and I entered Central in the fall of '48. On the first tennis team they ever had, played in the band, sang in the choir, did a whole lot of things on campus, some I don't even talk about anymore. But, hey. Michelle Lanier: What was Central's campus like at that time? Who was the president there... Rep. Mickey Michaux: When I first went there, Dr. Elder was the president and he... In fact, he was there the whole while I was there. He signed my degree and everything. It was a far different place than it is today. You didn't have coed dormitories and, in fact, the girls had to be in their dormitories by every night. They had to, if they wanted to go to the library, they had to sign out to go to the library. And sign back in by when they came back in. I mean, it was just, it was a...Dean Rush was there, and she was dean of women, and then Dean Latham came in and, I mean, it just, it was an iron-fisted operation. Everybody lived on campus. Most folks lived on campus at the time anyway. All the girls lived on campus. Some of the fellows lived out in the community but you didn't have...you had one boy's dormitory at the time. Actually, you had two. One was, what was, came up to be Senior Residence Hall, but that used to be the boys’ dormitory, next to the Bell Tower. But there was old Chidley Hall which was a frame building right across the street from that. But all the girls lived on campus. You had Annie Day Shepard, you had Rush Hall, and you had Senior Girls’ Dormitory. So that was how that worked. Michelle Lanier: How did it feel for you to be on a campus that you actually had so many personal connections to. To actually know the president so well, to know the Shepard family so well.

00:53:46.700 - 01:00:18.800

Rep. Mickey Michaux: It really didn't make that much of a difference to me. I was there to get an, try to get an education, an advanced education. I always wanted to be a doctor and I got, I, I majored in biology and minored in chemistry for a while and then I took a double major in philosophy somewhere down the line so I could graduate. But I always wanted to go to medical school, because I learned that, in the black community, the leaders in the community were your teachers, lawyer, preacher, or doctor. I didn't think I had anything that would make me a preacher or a teacher, a lawyer or a teacher. And I sure wasn't sanctified enough to be a preacher, so the thing left for me to try to shoot for was be a doctor. And I graduated bachelor of science in biology and chemistry. Interview: What took you to law? Rep. Mickey Michaux: Well, that was another story. When I graduated from, in 1952, in September of '52 I got drafted in the army during the Korean conflict. I went in the army, and I got moved around. I qualified for what they call S and P, scientific and professional. They claim that that would give you a training in the army or whatever you wanted to train in. You spend eight weeks in basic training and then get the assignment, a choice assignment. I thought about it...well, what had happened was I actually joined the Air Force before that because I wanted to fly a plane, but they drafted me and there was an intra-service transfer that you could do, but they wouldn't let me have it. I had to stay in the army. I messed around with scientific and professional and I said, “Well, let me see what I can do. I don't want to go to Korea, whatever I can do to stay out of that.” So I didn't take scientific and professional. They sent me to Camp Breckenridge, Kentucky. I took 16 weeks of basic training, infantry basic training to get ready to go to war. But I had applied for Officer's Candidate School so I had...I applied for Officers Candidate School and for Officers Strategic Services, which was the Army branch of the Intelligence Division. I graduated. I was outstanding trainee in my unit and whatnot, got all the stuff for, you know, around that. And while they were processing, I graduate. We finish basic training at Breckenridge and they had not processed all of my paperwork for the other things that I was trying to get into so I stayed on at Breckenridge and joined division faculty, which taught recruits how to use 5775 and 105 recorder's rifles. In January of 1953, they stopped shooting real bullets in Korea. I told them to take all that other stuff out of the file folder and shove it up the nearest drain pipe. I didn't want to...I was trying to keep from going to Korea. So they finally sent me to San Luis Obispo in California and then shipped, sent me back to Fort Sill, Oklahoma and when I got to Fort Sill, I went to Fort Sill for re-assignment. And I went in to personnel, sat down and talked with the personnel officer. He said, “Well, what are you doing in infantry?” He looked at my record. I said, “Well, you know, I got invited to this thing and I'm just here.” He said, “Well, what would you, what do you want to do?” He said, “Here's a list…MOS, military occupational specialists. What do you want to do?” And I looked down the first thing I saw was medical laboratory technician. I said, “I want to do that because I want to become a doctor.” He said, “All right,” he said, “we'll give you 1858 MOS, which was a medical laboratory technician. We will send you to Fort Hood, Texas, to the hospital in Fort Hood, Texas. Let you start out there with a recommendation that you be sent to Fort Sam Houston, Texas to take medical laboratory technician training.” I said, “Fine. Y’all just invited me to this show.” Got down to Fort Hood. Got in the hospital in Fort Hood and got in the laboratory in Fort Hood and the first thing I did, I got to be a veniculturist. You know what that is? Draw blood from people. And I got good at that. In the meantime I got, orders came down for me to go to Fort Sam Houston to go to medical field service school down there for medical laboratory training. Stayed down there eight weeks, eight weeks, yeah, eight weeks in that school down there. Came out as a certified medical laboratory technician. By the way, that was an interesting thing, too, because I got to meet Don Newcombe, who was baseball pitcher, first black baseball pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was there, too. He had been drafted and was there, too. I got pictures somewhere of Don in all the pictures I got at home. But anyway, finished school down there, went back to Fort Hood, Texas where I had started out. The pathologist who ran the lab knew I wanted to go medical school. He said, “I'm going to teach you all the anatomy you ever thought you wanted to know.” I said, “All?” He said, “I have to do autopsies and you're going to be my assistant.” I said, “That's great.” When you die in service, don't care what you die from, you're always autopsied. Rep. Mickey Michaux: And so, I did over 100, 200 autopsies, assisted on 100, 200 autopsies. Learned all the anatomy I ever wanted to know. All right, so I get out of, I get out in 1954, I'm released from service, from active duty. I'm put in the Reserves. I get out, I got drafted in September, I got out in September and went immediately to Rutgers and worked on a aster's in physiology and biochemistry. Did that, stood there for a year. Came back home during the summer break. Needed to make some money. Started working for my father. This is the summer of '50… '54. Started working with him in the businesses then and got to thinking. I said, “Now, I got accepted in medical school but it was not for the next school year, it was for the following school year. I said, “I got to stay out a year.” I said, “Let me start this.” So I started adding up. I said, “I got to do four years of medical school. Got to do an internship, and if I’m going to specializ, (Ob-Gyn specialty, because I ran Ob-Gyn lab while I was in service), that's another two years and then it will take me at least another three to five years to set up a practice.” I said, “I'll be an old man before I start making money,” I said, and I don't want to do this. So I had a year left. No I came back and then I started working on an MBA at Central. And was about to run out of my GI Bill, had a year left. I said,

01:02:18.620 - 01:05:23.560

“Well, I'm not going to give them back this year, I'm going to go to law school,” so I went to law school on the last GI Bill. And I worked while I was in law school. Finished law school in 40, in '64 and there was seven in my law school class, Maynard Jackson being one of them. Didn't pass the bar in '64, didn't pass the bar in '65, passed it in '66. TO HERE The reason, one of the reasons I didn't pass it in '64 and '65 was because of my activities in the civil rights arena. I was, I didn't even know if I was going to be allowed to take the bar exam In 1964 until the Saturday before the bar exam was being given. I got called in Raleigh by Ed Cannon who one of the biggest, dirtiest, Confederate flags you've ever seen hung over his desk. They never allowed more than one or two blacks to pass the bar exam during that period of time. I knew I had passed it in '64. There wasn't any question in my mind, and I was fixing to sue them, but Claude Jones, who worked with my father and was a city attorney said, “Mickey, don't do that right now.” He said, “Wait ‘til your brother gets out of law school.” Eric was at Duke then. Eric has started out at Central. Duke ran out of black students. They came over and recruited him and took him at Duke. He said, “Wait until your brother gets out of law school and let's see what happens.” All right, so in '64 I took the exam and knew I passed. Didn't pass. In '65, the same thing happened. In '66, I got married, first time, no second time in '66. Got married. Didn't study for the bar exam. My brother raised hell with me because I wouldn't study for the bar exam. The only two blacks who passed the bar exam that year were my brother and me. (laughs) Yeah. We were the only two. Michelle Lanier: The Michaux brothers? Rep. Mickey Michaux: In 1966. He, he was on his way into the Air Force because he was Air Force Reserves and he was on his way to JAG but we applied, at that time we applied for admission to the North Carolina Bar Association, different from the North Carolina State Bar. North Carolina Bar Association was all white lawyers, and we applied for admission. They didn't allow us to become members of the North Carolina Bar Association. Duke University withdrew their membership from them because they would not accept one of their graduates, who was my brother. In the meantime, Eric goes in the service and we finally get admitted to the, we were not the first to go in. They took in Ken, Kenneth Lee. I think they took in Julius and Kenneth Lee somewhere around that time. Made them the first ones. Weren't going to let my brother and me be the first to go in, but anyway that's...But that's how all that happened. Michelle Lanier: Amazing. I want to backtrack. Can you name professors at Central who were deeply impactful to your time there?

01:05:32.120 - 01:07:12.900

Rep. Mickey Michaux: Dr. Jimmy Lee, who was my biology teacher. Dr. Ezra Totten, who was my physics teacher, I mean, my chemistry teacher. Dr. Robinson, who was my physics teacher. I. Greg Newton, who was my political science teacher. Dr. Ernst M. Manasse, who was a Jew, German Jew, who was teaching there. He and his wife taught there, which is another story, because Dr. Shepard, Dr. Manasse fled Germany during the Hitler regime, came to this country, didn't, had no idea where he was going. Was one of the smartest men that you could ever want to get. Dr. Shepard somehow got a hold of him and gave him a job and he never left Durham, once that happened. He could have had a job anywhere in the country, at any school in the country. He never left here. But Dr. Manasse, lord, I'm trying to think of, but Greg Newton was my poli sci teacher and I used to love his class because he gave us free rein in class to discuss things. You know and he said, “You're going to be, you're trying to be a politician now?” I said, “No, Doc Newton. I'm not.” But anyway. Michelle Lanier: Did he live to see you become a politician? Rep. Mickey Michaux: No he didn't. He got to be the grand basileus of my fraternity and then shortly after that, he died. He, he, no, he didn’t. I'm trying to think. Then there was, hmm. I don't know. Michelle Lanier: Where did you come into your fraternity? Were you at Central?

01:07:13.800 - 01:07:27.340

Rep. Mickey Michaux: North Carolina Central, 1950, February 1950. Michelle Lanier: Still involved? Rep. Mickey Michaux: Nah, not as much as I used to be. Michelle Lanier: I wanted to go back to a few names that you called out. John Avery.

01:07:31.120 - 01:09:19.060

Rep. Mickey Michaux: Yeah, he was a friend of my father's. He and my father grew up in the same neighborhood up in Hattie ?, North Carolina. There were three families up there, the Averys, the Mishers(?) and the Perkins. The Mishers(?) is what they called the Michauxs then. When they...three black families up there. John Avery migrated to Durham and got to be a big wheel at North Carolina Mutual. And families were connected. My dad first came down here to Kittrell College (?). That was his first foray down here. And I think that is when John Avery really got him involved down here. Then, but he, but John Avery was one of the ones responsible for my father coming to Durham and finally staying in Durham. Michelle Lanier: You also mentioned Louis Austin. Can you go into some more detail? Rep. Mickey Michaux: Oh, lord, Louis Austin was a character. He was a smart man. Ran the Carolina Times. Stayed broke all the time. But he, he persevered. He wrote, he wrote the truth, and for a while he had his office in our building on Fayetteville Street. But he was on Pettigrew Street at the time and I can remember him walking downtown...they told me this, but Louis walked in the bank, John Wheeler's bank up there with a lantern, looking for a leader. Diogenes looking for a leader? That's what Louis Austin doing that downtown. Very outspoken individual. Very, very, he was flamboyant to a very nice style....I think we can open this door because nobody is up here right now. Michelle Lanier: Now because this is audio; it’s not video. We are in an office...is this your office building?

01:09:34.280 - 01:11:05.540

Rep. Mickey Michaux: This is the office building my father built, yes. Michelle Lanier: Can you talk about who had the vision to do this? Rep. Mickey Michaux: He did. Actually, my father in 1936 bought all the land out here. Over where that cemetery is over there, that's ours too. He had that corner, this corner, and the corner across the street. At that time Riddle Road wasn't there. There was only one lane coming down here. He brought all this property down here. One of the things I did to make some money sometime during the summers when I wasn't waiting tables, there was a drive-in theater on this spot here, and I ran that drive-in theater for a long time. Every summer I ran it, most summers I ran that drive in theater and created a little stir with that. The year that the movie came out called Island of the Sun. Had Harry Belafonte in it and that's when Harry Belafonte was reportedly making love to a white woman in that picture, and they banned the picture in the South. I got the movie and showed it out here at this drive-in theater ‘cause I wrote Darryl Zanuck and told him what the situation was here and somehow or other, I guess, maybe three weeks after I wrote Darryl Zanuck, who produced the film, I had it delivered to me. And showed it for solid week out here. Michelle Lanier: With no problems?

01:11:05.540 - 01:11:14.320

Rep. Mickey Michaux: No problem. Michelle Lanier: Did you have a name of your drive-in theater? Rep. Mickey Michaux: College View Drive-in Theater, um hmmm. Michelle Lanier: What year was this building built?

01:11:15.100 - 01:11:26.400

Rep. Mickey Michaux: '75 I think. Yeah, this was '75, I think it was. Michelle Lanier: When did your father pass? Rep. Mickey Michaux: In 1986. Michelle Lanier: So he was an entrepreneur.

01:11:26.900 - 01:12:41.780

Rep. Mickey Michaux: Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. We had to move. We were in Hayti when urban renewal came through so we had been there for a long time, but he had this property out here, so when we had to move, he decided he was going to put up this building and that was it. Michelle Lanier: What kinds of businesses have been in this building since '75? Rep. Mickey Michaux: We’ve had a doctor's office downstairs under this office here. We had a computer operation up here for a long time and then we had a school. Downstairs, on the other side downstairs, is where our major offices are, the three companies we operate, Union Insurance and Realty Company, Washington Terrace Apartments, and Glenview Memorial Park. Those are the three offices and they're still operating down there with the exception of Washington Terrace, which was sold. But we had a doctor's office and then a radio station was down there. A few others. Michelle Lanier: When did Glenview Memorial Park start?

01:12:45.820 - 01:13:10.820

Rep. Mickey Michaux: 1949. My dad had a friend named Ed Newton who owned the cemetery out here on 70. I can't think of the name of the cemetery out there. But told him you've got 20 some odd acres over there. You ought to turn it into a memorial park. And that's what he did. Michelle Lanier: And there are some prominent people buried there. Rep. Mickey Michaux: Yeah, that's what they tell me..yeah, yeah. Michelle Lanier: Including your parents.

01:13:11.060 - 01:16:44.440

Rep. Mickey Michaux: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Michelle Lanier: Ok, I want to end the interview with you talking about what it has been like to represent Durham in the General Assembly for 30 years. You have seen so much change. And, of course, we don't have to go into deep detail. I know we've been at this for a while, but what has it been like for you personally to represent your community? Rep. Mickey Michaux: It's been a pleasure. I mean, it really has. And I don't say that because that's what you're supposed to say. That was what I started out to do was to represent Durham county and give it a voice. And we have had, I have been a part of probably one of the most powerful, at times, one of the most forceful delegations in the General Assembly. I mean when you had folks like Ken Royall and George Miller and others who have come in over a period of time. Durham has been looked on as probably one of the most cohesive delegations that the General Assembly has ever seen, because we all work together. And we still do. That's why, I was asking Skip Stam why they didn't...they always run somebody against me, The Republicans, there's a Republican that always runs against me. Everyone else gets a free ride, which is something else different. But I say, “Skip, all you all have this Republican running against me.” I say, “How come you don't come in and give him money, you know, give the person money?” I said, “It's happened, three, four times. Why don't you give them money?” He said, “Mickey, Durham is surrounded by a moat. It's filled with Democratic alligators. A Republican couldn't become dog catcher in Durham.” I said, “Well, we've had some Republican, I say Thomas Stith, for instance, served on the city council. We've had Republicans serving on county commissioners. He said, “That was an aberration.” And that’s one reason that we catch hell over there right now is simply because Durham has been forceful in the past and been able to get things done over there, and Republicans don't like Durham. They don't like Durham or Chapel Hill. Now, if you don't want to get anything passed in the Republican legislature, give it to the Durham folks to pass and it’ll never pass. Even with that, we have come out with some legislation that has passed muster over there and we’ve been able to get it through. But it's been, and it's been I mean, I've spent my time over there. I mean, 37 years in there is a good little while. Even though I had a break in between. But it's been a pleasure. And I never wanted really to do anything...I've had the opportunity to go to the senate. Turned it down. I had the opportunity three times to go to the senate, didn't want to do it. Michelle Lanier: What… I know that we've had a big political shift, certainly for the last few years. What kinds of key moments do you have in your memory as you look back on three plus decades?

01:16:52.580 - 01:21:01.060

Rep. Mickey Michaux: I'm looking...what I'm seeing right now, I'm seeing all the progress that has been made over a period of 100 years is going down the tubes. We have morphed from the 19th century to the 21st century, skipping the whole 20th century because of all the progress that was made during the 20th century. In race relations, in education, in anything you can think of, in personal relationships, all of it, gone down the tubes. I look at it, for instance, all the, basically, all of the progressive voting legislation has my name on it. And to see all of that go down the tubes where we have gone, like I told you, we've gone from 46th in turnout in the 1990s to 11th in turnout, voter turnout in 2000, in the 2000s, from 46th to 11^(th). That’s as a result of the progress that we made, with more people turning out to vote. Now, you're getting voter suppression and I mean, all of these, the hits on public education. I told somebody the other day, “You know, I’m about to agree with them, let's just do away with public education, see, ‘cause the way these Republicans are operating over here right now and the budgets they are putting out, they didn't learn any...most of them went to public school, they didn't learn anything about adding or subtracting and multiplying and dividing. Because with these budgets they putting, they just can't do it. They're going to be in a hole. They're going to be five billion dollars in the hole in the next five years because of the tax cuts. I mean, that to me is one of the...it's just awful. All this progress we made. Being one of the best, be one of the most friendly states to come to for businesses to set up. For years we ranked high on that. They come in and say, “All right, we're going to cut taxes, which is going to draw more businesses in here.” But you're going to do other things involving ideology that's just going to ruin you. So, you know. Michelle Lanier: Before this current events have taken place, if you had a way to introduce your constituents. So if you were talking to other legislators or people from other states even about your constituents here in Durham, what would you...how would you describe your constituents here and the kinds of things they're interested in? Rep. Mickey Michaux: As being forward thinking, forward moving people. Durham has been on the way...I mean, all you're doing...where people get along, people recognize others for what they are worth, what they're really worth. Nobody denigrates anybody. I mean, if you...people work together in Durham. There's no question about that. I mean, you've got a black mayor that's done wonders for Durham. You, I mean, you've got some of the best restaurants in the country in Durham. You've got a performing arts center that's one of the top three in the country. You got a baseball team in Durham that may be owned by a Raleigh owner, but they're still in Durham, that has national recognition. You've got a major university here that's the Harvard of the South. I'm thinking that you can say Harvard period. And then you got a HBCU here that's one of the leading black universities in the country, which still has a purpose and a goal. So Durham, anybody who comes to Durham ought to feel a pleasure in Durham and you don't have to go outside the confines to get discouraged because Durham will build up, in my book, will build up whatever you need to do. Michelle Lanier: And I see that since I've moved back to Durham—I was in Granville county, I’ve moved back. Just being at say, the Farmer's Market and just out and about. Just being in the community. Just being on Central's campus. I want to wrap us up. As I think about you as a child, picking up that rent money for your dad and going to liquor houses. And then I fast forward to you being at Palmer learning elocution and etiquette under Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown. You, it appears that you are comfortable with people from all walks of life, has certainly positioned you to do what...

01:21:32.620 - 01:22:41.440

Rep. Mickey Michaux: I am. During the time that we were fighting for the rights for public housing tenants, it wasn't anything for me to walk into public housing...yeah. I'd drive a Cadillac. I had a Cadillac or a Lincoln Continental driving up there, no problem at all. We worked together. Ann Atwater, Retha Rogers, all those folks lived in public housing, we were all together as one. We took a, I'll never forget, we took over city council one night. Moses Burt, Floyd McKissick, me. We put Moses Burt up as the mayor. Floyd was, was president of the council. I was the lawyer, and took over city hall one night and, so we could get some equity for folks who were living in public housing. Michelle Lanier: Thank you for this time. Thank you for this interview. Rep. Mickey Michaux: You know, I'm sitting up there thinking, I'm telling you all this stuff, I meet every Thursday night with my biographer. We haven't gone into any stuff like this yet. Michelle Lanier: Well, this will be accessible. We'll make sure that you get this recording so you can share it. So that as you write your story...

01:22:48.500 - 01:23:04.760

Rep. Mickey Michaux: Jarvis Hall... guy at Central is doing it. Michelle Lanier: Well, this will certainly be a tool that we can share. These are your words, so thank you, and I know that the Durham County Library is thankful for this. Rep. Mickey Michaux: Anytime. Michelle Lanier: I'm going to end now.

01:23:04.760 - 01:23:04.760

Rep. Mickey Michaux: OK.