Othro Drew | Interview 1 | June 21, 2012

REDMAN: All right. Today is June 21st and I'm in Stockton, California with Othro Drew. And I'd like to begin. Can I just ask you, that's a pretty unique first name. I'm wondering if you could state that for me and then spell it.

DREW: It's Othro.

REDMAN: Othro.

DREW: Right. And it's O-T-H-R-O.

REDMAN: Okay. And Drew spelled D-R-E-W?

DREW: Right. Now, Othro, that's {Audi?} Indian.

REDMAN: Interesting.

DREW: And it means the last warrior.

REDMAN: Fascinating.

DREW: So technically the name is never to be used again.

REDMAN: Tell me about where you were born.

DREW: Oh, I was born in Coffeyville, Kansas.

REDMAN: Kansas. So that seems like that would play into the story behind your name potentially.

DREW: Well, that goes back a ways, too. It's quite interesting because on my dad's side my great-grandparents were part of the Trail of Tears from the 00:01:00Everglades. They were in Florida and they were force marched from Florida to Kansas. And what was interesting--at that time my great-grandmother was pregnant. And this is the wintertime. And she wanted to lie down and die but my great-grandfather wouldn't let her. He said, "You're going to go if I have to carry you all the way."

REDMAN: That's amazing.

DREW: And so they ended up in Kansas, near Coffeyville, Kansas, which was quite interesting because Kansas was a pretty--at that time it was the Wild West really. Coffeyville was Bad Lands. That's where all the rustlers and all the ne'er-do-wells hung out there.

REDMAN: And what year were you born?

DREW: I was born in 1930.

REDMAN: In 1930, okay. So can you tell me just a little more about what your parents' situation was when you arrived. Were they farming? Were they running a homestead by that point? Or--

DREW: Quite frankly, I'm not really clear on that. I know they were farming. But, see, I lived with my grandmother until I was age twelve and I really never knew my parents that well. And my father left, I understand, when I was like about four years old. And my grandmother told me that he stated, "I'm leaving because he's never going to amount to anything anyway," which was always my driving point.

REDMAN: Interesting.

DREW: And my mother just never was there. So at twelve years of age, I was at the--World War II had started and they had the shipyards in Richmond. Some people were migrating to California to work in the shipyard. And so from what I 00:03:00understand, my mother had come to California. So my grandmother told me I was coming to California. I was under the impression that at last I would have a chance to live with my mother. But instead I ended up living with an uncle in Berkeley for a year. A nice man. Just indifferent. Totally indifferent. He had a daughter that was a little bit older than me, and he fed us, clothed us and this type of thing, but he just never was involved.

REDMAN: Now, had your mom come to Richmond?

DREW: My mother had come to Richmond, right.

REDMAN: To find work at the shipyards?

DREW: She was literally working at the shipyard from what I understand.

REDMAN: And you were living for that first year with your uncle at Berkeley?

DREW: First year with my uncle in Berkeley. Then after I completed that year of school, I came home from school and was informed that, "You're moving to Stockton to live with another uncle." So just like that I'm in Stockton, which was the most horrid place I could have ever imagined. The population there was 00:04:00like--it was around 50,000. Strictly agriculture. Nothing else but agriculture. In fact, trucks were lined up down on what we called Center Street and people would go down there to go out, work in the crops. And so that's what I did. I would go down there. But back up a bit. When I lived with my uncle here in Stockton, Uncle Ben, from the start it was like, "I don't really want you here but you're my older sister's son, you have no place to go, so you are there. I'll provide you with a place to stay, I'll provide you with food, everything else you're on your own."

REDMAN: This sounds like a tough upbringing.

DREW: Yes. It was weird.

REDMAN: Unusual, sure.

DREW: And so I never had a childhood because when other children were playing 00:05:00and going to the movies and things I had to go down there, catch a truck and go out and work in the crops. Pick potatoes, tomatoes, onions, whatever was in vogue at the time. And so I had to work, especially in the summer, to earn enough money to buy clothing for school and books or whatever supplies I needed and everything. And then to pay for my living with him, with my uncle. He owned quite a bit of property. He owned a piece of property next door to his house and he decided to build a house and he decided he wanted a basement. My job was to build a basement with a spade. And this is all adobe. So then he would mark out so much in the morning. I did before I went to school. Then after I returned from school I had to do so much more. He had a son, my cousin, who was a year--I 00:06:00mean, was one month and one week younger than me. Spoiled rotten. Anything Junior wanted, he got. And, of course, my uncle's heart was his daughter. She was about three years older than me. And then there was like the pecking order. It was my female cousin, male cousin, my uncle's wife. If they were in first and second place, she would have been like in sixth place. And then if there were ten places I wasn't on the chart at all.

REDMAN: Right, wow.

DREW: If my cousin said I did something or anybody said--if they said I did it, I did it, whether I did it or not.

REDMAN: Sure.

DREW: That resulted in punishment. Punishment was he'd take me out to the garage and with these--see, it was a rope. Some sort of rope. But straw like rope, the 00:07:00type of rope. Then I would get a beating for whatever I did or supposedly have done. So when I left I was fourteen. It was about a year later. He took me down, gave me a beating. It was a pretty severe beating. He left me lying on the garage floor. So when I got up, I knew that was it. And so I went upstairs and I told my aunt. I said, "You know, I'm going. I have to go." She said, "I understand."

REDMAN: Wow.

DREW: And later on, what was his name, {Rick Box?} had a joke about matching luggage. Like luggage was too--shopping bags, bags from the same department store. Back in those days that was my luggage. Two shopping bags. And I was never unpacked. I lived in Berkeley, I never unpacked. I lived with Uncle here, I never unpacked. That was it.

REDMAN: Wow.

DREW: Everything I owned was in those two shopping bags. And so when I left I had no idea where I was going or what I was going to do or anything. I just left.

REDMAN: At fifteen? At fourteen?

DREW: Fourteen. Right.

REDMAN: Wow.

DREW: I knew I wanted to go to school. That was a fixed thing. No matter what happened.

REDMAN: Where did that come from, do you think?

DREW: What?

REDMAN: That desire to go to school?

DREW: From the one thing that my dad had said.

REDMAN: That he had said, "He's not going to amount to anything"?

DREW: "He'll never amount to anything."

REDMAN: So there was a chip on your shoulder from that.

DREW: So every time I got ready to quit that would pop into my head. And so I went to school. I never missed a day of school. I was never late. And slept wherever. Slept at the parks, somebody's house, church, boiler room, school gym, anywhere. And so at sixteen I graduated from high school. So now what do I do?

REDMAN: Did your teachers know about your--

DREW: No.

REDMAN: --home life situation?

DREW: No. Nobody cared. If you were a black kid, who cared? They didn't care. You showed up, you showed up; you didn't, you didn't. It was just one of those kind of things. It was up to you. You wanted to get an education, that was up to you. And if you were pretty smart there might be a teacher that might encourage you or something. But barring that, no. And then like even going to school here in Stockton, which was quite an adventure. When I came here, they had just erected this high school, Edison High School, primarily for minorities and it was a two year high school because they hadn't completed it. If you graduated from there then you had to go to the other high school, which was Stockton High. There was only two high schools. So you went to Stockton High School, which was more than an ocean. Stockton High School was on the north side of town, which blacks didn't go. You couldn't live over there and if you were over there you 00:10:00had to have a good reason for being there.

REDMAN: I see.

DREW: Like you worked. If you're a lady, you were a domestic. And you had like a uniform. You wore a white uniform. That says that she's working so she's okay.

REDMAN: Well, people might out and out ask you but the uniform could be sort of a signal of why or--

DREW: Right. Like South Africa. Women wore a certain uniform that said that they were domestics so they didn't have to be stopped. And then if a man was out there, he was basically working in the yard or doing this type of yard work. And at the high school out there, if you graduated from Edison High, two years, then it was deemed that you would go to Stockton High. Now, that was quite interesting because if you went to Stockton High the students didn't want you there, the parents didn't want you there, the teachers didn't want you there. 00:11:00Nobody wanted you there. And it was constantly reminded that you weren't wanted there. So, of course, as a result there was a very high dropout rate among minorities. Not just black, minorities period.

REDMAN: Did that make you angry?

DREW: No, it didn't because I didn't have time to be angry. I was so busy trying to stay alive. Instead of anger I had to--where am I going to get my next meal, where I'm going to eat. Where am I going to stay tonight?

REDMAN: So there's a very real aspect of survival.

DREW: Exactly.

REDMAN: And to what extent do you think--and this I think is kind of a complicated question--to what extent do you think it manifests itself in the way that you behaved that you know, hey, I need to perform a certain way or do a certain thing in order to get a bed or to get a meal? Does it drive the way you would behave?

DREW: Well, the main thing it does, it makes you grow up before your time. Being 00:12:00somewhat of a private person, and I had an inability to ask people for help. Never have been able to ask anyone for help. It's sort of like how do I do it, what do I do? How do I wash my clothes? Where do I hide my clothes and stuff so [others] won't steal them. So these were always concerns. And like here in Stockton, down in the Tenderloin at the time, there was a few Chinese restaurants. Chinese American restaurants. Basically I would go in the same place and eat because there was no place for me to cook anything. I think the gentleman that ran the place, I got to thinking about it later, kind of figured that there had to be something strange. Of course, you know, the Chinese are not 00:13:00going to pry into your business. It's just culturally not done. So I think they figured there was something wrong because I would order and I would always notice that there was more food on the plate than what the order called for. And then I would leave, it would seem that I had so much food that they would fix me up with a, I guess, a doggie bag you would call it. "You better take this with you because we don't want to throw it in the trash." That was the rationale. "We don't want to throw it in the trash." And so I would eat there, and this would go on. Then in the summertime, every morning I would get up and go, get a produce truck and go out and pick tomatoes or whatever was in vogue. Which was great. It was like picking fruit when the fruit picking season came because you would go someplace and usually there were barracks. And so you had a bed and the food and stuff was all prepared and everything. So, hey, for the three weeks or 00:14:00whatever it was, it was like--to me it was like heaven. But what amazes me is the character of the people. I've never met people with so much character. With so little and so much character.

REDMAN: [Tell me about] these people who were staying in the barracks with you?

DREW: Oh, there were Mexicans, Filipinos primarily and a few whites. They were referred to as Okies at the time. So these were primarily the people that worked the crops. That's why I listen now to people talking about, "Oh, well, [working] the crops is easy" this type of thing. Try working them. And I was a kid. I was a teenager. You can imagine what it was like for these family men. We got people in their forties and their fifties. This is their livelihood. They have to take care of their families.

REDMAN: Takes a toll on your body.

DREW: You better believe it.

REDMAN: You would have been very, very young when the Depression was really setting in. But I imagine you would have been a little older and still--maybe before you moved out to California, when the Dust Bowl really started to become a problem in the Great Plains states.

DREW: Yes. Well, that's one thing that always perplexes me, is how my grandmother supports--because she had about four grandchildren. And she received what they call an old age pension, which was like--from what I can figure it was like less than a hundred dollars a month. But somehow or another, she fed us, clothed us, maintained everything and she was a person who--well, she was just a second generation from slavery. In fact, her mother was a slave.

REDMAN: Were there stories that had been passed down to you that way or--?

DREW: Not so much. I think that there was so much pain. People who {inaudible} and I suppose now a lot of people, they don't--I guess it's like military guys. They go and fight, they come back, and they don't want to talk about the war. I think it's that same type of thing. We don't talk about it. My grandmother had I guess the equivalent of maybe a second grade education. She taught herself how to read, write and do arithmetic and everything. But when we lived there she was dead set on us getting an education. And she would go to the school. We'd go down there. She would go down. She couldn't help us with our homework or anything but she would go to the school and ask the teacher, "How is he doing?" "Well, he could do a little bit better here." "Well, how can we help him?" "Well, there's a teacher coming in. If you send him over on Saturday she will 00:17:00tutor him." She knew she couldn't help me but she was going to make sure I could get the help. But I think the reason that she sent me to California was the fact that she figured that life in Tulsa was miserable if you were--or were blacks. Tulsa was, and still is, one of the most racist cities. Like Oklahoma is one of the most racist states in the union. Like Oklahoma and Texas surprisingly worse than Mississippi and Alabama. And like Walt Gaines [Walter Gains, friend and fellow ROHO narrator] was telling you. He's older than me, more lucid than I am. I envy him. He's still golfing and all these types of things. And so he remembers--they called them riots. [Tulsa Race Riots -- 1921] They weren't riots. They were just literally murder. And that's a little bit before my time. But I--

REDMAN: You could sort of see that and how that context for your grandmother--

DREW: Right, very definitely.

REDMAN: --scared her in terms of your future in that state.

DREW: Right. When I came to California, Berkeley, I went to a school that was all white. There was only two other black students in the entire school. I came from Tulsa. In Tulsa you went to an all-black school. There were three schools there. Elementary school, what they call the middle school now--they called it junior high then--and a high school and that was it. And if you went to a school, it was imperative that you graduated. You had no choice. You graduated. You didn't drop out. There was no such thing as dropping out. Everybody, a village to raise a child, the whole community knew you, they was on your case. Even if they didn't know you, they knew you. You walk down the street, some stranger walk up to you, "Hey, boy, come here." "Yes, Ma'am?" "What school do 00:19:00you go to? How you doing in school? How you doing in English? How you doing in math?" You'd never seen them before. "What's your daddy's name? What's your momma's name? What's your grandmother's name?" And it was that type of thing. And another thing, too, was because of segregation the community was inclusive, so everybody lived there. Doctors, lawyers, teachers. No matter who you--if you were black, you lived in that community, which simplified things in a lot of ways in that you had built in role models. If you were really interested in becoming a doctor, your dad may say to you, "Go down there and talk to Dr. Jenkins." You would go down there and sit down and talk to Dr. Jenkins. "Boy, what makes you think you want to be a doctor?" [They might say to you,] "Well, 00:20:00I'll tell you what. Take this book and read it and you come back this weekend and tell me what you think of it." And it was that kind of thing. "And what does your daddy do?" "Well, he's not working right now." "Well, I need somebody to clean up this place here, sweep this floor. So you come in on Saturday and sweep the floor for me, I'm going to give you a dollar," or fifty cents or whatever it was. So that was how the community operated. And if one person got a bag of potatoes, the whole community ate potatoes.

REDMAN: It's sort of this irony of--potential irony and desegregation is that there's a potential of breaking that community up.

DREW: In my personal community, the worst thing that ever happened to the black community was desegregating the community. Integration? No, integration was great. But [desegregation] no, because all of a sudden we're--blacks were self-sufficient. All of a sudden we are told that now you go down to Woolworth 00:21:00and eat. Before we could eat at Woolworth, black person would never eat that junk down there. I worked down there washing dishes. I see what they're serving. I would never eat there. But then all of a sudden, because we could, we did. All the black restaurants close up and all these places closed. And then they came up what they called block busting. That simply meant that some enterprising real estate people would figure out how to make money. So what's a good way to make money? We'll develop this piece of property over here and we'll build houses. And then what we will do, we'll go over in this other community and we will sell a house to a black person indirectly. We'll get a white person to buy it for this black person. So now that there's a black person here, we go and tell the white people, "Your property values are going to drop down to nothing because there's a black person moving in the community." "Well, what are we going to 00:22:00do?" Now, they've got these homes that they paid for. Some of them they paid for for years. "Well, there's this community. I built these brand new houses out here. We're going to sell you these houses." So now all of a sudden they've buying houses at exorbitant amounts. Now they have payments. Then the houses that they're vacating, they're selling them to blacks at an exorbitant price. So the scams--and the thing about it, we knew we were being scammed but there wasn't anything we could do about it. It was that we'll put up with this to acquire. Because once you acquire that piece of property, it's yours.

REDMAN: You talked about how the school that you attended was so different in terms of demographics in Oklahoma than in Berkeley. What was that like? What did that feel like to then be suddenly one of only two black kids in the school?

DREW: One of three. Well, actually, in Tulsa you were constantly bombarded with 00:23:00the belief that if you were colored--I think we were "colored" at that time. I don't think--we hadn't gotten to be "Negroes" yet. [You were bombarded with the belief] that you had an inability to achieve. You couldn't go to school with whites because you weren't smart enough. You couldn't do these things because you weren't smart enough. And blacks couldn't work on these particular jobs because they weren't smart enough. Of course, they're not going to hire you. You could be the greatest black man in the world. If you showed up at one of the Tulsa white schools, they would have lynched you. Which was a sad thing that we were told this.

When I came to Berkeley and went to school, I believed it. I'm going to Berkeley, I'm going to be in the seventh grade. I was supposed to be in the seventh grade but they're not going to put me in the seventh grade. I'll be lucky if they put me in the sixth grade. And so that was my thinking. All of a 00:24:00sudden I go to school, I'm in the seventh grade. And I sit there and the teachers are talking. I had never seen a white student before. I had never talked to a white person before. And so whatever they would say do, I did. So I'm there and when they're teaching this I'm saying to myself, "They just must be reviewing last summer's, last year's work. But this still seems a little strange because this stuff that they're teaching now was stuff I had when I was in the fifth grade." See, because there was a whole different ballgame back there. When you went to these little black schools, you learned American history. You learned it from all the way [from] George Washington up. You learned it. You didn't just skim over it. You learned Indian history, which was Oklahoma history basically. You learned about black people. You leaned about 00:25:00Harlem [The Harlem Renaissance] and Langston Hughes and all these people. You learned all these things. And so I came to California, people could care less. If you went to English you learned sentence structure, you learned how to parse a sentence. You know the meaning of them. You learn how to write a paper. When I walked away from there, I could have written when I went to college. It was the same things I learned there when it came to writing a paper.

REDMAN: And yet, despite all of this, you were told, and you believed to a certain extent--

DREW: Well, why wouldn't I?

REDMAN: Yes.

DREW: Why wouldn't I?

REDMAN: You had no other experience.

DREW: Right. And so while I'm going to the school, they called me in like after about a week. I'm told that, "You have to go to the principal's office. The principal want to see you." "Uh-oh. It's time for them to ship me back." So I go to the principal's office and he explained to me to bring your guardian in because we are going to have to transfer you. And so told my uncle. Of course, 00:26:00my uncle wasn't interested. So my cousin, in effect, was my guardian. She was just three years older than me. So she goes out and they tell her to take him to this room, he's not in this classroom. I was so, I guess, dumbfounded or whatever the case may be that I failed to realize that this was supposedly the junior high school. So that meant that they couldn't be sending me--if they were going to send me back it would have been to a different school, the elementary school. So I report to this room and I'm sitting there. I have no idea what class I'm in, I have no idea who the teacher is. I have no idea about anything. And so I sit there and I remember asking the kid sitting next to me, "What grade is this? What's our teacher's name?" He looked at me like he's--this guy must be nuts. He doesn't even know what class--"You're in the eighth grade." I'm saying, "The eighth grade. Wait a minute. I was just in the seventh grade. Now I'm in the eighth grade." And this went on for a while. Still this was like--I'm 00:27:00learning the same things I learned when I was in the sixth grade and they're telling me that, "Yeah, next year you're going to start learning pre-algebra." I had pre-algebra in the fifth grade back then. And all these things that they're supposedly--they're glossing over these things. The kids are amazed by learning all these things. I learned this stuff already. In fact, we had already embarked on European history and here we are just starting to sort of gloss over European history. They never really learned European history. You probably don't know European history. Just give you enough of this, that, just bits and pieces. This happened, that happened, this type of thing. But nothing real.

REDMAN: Tell me about Franklin Delano Roosevelt? I often ask people what their 00:28:00parents thought of Franklin Roosevelt. But do you "

DREW: I kind of vaguely remember and I kind of remember people talking, especially teachers, because I hung out around the school as much as I could. That was my sanctuary, was school. And I can remember teachers--their position was that Roosevelt was in a position where he could really do something to help everybody, because he was given carte blanche to solve this depression problem. But he didn't do anything. Black people they could go out and dig holes in the streets and this type of thing. But other than that, nothing was done. Like people said, well, Roosevelt was a great president and everything. I don't see it. To me, he was one of the most failed presidents. When you're placed in a position where you can do anything you want to do 00:29:00without really being opposed--the Republicans, of course, everything he did was wrong, this type of thing. But literally nothing they could do about it because he had the power. And even he couldn't stand up to them beyond a certain point. A couple of times even there he failed. In addition to creating the jobs that he created, he wanted to create infrastructure. He wanted to do some other things and then the Republicans said, "No, no, no," so he caved into the Republicans, so it got sent back. The Depression prolonged. Really the only thing that saved us from the Depression was World War II. Really, when you come right down to it.

REDMAN: So how old were you when the start of the war comes up? When Pearl Harbor happens in 1941?

DREW: Eleven.

REDMAN: Eleven. First of all, did you have a radio growing up at all? Would you listen to the radio?

DREW: Yeah, there was a radio. In my house, like most households, the radio was placed on the religious station. So the religious music came in. And most of the kids, and my grandmother was no exception, we would have access to the radio probably an hour and a half a week, on the weekend, when the programs, Lone Ranger and those programs came on. They'd have our program. So we would have access to the radio for maybe an hour and a half. That was it. Other than that, it was just the religious music. Because news wasn't as we know it now. People read the newspaper for news. I gave so much credence to the newspaper, because 00:31:00early on, before story was printed, it was investigated and it was sources, two sources or three sources, whatever it needed. So when a person would say--would recite, would make a statement, they'd say, "Where'd you get that from?" "I read it in the paper." It was just like saying it came straight down from--

REDMAN: It's from heaven or something. Yeah, yeah.

DREW: Yes. Because you knew it was true. But not like today. You read something in the paper, you question it. Well, you should question it right away but a lot of people don't.

REDMAN: Right. Let me ask about Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. What do you remember about that Sunday?

DREW: Confusion. Utter confusion. I remember that was the one time that the radio was changed. My grandmother got the paper and I think the headlines--I can 00:32:00almost see them, that Pearl Harbor bombed, something. And then the news. [Not every household had a radio.] It was like maybe within a block there may be three radios and everybody would sort of gather, hunker down around the radio to hear what was going on. No television, of course. Which I think was great because your mind conceptualized what was going on. You would sit there and you could imagine exactly what was going on. And I'm listening to them talking about how the planes came over and bombed Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor, I didn't know Pearl Harbor from Adam. I didn't even know where it was. Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Anyplace. These were all like a foreign language. But why would these people want to kill these Americans? See, Japanese, they weren't--there might have been 00:33:00but to my knowledge there wasn't any Japanese in Oklahoma. And then once this event happened, then the Japanese were portrayed by the papers and everything as just absolutely evil, animalistic people. They had no souls, they didn't understand. Although, of course, their civilization was thousands of years older than ours. But they--

REDMAN: Could you see how that would shape the perceptions of someone who had never met a Japanese person?

DREW: Of course. And the first time I really met a Japanese person was in Berkeley.

REDMAN: Wow.

DREW: And, in fact, when they started relocating the Japanese, the area where I 00:34:00lived--the house--in fact, the house I lived in had formerly been owned by a Japanese gentleman. And so just before the relocation was complete I got to know some of the kids that lived around there. I thought they were tremendous. I thought they were just wonderful. They were kids. They were just like me. We'd laugh and talk and everything. And they would speak Japanese. They could speak Japanese to their parents and I ask my {inaudible}, "What's that?" That's Japanese. And then they would go to explain to me about Japan. In that short time between meeting them and their being relocated, I did learn something about Japan. I loved the Japanese. I loved the food, because I'd go to their house. I would eat. Something about them. There was a cleanliness about them. And they're 00:35:00ritualistic people. You'd go in a house, you'd have dinner at one of these Japanese people's houses. And it always amazed me how good--like what happened? Dinners over with and within minutes after dinner's over with you can't tell me what they've eaten. The dishes are all washed, everything's put away, the place is clean. How do they do that?

REDMAN: Was that hard for a kid when his friends were relocated to internment camps?

DREW: It was a while before I understood what was going on. Because they would say that they are the enemy. How could these kids be an enemy? How could these Japanese people be an enemy? They're hard working people and they mind their own business. They don't bother anybody. They're self-sufficient. They don't ask the government for anything. What's wrong with them? Ad nobody could ever fully 00:36:00explain it to me. Well, they could do these nefarious things. They could commit sabotage and that stuff. Then later on the question that came to me was we have all these Germans in this country and they are. They're not maybe committing sabotage, they are committing sabotage. They're doing all types of dastardly things but it was like who cares.

REDMAN: Nobody's talking about that.

DREW: Who cares? It's like World War II. Black soldiers were--they were segregated. The military was segregated. When I went in the Army it was segregated.

REDMAN: I want to get back to that in just a moment. The question I have is you talked a little bit about, in Oklahoma, learning about what--some things that were going on and what we call the Harlem Renaissance with artists and painters emerging out of Harlem, people like Langston Hughes and many other musicians. Those things seemed to resonate for you in Oklahoma. There was also during World 00:37:00War II a campaign that emerges, the Double Victory Campaign. This notion that if we're fighting abroad against fascism we also need to fight for civil rights at home. Those trends, though, it seemed they set up in some ways the Civil Rights Movement. In some ways anticipate them. But in another sense, I wonder to what extent that may or may not have affected you as a young man.

DREW: Well, early on it didn't. Not at all. Our business was what happened in the community. Outside the community is--we learn about all these types of things, what's going on, but it's really--you can't get your mind around it. How do I deal with it? How does it affect me? That's the first question. How does it affect me? Like I love music. Can't play anything. Totally almost tone deaf. 00:38:00Love art. Can't paint anything. Because I remember one of the most unpleasant experiences I had was, I guess I was about a second or third grader, and my art teacher--it's an amazing thing. The only teachers that I remember in my whole history of going to school, whether it was college, high school, anything else. The only teachers I remember were my elementary school teachers. They were interesting in that--like music. I always wanted to play an instrument or something. I couldn't. I wanted to sing. No voice or anything. And I would get frustrated. And so my teacher, Mrs. Randolph, asked me to stay after--come by and see her after school. So I came by. She explained to me, she says, "Some people can play music. Some people can't. Some people can sing. Some people can't. But that doesn't prohibit you from learning to enjoy music. And so you 00:39:00can enjoy it as much as the next person." And the same with my art teacher, Mrs. Meeker. It was amazing.

REDMAN: Right, yes.

DREW: That's, what, almost eighty years ago.

REDMAN: Yes, that's great.

DREW: And art the same way. You can enjoy art. You may not be able to paint anything but that doesn't stop you from enjoying art. You look at it. And I learned how to enjoy art. As a result, even years later, to this day, I go to a place--like I've visited probably fifty countries. And the first thing I look up when I get there, I go to the museum or the art gallery. It's the first place I go. When I went to France, or when I had to go to the Louvre--in Paris I go to the Louvre. When I was in Amsterdam I had to go to the Rijks Museum. When I was in London I had to go to the Tate Museum. And on down the line. I've wasted my 00:40:00time if I go there and I don't go to the museum. There what you find is quite interesting, especially today. Is that Americans have, I think, the least sense of history, of their history, than any other country. You can go to a European country and a ten year old, you stop a ten or twelve year old child, and he can tell you the entire history of his country. And you got people here that can't even tell you the name of their principal at school or their congressperson or the mayor. They know nothing. And it's sad. It's absolutely sad.

REDMAN: Let's talk about the start of the war. So your mom at a certain point gets a job at the Kaiser shipyards. Can you summarize for me in just a couple of sentences, to the degree that you know it, what she did there? Do you know?

DREW: No.

REDMAN: Okay. Did she think of herself as a Rosie the Riveter?

DREW: I don't know.

REDMAN: You have no idea?

DREW: I had no contact with [her] at all.

REDMAN: Interesting, okay. So let's talk then about your time in--you said you were in the Army during--

DREW: Right. I graduated from high school in 1946. Then I worked out in the crops and fields [thinking] this is not going to get me anywhere. I always wanted to go to college but there was no way I could go to college. The only college we had, we had the college in the Pacific, which is now the University of the Pacific. It was segregated. They didn't accept non-white students. It was a Methodist school and so that was out. And so how do I go to college? I want to go to college. And so luckily I was walking down Main Street one day and there was a recruiting office there. The old Uncle Sam wants you. And so I'm sixteen. I walk in and I ask the man about joining the Army. At least I get in the Army, 00:42:00I have a place to live. And so in the course of discussing it, they says, "Oh, yeah, if you join the Army, for every year that you are in the Army we will give you, provide you with a year of education. We pay for your education for a year." But the only problem was it was in increments of three. And so I definitely didn't want to spend six years in the Army. So I said, "Well, I'll try for the three years," and then I would have to crowd a four-year education into three years. And so they had to explain to me, "Well, that's the deal. If you're eighteen or older, you can sign up now. If you're seventeen, your parents have to sign for you. If you're under seventeen, we can't accept you." So I left and then I said, "Well, I've got to go in the Army." I wrote a note saying that I was seventeen, took it back down there. And they said, "Well, okay, you have to take an aptitude test." So I took the aptitude test. They said, "Well, we can't accept you." I says, "Why?" And the fellow says, "Well, I'm going to have 00:43:00to let whoever's in charge explain it to you." And so he take me back into his office and he says, after setting me down, he says, "Well, if you are colored and you pass the test with over 120 points on aptitude, we can't accept you unless you sign in for six years to go into officer's candidate school." I said, "But I was told that there weren't any black officers." "Well, in the east there are a few there and we could probably relocate you there." And so I says, "No, I'll just--if I can, I'll just try for the three years." And he said, "I don't know what to tell you. Maybe you can go over to the Navy. Maybe the Navy will accept you." In other words, "When you go over there, don't be so damn smart." And so evidently he was looking at his paperwork. This was toward the end of the 00:44:00month and I suspect that they hadn't filled their quota.

REDMAN: Quota, yeah.

DREW: So he says, "Well, I'll tell you what. I'm going to make an exception." And he says, "Can you be out here the day after tomorrow?" whatever it was. I said, "Yes." "Now, if you get down at this time in the morning, the bus is going to be taking recruits to Fort Ord in the Bay Area, in California." Okay. So I showed up, they put me on the bus, took me over to Fort Ord. Said, "You'll take your physical exam over there. Then if you pass your physical exam they'll accept you in the Army." So I go over there. I figured there would be doctors or someone to take your physical exam. Instead they lined up the guys. They said, "Okay, here's what we want you to do. It's time for your physical. Drop your pants, spread your cheeks and cough." You're holding your testicles and cough. Then spread your cheeks, whatever we did. And then after that it was, "Put your hands back up. Take two steps forward. Hold up your right hand and take two 00:45:00steps forward." And you were in the Army.

REDMAN: That was it?

DREW: That was it. That evening I'm being shipped to where? New Jersey. New Jersey. What's with the New Jersey thing? Yeah, you're going toFort Monmouth, New Jersey. Okay. So get ready. They put me on the train and away we go to New Jersey. And we get part along the way, then they stop the train. Then there's a switch take place. Black troops have to move to the back of the train.

REDMAN: Interesting.

DREW: And the white troops move to the front of the train. Then all the way into New Jersey.

REDMAN: Wow.

DREW: So we got to New Jersey and by that time it's lunchtime. We go eat and so 00:46:00we go to eat. I eat this food and I was so sick I thought I was going to die. I'll never forget. It was ribs cooked on the stove with all this grease and stuff. I wasn't accustomed to eating greasy food or anything. Because mostly I ate at Chinese food restaurants, which was a totally different way of eating. So I was sick. From day one I was sick. I'm [committed,] they're not going to send me home because I need these three years. I knew nothing about the Army either. I had never met a soldier before. I'd never read anything about the Army, never read anything about soldiers, so I knew nothing. I'm here. All these guys, they're talking about ROTC, what they did back there and this type of thing. And I'm like, "Duh," which was quite interesting. It was three of the worst years of my life. Three of the most wasted years of my life and the government's life. 00:47:00Because, like I said, I was so accustomed to being self-sufficient and the Army, they would tell you to do something and I had a better way of doing it, which is the worst thing you can do the Army. You don't have a better way. You do what you're told. That's all it is. You do what you're told. And I would come up with my better way. Well, they teach you that you don't have a better way. We're going to send you to hike out to the airport, which was--I loved that because I loved to run. I always did love to run. So I'd get a bicycle, take him out to the airport and bring him back. March him out there and bring him back. I'd be running along there. This poor guy on the bicycle, he's about to pass out. I would be passing. I said, "Go ahead, you sit there. You stay right by the chair. I'll go out there and I'll come on back."

REDMAN: Push it out.

DREW: Because I was in trouble. Then they had KP duty, which was like cleaning grease traps. I don't know if you even know what a grease trap is.

REDMAN: Right, yeah.

DREW: Okay. And that was my job almost every day because I was always in trouble. After I finished in the evening, I would put on my work clothes and I'd 00:48:00go down there and start cleaning out the--every day.

Redman: So during the day, you'd come--you'd done something.

DREW: Nothing.

REDMAN: Yeah.

DREW: Supposedly I was being trained. I learned nothing. I never learned to march. They would try over and over again to teach me how to march. I had no rhythm. I couldn't march. I learned to march. I had been out of the Army four years before I learned to march. And how I learned to march, I saw two sailors walking down the street and they were ramrod straight. And, "Oh, that's how you march." I've been just walking. But while I was in the Army, I was never assigned to any location. Before I left basic training, we went out on the maneuvers and I slipped in some poison ivy or poison oak and so the sergeant 00:49:00came over, he saw me in this, and he says, "Well, go down and report to the dispensary." So I went to the dispensary and they said, "Well, we're going to keep you overnight and check you out." So keeping me overnight and checking me out, this maneuver thing was the very last event. You report back and you pack your bags and your papers are there for you to go to the next place. Okay. Because I have to spend the night at the dispensary. I go back, everybody's gone. I'm the only person there. What do I do? I repeat basic training. One day now. And this other day, nothing has happened. Do I repeat basic training or do they send me home? They decide, "Well, we'll send him home. We don't want him anyway." So I go to the next place and it was more of the same thing. I just didn't fit in. And when they would have the parades or the drills, this type of thing, they would tell me to go down to the signal shack and hang out--and hide 00:50:00out. And it was that kind of thing. And then after a while they'd give me a promotion, send me someplace else. "We just really can't use you here." So the whole time I was in the Army I never learned anything. I was attached to an outfit and never went out anywhere with them. They was out on maneuvers and doing all these types of things and I would be cleaning up the [kitchen] and cleaning up the day room or what it was because they didn't--finally they found out there was an opening someplace else and they'd give me another stripe and send me there.

DREW: In the black units, all the officers were white. Non-commissioned officers were black, all the officers were white. And usually the white officers that was assigned--

REDMAN: Okay, I'm sorry, go right ahead.

DREW: Yes. These were the guys that were the low men on the totem pole. They know that they were never going to advance in the Army. They were there because 00:51:00they were the low men on the totem pole and they didn't like it. They didn't like Negro troops, as we were called by that time, because they knew that, "This is all I'm going to ever do. I'm never, ever going to be in a white unit. I'm never going to command anything." So they were nasty little people, to say the least. And the captain who was in charge--interesting, I remember his name coming to me. Captain Casey. Captain Casey was a drunk and just the opposite of the Army, where they demanded that you were shaven and that you had on a clean uniform and everything. Captain Casey was unshaven, unkempt, hair down to here, eyes red and rheumy. And same uniform day after day. [We knew he wore] the same uniform because by this time the salt had calcified around the collar. So he would show up once in a while. But with me, they just didn't know what to make 00:52:00of me. Me either. I didn't know what to make of the Army. So I was lucky enough I met this fellow from Chicago, Braxton. Braxton was his name. And he was in the Army for the same reason I was. He wanted to get an education. So we would talk about it. So he says, "Well, you ever think about taking correspondence courses?" "What's correspondence courses?" He said, "Well, I'm taking correspondence courses from the University of Chicago and I get credit for it. So when I get out I'll have enough credits where I will be able to complete my education in those three years." And so I applied to the University of Chicago for the same thing. And it's fine. So during the time I was in the Army I was able to take the correspondence courses and everything. So when I did get out I had a year, almost a year and a half of college already under my belt just with 00:53:00correspondence courses. But the Army, I think any day they were going to throw me out, because why would they have me in there? I am totally useless. When I say useless, I mean useless. I can't cook. I don't work in the office. I can't work in the chaplain's office because I wasn't religious. So what you going to do with me?

REDMAN: Can I go back to the war for a moment? So we often think about rationing and blackouts and all these sorts--but I wonder what an average, everyday--when you were still in high school, what a general day was like during the war and how the war might have effected you in your life.

DREW: Well, early on I guess the war was just a vague foreign thing that was 00:54:00taking place, like when I was like thirteen or so, twelve, thirteen or so, and it didn't become real until later on, I guess to some degree. It piqued my curiosity when I was about fourteen or fifteen years old. I would wonder. I'd be out maybe sleeping in the park or something. I said, "Oh, this is probably what the troops--the soldiers are doing or something." The soldiers had the tents and the same thing. But it always came back to me. Me, me. How does it affect me? Not how it affected anybody else. But I guess the only thing during this time that wasn't me was that if I could help someone I would help them. Because my grandmother was that type of a person. She was an ultra religious person in the truest sense of the word. She was the type of person--if she heard that somebody across town, a woman she done never heard of, the woman is sick, she's got three or four kids and she need help. My grandmother would get up in the morning. She 00:55:00don't even know the lady. Of course, telephones was at a premium, so she didn't phone her. And riding the bus was something else, again, I think because we never rode the bus. And so she would go over to the woman's house, cook dinner, take care of the kids, and do [laundry] come back home. And so from her I kind of learned that. She'd go down in the street. She'd see some guy that was homeless, or some lady who was the local prostitute, and, "I want you to come to my church. Sunday we serve dinner. We want you to be there." And she would tell the lady. I was with my grandmother. Then she says, "Now, if you don't come to the--when the last time you had a home-cooked meal?" "Well, I haven't had a home-cooked meal since I can't remember." "I serve dinner at four o'clock. This is my address. You be there. If you're not there, I'm going to come out here and look you up." That's the type of person she was.

REDMAN: Interesting.

DREW: If she said something, people listened to her. Mrs. {Buford?} said it, 00:56:00then you listened to her. But in spite of her being an ultra-religious person, she was a practical person. I had a cousin who's fifteen when she started smoking and my grandmother--in her religion, no smoking, no drinking, no wearing of jewelry. You didn't go to the movies, you didn't go to games or any of that type of thing. So now my cousin is smoking. If she found out about it, she's going to kill her. Then my grandmother asked her, "Doris, where you getting the cigarettes from?" She said, "Well, I ask people for cigarettes. They give me cigarettes." She said, "Well, I don't want you asking, going around asking men for cigarettes. Now, if you need cigarettes, if you can't stop smoking, you come to see me and I'll buy you some cigarettes." That's the type of person she was.

REDMAN: Interesting, yes.

DREW: Like today, even now, things that she said that I didn't understand then 00:57:00that came true. Like during those days, she says--she made us learn how to cook, sew. During those days, those were girly things. Boys didn't cook, boys didn't sew. Those were sissy things. But my grandmother--all of us, she'd get all the boys around the neighborhood. She'd bring them in and teach us how to cook. We had to sit down and darn our socks. She would always have a glass and needle and be darning our socks. Had to learn how to cuff our pants. How to clean up, how to wash the dishes. All these things she taught us how to do. And she says, "I guess you wonder why I make you do these things?" I said, "Yes, they're sissy things." She said, "Let me tell you, when you grow up, when you get grown, it isn't going to be like it is now. Women will be working just like men." Granny's gone batty. [laughter] Women don't work. A few white women work. At that time they had switchboard operators and a few other maybe working at a little office 00:58:00work. But nothing serious.

REDMAN: Right. Nothing like--yeah.

DREW: And my grandmother's telling me that when I grow up women are going to be out there working just like men. They're going to be lawyers and doctors and all this. This lady, she's losing it. And what happened? I got grown up and there it is.

REDMAN: Have some of those memories returned to you over time? And it seems like maybe a memory like that is something that you would interpret maybe twenty years later or thirty years later but then many, many years later it's such a different meaning in your mind, that statement of someone saying that.

DREW: Yeah. Well, you wonder how could she even envision that. I never talked with anyone who ever even--even later on, that thought women would be working. Women didn't work. They were too dainty. They couldn't do things that men could. And women don't think. Ha-ha. And all these stupid things. But then the things 00:59:00she said at that time--I guess she sort of foresaw that my time with her would be limited. So she told me a lot of things that I didn't understand. And I can't remember exactly what it was, but I was about sixty-five and something happened. I said, "Oh, that's what my grandmother was talking about." This is her. That's my grandmother up here [points to picture on wall].

REDMAN: Oh, wow.

DREW: I said, "That's what she was talking about. Oh, I see now." And so it's led me to one of my little nieces, who was giving her mother a bad time, because her mother was telling--she was sixteen. She says, "And when I get out of high school I don't want to go to college. Because I don't have to go to college because I know this and another thing." And so I remember my grandmother telling the same cousin of mine. She says, "Doris, you're sixteen," about this time, 01:00:00"you think you know everything." She says, "But when you get sixty-five, you're going to find out some of the things you think you now know, you'll be just learning them," which was true. Things that she had said back then, I didn't understand them. I'm sixty-five and I understand them. Finally. Finally it dawns on me what she was talking about, what she meant. Because she had a simple way. And then all these simplistic sayings they had. These things come pop in my mind. And they're just marvelous. These are wonderful things. The different stories that we were told. I had an uncle, he was a fiery little--I thought he was a giant really. Last time I saw him I was about eleven years old and I thought the guy was like six-three, six-four or something. So later on I had 01:01:00been in the Army, I had gotten out of the Army, graduated from college. There was like a family get together or something. So I'm there and I ask, "Is Uncle Joe coming?" She said, "That's your Uncle Joe right there." "That can't be my Uncle Joe." He was a guy about five-seven. [laughter]

REDMAN: [laughter] To a little kid he was enormous.

DREW: Yeah. Then I could remember--like I was a kid and Uncle Joe always passing himself as being a preacher. One of the most vulgar, vulgar people you'd ever met in your life. And I remember, I guess I was six, seven, eight or something, it was his birthday and asking, "Joe, what do you want for your birthday?" And I remember just as clear as it being said today, says, "You know what I want for my birthday? I want a great big heaping help of leaving me the hell alone." 01:02:00[laughter] At the time it didn't mean anything. Later on, I said, "What a marvelous way--"

REDMAN: That's amazing. That's really amazing. So there's something I want to ask about. And I know we're jumping around a little bit in time but that's A-okay. But there's something that's really important that I needed to ask about and that's in June of 1944. There's an explosion at a place called Port Chicago. And I understand you can tell me a little bit about that.

DREW: Not too much. I thought about it later. I was there. I went to Port Chicago after the explosion and I remember they wouldn't let you go in. They stopped you outside. I don't remember how I got there. I don't even know why I was there. But I guess there was somebody that wanted to go there to see what was going on because [of] these poor sailors and they said they were being court-martialed because they wouldn't go back to work loading the ship, putting 01:03:00the ammunition on these ships and everything. After I guess a thousand of them had been killed. It had blown up and everything. So they were court-martialed and it wasn't until years later, I think Johnson was the person that absolved them of this. And most of them were dead by then.

REDMAN: So I've asked a lot of people about Port Chicago and there--in terms of people who just lived in Berkeley and Oakland and San Francisco at the time and I get the sense that a lot of people may have heard about it because of the explosion right away but that so many people were ignorant to what actually happened.

DREW: The government. The government. It was closed off. Like I say, you go there, you couldn't go in or anything. It was closed off. Information wasn't forthcoming or anything. We got information. It was only the most like 01:04:00secondhand information and it was from Washington. No local information about what was going on. In fact, there weren't even--I remember seeing a picture. I think this person must have been the only person--I actually got a picture of this after it happened. But it was very, very, very closemouthed. There was just nothing. Like even in the local paper. I don't remember reading too much about it in the local paper. It happened but there was no particulars.

REDMAN: Did people in the black community have a particular interest in it or was that another thing that--

DREW: That's how they treat us. And the black community was kind [of]--we can't do anything about it, which most instances we can't, then why should we agonize over it? It was that type of thing. And when you think about it, why should you 01:05:00if you can't do anything about it? And it wasn't until years later that, many years later, the whole landscape had changed, the whole atmosphere had changed, and I heard her saying that you can't beat city hall. The most you can do is go pee on the door or something. I questioned that. Then later I found out that isn't true at all. It's not true at all. One person can make a difference. One person can change. I moved here and the street down a couple of blocks over was just rutted. It was so bad you would drive your car in a zigzag fashion. And when it rained you didn't dare because those ruts, you would tear up the axel in your car. So I asked the people around here why didn't they do something about it? Well, we've talked to city hall but they won't do anything about it and it's like we just wasting our time." I said, "Well, why don't we all call city hall?" The all meant my next door neighbor to down the corner. So I said, "What we're 01:06:00going to do, we're going to call city hall every day twice a day and ask them when they're going to repair the street." And so after about two or three days they started asking me, "Well, didn't I just talk with you yesterday?" "Yes and you're going to talk with me again this evening, too, because I'm going to call you until that street is repaired," until it was repaired. We [kept] calling back and forth. So about a week or so later, I'm driving downtown and I look and I see all this equipment down there and the roads are blocked off and everything. And they repaired the road.

REDMAN: That's amazing. So when did you come back to Stockton permanently to reside?

DREW: In 1996.

REDMAN: Ninety-six. Let me ask about the end of the war, because on the one hand the Nazis surrender in Europe and then several months later the atomic bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When you heard the news of that, could you 01:07:00comprehend that and to what extent did you have a feeling about it then and have your feelings about the decision to drop the bombs changed over time?

DREW: No. I thought it was one of the most inhumane things that I'd ever heard of then and as I get older, it seems more inhumane. Not less, but more inhumane. That any person could just wantonly kill that many innocent bystanders, women, children, old people. It just boggles my mind. How do you do that? How could you call yourself civilized and do that? I don't understand. There's a lot of things I don't understand but that's one of them.

REDMAN: At the end of the war, there's both the confusion and all of the emotions wrapped up in that, but also I understand there was partying in the streets and elation at being done with the war. Was that--

DREW: Did it translate to the black community?

REDMAN: Did that?

DREW: No.

REDMAN: No.

DREW: No.

REDMAN: Why was that not the case?

DREW: It wasn't the case because the soldiers would return, black soldiers would return. Most of them were from the south. A large number of them were from the south. They would go home and they would get lynched for wearing a uniform. They just came back from war. During the war, some of them would come home on leave and they were perplexed because the German troops that they captured were being sent to America. A lot of people don't even realize that. They were sent down south. They were put in supposedly concentration camps down there, whatever the case might be. But they were given leave. They could get on the bus, they could go to the theater. They could eat at the restaurant. This is the enemy. Blacks couldn't do that. And even getting on the bus. It was up to the driver even if 01:09:00he'd accept you on the bus or not. If he says, "You can't get on my bus," you couldn't get on his bus. Oh, you a taxpayer, you pay your taxes but you couldn't get on the bus. If you did get on, you fake, you bow and scrape and then take your seat as far back as you could, the last unoccupied seat. Then by the halfway point, it could be nobody sitting there, one white person, that's--but you can't sit in those seats.

REDMAN: If you're a black man who's from California and is in the Army and is in the south for the first time, would another black soldier explain those sorts of things to you or would you have to sort of pick it up?

DREW: No, you'd know it before you got there.

REDMAN: Interesting.

DREW: The word would get to you that when you go to Mississippi, this is how you act. You go to Georgia, this is how you act. And so my position was I should 01:10:00never, ever go south, which I never did. And people tell me, "Oh, you won't last a week in the south. You're too outspoken. Your attitude, your don't believe anybody's better than you and with that attitude you'll get killed."

REDMAN: Wow.

DREW: I never went. The first time I was ever in the south--well, when I was in the Army, I spent a couple of weeks at an Army base in Arkansas. But as a civilian, the only time I was ever in the south was I spent a night in Miami on my way to Antigua. Just an overnight. So I wasn't really there. And I met a couple of people there. I had been all over the world and these people were more foreign to me than the people I'd met in other countries. And this fellow was sitting there and he's talking to me. And this one fellow is literally interpreting for me what this American southern white guy is saying. And I never {inaudible} said words to, "Would you like to go get something to eat? Get 01:11:00something to eat?" I says, "What?" I said, "What did he say?" "He says would you like to go get something to eat?" I said, "Oh, no."

REDMAN: It's another language. Yeah.

DREW: But that was my only experience. But I met southerners and I found that early on that black--later on I worked for American Airlines. I was manager of passenger service for American Airlines. And so we had a flight that went to Dallas, between San Francisco and Dallas. And Dallas is the connecting point for all the points south. So as a result, on that flight it would be a lot of southerners. And the interesting thing, you get one southerner by himself and he would sir you to death. "Yes, sir," or "No, sir, you don't have to go out of your way, sir. That's okay, sir. You go ahead and do what you got to do, sir." Two of them together, "Well, boy, what do you--how do you like it?"

REDMAN: Wow.

DREW: It was that attitude.

REDMAN: Cultural attitude, okay. Yes.

DREW: Not the fact that this guy--he's the man who runs the whole place. He's the manager of this whole thing here. That didn't mean--

REDMAN: Oh, gosh.

DREW: The one flight we had that was delayed and so we had this group of southerners. And the flight was always packed. And so they would come into my office, these couple of guys. "When's the flight going to go?" So we had to set up for meals and all this type of thing. So these two guys came in there. And so I said, "Well, have a seat," and I poured some coffee. So they got right at home and then says, "Are you from California?" Said, "No, from the south." "How long you been up here?" That's up here, California's up here. "Oh, it's like this whole time." "Do you ever miss {home?}?" I said, "I sure do. I sure do miss being down there." And so I go through this game thing and everything. And, yeah, I know how it is. A lot of these boys come up here and they get uppity and all. So we go through this. And so finally the plane's repaired and it's time 01:13:00for them to board. So I go out to make an announcement and I thank them for their patience and everything and these two guys are sitting there. And then I look. After I finish I look over at them and I said, "You boys behave yourselves, you all hear?" And they red faced. [laughter]

REDMAN: Could not believe it.

DREW: They couldn't believe it.

REDMAN: Yeah. Oh, man, that's funny.

DREW: But that's the thing about it. I guess because of the mistreatment and the use of certain words and everything, black people get--we are very sensitive in a lot of areas. But I learned to fight my sensitivity with coming up with answers. I would welcome these things. Like my brother and I were walking down the street one day and this guy says, "I can't stand niggers." I said, "You know 01:14:00what? Me either." I said, "I can't. And by the way, how do you put up with your momma?" I said, "Is your last name nigger? Is your--" I said, "Now, wait a sec. If your last name is nigger, that would make your mom a nigger." But these guys wanted to fight me." And my brother wanted to fight. [laughter]

REDMAN: But you were more--

DREW: I just welcome these things. I just loved it. One day a customer said I called him a son of a bitch. I said, "I never called him a son of a bitch. What I said was I hoped when he got home his bitch bite him on the leg." [laughter] But you got fun with it, you know.

REDMAN: Right, yeah.

DREW: Because you find a lot of the people are so damn stupid.

REDMAN: Because you've found humor in the situation but it seems like a lot of people would respond to that in less productive ways.

DREW: Oh, yeah. Oh, right.

REDMAN: Right, yeah.

DREW: Yeah. Get shot, get cut, anything.

REDMAN: Okay. And that's on an individual level. Let me ask about civil rights on a broader spectrum in terms of there's the strategy taken by groups like the Congress of Racial Equality [CORE] or--

DREW: I was the employment superintendent for the Congress of Racial Equality [CORE] in San Francisco.

REDMAN: Oh, wow. Okay.

DREW: Which was one of the most effective units in the country.

REDMAN: In the Bay Area.

DREW: Period.

REDMAN: Yeah. Well, no, the CORE's representatives in the Bay Area were the most effective in the country, [you mean]?

DREW: Right. Were among the most when it came to like job--see, people don't realize that during the Civil Rights Movement, that San Francisco, for instance, there weren't any like--there was one black policeman, almost no black school teachers. Absolutely no bank tellers. No black people working in department 01:16:00stores, anything like that. Even the so called trucks, sales trucks, delivery trucks, bread trucks and all these types of things, no blacks. No black automobile salesmen. Didn't any of these people exist in the Bay Area. Grocery stores, nobody, no black clerks anywhere.

REDMAN: Okay. I want to ask several questions because this is such an interesting topic. But the NAACP nationally wants to take a strategy of legal increments. So fighting through the courts to get those step by step and CORE takes a little bit of a different philosophy. It's talking about civil non-violent disobedience. There are encouragements for things like shop-ins and sit-ins in order to--boycotts. Don't buy where you can't work. That sort of thing.

DREW: We started that here in Stockton about 1950, long before the Civil Rights 01:17:00Movement. Like about 1952 or so.

REDMAN: Wow.

DREW: [Warren G.] Gaines was one of the initiators. There were about six of us. And during that period of time, we did. We'd walk down with the sandwich boards on, with the sign. Exactly what it said, "Don't shop where you can't work." That's exactly what it said. This was part of why I left Stockton in the first place. Because I was picked up one night by the policeman, a couple of policemen. In fact, there was three of them in the car. They took me out east, out by the waterworks, and they explained to me that I had thirty days to get out of Stockton or else, that my family was going to be injured. And so within thirty days we had moved to San Francisco. Most of my friends didn't even know I was gone or anything. Just like that. Stockton is an extension of the south really. They have the KKK, active KKKs in Stockton. The whole shooting match. 01:18:00Very few jobs are available for blacks in Stockton. They just had the plan to reopen the airport. So they were interviewing 1,500 people for these jobs. One black person showed up out there and I talked with the guy and he said that by the time they got through giving him the runaround and everything, he was ready to just leave but he just refused to leave. He said, "I'm not leaving until I fill out an application." And he said he was one of the last fifteen, ten or fifteen people there after being one of the first ones to arrive. But Stockton is just--it's that way.

REDMAN: Interesting. So what were your feelings at that time? I've sort of said that--I hope I'm characterizing this in a way that you would find to be accurate. If there's the legal component and the non-violent disobedience and 01:19:00the actual civil action, a lot of people talk about the Civil Rights Movement, say that these are somewhat opposed strategies or they preferred one strategy and not the other. But other people talk about those strategies as complementing each other in the black community. What do you think?

DREW: They complemented each other because the legal aspect of it, the NAACP's approach, it was long, time consuming. Even when Thurgood Marshall was on the courts or when Earl Warren was chief justice. That was a surprise. That was the ultimate surprise, because he was governor of California and a very conservative governor of California. And he's appointed as Supreme Court justice and does an overnighter. He said that the first time he realized that, "I am responsible for interpreting the law for all the people." All the people. Which I've never heard 01:20:00another Supreme Court justice say that. Not even Thurgood Marshall when he was there. Like they talk about the gangbangers. They say, "These are people that have been alienated. They went to school." Okay, first place, let's look at school. If you go to high school, I'll ask you a question, why should you graduate from high school? Why should you? If you're not going to college, why should you graduate from high school? I used to ask myself that when I was going to--only reason I graduated from high school is because I knew I was going to college. My head just told me I was going to college. But I couldn't see any useful purpose for high school, not even then. And even then, if you were high school graduates, you could get a job. You could work for the government, these types of things. Like today, high school graduate, you could work for McDonald's. Not 01:21:00much more than that. Maybe a government job or something, a warehouseman's job, but you're not going to get anything more than that. I lost my train of thought.

REDMAN: We were talking about the different approaches.

DREW: Right, right. And like CORE. When we formed CORE, we started formulating what we wanted to do. What are the problems? These are the problems. We've got problems, people needing work. We've got legal problems. We've got all these people. School problems. Got all kinds of problems. And so how do we approach this? Can we do it one at a time or what? So we end up setting up committees that we had for schools, for education, for employment. And so during the course of employment, we--so before we start saying what we're going to do, these types 01:22:00of things, we're going to do our homework. We'll do our due diligence. We're going to do all of our research. We're going to find out how many people are working there, why they're working. We can find out why they don't hire black people or minorities. And so we spent maybe six months or so just on that. Why doesn't the Bank of America hire blacks? How many blacks did Bank of America hire? California we found out less than three-tenths of one percent. And they had one assistant branch manager in Watts, of course. And that was it. Safeway, same thing. What about Safeway? Safeway's got these stores in the black community, and we found out a lot of things. We started working for Safeway. We found out that the Safeways, with the food that was in the white communities, in 01:23:00the store in the white community, like the produce, the meat, they would pack them up. This is San Francisco, this is not the south. Then they would bring them down and put them in the Safeways in the black community.

REDMAN: Wow.

DREW: And then the prices. You would think the prices are going to be exactly the same. But the prices in the black community were higher than it was in the white community. And then when the question was asked why, well, that's to make up for shoplifting. And then we do the research, we find out that shoplifting in the black stores was the same as in the white stores. Right across the {inaudible} boarder. So then as we're going through all this research, like there were bakeries in San Francisco. No blacks. Dairies in San Francisco, no blacks. And so what do we do? What is our strategy? Now, you say it's non-violent. We're not going to go down and shoot up anybody. So we says, "Okay, 01:24:00Safeway, this is what we're going to do. We're going to go into Safeways, we're just going to inconvenience them." We're going to go in and we're going to get baskets. We're going to fill them up with food. No perishables.

REDMAN: At Safeway.

DREW: The idea was we would fill up baskets of hard goods, like canned goods and pasta and stuff like that and we'd take the baskets up front and just leave them. But the rule is no perishables. No perishables. We're just going to inconvenience them. They don't want to hire blacks? They'll hire other people to put these things away. Bank of America, our approach was just a little bit different. We would go into Bank of America. I would go in there, put a twenty dollar bill up and ask for change, twenty dollars worth of change. And then over the course, they'd give him a couple of sleeves and stuff. And he'd go back, he'd take the change out of the sleeves, get back in the line and go back and 01:25:00he'd want to convert his change back into a twenty dollar bill. We got tens of people in line. And you can imagine what the regular customers are thinking. They are getting pissed off. Highly pissed off. "How do we get rid of these people? Well, we'll hire a token black." "No, that's not going to be good enough. We want to know that this is an active process and we want it in writing that you're going to continue to hire the best person that shows up for the job." So they started hiring blacks. Safeway started hiring blacks.

The hardest nut to crack was Automobile Row. And a lot of us ended up going to jail for sitting there and this type of thing in Automobile Row. And it was shown that blacks bought more Cadillac's in California than any other car and any other group of people. If blacks stopped buying Cadillacs, they couldn't 01:26:00even sell Cadillacs in the area. The dealers would go out of business. And so we talked to the dealership and they said, "No, no, no, no. You can't tell us what to do. We hire who we want to." Said, "Fine." So we went across the Bay to Oakland where they had a Cadillac dealer. And so we said, "Would you consider hiring a black person if we sent you all these black people?" They're not dumb. They know what the statistics are. All these black people in San Francisco buying Cadillacs and they come from the East Bay--I mean, from across Sausalito and this area. They come over to buy Cadillacs. And so then the word get back and so we go back and tell them, "That's fine. You don't have to hire blacks. We've talked with what's his name over in Oakland. He says he's willing if we send him a qualified black person. He'll hire them right away." And all of a sudden, "You send us a qualified black person."

REDMAN: That is amazing.

DREW: Again--

REDMAN: That must have been a pretty exciting time--

DREW: Oh, it was.

REDMAN: --to be a part of the Congress of Racial Equality. I understand it was a 01:27:00biracial organization, as well.

DREW: It was. Very much so.

REDMAN: It must have been exciting to find like minded people who would be interested in this.

DREW: It was. And it wasn't just young people. There were lawyers. It was like the B'nai B'rith. We had lawyers, a number of Jewish numbers. Plus Gold by that time was head of the stevedore's union and he and his wife was there and he had a son that just graduated from law school, a couple of them in law school. So we had all of these resources.

REDMAN: So really smart people.

DREW: Oh, yeah. We had tremendous resources. In fact, the chairman of--the president of the Congress of Racial Equality had a master's degree, plus he had written several books. Had written several books after that and everything. So we were an extremely effective group. And not only that, but by this time part of the Fillmore was changing and so they had all these empty buildings. And so 01:28:00we went to the city in sort of a threatening manner. "If we can't get these buildings we're going to have thousands of people sitting here at city hall. They're empty anyway." Said, "We'll clean them up and this type of thing." So then we set up what we called the Black Man Free Store, and we'd go down to different stores, discontinued merchandise. We went to the department stores, we'd go to stores and get food. Dubuque Meat Company come to this neighborhood, give us meat. Because we had all these freezers and things there. We had people that came in and made sure that it was running and everything. And then we had racks and racks of clothing. So people come in and getting stuff free. As I said, it was free. Everything was free. You wanted to leave a donation, you could leave a donation. And the donation was used to help kids going to school. Helping them get their books, help them with their transportation, whatever it was. And that was it. And then later on we even appealed to some of the people 01:29:00in the outer reaches of San Francisco, because almost everyone at that time, even today, they have an appliance, a workable appliance in their garage. They don't want to pay to get rid of it. It's there. We'll take this thing. Just call us, we'll come and move it, move it away. Then we had mechanics, people that would come in, they'd go over these appliances to make sure that they were perfect. Then we would deliver them. We had people with trucks, we got the rental trucks and things. And we would deliver these to people's houses. People would come in, get whatever they wanted. They wanted clothing, come in.

REDMAN: That's amazing.

DREW: But you know the--

REDMAN: Did you meet a lot of people that way, too?

DREW: Oh, sure. You can't help but meet a lot. That's when you learn that the best people are the simple people, the poorest people. They're the most honest. Like the people would come in and you could tell who was who. If this person had 01:30:00a little something, he'd drive up in the--the Cadillac at the time or his Chrysler and he would come in and he'd get a basket and he would fill it up with clothing and everything. He'd try to take everything. That poor person would come in, and she's got two children, she get maybe two outfits for this child, two outfits for this child. They had a little food and that's it. You didn't have to say, "Don't try to take it all." They weren't. This other guy, this guy of means, "Please, Sir, would you mind leaving something for some other people?" And our place was bigger than this whole house and just racks and racks and racks and racks of clothing. We'd get them from everywhere. And plus, there were people would leave clothing there. We'd come in the morning, open the store and there would be bundles of clothing where somebody--the kids might have outgrown the clothing. Be nice clothing or people just--the style has changed and so they don't want to go with that style. And so it was a very successful store. We had 01:31:00the free clinic there. You know, you go there, you needed a shot, get a shot. You need an examination. You need a tooth pulled. All these things. This was not just a black thing. This was like an interracial community. The Haight Ashbury Clinic. It even operates to this day.

REDMAN: San Francisco, did you find it--I imagine the war had changed it. The war had changed the whole Bay Area so dramatically. But maybe you could talk about what San Francisco was like as a city in those days and how it was maybe different from today or from earlier in some sense.

DREW: San Francisco was always a town for--a tourist town. And most things were catered toward tourists. For instance, if something bad happened, someone got 01:32:00killed or something dastardly happened, it was understood that this would never be printed on the front page. It's on the back of--we don't want the tourists to see these things. To the point of one year when they were talking about murders for San Francisco and Oakland, San Francisco Chronicle reported that there were fifty-seven murders in Oakland last year. Come to find out there were fifty-nine murders in San Francisco, but that was way on the back page. Oakland was front page.

REDMAN: Interesting. Wow.

DREW: Now it's got to the point where there's very few blacks in San Francisco any longer. Methodically gotten rid of them. Bought the properties from under them and this type of thing and just phased them out. Like with the Fillmore district. When they came in and redeveloped the Fillmore district, they gave these people these vouchers. Now, once we build this housing, we building low 01:33:00income housing and we're going to build moderate income housing. Never was any low income housing. When this house is built, you can bring your voucher back and we'll give you a place. The damn place. That was some of the most expensive low cost housing ever. It still is to this day.

REDMAN: Let me ask you. So feeling does change in the Civil Rights Movement and there's critique from Malcolm X, from then the black nationalist community, from different--in Oakland there's the vibrant black power movement.

DREW: Black Panther.

REDMAN: Black Panthers.

DREW: Right. The most misunderstood group ever.

REDMAN: Talk about that.

DREW: The Black Panthers primarily--the white communities saw them as a threat. Guns. We'll protect ourselves. That's when they said, "We're not going--they 01:34:00never killed anybody. We're not going out to kill anybody." But we're going to protect ourselves. People are not going to run over--police are not going to run over us any longer. They set up food banks. Food programs for the schools. They bought--kids buy books and everything. They donated food to the people. They set up one of the first areas where people could come in eat. You could go in. Like some of the church things. You go in there and get a prepared meal and this type of thing. So they were really an extremely useful--and even black people don't understand. The black people today, they don't understand it. Do you realize that there are grown people in their twenties and thirties that know absolutely nothing about the Fillmore district? Nothing. They don't even know that it exists. They say, "Fillmore district? Wherever's that?"

REDMAN: Right. So on the one hand what you're describing is interesting because the activities behind the scenes of CORE and the Black Panther party are in some ways pretty comparable. They're both--

DREW: Right. Exactly. Well, we worked with them.

REDMAN: Yeah, okay.

DREW: Yes. We worked with them. In fact, I was attending a meeting over there for CORE, as a CORE representative. When I came out of the meeting, I just got off from work and came by there. Got my suit, my briefcase. And I walk out and all of a sudden I feel this tremendous pain across the side. This policeman had hit me across here and broke my ribs. And then when he took me to the hospital they said, "Well, we're going to have to put you in the hospital. We have to operate to fix the rib." I said, "I can't afford to be out. I have to go back." They said, "Well, your ribs are never going to heal right. They're going to overlap. We could wrap them," which they did. They never healed right. They still overlap. It's just like this to this day. And then, see, Oakland was one 01:36:00of the most brutal police forces.

REDMAN: Did you ever have a sense of why the police officer cracked you like that?

DREW: No. Well, the sense was that we're going to teach these people, these blankety-blanks a lesson.

REDMAN: Just for meeting?

DREW: Yes. They didn't know me from Adam. It wasn't like I was walking around with a black jacket on. I got my suit on. Like I said, I was working at American Airlines. I got my suit on and my tie and my briefcase because I left work and I walk out. I could've been a lawyer, anybody, an executive somewhere. But then I'm lying there and the interesting thing about it, the gentleman that came by was the director of Kaiser Permanente and he called the emergency to have me taken over there for treatment. So afterwards he said, had this lawyer came by and he says, "We're going to initiate a suit against the city of Oakland. I want you to go get a copy of the police report." Ha. Ha, ha. There was no police 01:37:00report. This never happened. It's just my imagination.

REDMAN: Somehow you broke your ribs.

DREW: Yes.

REDMAN: Yes.

DREW: You probably got this--slipped or something and you just want to--you're doing this for dramatic purposes. Nothing ever came of it.

REDMAN: Wow.

DREW: Nothing. I couldn't prove anything. And the people that was in the area where the meeting was taking place, it was primarily a white area, they could care less.

REDMAN: Now, I know we're flashing forward many years later but this is in my mind because it was just in the news this past week that Rodney King passed away. I'm wondering if, in light of the context of your treatment by the Stockton police and the Oakland police, the stuff with Rodney King must not have surprised you very much.

DREW: No, none.

REDMAN: Maybe what happened afterwards may have. I don't know.

DREW: No, it's the frustration. You can push people so far and then they just break, which is going to happen in this country with the poor people. It's going to happen. I won't be here when it happens but it's going to happen. It was this police force all over the place. Like in Berkeley. I lived in Berkeley. The Berkeley policemen, at that time there was the so called zebra killing. And this black person was supposed to kill somebody. I never got particulars on it. But they were stopping black people in Berkeley and I was stopped three times. Again, I would commute to work by helicopter. It was nice days, so I'd just--I'd walk down to the heliport and take the helicopter, go to work. And I'm walking along. And then all of a sudden, I see all the policemen. They turn in. I said, "God, what, somebody try to run the bank?" because I was near the bank. And they, "Hey, you?" And I'm looking around to see who they're talking to. "You with the briefcase. Put the briefcase down and up against the wall." I said, 01:39:00"What the heck's going on?" "We're checking out--" I said, "I've been stopped two times already." I was in a group coming out of the grocery store with my family and I'm stopped. And that's the most embarrassing thing. And how do you tell your children that the policemen are their friend? You tell them that and they see this happening.

REDMAN: Right, right.

DREW: Then San Francisco, same thing. I've been stopped so many times. Even back here in Stockton, I was--believe it or not, I'm driving--it's the street down here, Airport Way, and you go down a ways. They have an overflow ditch there, a flood control ditch. On either side there are abandoned warehouses. They've been abandoned like thirty-five years. I'm driving along about ten o'clock in the morning. There's no traffic. Ten o'clock in Stockton there's no traffic. And so all of a sudden I see the policeman up on the side. I wave at him. And I'm 01:40:00driving maybe ten miles, fifteen miles an hour because I know if I made--I just made the green light back here and there's no way I can make the next green light, no matter if I speed or slow. So I'm driving along and then next thing the police pull me over. And I said, "What's the problem?" "We want your driver's license, your proof of insurance and your registration." I said, "What did I do?" Because at that time I was driving my BMW. I was in good--I said, "I know my car--there's nothing hanging off my car, the light's working because I checked them already. I didn't cross over the line. I'm not speeding. So what's the problem?" And I says, "I know you've already checked my registration. You checked my registration before I even got out of--you got out of the car." I said, "What's the problem?" I said, "What am I doing wrong?" "You're driving suspiciously slow." Now I said, "Which ordinance is this?" "Well, you might have 01:41:00been trying to case." "Case what? The flood control ditch? These abandoned warehouses here? What am I casing?" And these two guys, they're so stupid. They stand there and they look at each other. I says, "What do we do? Now, I have violated an ordinance that doesn't exist. Now what do we do?" And they looked at each other. They didn't quite know how to get out of it. So I said, "I'll tell you what. I'm going home. Is that okay?" They just stood there. So I got in the car and I left.

REDMAN: Wow.

DREW: Then the fascinating thing. About two weeks later there was a young man that was running for supervisor--city councilor from this area. And he came by and he was seething. I said, "Well, what's the matter?" "I just got a ticket," at the same place where I was. I said, "Yeah." He's like, "They said I was speeding. I wasn't speeding. I know darn well--" I said the same thing. I laughed. He says, "What's so funny?" I said, "I just got a ticket down there not too long ago for driving suspiciously slow."

REDMAN: Suspiciously slow.

DREW: But that's Stockton. Then I was walking down the street. I was crossing the street at that time before I broke my hip. And even then I had problems. So I'm walking with a cane, I usually wait to make sure that the light changes before I start because I'm not going to--if the light's green when I get there, chances are I'll be caught in the street. So the light changes, I start across the street and I hear this [slapping sound]. And this policeman is standing. He's got this club. He says, "I haven't kicked a nigger's ass all day long. So just step on that line over there and give me an excuse." Enough said. It really deflates you. How can this be now, in this day?

REDMAN: My next question, it's an impossible question, to ask you what that 01:43:00makes you feel emotionally to someone who can't possibly comprehend what that's like to go through.

DREW: Well, a person that really do understand would end up getting injured because they would question it. And you don't question the police, like police. Like now it's even less so. Like policemen, they have ultimate rights. They can do anything. Like before, if you were stopped in your car, there was only three ways they could search your car. They would ask your permission. If you said no, then they would have to have reasonable cause. Or they'd have to get a court order. Now they don't have to. They stop you, "Get out of the car, step over there." And they can plant stuff in your car, do anything. You have no rights at all. Not just black, anybody. Nobody. And I listen to white people. "The policemen are our friends." I said, "Maybe be your friend." I have met the one 01:44:00black policeman in my--I mean one white policeman that I've encountered that I really had respect for. I wrote his captain a letter. My daughter was driving down the street and her car stopped on her. And so he called me. She gave my phone number. He called me, said, "Your daughter's car is stopped down here and I'm going to help her push it over to the side." It was toward dark. "And I'm going to stay here with her until you get here." So I got there and everything and he said, "Everything under control? Do I need to call anyone other--?" "Oh, no, her battery just needs cleaning. The cables need cleaning and everything." He says, "Okay. Now, this is my card. If you run into any problems, give me a call and I'll come back."

REDMAN: I mean, that's--

DREW: And I couldn't get home fast enough to write a letter.

REDMAN: Right, wow.

DREW: I went online and found out who his captain was and I wrote him a letter. 01:45:00I said, "This is a letter that I wanted to write all my life."

REDMAN: I want to ask a big question by way of summarizing. Now, you can take a minute to think about this if you'd like. We've talked about a lot of things today from your early childhood and upbringing all the way through coming out to California, what school was like for you and then the war and what life was like after the war, your involvement with the Congress of Racial Equality and the changing landscape of civil rights. If you look back on your time in--your childhood running up to the end of the war, how do you think that that shaped you in your viewpoints as it came later then after the war? What sorts of things, lessons or things or viewpoints did that instill in you?

DREW: Well, I became very conflicted about that. To this day there's things that 01:46:00I don't understand. There are things that just don't make sense to me. And stupidity is a word that I use quite a bit when it comes to people.

REDMAN: All right. Today is June 21st and this is my third tape with Mr. Drew. When we left off, I had asked you a question by summary.

DREW: Right.

REDMAN: And that was to summarize what the Great Depression and the war, those two experiences back to back, and the very unique way that you experienced them, how that shaped your life. And you said that those experiences left you somewhat confused ultimately.

DREW: Right. Ultimately. Especially when you have questions. You wonder about 01:47:00things and there's no one to explain them to you or people don't know the answers or they're also in the same position that you are, you're in. They have the same problems that you have. Why? Why did the policeman beat up black people? Why can't we go to school? We're just as smart as everybody else. Why, why, why, why, why, why? Even today. I'm eighty-two years old next month and I'm still asking the same question. Why? Why these things happening? Why do people do things to their own detriment? They were interviewing people about how they felt about welfare and this type of thing. And one of the guys was on welfare. And he's lost his home, lost his job. He's renting a house. He's depending on welfare, food stamps and his unemployment check to get him through the day. And 01:48:00when they ask him, "Well, what do you feel about the Republicans wanting to cut food stamps and this type of thing?" He said, "Well, they should." And he said, "Because we don't need them. We can get by without it." This guy, his rent is due the next day, he's $250 short of his rent. Not his house payment, his rent. He doesn't even know whether his telephone is still on or not and he's got until the next day to pay his PG&E bill. He's trying to borrow, get money from his parents. This is an older guy. They didn't have it. His friends don't have it. But he's saying that if he didn't have these resources, that someone would help him. I'm saying now how stupid can you get. Now, if I thought that way about myself, fine. But I got a wife and kids. For my wife and kids, I'll do anything to support them. Give me food stamps, give me whatever is available to help my family. Now, to me, that's sheer stupidity. Or these women. We listen to these 01:49:00Republican conservative representatives that are damning women. Oppose all these things. Women this. And they want no equal pay for women. Women shouldn't have birth control. And you look around and who are the people standing behind these people when they said these things? A whole bevy of women. Women should be able to get anything they want. They constitute over 50 percent of the voting in this country. And nothing. They're not even represented, don't even have adequate representation in Congress.

REDMAN: So part of the story for you is about very basic survival of a certain aspect and that--

DREW: My whole life has been about survival. It's been about survival. In fact, 01:50:00the way I feel now, if I went back like sixty years ago, and I felt the same way I do now, I'd probably commit suicide. Just end it because I wouldn't want to go through the next sixty years. There's been some good times with the kids. My kids were born, when they going to college and all this type of--this was great. We went fishing, camping, and did all these things. That part was great. The family [stuff]. But other than that, even kids going to college was a hassle. Fighting to get my kids to go into college, get my kids into a decent public school and being able to buy a decent house for them in a decent community and everything. On and on. Just fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting. All your life. You spend your whole life fighting for things that just should be your rights. Your Constitutional rights. And that is a document that scares the hell 01:51:00out of me because the people that talk about the Constitution, like the women especially, they talk about the Constitution, and a lot of men, they don't know that when the write--they say, "We want to go back to the days of the Constitution." We don't want to go back to the days of the Constitution because if you go back to the days of the Constitution, you can't do anything. You can't vote. The only people who could vote were white men that owned property. White women, well, with the Constitution, lady, you don't have the foggiest idea what you're talking about. You weren't even part of the Constitution. You were property. You were almost as bad off as the slave was. If you inherited anything it went to your husband. It wasn't yours. And you would tell--

REDMAN: So people have clearly lost sight of that history?

DREW: Exactly. In this country, it's like if we don't talk about it, it doesn't exist. And if you write about some things--certain people are not going to read 01:52:00books anyway so it doesn't get different. The only way you'll get to them is on television and most of them are going to watch Fox channel on television. And if you're going to watch news, watch different channels. Don't watch Fox. Don't watch just NBC or CNN. Watch all of them. Be suspicious of all of them. Then go out and do your research. Get on your computer, go to the library, talk to people. Talk to your neighbors. This whole political system we have need to be changed. And you change it where people decide who their representative is going to be, not the Democratic party or the Republican party. The people that live in a particular area. What does my community need? What do we want? Let's find a person that represent us, not the person that the Democratic party says that should represent us or Republican party. But the people that represent us. You 01:53:00talk to people, they don't--oh, no, no. It's too much stuff. Nobody want to work. They want stuff but nobody want to do anything. Nobody wants to get involved. Well, it's my Constitutional right. Right. You have never read the Constitution. You don't even know what's in the Constitution. Of all the people I've known, I've known college graduates, teachers, lawyers, believe it or not, and they've never read the Constitution. They don't have the foggiest idea. All they know is what they've been told the Constitution says. And I said, "Read that document. You go back and read it and you'll look at it in a totally different way."

REDMAN: I'd like to thank you very much for sitting down with me and talking. Thank you.