NVCR 2
Page 16


H: What haven't I asked you, that perhaps I should have asked you, in terms of
 your view on Nashville and race relations in the 1950s and 1960s? Do you have
 any particular memories or anecdotes?

K: I think the one thing that has been forgotten generally is that, when there was
 great stratifying of the races, that a really warm relationship between the races
 was widely experienced in pre-integration days. I'm talking now about the 1930s.
 In countless ways, one of the events in our family, and my wife's family, was an
 annual trek to Aunt Susan's grave to put flowers on it. I've had blacks working for
 me that are trifling as you can get. I've had blacks working for me that I'd trust
 with the entire house and family. I had one named Rufus, for instance, who
 always chewed tobacco. I remember wrestling with myself, if something
 happened to Rufus, and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation was necessary, would I?
 Yes. By God, I would. So the myth of rampant hard-hearted hard cruelty that
 has occurred to some extent there are always some cruel people in the world,
 but fortunately they're in the minority. That warm relationship between the races
 did exist in times of slavery and in times of segregation. Segregation, by the way,
 was a Northern invention. Did you know that?

H: How so?

K: In the North you had sun-down towns, antebellum. In the South, you didn't have
 any sun-down towns; of course, you didn't need any such things, because they
 were all over the town. But, after the War, the abolitionists performed, I think,
 one of the cruelest things against suffering blacks by freeing them abruptly, with
 no preparation [and] no concern for their [ability or lack of ability to make
 responsible decisions as well-informed workers or citizens and voters]. [Note: Mr.
 Kershaw added the following anecdote as an elaboration of what he said in the
 original interview: When President Lincoln was confronted with the problem, he
 told a story about an old farmer who planted a field in potatoes to feed his hogs.
 He planned to turn the hogs into the potato field "come frost." His neighbor said
 "what's gonna happen when the ground is frozen?" The old farmer answered,
 "root, hog, or die." You remember Mr. Lincoln never wanted to merely free the
 slaves; he wanted to transport them either back to Africa or to South America.
 His attitude toward blacks was the same as the Illinois towns that imposed sun-
 down curfews for blacks.] Segregation was adopted from those Northern sun-
 down towns. A concept that applied to the Southern's War-ravaged society.
 So, of course, the superficial accusation is made today that post-War
 segregation was a wicked and cruel thing. It was a method of getting along. It's
 like the young and the old having different rules. You're supposed to be a little bit
 deferential to the older man, and he's supposed to be a little smarter than you
 are, even though you think you're smarter. So I think that the sort of thing you're
 doing, if it results in some sort of mediation and communication between the rigid