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The Experiences of Robert Eaves during the Jim Crow Era
When trying to decide whom to interview for this project, my father, Robert
Eaves, was the first person who came to mind. During the majority of the Black Power
Movement, he was a college student at Hampton University. I chose to interview him
because the Black Power Movement, like the Civil Rights Movement, was very
influential on all college campuses, but especially on black college campuses. I felt that
his perspective on the Black Power Movement and how it influenced not only college
communities, but the black community as well would be a very valuable one.
Robert Eaves was born in Barnwell, South Carolina on December 22, 1951. For
the majority of his childhood blacks lived completely separate lives from whites. He did
not think this way of life was abnormal because that was the way things had always been.
Barnwell was and still is a very small rural city. Unlike in Lowndes Country and Selma,
Alabama, there was not any sort of local grass roots movement. Most public places,
including public schools, stayed segregated until the very late 1960s. Because the
movement was virtually non-existent in Barnwell, it was not until he went to college at
Hampton that he met people who were passionate about eliminating injustice and fighting
for civil rights. For the first time, he saw the Civil Rights Movement and the Black
Power Movement in action.
As a child in the 1950s and 60s, my father lived in a completely separate world
from white people. “I knew white people to some extent but my experiences were very
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limited. I saw them on the street and in stores, but I knew nothing about them and they
knew nothing about me,” he said.
For the most part blacks and whites in Barnwell learned to live a peaceful
existence separate from each other. He said,
Race relations in South Carolina were a little different from
Alabama and Mississippi. South Carolina was able to
sustain segregation without too much resistance because
whites didn’t go to the extremes of putting dogs on people
and spraying little girls with water hoses in the streets like
they did in Mississippi. Because we were able to live rather
peacefully everyone excepted segregation as a normal way
of life.
My dad said that whites in South Carolina did not understand why segregation
was a problem. “Our state legislators would say, ‘We treat our Negroes good here. They
have no reason to complain.’ This was their justification for keeping things separate and
because we didn’t really complain change came later rather than sooner,” he said.
In states such as Mississippi and Alabama the 1950s and 1960s was a dangerous
period for blacks. Their way of life was so hindered by constant discrimination, that they
had no choice but to fight back. In addition to not having the right to vote, many blacks
lived with the fear of being killed by knight riders if they even thought about challenging
the system. Blacks were martyred to serve as an example to their community that they
shouldn’t try to change the racial order. Jimmie Lee Jackson of Marion, Alabama is an
example of this. While protesting for the right to register to vote, he was shot in the
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stomach by a state trooper for trying to protect his mother from being beaten by police.
Even though blacks were discriminated against in Barnwell, racial tension never quite
reached these levels.
In Barnwell, most blacks were hired to work domestic jobs by whites. This was
the only real interaction the two groups had with each other. As a child my dad worked
for a white family in town. There he was able to form his views on white people and their
way of life. “Growing up I felt that white people had everything and we had nothing. I
believed that all white people lived in good houses and all black people lived in bad
houses. I had never been exposed to anything different,” he said.
During the 1960s Barnwell didn’t have a substantial population of prosperous
blacks. I feel like this contributed to the lack of a civil rights movement. Because blacks
did not see positive images of themselves, they did not know they could have anything
better. Civil rights and black power groups such as the Student Non-Violent Coordinating
Committee and the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense did not have the presence in
Barnwell that they had in other cities. SNCC was a very significant factor in gaining
equal rights in places such as Selma, Alabama and Jackson, Mississippi. The Black
Panther Party helped spread the message of “black power” throughout major cities in the
North and West.
Because there were not volunteers in Barnwell to help organize blacks to fight for
civil rights my dad said he had no way of knowing that blacks could truly compete with
whites at this time. “I didn’t come to this conclusion until I started playing sports with
white boys in high school. That’s when I knew that we had the same abilities that they
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did and that we could excel above them not only in sports but in other things as well,” he
said. This was the first time that he realized that black people were a powerful force that
had the potential to make a serious impact on society.
One of my father’s most memorable events of this time period was the integration
of Barnwell public schools. It was not until 1970 that Barnwell public schools were
integrated by force. From 1968 to that point, students had what was called “Freedom of
Choice.” My dad said that very few blacks in Barnwell took the liberty of changing over
to the “white school,” as they called it.
In many other parts of the South students such as James Meredith, who was the
first black student to attend the University of Mississippi in 1962, underwent serious
distress and in Meredith’s case had to be escorted by National Guardsmen in order to
attend class. “It was basically the children of the few educated blacks in Barnwell that
switched over to the majority white schools. My parents didn’t really have the resources
to educate themselves on things such as civil rights and black power, so they didn’t push
for me to make that transition,” he said. In addition he said, “Personally, I didn’t believe
the ‘white schools’ were better. I figured I knew just as much as the black kids who
switched over to them.”
While Barnwell County was trying to integrate its school in order to catch up with
the rest of the nation, the Civil Rights Movement was dying down and the Black Power
Movement was in full effect in many large cities such as Detroit, Harlem, and Chicago. It
wasn’t until my father attended Hampton Institute, now Hampton University, in Virginia
that he was exposed to the Black Power Movement. “In high school I thought that the
Black Power Movement was a ‘city thing,’ he said. Blacks in these cities were coming
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together and expressing their sentiment, also known as “black power”; as a result they
burned down their cities out of frustration due to police brutality and discrimination.
I do not believe that the black population in Barnwell could have successfully
engaged in a black power movement such as this. Because it was so rural and whites
owned the majority of the businesses and resources, blacks depended on whites in order
to make their living. They could not afford to cause friction between themselves and their
white employers. As a result, advancements such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the
Brown v Board of Education decision took so long to come into affect in Barnwell.
In addition most blacks in Barnwell didn’t have the level of education that many
black power advocates in the big cities had. Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black
Panther Party for Self-Defense, was studying law when he initiated the Black Panthers
Party’s platform, which called for blacks to gain control of their lives and neighborhoods
and learn self-defense against the police. Because he was educated, he knew it was his
constitutional right to bare arms and monitor the actions of the police. Most blacks in
Barnwell didn’t have the education to be able to uphold and support such radical views as
those of the Black Panther Party. They didn’t know the law the way Huey Newton and
his followers did; therefore they would not have been able to protect themselves from
being harmed by police and other officials.
When my dad went to Hampton, this was his very first time away from Barnwell.
Even though he had seen things such as the riots in Watts and Detroit on television, he
had never met people who had lived in these big cities and had a real passion for black
empowerment. “When I went to college it became a different life. Everything was a
‘black thing.’ Everything was about the ‘black experience.’ I had never heard of these
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things before,” he said. This talk about the black experience really had a significant
effect on my dad. He had never been in a place where black people were in charge.
“Because I went to an all black school, we had the freedom to express ourselves anyway
we wanted. We started wearing afros and dashikis and embraced ideas such as PanAfricanism. I also started listening to the music and poetry of Gil Scott-Heron. He was
the first radical guy I ever listened to,” he said. “Unlike at home, blacks at Hampton
controlled everything. We controlled the academics, the police force, and the
surrounding community. We were a political force to be reckoned with.”
While in college he was constantly exposed to people and things that he had never
seen before, such as Angela Davis, Stokely Carmichael, and even Malcolm X. “I had read
a book about Malcolm X prior to coming to college. But it was not until then that I saw
blacks sit around and discuss his ideals and how to empower the black race,” he said.
My dad said that Gil Scott-Heron’s song “The Revolution Will Not be Televised”
was very influential. The song said that the black “revolution” would not be televised; it
would be live. Because he was a student at this time he had the opportunity to take part in
the movement while it was still very much alive. Students who were really focused on
living the “black experience” at this time were the driving force behind the Black Power
movement.
Student participation has always been a key element in most demonstration
movements. It was four students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State
University that helped spark the sit-in demonstrations of the 1960s. Many students who
helped organize the Civil Rights Movement carried their efforts over to the Black Power
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Movement. Stokely Carmicheal, who was a key organizer in SNCC, was a driving force
behind the spread of the term “black power.”
By leaving Barnwell and going to a prestigious black university my dad was also
able to meet blacks from all over the country. He became friends with guys who were
from Washington D.C., Boston, and Detroit. “I was heavily influenced by the guys I met
from the big cities. It was at this time that I realized that blacks in the big cities were
catching just as much hell as we were in the rural South,” he said.
My father’s college experience helped shape his views of what the black
community was truly capable of; his exposure to college life and the black power
movement allowed him to realize that blacks could indeed be successful in our society.
The same way high school sports taught him that blacks were just as skillful as whites his
involvement with the movement showed him that the “black experience” was just as
significant and influential as the white experience. For the first time, he was around
educated black people who were in control of their own lives; in Barnwell whites dictated
the racial order of things. He learned to except his way of life in Barnwell because he
didn’t know that blacks could achieve better. Living in poor, separate communities was
and still is a way of life for some blacks there.
He feels that despite the advancements that blacks have made, the movement is
not over. Even though he was able to leave his small town and become exposed to
greater things, not all blacks, especially in places like Barnwell, South Carolina, have had
this opportunity. He thinks it is essential for blacks to become involved in the politics
and the law making of our country. That is the only way that black people can assure that
their needs are being met to help advance them in society.
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In addition he feels that individuals like Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas
have set the civil rights movement back several years by not helping to secure the rights
of black people. Recently Judge Thomas voted in favor of eliminating Maranda Rights,
which my father feels were one of the few means of protection that blacks had against
police brutality. This issue was especially significant to advocates of the Black Power
Movement. He believes that for the movement to continue to move forward, people like
this have to be overshadowed by blacks who are willing to fight for black issues.
Because my father was fortunate to receive an education, he has been able to
travel all around the world and establish a successful business. This has ultimately
shaped my views of the racial order in our country and where it is going in the future.
Even though I realize that racism and injustice still exists in our country, I feel that I have
been blessed with many opportunities that will help me overcome any obstacles that are
placed before me based on the color of my skin. My exposure to different types of
people, environments, and ideals allows me to believe that blacks have the ability to
propel themselves forward in our society. However, not all blacks in our country have
been able to share in the same opportunities and until do things will not change. Until
black children across the country are able to receive proper health care, I think it will be
hard for our society to advance. Until black families are no longer imprisoned by druginfested housing developments, I think it will be hard for the black race to make up for
lost ground. Until black schools receive the same amount of funding and resources as
other schools, I feel that the different racial groups that make up our country will never
truly reach a place of equal co-existence.