Material is free to use for research purposes only. If researcher intends to use transcripts for publication, please contact Washington University’s Film and Media Archive for permission to republish. Please use preferred citation given in the transcript.
© Copyright Washington University Libraries 2016
This collection consists of 115 transcriptions of selected interviews filmed by Blackside, Inc. for the Eyes on the Prize: American's Civil Rights Years 1954-1965 documentary series that premiered January 21, 1987 on PBS. The transcripts are retrospective eye-witness accounts of events that took place during the American Civil Rights Movement from 1954 to 1965. Additional transcripts will be added to the collection as they are prepared.
Washington University Film and Media Archives supervised the editing of transcriptions to correct transcriber errors which included spelling of names, places, etc. using Microsoft Word; however grammatical errors made by speaker were left alone. Transcriptions were then cross-checked by listening to the interview for accuracy and completeness.
Digital Library Services performed additional regularization and spelling correction (files should undergo separate spell check process).
Although these files represent transcriptions of speech, they have been encoded with the Tag Set for Drama, instead of Transcriptions of Speech.
The rationale for this decision was that the more formal character of the interview had a structure closer to the drama than the speech tag set, and for ease of delivery of XML.
Preferred citation:
Interview with James L. Hicks, conducted by Blackside, Inc. on 1979, for Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years (1954-1965). Washington University Libraries, Film and Media Archive, Henry Hampton Collection.
These transcripts contain material that did not appear in the final program. Only text appearing in bold italics was used in the final version of Eyes on the Prize.
James Hoffman.
THANK YOU.
OK—
I GUESS MY FIRST QUESTION IS, WHAT WAS IT LIKE, YOU KNOW, THE KIND OF INDIGNITY AND ANGER YOU MIGHT’VE FELT GOING ON THE BUSES BEFORE THE BOYCOTT?
Supposed to mean the—
WELL HAVING TO GET IN THE FRONT AND COME BACK OUT AND GO ON THE SIDE. WHAT DID YOU FEEL LIKE HAVING TO GO THROUGH THAT?
Well, it’s, it’s been the custom so long there wasn’t much to feel. You now, cause, I mean that’s what you expected to do. And you just went on knowing that’s where you supposed to go. You just put your money in there and then go on the back and get on.
WAS THERE ANYTIME YOU PARTICULARLY FELT ANGRY?
Well, no. I’ve never been too much of a bus rider. No way. I’ve always walked or either had my own transportation. And I didn’t have the occasion to think about it that much
DID YOU THINK THE BUS COR—THAT THE BOYCOTT WOULD SUCCEED?
I did, because the way it started is that it—we never had that kind of a cooperation between us before whereby everybody taken part, instantly. And we—I had come to that they were, were gonna stay off.
AND HOW’D YOU FEEL WHEN YOU WON? THAT DAY THAT THE SUPREME COURT RULING CAME DOWN?
Well, I, I just, I just felt that we had made another mile. And I knew that it was gonna be a lot of problems. At least, I felt that way anyway. That in order to change traditions, you know, it’s going—well, we would expect that. Course some—we had a lot of us challenge that. They, they knew—in other words they knew it’s gonna happen so they would challenge it. See, they didn’t care anything about the reaction. I swear they just wanna [sic] let her know that they were—that he one of they were [sic]. So they, they—a lot of ‘em just—it’s like I said they didn’t want to charge it.
YEAH. OK. I THINK THAT SHOULD JUST ABOUT—
OK, CUT. YEAH.