- Collection:
- Working Lives Oral History Project
- Title:
- Interview with Marcel Hopson
- Contributor to Resource:
- Hopson, Marcel
McCallum, Steve - Date of Original:
- 1985-02-07
- Subject:
- Hopson, Marcel--Interviews
- Location:
- United States, Alabama, Jefferson County, Birmingham, 33.52066, -86.80249
- Medium:
- interviews
transcripts - Type:
- Sound
Text - Format:
- audio/mpeg
image/jpeg - Description:
- In this interview, Hopson discusses life in Birmingham, Alabama, during the segregation era, focusing on police brutality and the restriction of segregation laws. He also recounts stories of city nightlife and his life-long work as a reporter, beginning in the late 1940s. Hopson describes Birmingham as similar to Harlem in terms of its music scene. He says it spawned several famous musicians who had been under the tutelage of Fess Whatley, including Erskine Hawkins, who wrote the song "Tuxedo Junction" about the area. He says that integration ended up hurting the black business district and the nightlife. Hopson recounts his days as a reporter for the Birmingham World, a black newspaper which began in the 1930s. He recalls how they published editorials against the police brutality common in the Bull Connor era. He calls Connor a "mad dog," the kind that "doesn't use distinction or discretion on who to bite." Hopson says he was privy to many police reports because he would agree to hold stories if asked, while the white reporters would not. He describes the state of police relations in that era, when blacks were routinely killed by the police and set up to make it look like self-defense. Hopson explains the sort of laws that went along with segregation. For example, even marbles games between blacks and whites were prohibited. He tells the story of Jim Hood, a black man killed by a white streetcar owner in 1947 for simply moving the separating board on the car. Hopson briefly discusses the Birmingham Black Barons and their fate after baseball was desegregated. He also discusses his history prior to his reporting career. His father was a carpenter and brickmason, and Hopson worked in a brick plant as a teenager as well.
The digitization of this collection was funded by a gift from EBSCO Industries. - Metadata URL:
- http://digitalcollections.libraries.ua.edu/cdm/ref/collection/u0008_0000003/id/107
- Language:
- eng
- Additional Rights Information:
- Images are in the public domain or protected under U.S. copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code), and both types may be used for research and private study. For publication, commercial use, or reproduction, in print or digital format, of all images and/or the accompanying data, users are required to secure prior written permission from the copyright holder and from archives@ua.edu. When permission is granted, please credit the images as Courtesy of The University of Alabama Libraries Special Collections.
- Original Collection:
- Working Lives Oral History Project
- Contributing Institution:
- William Stanley Hoole Special Collections Library
- Rights:
-
