Interview with Thomas Griffith, April 5, 2022

Partial Transcript: Okay, um, I’d like to thank you for allowing me to interview you, and before we get started, this is - the date is April the fifth 2022, I’m at the home of Mr. Thomas Griffith...

Segment Synopsis: Griffith briefly talks about his family and goes on to describe places in Athens that were known to the Black community.

Keywords: Athens High and Industrial; Athens, Ga.; Athens-Clarke County; Black business and enterprise; Brown's Barber Shop; Callaway Corner; Henry Sue Barnett-Griffith; Hot Corner; Morehouse College; The Bottom; Wilson Styling Shop; Wilson's Soul Food; Zed Harris; funeral homes; restaurants

Partial Transcript: I’m gonna go back a little and then we’ll come back to this point here.

Segment Synopsis: Griffith gives more information on his family, including that his father was killed in a car wreck when he was 7, and their education. He also talks about why his family moving to Clarke County and having to rent from white people.

Subjects: 1940s; 1950s; Athens High and Industrial; Athens-Clarke County, Ga.; Hunnicutt; Madison County, Ga.; Morehouse College; marriage; military; parenting; single parents

Partial Transcript: Now you - I’m gonna take you back to where, uh - you, you had started talking about the businesses.

Segment Synopsis: Griffith talks about segregation in schools, the mutual support between Black businesses, and the jobs Black people typically held while he was growing up. He explains that people from different classes lived side-by-side.

Keywords: 1940s; 1950s; Athens High School; Athens High and Industrial; Burney-Harris High School; House of Blue Light; University of Georgia; Westinghouse Electric Company; funeral homes; janitors; poultry industry; public transportation; sewing

Partial Transcript: And going to school - were there buses?

Segment Synopsis: Griffith elaborates on the differences between the white and Black schools, and he emphasizes the importance of him and his brothers finishing high school for his mother. He contrasts the architecture of the white school to that of the Black school.

Keywords: 1940s; 1950s; Athens High and Industrial; basketball; football; inequality

Partial Transcript: How would you describe your life growing up compared to what - well, just how would you describe your life growing up?

Segment Synopsis: Griffith describes his mother’s faith and her dedication to raising her children in a white man’s world. Griffith talks about some of the areas with affordable housing units, and he elaborates on his determination to succeed in order to provide a place for his mother.

Keywords: 1940s; 1950s; Broadacres Homes; Christianity; Hunnicutt; Rockspring Homes; childhood development; churches; education; generational respect; parenting; racism; religion; segregation

Partial Transcript: Now I’ve talked with some people, uh, and in fact I was talking to a gentleman the other day…

Segment Synopsis: Griffith describes unfair treatment in the workplace and recounts winning a lawsuit against Westinghouse on the grounds of discrimination. He describes the career paths of some of his brothers, why they relocated to Atlanta, and recounts getting fired from a waiting job near Decatur for being the spokesperson of the workers. With the attention he garnered in the workplace, he akins his firing and eventual re-hiring to the passing and resurrection of Jesus.

Keywords: 1960s; 1970s; Athens, Ga.; Calloway v. Westinghouse Electric Corporation; Dekalb County, Ga.; Morehouse College; equality; justice; law school; military service; poultry industry; racism; real estate; segregation

Partial Transcript: In that setting… they realized they got caught doing you wrong.

Segment Synopsis: Griffith notes the disbelief from the Black community that one of their own came out on top. He describes the union he served when he was fired from Westinghouse and, once re-hired, how he came to be chief steward. He talks about working with Klan members and their lack of confrontation with him, but contrasts his experience to that of his grandfather’s in Madison County.

Keywords: 1900s; 1910s; 1920s; 1950s; 1960s; 1970s; Ku Klux Klan; labor unions; racism; segregation; terrorism; workers' unions

Partial Transcript: Now with that thought in mind, how did other whites treat whites who were… nice to Blacks?

Segment Synopsis: Griffith describes how in Madison County some white families renting to Black families would make their tenants keep their children at home from school, even if there were no crops to be tended, so the school bus for the Black children was almost always empty. As a result, many Black people were undereducated and had to work low-paying jobs. He says that the Black children in Athens went to school because there was less of an agriculture focus and more factory jobs. Griffith describes downtown and how Black people navigated around segregation to get the services they needed.

Subjects: 1940s; 1950s; 1960s; Calloway Corner; Cress's; Hot Corner; Hunnicutt; Morton Theater; The Varsity; Tony's Restaurant; Wilson Styling Shop; businesses; dentists; doctors

Partial Transcript: Now, um, you said you had two kids, right?

Segment Synopsis: Griffith explains that his children, from the first grade onward, were in an integrated society and school supplies were no longer second-hand. He mentions a time that he was nearly expelled from school.

Keywords: 1950s; 1970s; 1980s; 1990s; Cedar Shoals High School; Clarke Central High School; Farris Thomas Johnson; Homer T. Edwards, Jr.; Homer T. Edwards, Sr.; football; rivalries

Partial Transcript: Something about me, I cannot stand to see anybody mistreated.

Segment Synopsis: Griffith elaborates on his personal philosophy of equality. He explains that lots of people didn’t want the union, but that they didn’t understand the good it did for the workers and the protection it offered them. He discusses the system of discipline within the workplace and the time leading up to his retirement.

Subjects: Westinghouse; bureaucracy; capitalism; labor unions; work ethic; workers' unions

Partial Transcript: I’m also a part of the brotherhood, you see that sign there, the Masons.

Segment Synopsis: Griffith describes the characters of the Masons and their morals. He also talks about The Bottom and how it was a place of socialization, fraternization, and occasionally conflict.

Subjects: Christianity; James Brown; Prince Hall Freemasonry; Rockspring Homes; The Staple Singers; fraternities; marijuana; morals; music; religion