Woolworth Anti-Integration Archive, ca. 1963
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GUEST:
My father worked for Woolworth his whole life. He started out as a stock boy, here in St. Louis, at a store, and as he worked his way up in the company, he ended up as a vice president in New York. We lived in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, in 1963, and his store was the site of quite a lengthy sit-in by the people there. Afterwards, we found these when he died, in some of his memorabilia. He had saved these letters, and they were letters he received. He interpreted them as a threat. We later found out that, when we were older, because I was just a child, that he also received phone calls, and my mother told me at one point that she woke up one morning, and there was a cross on our front yard. So it wasn't too long after that that the company moved us to St. Louis. Moved away from Pine Bluff and to St. Louis.
APPRAISER:
In Pine Bluffs, what was going on was there was sit-ins. Do you know how that first came up with your father, or what the reaction was?
GUEST:
He really didn't talk about it too much. I know he handled it as best he could, and knowing him, he probably deferred to whatever the company wanted him to do. But he didn't really talk about it much, and I was actually surprised to find these after he died, that he'd saved them all these years.
APPRAISER:
Obviously, in Little Rock, there were the high school, there were sit-ins in the Carolinas.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
I think one of the interesting parts about this, and this letter in particular, is obviously saying that they were going to integrate the lunch counter. And that's where... he's obviously got the death threats. Pine Bluffs Agricultural College, they were seeing what was going on. It was a black university, and so they decided to have sit-ins. And in many ways, the sit-ins at the counter were probably more dangerous than some of the better-known and publicized. I know that they couldn't get the Justice Department to send federal troops in to help them. This is a little brochure from the National Patriots' League—
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
Basically saying how terrible it would be if it got integrated.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
This letter here is sort of a little verse-type poem, but it's a veiled death threat.
GUEST:
Right, right.
APPRAISER:
There's no question when you read through it, it's saying, "Well, you're going to be rich,” you're going to be this. “And there will be no downtown." This letter to your father, when he was the manager at Woolworth's, is interesting. I'll paraphrase it a little. "It is a real regret to me to learn that after so long a time, you are accepting Negroes in the business. Going to the demands of the out-of-state Negroes and renegade whites, that you have agreed to their demands and are accepting their business at your lunch counter." With the integration, there wasn't a central directive coming from Woolworth's.
GUEST:
No, no.
APPRAISER:
This was 1963.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
This was a time of tremendous upheaval and change.
GUEST:
It was, it was.
APPRAISER:
I think what the significance of these are is that they're a lot of history, and people know what's going on. Like I say, in Little Rock, they were on national television. But you didn't see as much what was happening in the small towns like Pine Bluff.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
And I would imagine that he probably had death threats, and I'm sure that he was worried about his family.
GUEST:
He was very worried.
APPRAISER:
The value on these is hard to determine. I would say, easily, these letters, at a retail store, $2,000, $3,000.
GUEST:
Really? That's very surprising to me. Very surprising, I had no idea.
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