'We Will Have to...Pretend We Are All Equal'
Ms.
Barbara
Reisman,
New York,
New York
As a musician traveling throughout the Southern states in the '50s and '60s, I witnessed many civil rights abuses. I was a member of Chico Hamilton's Jazz Group and in my own trio with my two sisters. A manager in New York booked the trio's stay in white hotels. After the first concert and upon returning to the hotel, suddenly there were no rooms available (including the ones we had previously occupied) because we had played for black audiences.
At Fort Valley State College in Georgia, the black dean and head of the school, Walter Raleigh McCall, remarked, "I would love to take you out after the concert, but there is no place where a mixed group would be accepted. We will have to stand under this Georgia moon and pretend we are all equal."
On Chico Hamilton's tour, I was not permitted to stay with the group because, as a Caucasian, I had to have separate accommodations. On August 28, 1955, the trio, while on tour in Mississippi, learned of the tragic murder of young Emmett Till. I attended a citizens' committee meeting of white society ladies to raise money to convict the murderers. This remark was addressed to me: "I want you to return up North and tell people that everyone in Mississippi doesn't go around lynching little nigra boys."
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