Vernon Jarrett (Finding Aid)

Vernon Jarrett

1921 - 2004

Favorite Food: Southern Food: Turnip Greens, Black Eye Peas, Real Country Ham Smoked in a Back Yard Smokehouse

Favorite Time of Year: Spring and Autumn

Interview Length: 224 minutes

Interview Date(s): February 10, 2002, February 10, 2000, June 27, 2000

Interview Location(s): Chicago, Illinois

Abstract

Journalist and activist Vernon Jarrett remembers his childhood in the small town of Paris, Tennessee, raised by parents who were both teachers in segregated black schools and inspired him with a love of learning and language. He recalls the strong solidarity of the black community, and he discusses how isolated rural and semi-rural African Americans became linked through newspapers, radio, civil rights organizations, church conferences and admiration of black celebrities like Joe Louis. Journalist and activist Vernon Jarrett recalls his elementary and secondary education in small towns in Tennessee during the 1920s and 1930s, emphasizing the great support for education in Southern black communities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and the sense of being a "son of the community, not just my parents." He discusses the great impact of Negro History Week and other occasions when dedicated teachers taught African American history that did not appear in the official textbooks. Journalist and activist Vernon Jarrett discusses the African American community's historical support for education. He talks about the desperate hunger for education of people for whom it had been illegal, and relates a story of his own grandmother, an ex-slave who learned to read by stealth. Jarrett talks about the strong support from the black community for the education of its youth when he was growing up in Paris, Tennessee; he stresses the need to replicate some of that kind of support for the youth of today and tells about a new program he has started, called 'Freedom Readers', to encourage kids to read and to learn black history. Jarrett also tells some anecdotes from his youth, including a lesson from a former slave about respect for black women. Finally he recalls his years during World War Two, working in an Alcoa plant and then joining the Navy; he was stationed at Great Lakes Naval Station and he descibes his enjoyment of exploring Bronzeville and the Loop during weekend trips to Chicago. Journalist and activist Vernon Jarrett talks about the importance of role models and mentors to promote scholarship in African American young people, and he recalls the influence of Vivian G. Harsh, Chicago's first African American librarian, and also describes a meeting with W.E.B. DuBois. Jarrett discusses his youthful ambition to become a writer and his move to Chicago after World War Two. He looks back at the huge importance of Joe Louis to the black community and links radio purchases by African Americans to the popularity of the broadcasts of Louis's fights. Journalist and activist Vernon Jarrett talks about the influence of radio and black newspapers on African Americans during his youth. He discusses the virulent racism and horrific lynchings prevalent in the South in the first decades of the twentieth century, and recalls meeting more racism in the North, when one of his first assignments for the Chicago Defender was covering the 1946 'race riots' by whites opposed to integrated housing in Chicago's Airport Homes. Journalist and activist Vernon Jarrett talks in detail about his experiences of Chicago as a reporter for the Chicago Defender during the late 1940s and 1950s--focusing on black politicians and the start of an independent movement, black theater and radio plays, black baseball players, the over-crowded, poor housing conditions in the black "ghetto" caused by restrictive covenants and the construction of the public housing high-rise buildings. He also discusses the dangers the NAACP faced in trying to organize in his home state of Tennessee during the 1940s and '50s. Journalist and activist Vernon Jarrett talks about his radio work with Oscar Brown, Jr. in Chicago in the late 1940s-early 1950s; his sojourn as a brewery representative in Kansas City, where he mingled with the "lower class" blacks and frequented jazz clubs; his return to Chicago in 1960 and his work for the Community Conservation Commission, including a controversial speech he gave on restrictive covenants; the program WLS-TV put on to discourage riots after Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination; the regular television show he produced on WLS starting in 1968; his work teaching black history at Chicago-area universities; and being hired as the Chicago Tribune's first black columnist in 1970. Journalist and activist Vernon Jarrett talks about his political involvement, especially his role in the election of Harold Washington as Chicago's first black mayor in 1983. He urges he vital importance of community support for academic achievement in black children and youth, and he tells of some of his own efforts in this area, including individual mentoring as well as the organizations he has founded, ACTSO (Academic Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics) and the Freedom Readers, a new program to encourage kids to read and learn African American history and literature. Journalist and activist Vernon Jarrett discusses his agnosticism and his thoughts about religion, the discouraging issues of AIDS, war and dictators in Africa, and his continuing commitment to the advancement of the black race and to the fight against all oppression and exploitation.

64 Stories (See Ordered Story Set)