>> Go ahead.
>> I'm sorry about that.
>> Well, no problem.
>> Well, I'll move. Thank you.
>> Challenor, right?
>> Challenor, as in church.
>> Challenor.
>> Hershelle Challenor, Take 1.
>> Sullivan Challenor. [LAUGHTER]
>> Sullivan Challenor,
Scene 1, Take 1.
>> So I'm here
today speaking with doctor Hershelle Sullivan Challenor,
one of the co-chair of
the Atlanta Student Movement and one of
this core group of folks who were
in a brain trust is what Lonnie King and I call it.
They've changed the world certainly.
And so we're just honored that
you took your time to sit and talk with us.
>> Pleasure is mine.
>> So important. I wanted to start just at the beginning.
If you would tell us a little bit
about where you were born,
where you went to school as a young woman,
and then how it was you came to Spelman?
>> Actually, I'm a Grady baby.
I was born in Atlanta as were both of my parents
and went to Spelman nursery school
for a while and then my parents moved North.
My father first, obviously as part of
the exodus of African Americans from the South,
looking for better opportunities.
He wanted to be an engineer, and of course,
Georgia Tech would not allow
him to enter their institution.
I never got it straight. Once I heard that they gave
him money to do Carnegie Tech.
I'm not sure that part is true.
But anyway, he did finish Carnegie Tech.
So born in Atlanta.
I guess when I was about four years old,
we moved to Pittsburgh where Carnegie Tech was located.
But obviously, I was so influenced by my parents.
So I said they were both Atlantans. She finished Spelman.
He finished Morehouse, undergrad and then
got a master's in
math and then had his engineering degree.
My mother subsequently when we were in Pittsburgh,
got a master's in social work.
There's two of us, one older sister.
We were quite fortunate in that our parents valued
education and there was never
a question about us going to college.
That was just something that was understood.
So I didn't really know much about
Atlanta until I came back here to go to Spelman College.
I wanted to go to Spelman,
not only because my mother was a graduate,
but also in Pittsburgh,
my sister and I both went to public schools.
And in most instances,
there were, 1,
2, or 3 African Americans in our class.
And so I wanted to have the black experience.
And I think that's why many children of
parents who had gone to historically black college or
university want to have
at least some part of that experience themselves.
So I did go to Spelman as an undergraduate,
hated the first year.
And I don't know if you have an understanding of
what it's like to be raised in
the North and come to the South.
It's true that the only person
who called me a nigger was someone in the North.
It never happened in the South.
Well, I was a baby.
We didn't stay here that long.
And then, of course, during the civil rights movement,
we had all unkind things fed to us.
But both of us came.
Both my sister and I.
And I don't regret it.
I remember going to my first football game at Spelman.
I had never seen so many African American people
in one place in my life.
[LAUGHTER] And it was really quite different.
Back to my parents. So I had
a very happy childhood as
far as that was concerned
except that my sister was very smart.
She's has a doctorate too in cytogenetics.
And so it's interesting
that we were in such different fields.
I'm in the social sciences
and she was in the natural sciences.
Growing up, in Pittsburgh,
both of us were usually not usually,
we were always in the top tier of our class.
We took our study seriously.
Childhood was much like others.
Well, I wanted to study ballet,
and my parents didn't
really think that was such a good idea.
But normal childhood.
We had black kids
whose parents had different orientations.
I don't mean in terms of gender or sexuality,
but I mean they came
from less well educated parentage and
these kids didn't particularly
want to be in school and so they would
chase us home from school and argue and fight with us,
but other than that, a normal childhood.
Perhaps the most important thing
to me was the chance to study abroad.
That was made possible by Spelman College.
And I don't know
if you know that Myra Stillard
also was a Merrill scholar.
But that was transforming,
as was the ability
to be part of the civil rights movement.
I don't know what else you wanted to know.
>> Like when you went abroad
and equality was just the norm,
more so than the American South.
And then you came back to the American South.
So what year was that that you came back?
>> It would've been September 1960..
>> And you came back to a place
where quality wasn't only available or valued.
It was shunned.
And legally so. I mean,
there were institutions in place in
the American South that you were not equal.
And how did that impact you?
>> Well, one of the things that struck
me as an African American,
I was very interested in African students.
The time I was there
was really the eve of Francophone Africa.
I studied at the Sorbonne in Paris
and was just fascinated by the French language.
I know my father was interested in
the French when he was at college.
And one of the things that
struck me so much in talking with African students
was the realization that we as
African Americans could never go
back and have an opportunity to run for
president of a country that was ours.
And I cannot tell you how much the election
of Barack Obama meant to
me and so many African Americans.
But then there were other things
that I guess I just enjoyed French culture.
And I really think that Spelman and Morehouse had
expanded there for study abroad programs
so that now almost any student
who wants to do it can do it,
and I think that's vital.
>> So you came back in September
the Atlanta student movement?
>> Yes. This was the year after it was started.
But even before the Atlanta student movement
began as the student movement.
Well, I don't know. You haven't talked
with any Spelman students.
Am I the first Spelman students with whom you've spoke?
>> Dr. Pope and Dr. Middlebrooks.
>> But I'm the first one you've spoke?
>> Yeah.
>> Well, we had a professor Oh, God.
Sit. You see old age.
Try to think of his name.
Howard. Howard was a social science professor.
We didn't have a major in
say political science and so I had
to do a social science curriculum which was fine.
And he influenced any of us.
He was a Jewish American,
out of New York brass,
and bright, and unusual.
And so he was a great influence on the Spelman nights.
And so even before the beginning of the student movement,
he insisted that we go to
places to try out some of the white churches.
I was physically removed from a white church.
And I can tell you it changed my attitude.
That in going to South Africa and
seeing how the South Africans used
religion as a weapon against black South Africans.
But it was Howard Zinn that started
pushing us out to do
things that African Americans didn't usually do.
One of the most profound well, it was silly.
I mean, it's snapping.
I went to Fox and I just went once. It was raining.
And I don't know if you know it,
but at that time,
African Americans had to walk outside.
It was raining that day.
And we could not sit on the first level.
We had to walk outside to get to the balcony.
Those were good seats,
but I went that once and
I think I've only been back once
since it's humiliating experience.
At Spelman, we didn't often used the buses,
we were so restricted and I don't know
if others have talked to you about.
Well, I don't know. You've talked with
Morris and he's a southerner.
>> I know that the gates were closed.
>> So you've heard about the restriction did in or out.
>> You guys had a curfew?
>> Oh, yes, we did. And while my parents,
when my sister and I had our first dates,
my father came and gave them the lecture.
They were concerned that everything was handled properly.
But Spelman was different
because we had visiting hours.
And we couldn't go off campus alone.
I remember if we had a date,
we had to go in a group with a chaperone.
And I just felt that was so ridiculous.
>> And that wasn't something that you'd
experienced in your home life?
>> No.
>> It was stricter than that?
>> Yes, because of the,
some of prejudice and all those things that
could happen to a person here.
So that was difficult.
>> So when you joined
the Atlanta student movement as the co-chair,
you were already aware of all the things that
could happen because of what you were doing?
>> That didn't seem to matter.
It didn't seem to matter.
As I said, after I came back,
I just felt like here or the African students had
an opportunity to do things and to grow
and I wanted an opportunity to protest.
So it was just a natural.
Obviously, I kept in touch with
students through letters then.
We didn't have cell phones.
So I was informed about what was going on here.
And so obviously wanted to be a part of it.
So I think it was about the second day
I was on campus when I returned in
September of 1960 that Lonnie got in touch with me.
And we sat down and talked and it was sign me up.
And I think next to
the chance to spend a year mainly in France,
but tour a lot of Europe.
The student movement was one of
the most important things I've been engaged in.
And what I found
intriguing was that when we went to jail,
well, as you may know.
There were three times when students were arrested.
The first time and you'll hear this from
Roslyn Pope was in March,
I think it was the 13th.
But they were arrested
but were released on their own recognizance.
It was only in beginning in October 19th,
that it was Lonnie
who took the decision and it made lot sense.
He said, we want to up the ante
and so we want to stay in jail.
Really as another way of exerting
economic pressure on the state of Georgia.
>> That was when jail no bail.
>> That's right. Exactly. And I must say to you,
you hear quite a lot
of things as an African American female.
I was very much concerned about being
accosted by white jailkeepers,
whatever their names are.
But I felt we had to do it.
When we were arrested and there weren't that.
Well, maybe I should back up
because students we were sitting
in and students could
decide whether or not they wanted to go to jail or not.
And there were no hard feelings either way.
We recognize that. For some students,
it just wasn't something they wanted to do.
But I guess when we were arrested,
there were about I say about 52 of us.
And I was with a group that
was went to the Atlanta jail and
not to the State facility.
And they called the Atlanta jail,
what was it Atlanta Arms because that was
so much nicer than the State prison.
But that was that was tough.
We were put into a cell with
about I would say 40 other women.
And we didn't know what to expect.
So we had appointed, we took turns.
We had people designated to watch as guides
over the women through the night and everything was fine.
The women who were in the cell were very protective of us
and very proud of us and that that was encouraging.
The plan changed somewhat because
the downtown businessmen said that
they were willing to sit down and talk.
And so if we would stop the demonstrating,
then they would release us.
But we were fine.
I remember when the innkeepers
came and told us that we were all
being released. We were shocked.
And I remember two of the students cried.
Why are you releasing us?
We're supposed to stay here.
Jail was not pleasant.
Only if you were pregnant,
could you have regular milk with breakfast?
Otherwise, it was butter milk.
It was some gruel we had to eat.
The food was terrible.
But I must say we were
never taken advantage of in any way.
And for that, I was most grateful because I think that's
the one thing that women fear
the most being raped or physically abused in
some way forcefully when you have no power to respond.
But what surprised me
was how willing the Atlanta Spelman students were.
I will say and Lonnie agrees with
this with great reluctance that Spelman
had the largest percentage of students who
participated in the civil rights movement.
And there were options.
You could pick it or you could come and make sandwiches
or put together picket sides.
So there were things you could do,
you weren't didn't you weren't forced to go to jail,
but many of the Atlanta students
from Spelman decided to do so.
>> And that's interesting to me as as
a woman on a very personal level.
And I wanted to ask you about that.
So the number of
Spelman women who took
up this cause this important cause.
And also you personally as a leader,
how did you feel about that?
And how did you negotiate those spaces as
the co-chair of the movement and you were a woman?
>> I guess the first should be underlining
Rothan had the same experience. She will tell you.
When I came back from Europe,
I had to do an extra year.
And so my classmates had already been graduated,
but they elected me in absentia
to be president of the student body.
The same thing occurred with Roslyn.
I was in the leadership position at
the time that I
got involved in the Atlanta student movement?
Yes. As was Roslyn.
And when I went to Spelman,
I was elected president of the freshman class and so
I was an outgoing person
and so I liked doing things like that.
[LAUGHTER] The other thing,
too, I think, is coming well,
being socialized in the North.
I guess the Northerners from more assertive.
It was very difficult for some of the students at
Spelman whose parents lived and worked in Atlanta,
most as teachers because they were threatened.
I said, do it and you lose your job.
So there were many outsiders.
Well, non-Atlanta students who were participants?
Probably disproportionate?
Disproportionate number had to do had to do it.
>> So kind of building on that experience.
So as the co chair,
in addition to going to jail,
in addition to doing the sit-ins,
you also were Lonnie's co chair
when you all went to that
secret Atlanta Chamber of Commerce meeting,
and you had to negotiate that as well.
Was that something for you as a young woman of color?
And here you are, I think it was
the Chamber of Commerce meeting in March of 1961.
Where they called you both in
there and tried to trick you into saying,
hey, we're going to stop this if you all will agree.
How was that for you as a young woman of color,
walking into this room
with very powerful men at the time?
>> Well, having been socialized in the North,
it wasn't that big of a deal.
But the fact that it was
the leading business community of Atlanta.
And mainly we listened.
As you know at the first time they invited us in,
they had already decided
on the substance of the agreement,
which was to seem
to do something but to have everything remain the same.
I think the main concern of
the white political leadership in Atlanta
was submit as they had to
to the Brown v.
Board of Education decision of the Supreme Court,
which would have enforced school desegregation and let
the court and not a bunch of
rag tag students be
the determinant of them changing their minds.
And so when you look at the final agreement,
the final agreement was that they would not desegregate
the counters until they
enforced the Supreme Court ruling
to desegregate the schools.
>> And that would have been until the next fall.
>> It was the next fall in September.
After most of us had left the campus.
So didn't get us the opportunity to benefit
from the initiative we had taken. But that was all right.
And I have this document here.
I must say when the agreement
that had been made between the students,
Madi and I were the only students in the room and
the negotiating committee for the white businessman.
Lonnie and I were very much against it.
And as this article says, yes,
this is a genuine issue of the Atlanta Inquirer.
I guess you've been told that Atlanta Inquirer
was a newspaper that grew out of the student movement.
Julian Bond was one of the main persons involved.
>> Hold it up a little bit.
>> Sure. And it was weekly.
And we felt we had to do this because
even the African American-owned newspaper
refused to print the news of what was going on.
>> That was the Atlanta Daily World.
>> The Daily world. That is correct.
Eventually, the Atlanta Journal Constitution did
publish more and more about the student movement as
it grew larger and it
became a phenomenon in the South itself.
>> So after you left the Chamber of Commerce,
and my understanding of what Lonnie said was that,
the blight power structure said something wasn't true,
which was that you had already agreed.
>> That's right.
>> And so were you at Warren Memorial that night when
that crowd was so upset because they felt betrayed?
>> Absolutely.
>> What was that like?
>> Well, as this article says,
we felt very badly because we felt did what we could,
but we didn't do what we thought we should have done.
And so as you know we offered to resign our roles
and at the church, they said, no.
And that was gratifying.
But I think the thing
that impressed me the most was the extent to which
these five institutions cooperated
and often there was
rivalry between the institutions, but there was none.
If you were involved in the movement,
then you reported to our office at Rush Memorial
and you did the task
that they asked you to do and gratefully.
I was very much
impressed by the extent to
which African American cab drivers,
they would come to our headquarters and take students,
drive students down to their picketing sites.
I must say that we were a very well-organized movement.
Lonnie probably discussed the extent to which at
one point we were using
walkie talkies because we had
to keep the picket lines going.
And the strategy with
picketing was you go and sit
in once the lunch counter shuts down,
you move on to another.
So it was hit and run, but we didn't run.
But the purpose was to shut it down because
the the secondary point was not only to inconvenience.
White purchases, but also
to have a little economic pain
for the businessmen themselves.
So there was an economic dimension to it.
>> And that was something I think that and I wanted you,
before we ended to
have a chance to talk about what you would say to
the youth of today who are still
struggling for civil rights in 2017,
because one of the successes that I've heard
a few movement veterans talk
about is that it
wasn't just about the boycotts and the sit-ins,
it was about the economic and the legal pressure that you
all were able to bring to
Bayer on the white power structure.
>> Absolutely. No. And ML Reverend King
said this very clearly.
And it's often misunderstood.
I was reading some things that had been
printed up by dictionaries,
people who thought they understood what was going on.
There were four distinct civil rights movements.
And obviously, you're familiar with them,
but NAACP 1909 initiated
by Dubois and others, was the oldest.
And they were interested
in working through the court system.
And then there was
a movement core founded in Chicago
in 1942, I believe.
And so much more aggressive approach,
then of course, SCLC King's movement,
'67, and then SNCC in '61,
the student non coordinating committee.
And the direct action campaign was something that
the students were much more interested in in
the slower approach of the NAACP.
I guess Lonnie told you how the college presidents
told the students be patient.
Let's go through the court system.
But it was too slow.
And we were too anxious.
There were so many other things
I wanted to tell you and I.
>> Well, like so tell me, I would love to hear them.
So when you were forming and
writing an appeal for human rights
and all those different sections of
the appeal from law enforcement to
education to voting rights.
Those are still things that aren't achieved today.
>> No, that is correct. And of course Roslyn is
the person to talk to you about that Roslyn Pope.
I must say though on the 40th anniversary.
I looked at those segments
again and did another appeal.
And things have gotten in many ways worse.
So that was a tragedy.
I must confess that today,
I am much more concerned.
I don't think racism has increased.
It's just more vert.
And it creates anxiety and at the same time,
it's disillusioning because you
wonder what was it all for.
And we realized that with civil rights movement,
we could change behavior.
But we couldn't guarantee that you could change attitude.
And I think what's going on now in
our body politic is just
so reprehensible and unforgivable.
In many ways, what bothers me most about Trump
is I've never seen someone
who was so publicly masochistic,
so self absorbed, who has
such disrespect for other people.
And we were raised a certain way.
And when I think of
all the chiefs of state that came before him,
I worry about this country because this is a man
that cares about nothing but himself and his family.
And just has no social graces.
One of the things that we were raised
as in my family to believe that you're polite to people.
If you have negative feelings and keep them to yourself,
I have a quiet one on one discussion with that person.
But you don't criticize people.
You don't use vulgarity.
And he seems to want to keep
things confused all the time.
And I think that there is a general feeling of
anxiety because somehow with television,
you can't get away from it.
[LAUGHTER] It's hard. It's hard to stay away.
So I guess I feel
that what I thought we had worked for and accomplished,
not accomplished because as I said,
you change rules, you don't change
minds all the time, certainly not attitudes.
But it's all gone down the drain now. It's open season.
I remember once during the sit-in movement,
the clan was marching on one side,
picketing on one side
of riches and we were on the other side.
But they were respectful.
I remember sitting in a counter and
having a white man spit at me.
Of course, we couldn't do anything even turn our heads.
And that was good discipline.
But I've never been so
embarrassed by an individual as I
am by a current president.
And I don't know why
and I have to say this White Americans
won't put an end
to this embarrassment and just impeach him.
He's unfit to be president.
And already, you see an erosion in
American authority and soft power, it's gone.
It's gone. And I don't think
that will come back so easily.
I don't know how people of
goodwill because we always talked
about people of goodwill should do this.
I cannot understand Republicans
who I gather are so interested in maintaining power
in the Congress and otherwise.
I've worked on the Hill for
about five years and it's a wonderful experience.
And I think that
more students should do internships on the Hill.
I think it's a great thing to do.
But everything is being
demeaned and nothing seems sacred,
and I just find it quite troubling.
>> So what can we do? Can we go back to the appeal?
Can we write another appeal?
What can young people today do?
>> It's a different time.
We didn't have cellphones.
There are a number of things that they can do,
and I think the women,
I thought, had a start, but I don't know.
It's fizzled out.
It's hard to maintain a movement.
And I think,
now because after leaving,
Spelman and I spent most of
my time in Washington and Paris,
actually, in my professional career,
and in New York.
But
I don't know
what to tell them to do.
Do you remember, what was it,
during the the Asian?
What was it? In the Middle East,
there was a period when
all countries in the Middle East were reassessing
their status and we're trying to have
a much greater democracy
and a voice in their own governments.
God I forget that.
>> Was it the Arab Spring?
>> Yes.
Arab Spring.
And it
didn't work because culture is important.
I don't want to talk about culture in the way
that of course Trump does.
But culture is important and
those societies are fundamentally different.
But I just said that to just say
that the culture of the environment in
which you work has to be
taken into account when you're deciding on
a way to counteract
something you dislike in your own society.
I have a question for you.
What are you planning to do with all of this?
>> This project has four parts to it.
So the first part is we
are sitting down with
veterans of the Atlanta Student Movement,
and asking these questions.
So we're getting some history of the movement and
then some advice from our elders.
And the interviews will
be placed into a publicly accessible,
publicly usable archive at KSU,
along with all the associated documents
that are digitized.
And then we're going to write history lessons
that are targeted at students from
kindergarten all the way through high school,
and we're going to
push those history lessons that are free,
that are aligned standards that are usable by
history teachers to try to reach
our children learn about the country.
That's the first part
of all of this, and then of course,
we're also doing a documentary that we can push to
the masses, to general public.
>> Again, using film?
>> Some are actual footage and pieces and our talks with
you folks who are there.
>> We're going to go back through
the transcripts that will be produced
from these interviews to pick out the stories,
to piece everything together to tell
a cohesive story amongst
all of the people that are participating.
>> So our hope is to
be able to reach everyone where they are.
So the students in the digital spaces that they learn.
And for me as a teacher,
that part is really important because like you,
I believe that some of
the folks who are out there now are.
I know Dr. Moss didn't want me to say this.
It was I believe some of those folks are
irredeemable and the only way to truly effect
some change is with
children whose minds are still somewhat open.
So that to me is where my heart is
here and also with
the documentary to make sure that everyone sees it.
And that's important to hear the words of
human and civil rights from
the veterans who were there and to be
able to see the documents as well.
And we would love to hear your thoughts on
that and where you
think those things could be most impactful?
>> Well, I'd like to give it some thought.
>> I would love to sit down and have
coffee or lunch and talk about what
you think would really
benefit the project in terms of how we can
ensure that those goals
of something that's publicly accessible,
but also that's publicly usable because a lot of
things that live in archives
can say they're publicly accessible,
but unless they're promoted and
pushed to audiences, they just sit there.
>> No. That's true.
And I think we get so many messages thrown at us.
I don't know. Right now,
I can't think of the best way to attract one's attention.
It's quite a challenge.
But I certainly salute you
and wish you all success in what you're doing.
>> We'll need your help.
>> Thank you so much.
>> Thank you. We'll need your help.
Like I said, I will be coming back to
the well of your knowledge again and
again to ask for help. You're in Atlanta?
>> Yes.
>> Good.
>> Yes.