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13. An Interview with Millard “Tex” Lowe JENNIFER JENSEN WALLACH The Texas native Millard “Tex” Lowe interrupted his studies at Texas Southern University to work for the SNCC Arkansas Project. After leaving Arkansas, Lowe continued his activism in Texas and completed his college degree. For thirteen years he taught at both the secondary and college levels in Jamaica, earning a postgraduate diploma in education from the University of the West Indies. Lowe has resided in Los Angeles since 1984, teaching science at several local schools. Today he is a member of the faculty of the New Designs Charter School in the Watts neighborhood. His interview was conducted on September 24, 2009. WALLACH. When and where you were born? LOWE. I was born in Texas, and I went to Texas Southern University. I left in my senior year after this black history conference. We had a lot of folk who came down, namely John Lewis, Stokely [Carmichael], Ron Karenga, Amiri Baraka, James Farmer, Martin Luther King, Jesse [Jackson] . . . This was back in 1964, the latter part of 1963. After that I made a decision. I was going to go South and join the movement. So I withdrew from school and went down to . . . recruitment at Tuskegee. I caught a Greyhound bus to Tuskegee, Alabama, to go to work for SNCC as a field secretary. It was in that meeting when I introduced myself as “Millard Lowe.” Stokely himself, Kwame Ture, said, “No, no, no I’m not calling anybody ‘Millard.’ It sounds like ‘my lord.’ From now on you’re going to be ‘Tex.’” That stuck. I became “Tex Lowe.” And then I was sent off to work in Arkansas . . . 142 It was 1964 when I first got to Arkansas. I was there with Jim Jones with the Arkansas Project. We met in Pine Bluff, but I was eventually sent to Forrest City, Arkansas, to work with . . . the local people there on voter registration, and we got into school desegregation. WALLACH. What did your parents think about this? Were they supportive? LOWE. My father was dead. He died when I was one year and six months old. I was raised by an aunt and an uncle in Texas. They were a bit upset . . . I went to Freeport, Texas, and told my aunt I was leaving, I was joining the movement. She got very teary eyed and got concerned about my safety. I just said, “This is something I need to do.” And so I took off. They were okay. When I got arrested, my sisters Joyce Goods and Sula called making inquiries about my arrest. My aunt cursed out a few people. I got arrested actually in Forrest City about five or six times. At one point, we got arrested and went to Forrest City jail. Then about ten o’clock that night . . . a dog catcher’s truck backed up to the jail and took myself and four other students . . . who had been arrested along with us for demonstrating and transported us in the middle of the night to the Mississippi County Penal Farm. And no one knew where we were for about four or five days or a week . . . WALLACH. Do you remember what prompted the arrest exactly? LOWE. Oh we were demonstrating to desegregate the schools in Forrest City . . . and marching for voter registration as well. I was arrested for being an outside agitator, a communist contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and all kinds of trumped-up charges. I was arrested as “Tex Lowe,” so my family had trouble finding me. WALLACH. How did you get out of jail? LOWE. Eventually the SNCC legal department got us out of jail after a week or so. Ironically, the person who came to get us was my dear, dear friend Bill Hansen . . . Of all people to send down was Bill Hansen. You send a white guy. I thought “Oh, God, they’re gonna kill us now.” They sent Hansen, who always thought he was black. “Why did they send you down? We’ll never get out of here now.” WALLACH. When you volunteered for SNCC how did you get assigned to Arkansas? LOWE. Well decisions were made, decisions as to where they thought I was needed . . . We also were running a Freedom School, and I was about to graduate from college, and I could be of use there . . . doing what we called Freedom School teaching, teaching folk about economics, about voters ’ rights, about the Constitution, et cetera . . . That was...

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