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15. An Interview with Gertrude Jackson JENNIFER JENSEN WALLACH An Illinois native, Gertrude Jackson moved to Arkansas when she was seven years old. She and her husband, Earlis Jackson, were farm owners, leaders of the local civil rights movement, and staunch supporters of SNCC. In 1978 Jackson became a founding member of the Boys, Girls, Adults Community Development Center in Marvell. She continues to work for the BGACDC, seeking ways to combat the impact of poverty on the residents of her community. Her interview was conducted on March 6, 2009. WALLACH. How did you get involved with the civil rights movement? JACKSON. I guess the first thing I was going to tell you about was the Turner school boycott . . . My husband was the one who started the boycott , and we all worked together with that . . . There was a school in each community, which were twelve communities. So they decided to bring about five of those schools together and build a school in the center . . . The school was beautiful. It was great. We had organized our PTA and were doing great things, but all at once the system started backing up and water would run . . . out the bathroom down the halls and things. So the children used to come home and say, “Ooh, the bathroom flooded today.” Well, we didn’t pay too much attention. “Ooh, mama, that water getting bad. We can’t drink this water.” So this went on a long time, and so one day my husband decided to go and look for himself and he found it very horrible . . . And SNCC was there. [SNCC members] Mr. Howard Himmelbaum and Myrtle Glascoe and all. [Himmelbaum] talked to us about going to the school board and kind of advised us, directed us on how to go to the school 155 board. Well, they would say the bathrooms are all right. The only thing is the children just don’t know how to use the bathroom, and this went on for a few years. It went worse after it went on. WALLACH. But it was a new school? JACKSON. It was a new school. WALLACH. But it just wasn’t built well? JACKSON. Now when my husband was in World War II when he came back he went to school and he took up plumbing. He went to . . . board meetings. He’d say the grading is going uphill, and that’s why it’s backing up. You know they laughed at him . . . We would go to board meetings and . . . they made fun of us and said we didn’t know what we were doing. On our way home my husband says, “You know if I could get people to take their children out of school I bet they’d fix it.” This was on a Thursday night. He got up that Friday morning . We had a country store where people kind of congregated. He went and talked to the people, the men who sat around, and they all went down and took a look at the school . . . When they looked at it they decided they would take the children out. Then the men got in groups, some went one way, some went another, knocking on doors, asking people to keep the children at home until they fixed the bathroom. I know SNCC was there because Howard, Mr. Himmelbaum, he put it in the paper. So that’s what happened, we stayed out of school. The press that was there, said that Monday out of three hundred children wasn’t but thirty there . . . So finally we called the . . . Phillips County Health Department. The fellow who came down and checked the bathrooms . . . looked and said, “Well, there’s nothing wrong with the way it’s put down.” So then SNCC, Howard, knew how to call the state. So he got in touch with the state, and the state came down and checked it. And it was put up just like my husband said; it was put up wrong. And they made them dig it up and do it all over. So that got the water back in shape and the school started back. So that’s kind of the end of the Turner school boycott. WALLACH. Were you fearful about doing this boycott? JACKSON. I sure wasn’t. There were a few men that lived in our little town that said they needed to come over there to whip my husband. But we got through that real good, but it became fearful...

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