Housing Civil Rights Workers: The Narrative of Odette Harper Hines

Document: Housing Civil Rights Workers: The Narrative of Odette Harper Hines Judith Rollins Odette Harper Hines is an African-American woman in her seventies living in Alexandria, Louisiana. In 1964, she was the only person in her parish, Rapides Parish, willing to house civil rights workers. Having been raised in New York and having been the director of publicity for the national office of the NAACP, Odette Harper Hines had been fighting racial injustice even before she'd arrived in central Louisiana in 1946 (as a consequence of her marriage to a Louisiana doctor). By 1964, she was a divorced mother of four and well known in her community for her commitment to black rights. In the following excerpt from her life history, which I have been conducting since 1987, Ms. Hines describes the atmosphere and activities of the 1964-65 period when she housed CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) workers in her Alexandria home. I don't remember aU the details of how I came to house the CORE workers who came to Alexandria. I beheve the state office of CORE—which was then in the town of Plaquemine-^contarted some folks at the black community center about wanting to start a project here. This would have been during the summer of 1964. In the early '60s, CORE had been very active in- Louisiana. I remember hearing about confrontations in New Orleans, in Tangipahoa Parish, in West Fehdana. There'd been a big to-do in Plaquemine during the summer of '63 that got national press coverage because James Farmer had almost gotten himself küled by state troopers determined to remove the national director of CORE from the face of this earth. So I was already aware that CORE was active in the state and it didn't surprise me when Popeye, the director of the community center, paid me a visit and said CORE wanted to start a project here in Rapides Parish. And that I should not even think about housing them. Popeye had been instaUed in that position by Mayor W. George Bowden, the same person who'd perpetuated himself as mayor for eleven years without an election. Bowden said there was no need for an election, he had no opposition and he'd be wasting the taxpayers' money going through that process. Whites accepted that and blacks, of course, had no say. Mayor Bowden placed people who would do his bidding in key positions. Popeye was one of those people. He'd been a disc jockey before that and I beheve he's a disc jockey today But, at that point, because he would foUow the mayor's dictum, he was the director of our community © 1993 Journal of Women's History, Vol 5 No. ζ (Fall) 1993 DOCUMENT: JUDITH ROLLINS 133 center. So when Popeye came out here and said, "Everybody thinks you're going to let them Hve here. I know you've got better sense than to do that, Mrs. Hines. Don't let those people in your house. You know we're doing good here," weU, that was my signal to do it. When he made it even clearer why he'd come by saying, "The mayor doesn't want them here," I responded that this was my house and Td let anyone in here that I wanted. Why did Popeye come here? I guess, by that time, everyone knew I'd be the most likely person to wdcome dvü rights workers. I was stiU seen as an outsider, a Northerner, and everyone knew what I was capable of doing to help black people get their rights. After that conversation with Popeye, I knew I wanted to help. Things were awful here. And even the black people, like Popeye, who said otherwise, knew better; they just wanted to preserve the Httle bit they had. When I heard the workers needed housing, I was glad I had the space to give them___Yes, I was afraid. The Klan and the White Citizens Coundl were active in central Louisiana. And I had four dtildren in the house—my own two younger chüdren and the two foster babies. But I couldn't let fear...