Other
McBride, Ernie (audio interview #1 of 1)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This single interview was conducted by two members of the Long Beach Cultural Heritage Commission and the information collected in this interview was used to nominate McBride's house as a local landmark. The interview was conducted in McBride's home. 7/27/1994
- Date
- 2020-10-20
- Resource Type
- Creator
- Campus
- Keywords
- Handle
- Language
- Notes
- *** File: cbemcbride1.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-2:56)... When McBride and his family moved into current their home in 1948, neighbors circulated a petition to keep them out. Another Black family lived three doors away. Petitioners said they wanted to keep the family out because of their kids, not because of race. Another Black man told the petitioners they' were wasting their time. Even if they burned his house down, McBride would stay in a tent. (2:56-4:51)... No Black people lived in Lakewood in 1948. A white union member that McBride worked with bought a home there and wanted to sell it to McBride to challenge racial housing restrictions that existed at the time. Mc Bride said he "preferred to live among his people." He remembers a restaurant on 12th and California that wouldn't serve Blacks although it was only a block from where most Blacks lived in Long Beach. (4:51-7:58)... The lot where he currently lives has 2, 2 bedroom houses. The main house was built in 1919. Only 2 families ever lived there. When he was looking to buy a house, houses in the area were selling for around $13,500. But sellers wanted big down payments. They wanted to buy homes in areas where big down payments were required. The seller of his home, for example, bought a house in Huntington Park. McBride offered to make a big down payment if the seller lowered the price. The seller came down to $9,500, and McBride made a big down payment. Once Blacks moved in, houses all around went up for sale. Realtors made a lot of money when whites rushed to sell out of fear of Black people driving down property values (7:58-13:29)... He bought this house because it was the only one his wife liked. When his family moved in, his wife had to find new doctor. When the family lived on Lewis Avenue, his wife was always sick. His doctor recommended the family move out of the crowded conditions where they lived to improve his wife's health. After the family moved, his wife got better. He and his wife lived together for 60 years without "a hit or a lick." When he was an organizer he used to leave home with only a pencil telling his wife where he'd been when he got home. Sometimes he ended up in Oakland or Richmond. People used to call and ask where he was, but she never knew. His wife never complained about phone calls in the middle of night saying, "Go back to Africa" or "Go back to Russia." His wife stayed home and took care of their kids as well as others in the area. He believes his wife deserves credit for keeping their kids, 3 boys, and 3 girls, and others out of prison. (13:29-17:49)... His father was a carpenter. They built two homes in Arkansas together. In California, he did most of his own repair work. He changed his bathroom and roofed his house. The next time the house needed a roof, he hired someone else to do it. His home was in good condition when his family moved in. They had to teach their kids to appreciate things and take care of them. His wife never worked outside of their home. (17:49-22:18)... His family lived at 1917 1/2 Lewis Avenue from 1939 to 1948, before moving to his current house. Before that, he lived 4 years in Wilmington because Long Beach had few places Blacks could live. He rented a place once he married, but they couldn't move in because their neighbors organized to keep them out. He called realtors to ask about places that rented to "colored". He had to ask physicians and dentists if they "catered to colored." Before getting married, he lived at 12th and California. He rented a room from Levi Howard. He also lived in a parsonage and rented a room at 11th and Myrtle. Blacks began moving to Long Beach when the Navy stationed more ships off the shore here. Black sailors hung out around 11th and Myrtle. There was a barbershop, a pool hall, a cafe there. Some of those buildings are still there but Levi Howard's house is completely changed. (22:18-26:50)... He organized a reception for Paul Robeson at Ms. Howard's house after Robeson gave a concert in Morgan Hall. Ms. Howard hosted the reception in her house because she thought it would be good influence on her son, Levi. Levi was around 12 or 13 years old and singing at area churches. He invited Black ministers to the reception but some were reluctant to come. But so many other people came to the reception, they were lined up in street. He had to go to the Black section of Cabrillo homes to find man to tune the piano, because Robeson would not perform unless the piano was tuned. A Press-Telegram photographer covered the reception and the paper published picture of McBride and Robeson on a porch. The photo made McBride look as tall as Robeson so McBride kept that picture a long time. He also had a reception for Dr. Dubois' wife at his own home. (26:50-29:17)... The only place in Long Beach Blacks could live was in a "restricted area" between Hill and Pacific Coast Highway, Atlantic and Martin Luther King, which used to be called California. In 1948 3 black families bought homes and moved outside the restricted area. Local courts sent notices to them asking them to show why they shouldn't be forced to move. He was secretary of the local NAACP branch which was asked to defend the families. He went to Los Angeles and got Laren Miller, head of the NAACP National Housing Committee, to help. The Supreme Court then outlawed restrictive covenants before any of these cases went to court. (29:17-31:04)... When he first came to Long Beach, Blacks lived all over town. Later, by the time he married, restrictive covenants were more strictly enforced. Before they married, his wife lived at 1785 Cedar, outside the restricted area. Five or 6 years later, Blacks couldn't live there any more. End of tape *** File: cbemcbride2.mp3 (0:00-3:55)... In 1940 he organized the Long Beach branch of the NAACP to fight "police brutality." He remembers getting stopped by the police for no apparent reason. They turned up seats in his car, then told him, "You can go, boy." When he asked the police what the problem was, they told him there were some Blacks from Los Angeles committing crimes. Whenever a Black man was arrested, the police tried to add a rape charge. He decided to organize to stop such things. With 2 others, he got $1 from 50 people and sent for a NAACP charter. He remembers 2 men who gave a woman a ride home when she waved at them. The police stopped them and charged them with attempted rape. The NAACP got the woman to give a statement and took it to the police. They led the men go. (3:55-5:45)... Two Black sailors in uniform were at the beach and got into a fight. The man they fought called the police and the sailors were arrested. The sailors were charged with raping the man's aunt who was with him, despite the fact that the aunt was about 70 years old. The NAACP supported the sailors' appeal of their conviction. They raised $1600 for the defense but it was not enough to take the case to a higher court for another appeal. (5:45-8:26)... After the local NAACP was organized, the relationship between the police and the Black community changed. Once he and other NAACP members were coming home from a lecture. They were stopped by a detective, who had followed them. The detective said he wanted a list of the NAACP members. McBride was the secretary and said he would give the list only on approval of the Executive Board and if Board gave out list, he would resign from the NAACP. (8:26-13:14)... He organized an Anti-Discrimination Committee in the 1950s. to picket a Coles Market which was near a section of a Navy housing project, Cabrillo, where 299 Black families lived. The market refused to hire Blacks although many shopped there. The picketing lasted 9 months before Coles gave in and hired Black employees. The government considered Cabrillo "integrated" because one white family lived among the 299 Black ones. At the time of the picketing, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was holding hearings in Los Angeles. Local Congressional representative Clyde Doyle headed a HUAC sub committee. HUAC subpoenaed a member of the Anti-Discrimination committee. McBride took him to meet lawyer Ben Margolis. While they were meeting with Margolis FBI agents came to his house asking to speak with him. The agents were outside watching when he came home. HUAC later canceled the supoena. Margolis said they would have had an easier time if McBride was the one subpoenaed. (13:14-18:39)... There was only one time that McBride's wife questioned his activities. This was when the US Army pulled his son's security badge and his daughter quit her job rather than being fired because she refused to answer questions about her father. His wife said he was wrecking the lives of their kids. He said he'd taught their kids to handle their own problems. He fought for everyone's rights so his children could have a better life. His son wrote letters to a Congressman, Senators, the Secretary of the Army and the President wanting to know why his security badge was pulled. He was flown to Houston for a lie detector test and the FBI told him that he did not have to take the test because they knew he had a clean record. All of his children live in better homes than the one they grew up in. (18:39-25:23)... The two largest Black churches in Long Beach were the Second Baptist and African Methodist Episcopal. McBride organized a semi professional baseball team, the Long Beach Colored Giants. It played in a league with 17 teams and the games were on Sundays, sometimes at a diamond on Seventh Street west of the Los Angeles River, sometimes times at Houghton Park and other times in other cities such as Compton, Santa Ana, Garden Grove, San Pedro and Wilmington. The league was sponsored by Goldstein's Sporting Goods. Each team put up $2 and winners got $32. His team used to win all the time. Team members bought new suits with the money they won. There was also a Japanese team called the Tokyo Giants from Terminal Island. The war broke up the league. The last game they played was against a southern California "champion" semi-pro team. That last year, Jackie Robinson played for the team and it was the only game the Long Beach team lost. (25:23-30:15)... McBride worked for Ralph's from 1932 to 1940. The primary employment for Black men in Long Beach was shining shoes. There were only 2 Blacks that worked for the city, Levi Howard and V. I. Holman. They cleaned restrooms. The automobile and oil industries would not hire Blacks. McBride had a shoe shine shop in front of a barber shop on Broadway. His rent was raised so he left and started another stand on Seventh Street. He then got a job as a janitor at Ralph's Market and he worked there until he was about to be drafted. Ralph's had 29 stores and his boss told him his was the neatest. He asked for a raise but was told that company was going to lower wages. Then the union came in and forced Ralph's to raise wages $4 and cut work hours to ten. (30:15-31:04)... At the time of the interview, McBride saw the changes in Long Beach as a reflection of the overall changes of the nation. The Civil Rights Movement brought gradual changes. End of tape *** File: cbemcbride3.mp3 (0:00-2:13)... There were other examples of police brutality. Once, within 5 months, 5 men died while in police custody. A group of Black ministers met with police and were told that one of the men hung himself on the door knob of his cell with his shoe laces while 2 other men in the cell slept. Ministers tried to figure out if this was really possible. McBride suggested if the man was killed before he was put in the cell, then hanging wouldn't wake up others in cell. (2:13-5:01)... Long Beach was a difficult place to fight discrimination because many of the Black men worked for the city. Getting Blacks employed by the city in the first place was a fight won by the NAACP. The first place Black men were hired by the city sanitation department. Once the men worked for the city, they were could become members of the credit union, through which they could get loans to buy homes. Their security depended on the credit union and their membership in the credit union depended on their jobs, so the men had to do whatever the city said. He took the civil service examinations in both Signal Hill and Long Beach to see if they discriminated against Blacks. He passed the tests and was offered jobs. But he never accepted one because he did not want to be controlled by a city. He believes in free speech. (5:01-7:20)... When he first came to Long Beach, there was a family in Compton who was held in contempt of court, because they did not move when they were declared in violation of a restrictive covenant. He was a member of a committee that went to their house on the weekends and tore the boards off the windows and moved their furniture back in the house. When the Sheriff came, they ran across the street to hide. It was harder to get people to do things like this in Long Beach because people were afraid. Rev. Washington, for example, told people that everyone who went to an NAACP meeting was going to get arrested. There was a large turnout after he said that. At that meeting McBride took advantage of the large turnout and reported on all the cases of police brutality in Long Beach. NAACP meetings were held in both African Methodist Episcopal and Second Baptist churches, one week in one and the next week in the other, every other weekend. (7:20-10:51)... Roy Wilkins, head of the NAACP came to a meeting in Long Beach. The national NAACP had been asked to invalidate Long Beach chapter's charter because members were communists. The Long Beach chapter got a big turnout the night Wilkins came. There were people even standing outside the door. McBride gave his report about police brutality. Then Wilkins, apparently amazed at the number of people, stood up and declared the Long Beach chapter one of the best in Los Angeles. Later the local NAACP held a meeting at Rev. Kirkpatrick's church regarding the Mundt-Nixon Bill. He invited a lawyer from San Pedro to talk about it. At the meeting, the chapter president announced that the meeting was not sponsored by NAACP, but only by McBride. The NAACP chapter president's job was running the elevator for the Long Beach Police Department. At the meeting McBride read a letter from the national NAACP office asking that all chapters hold a meeting about this bill. The chapter president then tried to get a list of people who attended the meeting. McBride refused to give up the list and the next morning, he burned it in his backyard. (10:51-13:00)... He felt honored in his lifetime and appreciates all the awards he had received. (13:00-15:00)... Black males in American society have 2 problems, one is surviving and the other is trying to get accepted. Black kids are being raised as monsters because they are being raised in a white nation where they are not men. These kids develop strong muscles and try to prove to society that they are men. (15:00-17:58)... He worked to get the telephone company to hire Blacks as clerks and to get them admitted to the union local 507. When he went to negotiate with the phone company, company representatives said no Blacks could pass the entrance test. He asked his daughter if she thought this was a result of racism but his daughter said the woman he wanted the phone company to hire really couldn't pass the test. So he asked his daughter to take test and she passed and got offered a job. He told his daughter she had to take the job and keep it until some other Blacks were hired although it paid less than the job she held at the time. He said if she didn't take the job, he wouldn't continue to fix the car she needed to get to work. She was the first Black clerk that worked for the telephone company. In a month the phone company hired 2 other Blacks. Then she quit and went to work at a drydock. She left there because of loyalty oaths and then worked a County clerk until she retired as an Office Manager. (17:58-23:00)... When he quit working for Ralph's he took a job as an electrician at a drydock and he stayed there until 1945. He was an organizer for the shipyard union's local. He became head of the Grievance Committee. When Truman was President, WWII ended and union men began to get fired. McBride was the last union member to get fired from the dry dock. He then went to union local 92 looking for work. He was told there were already 2 Blacks in union and they weren't hiring any more. He went to a government hiring office in Long Beach to see if local 92 could legally refuse to hire more Blacks and the government agency forced the union to change its policy and hire Blacks. But one of them wasn't McBride. When the Douglas aircraft plant first opened, they didn't hire Blacks. He later heard from a police officer that Douglas was hiring Blacks as dishwashers, but he told the officer Blacks didn't need help from police to get jobs washing dishes. (23:00-26:46)... When he lived on Lewis, his house had 2 rooms in the back. During the WWII, he lived in a house with 2 rooms built on the back. He rented out those 2 rooms to war workers while his family lived in the front of the house. The rent money enabled him to get on his feet. After quitting at the drydocks he took a job at the Ford plant so he could get credit. He also worked for various people helping them repair their homes. He did carpentry and worked as brick mason. Once he retired, he still did extra work. His wife thought he made more money after he retired than when he was working. (26:46-30:06)... His wife criticized him for talking so much. He says he talked for the sake of freedom of speech. At the time of the interview, he said that his kids call him all the time to make sure he's all right and he has to tell them to stop calling. His kids all get along and he is proud of his family. They had a big loss when his wife passed away but they still have a lot to be thankful for. End of tape
- SUBJECT BIO - Ernie McBride has been a long time activist for African American civil rights in Long Beach. He came to Long Beach seeking work during World War II and found it in the shipyards. Observing how the local Black community was routinely harassed by the police, he organized a chapter of the NAACP and used it to mobilize support for the civil rights movement that was developing after the war. He was active in fighting against restrictive covenants and segregation in both neighborhoods of single family homes and in a local Navy housing project. In this single interview he describes the struggle to change Long Beach from a segregated town into an integrated city. TOPICS - housing segregation; police harassment; family background; community organizing; Paul Robeson; and NAACP;police harassment; racial discrimination; rape; NAACP; employment; House Un-American Activities Committee; churches; and baseball; police harassment; racial discrimination; NAACP; municipal employment; housing; Roy Wilkins; labor unions; and racial segregation;
- Rights Note
- This repository item may be used for classroom presentations, unpublished papers, and other educational, research, or scholarly use. Other uses, especially publication in any form, such as in dissertations, theses, articles, or web pages are not permitted without the express written permission of the individual collection's copyright holder(s). Please contact the CSULB Library Administration should you require permission to publish or distribute any content from this collection or if you need additional information or assistance in using these materials: https://www.csulb.edu/university-library/form/questionssuggestions-the-digital-repository-group
Relationships
- In Collection:
Items
Thumbnail File information Actions 
3569141786779783-cbemcbride1.mp3 Public
- Date Uploaded:
- 2023-10-20
Download
7679335550883585-cbemcbride2.mp3 Public
- Date Uploaded:
- 2023-10-20
Download
6042930461154189-cbemcbride3.mp3 Public
- Date Uploaded:
- 2023-10-20
Download 5920806524203397-acbemcbride.jpg Public
- Date Uploaded:
- 2023-10-20
Download