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All right, Peterson, executive Director of the Black Archives of Mid-America. Today is September 1st, 1976, and I'm interviewing Mr. Alex Harris, uh, regional director of Mocan Contractors Association, uh, headquarters at 31st and Truce, Kansas City, Missouri. Good morning, Mr. Harris. Uh, Mr. Harris, first of all,

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uh, could you give me your full name? Alexander Harris. Oh, you have to speak up just a little bit louder. Alexander Harris. All right, um, do you have a middle initial? No. OK. Where were you born, Mrs. Harris? Kessler, West Virginia. When? May 30th, 1930. OK.

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Uh, do you remember, uh, what did your parents tell you whether or not you were born in a hospital or whether you were born at home or what? In our community, we were born by, there was one doctor for every 100 mile radius. She had a

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family doctor that served, so most of us were born in our homes, either by a midwife or a family doctor that served us. You were born by a midwife then? No, by a family doctor. Do you remember his name? No, I don't, not offhand. OK, uh,

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what was your mother's name? Fannie Harris. Fannie Lee Harris. Do you remember where she was from? She was from uh Uh, Alabama. You don't know specifically where? No, Helena, Alabama. Helena, Alabama, Alabama, and your father is from, uh. Georgia, he's from Montgomery, no. Um, I think

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it's, Well, it's in Georgia. I'm not sure what Rockville, Georgia, Rockport, Georgia. Do you know the circumstances of him being in Virginia? Or the circumstances of being in Virginia was that my father, after my wife, my mother, and he got married, Took off on a family

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trek up north to provide for their family had just that had just started with my older sister and my father went into a coal mine operation as a coal miner and that took him through. Coal minefields of Ohio and West Virginia and that's where the family

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settled down at in the coal mine fields of West Virginia and that's where we were raised. He was a coal mine worker himself. He was a coal mine worker and he left working in the coal mines to become the skill master for the entire mine system.

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Um, then you have brothers and sisters. How many do you have? 2 brothers, 2 sisters. The oldest sister Loreen Brooks, youngest sister Juanita Gibson. Uh, oldest brother, Ray Harris Junior. The youngest brother Sylvester Harris. OK, um, how did you, uh, what, what age did you leave

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the game? Well, I left Virginia at the age of 14. OK, then you did most of your preschool, preschool and early school days were in Virginia. The junior high school and grade grade school did you go to? I went to And well, we didn't have the

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names of a grade school. What we had was Community facilities. I lived in Bengal Holla. We had a public school called Bengal School, and the high school was known as Junior High School. Before you go to your high school, do you remember any of your teachers'

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names at Bingo? No, unfortunately I don't. Principal we didn't have a principal. We had a principal that covered all of the school systems and that was in it's sort of different than it is in a metropolitan city. It's sort of like country towns and you don't

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have principals and then you have teachers that are hired by the community and in essence the, the, uh. The teachers responsible to the community folks, black and whites was that a predominantly black situation you were in black and white situation? It was a black and white

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situation even though we had discriminated schools at that time because we had a black high school and and black and white high school, but in the grade school, there were times when the black and white students went to school together. What was the name of the

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high school that you attended High school was. Aleville High and Buffalo High. Ackerville Junior High, Buffalo High School. Was that a conventional type high school situation like we have in urban, let's say urban Kansas City? When you say conventional, you mean, uh, well, you made the

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statement about your, your, your, your grade school was not the conventional type situation. As far as the structure is concerned, was it, was it structurally the same? All these, the junior high school and the high school, yes, we had principals and, and, uh, same established type

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of setup as most metropolitan school systems. What type of individual was Alex, uh, let's say, uh, in grade school? In grade school, a very conscientious young man, very. Uh, interested, of course our parental, our parent our parent type of, uh, of, uh, holding at that time

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was a lot different because we were, you know, in the, in the country you are not only compelled to obey your parents but you're also compelled to obey all your neighbors and any folks that's elderly and, and, uh, youngsters in that part of the country, especially

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in the country towns, the way they are taught. Uh, have no other alternative but to learn because they are, they are taught to be accountable to any grown folk and grown folk all, all geared toward their youngsters learning and being as responsible for someone else's kid

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as they are of their own. So consequently in grade school you have no problem being. Been to the extent that I was accountable to almost any grown folk that was related PTA teacher or the next door neighbor that lived next door to the school or there

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were days when the teacher would call the next door neighbor to give me a whooping rather than give me a whooping herself. The teacher whooped each one of us just like our parents. Um, And in grade school, I, I guess I fared very well. And I

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remember distinctly of Being a very good singer, very good. I was a very good writer, could read real well. I was very the choir. Uh, well, in, in grade school our entire class was a choir, you know, because we spent half of our days singing America

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the Beautiful Star Spangled Banner and all of those type of songs, you know. Two questions did you feel any type of rebellion or anything of that nature to that, to singing America the Beautiful or giving the Pledge of Allegiance at that particular time? At that time,

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no, because, uh. The background of your parent having to work the responsibilities of your parents having to work did not lend them to the awareness of knowing the outside world's, uh, type of wrongdoing because we were sort of colonialized in a community where everything that happened

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in our community stayed in our community and everything outside never got in so we really didn't get the the news current in relation to awareness consequently. Uh, grown folks in those communities at that time were sort of behind in relation to current events. Uh, however, uh,

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that rebellious attitude did not develop with me until I left for the hollows of. Of West Virginia and become aware of the total society other than just my own immediate confines. Um, um Did you participate in anything, um, Um, extracurricular during grade school, grade school. During

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grade school, most kids in the community there had chores that they had to do, chop wood. Uh, go get coal. You see, we had wood burning. We had coal burning fireplaces, furnaces and things were not available. We have furnaces and all of the modern conveniences. We

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had fireplaces and kids had to get up in the morning and make fires and. Two or three fireplaces, wood burner coal burning fireplaces, and then the in the coal stove, so we had to feed the hogs, uh, get in cold, get in kindling, uh, doing the,

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the, uh, harvesting months we had to get out and, and, uh, hold the garden or ever pick the weeds or were were your people property owners? No, we weren't property owners, but we own all of the things that that related to, uh. Like farmland we had

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for each community, uh, residents had a section of farmland of his own. Each community resident has their own hogs, their own, uh, sort of semi between farm life and, and, uh. Commune, no, you see, it's, it's kind of hard to understand. The coal mine field, everything

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in the community is owned by the coal, the coal mine itself. When you go into work for the coal mine, you rent their houses, and with their houses comes a piece of land, uh, that you, that may be upwards to 3 to 4 or 5 acres

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of land that each person has a right to garden, you know, and etc. etc. So, um, you were telling me about, you know, so you know, what happens is it becomes a responsibility of the kids to chop wood in there, you know, they have to feed

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the hogs, feed the chickens, do the gardening, get the, uh, kindling in for the evening fire and the coal for the banking the fire and killing for starting the fire. And code for starting the fire the next morning plus go to school plus go to school.

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So most youngsters in that in that neighborhood got up in the morning. They would get up in the morning at 4:30 or 5 o'clock to get all their chores done prior to and go to school, have to walk 2 or 3 miles to school. How am

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I rang that bell or rang it, ring it. Get to walk 2 or 3 miles down to to go out they either had to walk or we didn't have buses, so all of the kids had to walk 2 or 3 miles to school, to grade school,

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OK, and you would see kids coming from all over. What kind of facility did you go to? We had a one room schoolhouse that that kept everything up to the time that I went up to the time I got to the 6th grade. In my life,

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we had from the 1st to the 6th graders sit all in one classroom. There was one teacher. What was your name? Miss Evans. Evans, OK, black or white? Black. OK, um, where did you go to high school? Uh, well, prior to high school, it was about

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the time that they built the Ackerville Ackerville Junior grade and junior high school. And went to high school at my last two years at grade school was spent at Ackerville grade school and uh Buffalo High School, which was right next door, was in A coma. I

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mean it was in um Ackerville, uh, West Virginia, which is about 3 miles. How large a facility was that? Oh, it would house approximately 400 students. Predominantly black, predominantly white, predominantly black because at that particular time they were building schools that they had white schools in

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one on the south and black schools on the north. Uh, what type of uh social order was going on at that time in regards to black people? The social at that particular time was one of, I think of the norm prior to 19. Uh, World War

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2, World War, yeah, prior to World War 2 where, you know, it was an accepted factor that blacks went to black schools and whites went to white schools. I think that was the the the time about that our generation began to realize that hey that we

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were being, you know, uh discriminated against and they had better facilities and and much larger high school and much better athlete athletic equipment can make comparisons so we began to make comparison in that generation that was in the. Uh, early 40s, uh, late 30s when we

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began to realize that in all during high school because I came to Kansas City in my junior year, during my junior high school year, uh, we began to note these things moved to Kansas City at that time. That was during the beginning of World War II

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and my father moved here to work in the uh. In the bummer plant in Fairfax, Missouri. Approximately what year was that? 1944. 1944, right almost at the end of the war then. No, that was the that was uh. the war ended. Well, I back up. It

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was 194343 right in the middle of the war, in the middle of the war. Um, let me, let me ask you this, had you found that that you had, um, I like to back up. In Virginia, also, when you got beyond the ages of 12 years

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old. You went into the coal mine. To work, to work, you see. Uh, the families that were less fortunate than others in economics, or they could not survive because they didn't have, they had a large family, uh, there had to be a decision made by the

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parent as to who would go in the coal mine and who wouldn't. And that being that the father more times and I had to decide between the boys and who was going in the coal mine and who would continue to go to school. One of the

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reasons, primary reason why we left there was because my father didn't want any of his boys going into the coal mines. He knew the dangers of the coal mine. True, having worked in there 28 years himself inside the coal mines. Is your father still? Alive now?

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Yeah, 80 years old. Did he have any of the symptoms of working in the coal mine as far as fortunately, no, he did not have, he was one of the fortunate few that did not come out with what is now come out with what is now

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known as the black lung disease. And we contribute a lot of that to the The fact that my father's been a Devout individual that did not dissipate, did not drink. The only thing my father ever done in his life was smoke. And he's been a conscientious

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father. We think that because he did not drink and do all of the discipline type of things, and one of the reasons why he didn't, his body was able to withstand all of the things in the coal mine, so he spent his last Uh, 6 years

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out as a way master outside. Of the coal man and he was fortunate enough to get out of, you know, not coming out with the black language. At what at what age did you venture into the crafts? Well, the age that I ventured into the crafts

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was, uh, out of necessity by my father, when we moved to Kansas City. We moved into an element, uh, that was completely new to us, family wise, total thing. We moved here with relatives and that was when, uh, my uncle owned quite a bit of property

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here, my mother's, uh, auntie, and, um, and, and, and her uncle. And we came here to uh Kansas City as a family. My father working in the bumer plant at nighttime and my father had to have extra work for us to be able to make it

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because he was not accustomed to the city life in a way that, you know, the addition of bills, a light bill, gas bills, and all these things. So we had to start out by working. So we substituted the. The The element of need of not being

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able to grow our own garden and provide our own meats and all of that thing, the boys got out and started painting houses. We started by painting our our uncle's houses, which there were 5 of them, and from there is when my father began to get

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into the idea of us going into business because it went from one person to another that we worked for and that's how we got off into the construction crafts. Then there was no formal training initially then, right? None, except for the The mechanical abilities and the

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initiative of working on a farm or working in the country, having to do everything previously for yourself in the country, you never paid for that type of thing because it was a horse trade situation and you just, some people were good at something, some people were

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good at the other, and you had to learn it yourself because all those things you had to do for yourself. What street did you move to in Kansas City when you came here 1229. Right around the street corner from 8 12th and Main. Is that facility

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is still standing? No, it was moved, torn down for the Wayne Manor housing. Uh, complex which is now known as TP Watkins. What, what, what school did you, uh, attend when you initially came to WWE Yeats. I had occasion to come to Kansas City in 1936

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at the age of 6 years old, and I attended WWE Yeats one year and I went back to West Virginia in 1943 when we moved back here, uh, I started school at RT Codes Vacation High. This is junior high school. Well, when you came back to

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the stage, we moved to Kansas City. You went to where now? RT Cole's Vocational High School. At that point, did you take a trade? My trade in high school was music. music? Yeah. What did you sing? Uh, I didn't sing, it was instrumental. What what instrument

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did you play. You played trumpet? How long did you play trumpet? Well, it was an off and on thing. uh, but it was a continuous thing through trade because it was my 4 year trade at Kole's where we spent, as you know, in vocational high school

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you take a half a day trade and music was a 44 year thing with me at Koh's from my, um. Uh, junior high school, my last year, junior high right in through senior high. And um during this time we were at the same time my abilities

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in construction was growing at the same time my awareness in music was being uh. Being um a symbol by going to school and um, Uh, we were working nights hanging paper, painting, doing all of the things in the houses. Was that you, your father, and your

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two brothers, right? My, well, it was just one brother because my kid brother was too small, Sylvester, and, uh, at the same time, um. I was studying music and of course when I graduated from high school I had the opportunity to go to college or to

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get out to the music world and it was said that I was very a student in music and and I had to find out so I got into the music world. I played with Boston Symphony, uh, New York Philharmonic, um. Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony. How long

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did you do this? Well, I traveled around the country for about 4 years prior to settling down, uh, playing with different, uh, long hair orchestrations like that, and my final stint was, uh, with, uh, Nelson River playing background music for Nat King Cole. You know Mr.

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Cole? Personally, yes. Alright, well, let's, alright. Upon graduation, you started playing professional music then, right? You could say that yes, there was a slight pause, I mean a slight delay in between the family business. Well, it really didn't do anything because it was, it, it wasn't

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really a business. It was sort of a thing where people were calling and the old man was doing it himself in the daytime and the boys was working and it was sort of a thing where we did it on and off until we all finally came

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wind up back in Kansas City and then we decided, OK, now it's time for some more in business. We actually became a business entity in 1950. One 1951 was the year that we became a business in it because I came out of high school in 1947.

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So it was about 4 years. So 4 years later prior to my going into service, I, we began, we set up a construction business and of course, uh, how long after you finished high school, how long did it take you before you went into the service?

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Oh, it was some, I finished high school in '47. I went into the service in August of '51. So you played professionally as a musician for for 3-4 years, right? All right, uh, what branch of the military did you enter into? Army. Did you, uh, uh,

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tell me the circumstances behind you going into the military. Were you drafted? I was drafted into the service, uh, doing a career in conflict. went into the service in the army. Came out of the service with a temporary ranking of Warrant officer, 2nd class, a permanent

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ranking of master sergeant after 21 months, spent, uh, 10 months in career front line and paratroopers. And had a very harried experience had a lot of harried experiences during my time and career, uh, serving in the armed services. Tell me, can you tell me about those

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experiences? Oh. Not something you'd like to talk about. I remember one very distinctly was that. Being in the 11th Airborne, some 389 of us. Jumped on a sore career and 86 of us hit the ground alive. Another incident was, uh, wait, wait a minute, wait a

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minute, you hit the ground alive. What do you mean? Well, the 389 of us left the plane that night to uh to uh infiltrate the ranks of the enemies behind the lines, and 86 of us hit the ground alive. The rest of us picked off in

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the air. It was that bad. It was that bad. Uh, Another incident was when there was 20 of us, paratroop Rangers had to guard 22,000 prisoners on Kojido Island. That was a how many of you 2022, 20 paratroop rangers, 22 paratroop rangers had to guard 20,000

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prisoners, Korean prisoners on Kojijo Island, and that island was where they kept all the Korean prisoners that was captured in the Korean War. And at that particular time we were shorthanded as far as personnel and the most capable outfit they thought were the paratroop Rangers who.

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Are supposed to excel. In other words, the range is supposed to be able to meet the needs of the average 4 or 5 guys, so they considered that our 22 was a comparable comparable to 100 in numbers of uh of normal outfields. What happened? Oh, it,

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it was Harriet and we spent our stint there. I mean, I spent our time there and of course, uh, after some 4 months we did get additional, uh. Uh, personnel that came down and, and increased the man load up to something like 150, but for 4

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months it was 22 of us that did guard that many prisoners, and I think it was sort of a sleeping type of situation where we guard out each other, but you know you know. But that's uh some of the experiences, the experience of having laid in.

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Did you get any commendations in the military? Purple Hearts, Silver Star. What was your rank when you finished? But I had a permanent rank of of master sergeants or temporary rank of of one officer 2nd class, uh, all field grades. In other words, uh, the promotion

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came doing field. Who was your commanding officer? Uh, my commanding officer, I had a different camera and my, my, my, my superior commanding officer was Brigadier General Glenn Smith, who, uh, became an Allied Supreme commander, uh, after we left for Korea. Um, there were a number

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of, uh, of, uh, immediate officers like Cap Capita. Did you know Al Davis in the military? No, unfortunately no. What was your impression of Eisenhower? Eisenhower. Uh My impression of Eisenhower, I, I didn't have too much experience last night because Eisenhower was in the, in the

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far West command, General MacArthur, General MacArthur, and when I first went into the Korean conflict, uh, MacArthur was during the time that Mark Arthur took the soldiers, and, and believe it or not, MacArthur's command was better than 70% black. When MacArthur went to the to the,

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uh, Yala River and Truman they made him a stop at the Yala River before he went into the chain it and, uh, that was during the time that I was over there that that was one of the first experiences I had having, having to the opportunity

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to see General MacArthur and. Oh yeah, several times. What did you, what would, what would be your impression? What, what do you think his impression was of the black soldier? Well, his impression of black soldiers, one that he could depend on them, and 2, that they

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would not freeze on the front line, and 4, that they were they were uh very, very alert and made the best night fighters. Uh, for some reason or another, blacks had the visual concept to be able to see in the dark, to move around in the

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dark, to be very, very quiet, and, uh, it seems that the non-exposed environments of black man allowed them to ascertain more a lot faster in relation to survival on the front line. Who were you the day of the bombing of Pearl Harbor? Uh, the day of

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the bombing at Pearl Harbor, that was some 8 years prior to my being in career. What were you though? And Pearl Harbor, I think I was in Kansas, just had moved to Kansas City, Missouri. Did it have any type of effect on you at that time,

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no, I was too young. I remember. The black uh A cellar that was so heroic during that time. Man, the machine gun Do something with Dory Dory, yeah. Uh, that was very that type of thing. I think that that was right at the time that we

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were in the midst of leaving with Virginia and coming to Kansas City. Now that type of thing was symbolic in our community. When we heard that type of thing, it really made a proudness in the black community in, in Virginia because it was one of those

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rare occasions where a black would come out over the radios, you know, and all we had to depend on in the hills and the boondocks. The boondocks was uh. Uh, Boottyos was a, a radio. I never will forget we had a Zenith radio, you know, and

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everyone in the neighborhood to come in and listen to our radio. You see, you had one radio maybe every, every 50 houses. Everybody would come to your house, come to the house and listen to the radio, and when Joe Louis was the boxer, everybody would come

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in and listen to all of the fights at our house. Did you ever see Joe Louis? No, never saw Joe Louis until I came out of the service. Uh, and out of, I mean, out of high school and went to Detroit, I attempted to go to

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Wayne University and I decided when I went to Detroit to enter Wayne University, I did not want to go to college and that's when I got off into the music field after high school. And I had occasion to meet him in Detroit? And what were you

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D-Day D-Day, um, Kansas City, Missouri. I was. Oh yeah, I was working here as a A student in high school and hanging paper all night long and getting 4 hours of sleep in the morning before I go to school. How much were you make an hour?

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Well, believe it or not, I didn't make anything. My father made us work, uh, 7 days a week and he gave us $2.40 apiece every Friday night. He's keeping it for you. Yeah, he kept it for us for us to go to school if we so

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chose. If we didn't go to school, then it would go to the next one. All right, so you're at the end of the end of World War II, I mean, at the end of the Korean conflict. How old are you? At the end of the Korean

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conflict, I was, uh, When I came out of the Korean conflict, I was 23 years old. Uh, I went into service when I was 21, um. As a matter of fact, I only spent 21 months, and I, and I did 9.5 months in combat and I

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wasn't trained too well either. It was just instinct that took me over there. So, other than a paratrooper, what, what, how else did they train you? Well, you had the 2 or 3 week course and. And Bennett and Wright for training. No, I mean, I mean

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as far as a skill is concerned. Well, they had what you call a Yafe, but it was a Uh, I'll put together, uh, training, uh, EL correspondence type of school in the service would they call UAI. Uh, there was not anything offered like there is now

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the technology of schooling, etc. as far as service concerned. You, you did, you, you only could take corresponding courses at that time and then, um. Um, there was no particular thing that you could learn while you was in service. It was just a matter of serving

00:28:56.810 - 00:29:15.890

the country because of a need, and that's, I think the change around came about shortly thereafter Korean War where they began to apply the learned application of going into the service to afterlife or after coming out of service. What did, what did you do, um, I

00:29:15.890 - 00:29:30.949

mean. You you're 23 years old, you're back in Kansas City, Missouri. You're working every day. What, what's up next? What's coming up next in your life? Well, I, I, I, I are you a church buddy? Well, yeah, we came, we were in the country. Everyone's church.

00:29:32.089 - 00:29:56.550

Yeah, um, we came, I came back home and, and I married at that, that particular time marry a young lady named Darlene Harris. Her maiden name is what? McGlory. And we married in '52 was when I came back to the States. Uh, December 24th, 1952. And

00:29:56.550 - 00:30:24.280

uh, Which now gives us some OK. 24 years of marriage life come December. Uh, I have a son 24 years old, Larry Harris. Out of traveling. Uh, And to to some degree I still had that the previous home training of being in the country and I

00:30:24.280 - 00:30:41.689

was responsible to mom and dad even at the age of 23. And of course Dad had continued to allow for the business to begin to develop as as contractor as a contractor community contractor uh I came back home and I chased around for. Couple years, I

00:30:41.689 - 00:31:00.359

mean I wanna back up just a little bit to your music career. You say you played with Tommy, who did you play with again? Nat King Cole for one. Nat King Cole. I played, that was at the beginning in 19 in the 51s and 1952s, 1950.

00:31:00.729 - 00:31:16.939

That was the 49 was the year that television came onto the scene. And that was the year that that many of us start playing in the orchestrations that played the background music for television. Uh, that was the year that Neelarrillo came into his own with his

00:31:16.939 - 00:31:33.760

orchestra, and that was also the year that Nat King Cole is, uh, was beginning to be very, very popular, uh, and, um. That was the year that he began to record. During that time was during the time he began to record as a soloist, and the,

00:31:34.000 - 00:31:56.530

the featured band behind him was Nelson Riddles Band. Prior to that, you can name quite a few Earl Bostics, uh, which most people know, uh, I've played with duets with Carl Eldridge, trumpeterer with Duke Ellington's played, uh. Some stints with Stan Kenton, the vacation time. There's

00:31:56.530 - 00:32:10.930

quite a few, you know, that, but most of my time was spent, uh, playing with Earl Bostic and with the, uh, Philharmonic Orchestras prior to getting out the Kansas City Philharmonic. No, I never had occasion to play with Phil at Kansas City Philharmonic. It's sort of

00:32:10.930 - 00:32:23.449

like everything else. One never gets the recognition at home that one gets away from home. So all of the opportunities seem to be all the way away from home. And at first I thought that I wanted to get into music like Mr. Davis at, at, uh,

00:32:23.459 - 00:32:38.739

Leo Davis was, uh, my teacher during RT Cole years, RT Cole's, uh, junior high school years, high school years, and he really trained me well. But however, after all of that time studying music and and training for it, I found that when I came out of

00:32:38.739 - 00:32:53.040

service, I really didn't want to go back into music anymore, so I was really completely lost in relation to which direction I was gonna take. And that was during the years that I began to see all of the misuse by white union bosses and and white

00:32:53.040 - 00:33:06.959

stewardesses and the type of thing where they literally just kicked the ass of black folks as a youngster and then prior to that before I went in service, I remember one very distinct time when I was about 17 years old and my 16 years old and

00:33:06.959 - 00:33:24.229

my dad. A white business agent tried to kick the ladder from under one of us on the corner of 12th and the cell where we was painting the drugstore. For one of one of the black business owners, Joe Taylor, and my dad had to stand outside

00:33:24.229 - 00:33:35.510

there and and with a shotgun to keep the white folks from coming around knocking me and my brothers off the ladders while we were 40 ft in the air hanging on roofs and the eaves painting gutters and all this type of thing, so that type of

00:33:35.510 - 00:33:56.500

misuse along with. Black, uh Uh, the blacks who had no concern for blacks' misuse of blacks. I remember another incident where as a youngster of some 15, I wanted to, uh. I wanted to uh learn how to lay bricks and one of our more prominent bricklayers

00:33:56.500 - 00:34:06.739

in Kansas City, as a matter of fact, he's one of the most well known individual bricklayers in Kansas City. He was not a contractor, but he did a lot of work in the community. Uh, spit in my face on a Saturday evening when I asked him

00:34:06.739 - 00:34:16.699

one day, would he allow me to work with him, would he let me work with him free of charge, and would he teach me how to white man, black man, teach me how to lay bricks, and as a matter of fact, bricks, matter of fact, it

00:34:16.699 - 00:34:30.229

was done that was during the time that Leon Jordan become into prominence. That was the time that I met Leon Jordan. It was doing right in the front door of Leon Jordan's tavern, Blue Dot. You know, green duck, where a black man spit in my face

00:34:30.229 - 00:34:43.289

and told me to get out of his face, boy, get out of my face, boy, and he had a beer bottle in his hand and poured the beer in my face. That was when I was, I was some. I don't know, it was somewhere between 1514,

00:34:43.299 - 00:34:55.779

and 16, and, uh, that was when I, you know, began to get determined that one of these days I was going to, you know, uh, get my revenge and of course I really at that time I thought it was revenge that I was wanting, but I

00:34:55.779 - 00:35:11.280

think it was just the that sort of spurred me to making sure that I would make it regardless to what the consequences were and that's when we got off into, uh, actual construction activity. What was your opinion of Leon Jordan? I really didn't have an opinion

00:35:11.280 - 00:35:23.399

because I didn't know at that time. I was really totally unaware at that time all I thought Dion Jordan was just a tamping on him. The only thing I knew about Leon Jordan was when he went to Liberia to be the police chief. OK, that was

00:35:23.399 - 00:35:37.760

the only thing I knew during that period of time about Leon Jordan. I knew he was considered a very big individual, but I did not know anything about the political affiliations at that time, uh, the beginning of freedom, etc. etc. and I did not know about

00:35:37.760 - 00:35:50.419

his political involvement. But uh the only thing I remembered about him was him having been chosen to go to Liberia to be police chief during the time that he went over there. What was your feeling about that? Oh, he was someone that I admire, you know,

00:35:50.500 - 00:36:01.350

and someone that I looked up to and I guess not from personally knowing him, but from all of the publicity and all of the things that I had heard, you know, it's stand to reason that a young man is going to admire someone who's doing something

00:36:01.659 - 00:36:17.840

and that was my thing, yeah. So, uh, at what point did you become. Uh, interested in the construction union, I mean in the construction area period, on, on, on the, on let's say on the level that you're on now. That point did not come about until

00:36:19.040 - 00:36:39.719

Later on in my life where we began to consider organization concept because there was a, a birth, that was what you call a residency period for me whereas I spent from 19. 55 all the way up to the year of 1965 doing various things from home

00:36:39.719 - 00:36:58.639

building to managing a large bowling alley facility and and from doing a personal construction thing with my father being doing that every day it was a combination of things. And then I began to get off into the. With those experiences in housing and construction. I began

00:36:58.639 - 00:37:20.639

to get off into, uh, the management concept where I went to work for. National Life Insurance Company and Land Clearance Redevelopment Authority and I began to coordinate at that particular time I think my mind began to drift toward organizing black contractors from that bad past background

00:37:21.100 - 00:37:44.879

and uh Curtis McClinton and I were sitting in Mim's Cafe, uh one day in 1969 and uh I was working for BEU having just left for. Nation life and I was in charge of construction and the juvenile youth and rehabilitation program. And we were doing homes

00:37:44.879 - 00:38:00.689

like my father used to do and we were actually duplicating what my father did with us and I was taking these kids out of juvenile courts and we was rehabbing homes and from that. Have working there in Black Economic Union over a bowl of beans and

00:38:00.689 - 00:38:21.820

a glass of milk one day at Mim's Cafe, uh, the idea arose that, uh, we would start a construction contracting organization, and that's when it started, started, that's what started, OK. The identification of MCan started that day. Mokan standing for what? Missouri Kansas Minority Contractors Association.

00:38:22.820 - 00:38:46.629

Uh, BU, what year was that? 196 July 1968. During the summer months of 1968, we really didn't get off the ground until January 1969. Now with all the social turmoil that was going on in the late 1960s, how did you manage to get a functional predominantly

00:38:46.629 - 00:39:04.350

black oriented organization off the ground? It was not very hard to do at that time. Because that was during a time when The mood of the community. Sort of fitted my personality because I had become highly militant behind my having first of all spent all of

00:39:04.350 - 00:39:18.370

my time in the service. And uh had gone over service as a patriotic citizen and I was one of those individuals saying Star Sprangle Banon American the Beautiful and found out that all of that stuff was a lie and I began to realize my responsibilities as

00:39:18.370 - 00:39:35.959

a grown man and it really didn't mean nothing all of the things that I had done and you know the mood of my putting together a black organization in a rebellious type of way, uh. Uh, but keeping in mind the desire to make money for contractors

00:39:35.959 - 00:39:51.790

and have an organization that. That would grow it wasn't hard for me to fit into the that Herod situation of civil strife at that particular time. As a matter of fact, I was a part of it vocally and, uh, and very opposing to all of the

00:39:51.790 - 00:40:08.030

discriminating tactics and things of past that had gone on against blacks. So it just sort of fitted in at this with the growth. The prior exposure, the type of things that I had experienced and the and the depriving things that had taken place around individuals around

00:40:08.030 - 00:40:24.409

me and myself and this incidents were sparked by uh the black as well as the whites with my father, uh, union bosses and how there was, you know, these type of things what was the source of let's say your most major opposition. The source of my

00:40:24.409 - 00:40:37.649

most my the is the assumptions of one's mind and what you're trying to do and not really caring what in the hell you're doing and not having any concern for anyone else and the you're saying what's the source is the minds of the of the whites

00:40:37.649 - 00:40:54.340

was the source, the assumption, the unassumed the assumptions of what you are trying to do without them trying to find out what you're really trying to do stereotype, yeah. Uh, whites are stereotype all blacks. They think that no blacks is interested in management or economics. They

00:40:54.340 - 00:41:09.560

think that all black folks are interested in just getting a job. They don't think that there are those of us that's interested in the. What was your source of revenue during this particular period? Source of revenue. Uh, at the initial start of MCA was, uh, was

00:41:09.560 - 00:41:25.360

that I was working for BEU MCan Stadium BEU was a part of BEU for 1 year. However, it was formed as an organization to spin off, and after that one year when it spin off, uh, I was the director for MCA for 18 months without any

00:41:25.360 - 00:41:42.889

pay. Now was MCA a predom was that a Kansas City based and operated organization? Was that your. Configuration. Yeah, that was, that was, and now it's, it's regional now. So it's regional in size if you say regional, of course, now we don't know how to determine

00:41:42.889 - 00:41:59.995

what is regional because we now encompasses the state of Arkansas. We got Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, the state of Arkansas with all. is in Topeka, Wichita, Omaha, Des Moines, Waterloo, Saint Louis, Little Rock, and Kansas City and the headquarters here in Kansas City and it's in,

00:42:00.024 - 00:42:16.040

in size if you speak of that area size as a region that we are a region, but in relation to demands and responsibilities that we are national. And uh are you called up on nationally? Well, the demands that's placed on us politically by administrators and politicians

00:42:16.399 - 00:42:34.330

are on a national basis. uh, everything that's done on behalf of black construction contractors nationwide whether it is designed in DC or whether it is something that is, uh, used as a survey to predict the future or the present status of contractors is based around our

00:42:34.330 - 00:42:50.459

organization. What happened at Penn Valley College? Uh, Penn Valley College is when the school was going to spend some $30 million for construction of the new junior college facilities and. And they were not aware of what we were trying to get over to them that at

00:42:50.459 - 00:43:06.300

that particular time we wanted black construction contractors involved in the construction of that project and there were those blacks and whites who sit there very conservatively and say, hey, we're gonna give you all jobs. We weren't talking about jobs as individuals, we were talking about jobs

00:43:06.300 - 00:43:28.310

as owners. We, we want a piece of the construction contracting dollar. And the difference of understanding and the non-concern of those uh what we call blue collar blue bloods, you know, black and whites, uh, uh. Brought about a a uh controversial issue between myself and the

00:43:28.310 - 00:43:43.389

Jone contractor and uh and because they did not want to relate and the urgency of them wanting to get the school built, uh, naturally the police felt it was the papers that made it appear that we were the militants that was doing the time when the

00:43:43.389 - 00:43:57.149

blacks was raising up and all of the burning that was going on we were the militants and we were this we were that and they associate us with the Black Panthers which was nothing wrong with that. They associate us with everything that's symbolic of black rising

00:43:57.149 - 00:44:12.350

up at that particular time, negativism, negativism, and consequently when we raised up to oppose the construction of the Metropolitan Junior College, it was when we got our hands whooped by the Kansas City, Missouri Police Department. Did they actually, did they, did they brutalize? He was live

00:44:12.350 - 00:44:28.399

and in little living color. And by the way, you should, uh, run down Channel 4 and Channel 9. Uh, because they have a film of that beating in Live and Living Color where we were put in jail for resisting arrest even though there was 19 policemen

00:44:28.399 - 00:44:47.459

that whooped our ass in Live and Living Color, my Samson and myself, Roland Sampson and myself, yeah. So you know it's, it's very platonic. I mean very funny how we were arrested and, and, uh, provided with a continual record, put on parole violation and sentenced to

00:44:47.459 - 00:45:04.649

jail and put on parole violation for standing up for our rights when the television cameras very well, very vividly viewed and showed in courts that, you know, we were being misused and being beaten. By 17-18 policemen, but the judge decreed in court that we had been

00:45:04.649 - 00:45:19.780

the one who had beaten up and misused everyone, you know, this was the incident that happened at, uh, the junior college that started smoking and that was the motivating factor that turned the psychological mood of the community around to let the community know that the papers

00:45:19.780 - 00:45:38.520

were lying and the whites establishment were lying about what our wants were and our wants were justifiable and all we wanted was a piece of pie, so that's psychological change. Switched the community move to supporting us and opposing the construction industry and that support is what

00:45:38.520 - 00:45:59.300

began to cause Mokan to grow because they brought in more members, more constituents support, more hidden support, money support, and those type of things. What is your membership now? Kansas City. 0, 230 contractors, 230 contractors. Any of those? Well, let me give you a percentage of

00:45:59.300 - 00:46:21.300

the population. The percentage of the population of Mokan is approximately 55 to 60% black construction contractors. Uh, I would estimate, uh, 20 to 25 brown. And the remaining whites, you see, MCA is set up to be a construction entity that represents people to create an economic

00:46:21.959 - 00:46:38.840

growth and, and, uh, revitalization inner city community, and we use whatever expertise we can so we don't localize ourselves to that only of the black uh federal contract did not allow us to relate only to black, but we now have realized the the validity. And the

00:46:38.840 - 00:46:54.989

values of bringing about the past experiences, the, the dollars and the binding capacity and all of those things that the whites have with the blacks ability to do and taking advantage of those types of situations create an economic base for the community. So that's where the

00:46:54.989 - 00:47:10.370

population, so you're finding now that many of the whites realizing the true concept of Mokan is, is wanting to join just like the blacks do. So that's why the population because at one time we had no black, no whites. And now we've got as many whites

00:47:10.370 - 00:47:30.270

coming in and want to join as we do black because we go a little bit farther than most organizations. We sort of we go out and seek and procure construction contracts. AGCs and the the other organization that represent uh management doesn't go out and seek contracts.

00:47:30.280 - 00:47:45.600

They don't go out and and get those construction contracts and dig them out and match them up with the contractor. All they do is collect union dues and membership dues. We collect membership dues, but at the same time we provide every possible assistance all the way

00:47:45.600 - 00:48:00.719

from. Helping the guy do his paperwork up to procuring a construction contract once we get him together technically, uh, for a point of survival, so we actually do his job hunting in many cases for him. One of the things that you, uh, you got kind of

00:48:00.719 - 00:48:17.540

heated about is we associating you directly with labor. Well, yeah, I, I don't say I really got heated. I got sort of disturbed about it because that's been a facade that we've had to dispel for the longest that all black folks are just regular laborers. The

00:48:17.540 - 00:48:35.040

white establishment does not want to accept the fact that we have white black owners black managers, black professionals in different, uh, uh, areas of profession just like they do. And they want again, you know, group, group us together and say that all blacks are managers you

00:48:35.040 - 00:48:52.870

know we got doctors, lawyers, professors, uh, uh. You know, administrators, uh, management owners, business owners, and etc. you know, but that was the one fight in the federal civil rights thing that was more prevalent with us during the time that we was fighting anything else was

00:48:52.870 - 00:49:07.149

to be able to distinguish in the mind of the white man. At the time that we negotiate with him that we weren't talking about employment we were talking about management, ownership and business and there's a vast difference between management, ownership and business so I get kind

00:49:07.149 - 00:49:29.820

of disturbed when you know the the connotation of labor and management becomes one because labor is employment, management is owners that's two different things and without management you wouldn't have employment. But you gotta, we gotta be able to surface as managers, as producers. If we never

00:49:29.820 - 00:49:49.389

do that, then we'll never get any of the capitalized dollars other than that that's paid to us from an employment role. So we got to identify how do we stop becoming consumers and turn and turn to producers by simply. Uh simply taking advantages of the experiences

00:49:49.389 - 00:50:05.949

that organizations such as ours have experienced and and deciding that uh that with the nerve that I'm going to go in business and just get off into it because there are those technical expertises now around that can get any person off into any almost any business

00:50:05.949 - 00:50:18.889

they want to get into but the willingness on their part and the nerve to, I mean the uh the desire to have that much nerve to get off into it. And the personal sacrifices it takes to become a businessman must be a part of that person

00:50:18.889 - 00:50:33.610

to get off into it, whether it be a producer or a businessman or whatever. We are not producing and we've got to start producing, you see, we still haven't broken into the producing market. We are the smallest producing entity in the country in the world. We've

00:50:33.610 - 00:50:47.699

got to turn into being producers if we're gonna save our own skins in relation to our own capitalization. What in what direction is Mokan gonna go, let's say in the next 5 years? Well, Mokian is gonna go, is gonna continue on the route that it has

00:50:47.699 - 00:51:11.050

been as far as representation for, for black construction contractors. Is it gonna become national? Uh, I imagine it will considering the fact that we have towns like Dayton, Ohio, Gary, Indiana, Shreveport, Louisiana, Oklahoma City, Denver, Colorado, uh, San Antone, Texas, you name it, those towns are

00:51:11.050 - 00:51:26.669

now want to become a part of our umbrella concept. They want to be represented by Mo King. They want to be a part of our total makeup and we're getting requests on a daily basis to allow their organization to become a part of or for us

00:51:26.669 - 00:51:42.330

to go in and form an organization in those towns and. And most of the time we get requests to form an organization is by the major manufacturers like uh Monsanto, Van Camp Foods or some major guys who wants to do something for their community and they'll

00:51:42.330 - 00:51:55.870

ask us to come in or some big politician asked us to come in like we just recently did for the city of Little Rock, Arkansas. We went into Little Rock, Arkansas at the request of Jesse Jackson. Uh, president of Push and Reverend Porter, the president there

00:51:55.870 - 00:52:08.850

in Little Rock, Arkansas, to set up the organization for the contractors in Little Rock. They are now a part of Little Rock. So that's the way it's been snowballing all of the way. Well, your, your name is rather obsolete at this point. Well, the name is

00:52:08.850 - 00:52:23.090

obsolete and I imagine at the time that when the board and myself get to a concurrence of deciding that we're going to be national, we'll have to change the name. We have changed the name because Mokan is no longer known as Mokcan. It's known now as

00:52:23.090 - 00:52:43.300

Region 7 Minority Contractors Association. We've changed, but the name Mocan has stuck with folks because that was our initial name and Mocan being Missouri, Kansas, and that becomes our brand sort of like, you know, emblem. But the identification legal wise is Region 7 Minority Contractors Association.

00:52:43.810 - 00:53:01.209

So I imagine we'll be going from that change to a national identification. Did the period of, uh, let's say during the Nixon administration and the Ford administration, uh, uh, since, since there was a recession recessionary period and that during that particular time, a lull in business,

00:53:01.250 - 00:53:26.719

did that affect your operation that much? Not really. Because doing, you know, uh, construction. Survival and construction is, is, is the ability of those to. To control And at the point of, of that period that you're speaking about, we were controlling many things. We were controlling

00:53:26.719 - 00:53:43.010

and having support of federal laws. We were control, we had some controls in relation to housing in our area. We had some controls in relation to, but so goes, uh, the, the, the phrase so goes construction, so goes the economy. True, but you know, the economy

00:53:43.510 - 00:54:03.669

is an overall thing nationwide. We speak about a Pacific area and it's identified by the fact that this Pacific, Pacific area, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska. Black produced 2/3 of all black construction dollars during that period of time, which meant that we had our stuff more under

00:54:03.669 - 00:54:18.389

control and more together during a crisis period of overall construction. Than anyone else did and by our controls and by us being so far ahead of the game in relation to understanding and being able to have perception in relation to the federal construction and what the

00:54:18.389 - 00:54:33.199

requirements gonna be, we were able to get in there and maintain control of it, get our input into it prior to anyone else so the the construction recession as a as a whole did not affect us like it did the whole country. Many of our constituents,

00:54:33.280 - 00:54:48.000

black and brown all over the country otherwise suffered. But very few of our guys suffered in Kansas City in this metropolitan. I is there a lobbying element within Mokan? There's a, a hidden lobbying element, and I don't wouldn't want to divulge that because I would give

00:54:48.000 - 00:55:05.629

away some privileged information, you know. I would give away there, is there an association between Mokan and, uh, let's say the Philadelphia plan or the Kansas City plan? Is there any type of a formal relationship between the two? No, there's a participating relationship. Our, our. Our,

00:55:06.260 - 00:55:21.459

I guess what you're asking is what is our constituency, uh, support that's what you're really asking, and that could, you know, if I say that it's the most recent named senator for the VP, then if you were to say that, you might be right. If you

00:55:21.459 - 00:55:36.229

were to say that it's, uh, Bill Clay and, uh, Congressman Clay out of Saint Louis who's a Democrat, you may be right. If you might say it's Perrin Mitchell from Maryland, you may be right. If you were to say it's, it's, uh. Senator Belman from Oklahoma,

00:55:36.350 - 00:55:50.840

you may be right. You name any of them, senators or congressmen, it may be our constituencies, and that's all I can say about that, you know. So it goes all the way from administrative constituencies all the way up to Washington into the White House. To political

00:55:50.840 - 00:56:05.199

constituents, both black and white, Democrat and Republicans. Well, what is, uh, I noticed when you, when you, when you first walk into the Mokan office now you see a picture of Samuel Cornell, which is, he is a Republican by all means, but that is not symbolic

00:56:05.199 - 00:56:22.659

of Mokan being a Republican. It is symbolic of our respect to the individual who had more faith in Mokan than anyone else who gave those monies as when he was a regional OEO director. To Mokan, which was the first for OEO to put monies into an

00:56:22.659 - 00:56:36.929

operation for poor folks and allow that operation to expand in four other states. What, what, what made him that generous or what made him have that type of insight? Uh, he, one of the things was he had, you know, it was our previous together and Sam

00:56:36.929 - 00:56:51.060

Cannes and I grew up together. He had a lot of faith in me personally. And he asked us to be able to demon he asked us to demonstrate something in the other areas he was res responsible for Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, and the other towns had

00:56:51.060 - 00:57:09.260

nothing that was resembling Mokan and that economic body for that that helped the residents, the poverty community, uh, like Kansas City, so he asked that we would go pick other towns and and begin to do the same thing. So instead of going a direct route with

00:57:09.260 - 00:57:25.739

property monies to the people in those towns, he went indirect through us and let us set up a mechanism that instead of, uh, and that again points out the difference between a manager and an employee. You see, uh, OEO was a private program employee. But he

00:57:25.739 - 00:57:41.620

came up with an innovativeness to say that if I can take one black contractor developed by an organization in Omaha, Nebraska, that one black contractor would then hire 20 property folks. And if you multiply that by the number of contractors we got in each town, his

00:57:41.665 - 00:57:58.885

Concept became a a total reality because it's the biggest economic factor in the whole region that relates to poverty folks in those communities that did not have didn't have the opportunity to make money before that so the the employment opportunities came by virtue of an indirect

00:57:59.225 - 00:58:17.709

uh uh approach to the problem of of what OEO is about which was, you know, poverty individuals and that's what OEO is mainly about but we it was our program and. Uh, and the Black Economic Union were two organizations that, uh, was probably the only two

00:58:17.709 - 00:58:35.310

organizations in the economic field. What, what, what, what do you attribute to the apparent success of your organization with apparent, uh, semi-failing at this particular point of the Black Economic Union? Well, I'd have to disagree with the, the failing of Black Economic Union. Black Economic Union

00:58:35.310 - 00:58:53.370

is not failing, it's going through a transition. And that transition is from one from uh where we previously did individual everything you did related to individuals. The Black Economic Union are sophisticated to a level that everything they do now relates to a total community. You're talking

00:58:53.370 - 00:59:08.770

about development like industrial parks. You're talking about, uh, housing done on the masses, talking about land planning. You're talking about the one entity that can be the catalyst for most of the money that's gonna be coming down in this town for the next 5 years, which

00:59:08.770 - 00:59:26.080

is the Economic Development Administration. Uh, the monies that you use for public improvements like street sidewalks and curbs and the sovereignty property, the city-owned properties and county-owned properties, those are the monies that BEU now does land studies, uh, designs, feasibility studies, and all those things. And

00:59:26.080 - 00:59:41.760

the things they do now does not directly affect individuals but affect the whole community and it creates a base by which our type of organization can move in and make, take advantage of all of those dollars that that plan and initial planning done. So BEU is

00:59:41.760 - 00:59:58.850

not failing, it's just going through a transition that is not understood by most of the the individuals who has not had the experience of that type of awareness, continual awareness on, on organization. Like many contractors doesn't understand the expansion of MCA, the fact that it cannot

00:59:58.850 - 01:00:14.830

do anything but expand its sophistication. Used to be 3 years ago I knew every contract individual member individually. Now I doubt that I know personally a third of the contractors because my responsibility just doesn't allow me to meet them. And it's just sort of like a

01:00:14.830 - 01:00:27.770

pyramid. It starts at the bottom and it just keeps going up, you know, and that's where we are and our responsibilities are coming in more and the same thing with that. So you gotta. Relate to the growth of the organization. That fits that, uh, question you

01:00:27.770 - 01:00:46.020

just asked me about the effectiveness of an organization and the growth uh puts it in a in a more sophisticated plane of responsibility. Now once again, what, what size staff do you have locally? Um, I would imagine the staff is 2024 locally, Kansas City, uh, throughout

01:00:46.020 - 01:01:08.050

the region it's from 100 to 110. I'm not sure. What's projected, uh, what have you projected? I imagine, I imagine in 5 years that we'll be located in some 35, 30 to 35 different states, uh, maybe upwards to 60 offices, um, and that, um, our membership,

01:01:08.550 - 01:01:30.600

well, when we speak about our constituencies of, uh, representation, in other words, the people that we represent. We speak about contractors, their employees, and their families. Now we represent somewhere like 55,000 folks. I imagine in uh. Next 5 years it will swell to something like maybe

01:01:31.169 - 01:01:52.159

150,000 easily. I would like to thank you Mr. Harris for this interview. Um, uh, I will say that that that Black Archives in America, uh, has all intentions of of another interview with you, let's say in 5 years or, uh, within, within, within a short period

01:01:52.159 - 01:02:01.580

of time, uh, to check that progress and to tape it, uh, on a firsthand basis like we're getting today. Once again, thank you very much.