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Biography

Richard Hayes was born in Sioux City, Iowa, in 1940. He went to school there and then was away from Sioux City while serving in the military. He returned to Sioux City and became involved with the NAACP in the early 1980s. He also served as a commissioner on the Sioux City Civil Rights Commission from 1989 to 1992, then worked as the Commission's executive director from 1992 until his retirement in 2004.

Transcript

Richard Hayes, 14 August 2009, Sioux City, Iowa

Si- Laura Triplett- L-a-u-r-a T-r-i-p-l-e-t-t, would you please state and spell your name.

Richard- Richard E. Hayes – R-i-c-h-a-r-d E period H-a-y-e-s

Si- Today’s date is August 14, 2009 and today I will be interviewing Richard Hayes on the topic of civil Rights Organizations in Sioux City, Iowa. Thank you for being with us today.

Richard- Thank you very much for having me.

Si- Can you tell us how long you have lived in Sioux City?

Richard- I have been actually living in Sioux City for sixty years. I am 69 years old; I was born in August 7th 1940 here in Sioux City, went to school then went into the military. Stayed away from Sioux City for nine years, came back in 1968 and have been here every since.

Si- What civil rights organizations were available to the African American community when you were a younger man?

Richard- Well, there were really two, as I remember, that of course is the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, better known to most folks as the NAACP and also the Human Rights Commission.

Si- At what age did you get involved?

Richard- Well, I tell folks if you were born in America or moved to America and you are of a color darker than white, you got involved the minute you got here. That was because, whether or not we realize it things, even though we were kids, things were affecting our lives, at that time. Civil Rights was affecting our lives. When I got busy into it was 1978 I believe, and the reason for that, of course, I had watched all the Civil Rights movement; been in contact with folks who were involved in it, personally, and all. When I moved back to Sioux City in 1968 my father began to let me know I should be involved in the Civil Rights Movement. My father, Arthur R. Hayes, who is deceased now, kept telling me, “You know son, you ought to be involved in this and you ought to trying to do some things that will make things better for your kids when they come along, as we tried to make for you.” So I took that to heart and I said well I’ll join the NAACP, and that’s what I did, I joined. The first few years just went to the meetings and getting acquainted and find out what it was all about, and finally really got involved, started going to state conference meetings, regional conferences and then the national conferences, so I’ve been involved, or active, I should say, since the very early 80’s.

Si- What role did you play in the organizations during that time?

Richard- Well, I was fortunate, or unfortunate, whichever way you want to look at it, to come along at a time when there were those in the organization of the NAACP who were middle age to late age folks and they were looking for some youngsters to be involved, pick up the banner and move forward with it. So I came along at a time when people were encouraging us to get involved and take some leadership roles in the NAACP. I came in with a good friend of mine, Gerald Fields, the local branch of the NAACP saw fit to send us to everything that was going on, so we could meet the people in other areas, find out what was happening in their areas and find out what the NAACP was all about. Then of course it wasn’t too terribly long and I did serve as the President of the Sioux City Branch for a short period of time.

Si- Did you feel that these organizations have had an impact in the community?

Richard- Yes, there is really no question about that when I look back and think about what was happening when I was a kid, and what’s going on today, freedoms that we have today. Now I didn’t talk any here about the Human Rights Commission but I need to back up because that was one of the organizations that played a key part in making Sioux City the way it is today. I think it was in 1951, before any laws were put on the books or whatever, Sioux City had come up with an ordinance, and I believe it was at the urging of the NAACP. Folks who were in the NAACP and also worked for the city of Sioux City, they were encouraging the city that we need to stop discrimination; hire people of color and so that’s how the city began to advance, really in 1951. Then we move forward, in 1958, the city of Sioux City then amended their ordinance so that would take care of not only for those who worked for the city, and knock out discrimination for employees not only in the city but also in all employment in the Sioux City area. So that was the Human Rights Commission in 1958. Then in 1964 they actually established a commission and gave them staff and they were able to do considerably more. Working in conjunction, I might add, with the NAACP.

Si-What civil rights organizations are available now in Sioux City?

Richard- Well, actually, the same two that was here back in those days is still flourishing here. I need to say the NAACP is an organization that began back in 1909. Our organization is now 100 years old this year, and so we have been pushing on ever since then; Sioux City, actually, got a branch up and running for good in 1947. So we have had an active NAACP branch here in Sioux City since 1947 and is viable today. Of course the Human Rights Commission is still part of the city structure.

Si- Do you still have a current role in any of these organizations?

Richard- Well I like to think so! (Laughs) I used to be the executive Director of the Sioux City Human Rights Commission, starting from 1992, actually in 1989 I became a commissioner for the Sioux City Human Rights Commission, served a three year term, and then the executive director at the time, John Stokes, decided he was going to retire and they were looking for someone to replace him so someone suggested I throw my hat into the ring and then I did and they hired me and I stayed with the Human Rights Commission for twelve years. So certainly had some involvement there.

Si-What progress have you witnessed over the years?

Richard- There really has been tremendous progress. Some folks would say, I’m sure, too slow in coming, whatever, but bottom line is some things have happened that have made the deaths of a lot of civil rights workers worthwhile. They did not die in vain because the things that are in place today, the laws that are in place for civil rights and all that, are really working out. I can remember back when I was a kid, there were some movies in downtown Sioux City that you could go to but you had to sit in the balcony; you couldn’t sit on the main floor. There were some stores, like Kresge’s and Katz, those kind of places, you could go in and buy something, but you couldn’t sit at the counter, and they had lunch counters and those kind of things, you couldn’t do that. So we’ve seen all that turn around, and certainly it was very helpful that the people of the NAACP who went to the powers that be in the city of Sioux City and suggested that, demanded really, that the city make some changes. Make things equal and fair for everyone regardless of race, color and creed. Yes, there have been a lot of changes. Today I look at the professional fields today that I see African-Americans in, all kinds of fields, doctors, lawyers, the whole gambit you name it, educators, the whole gambit. When I came along we really didn’t have those role models. The people that I went to school with and folks before me, found it necessary that once they got their good education here in Sioux City, before we had good colleges, good schools and good colleges, they would get a good education here, but they had to go somewhere else, out of Sioux City to work in their chosen career fields, even though those career fields existed here in Sioux City. They weren’t being hired for management because of their color. So there have been some dynamite changes. I mentioned those folks, myself and those folks that went before me, moving out of Sioux City. It’s nice now because we have now what is called “Sioux City Black Homecoming” and we started that in 1977 all the folks who went to school here, lived here in Sioux City that moved away, we encourage them to come back and we have a big gathering encouraging them to come back. We have had some pretty decent crowds since 1977. I should say it’s not every year; it’s about every four or five years that we have folks come back. When folks get back here a lot of them indicate to me, “Oh, man, dog! I sure would have liked to stayed here, worked here and all that”, but employment just wasn’t here. The majority of them have done very, very well. They went into some dynamite professions, would have made Sioux City proud, I am sure. I just kinda think, what would Sioux city be like today if we had all that talent and all those folks were still here working in Sioux City. We are all right but we’d be dynamite if they were here.

Si-Do you believe Civil Rights Organizations assisted Barack Obama in becoming our first African-American president?

Richard- Yes, again, there is no question in my mind, that the civil rights organizations played a key role in educating folks, encouraging folks to register to vote, become acquainted with who’s running for office, educate themselves about who the best candidate was. The NAACP is a non-partisan organization we do not take sides for one party or the other, however, quite a few years ago, there was a gentleman who was running for president that we knew was racist, a bigot and discriminatory, so therefore the NAACP broke their rule for that one time. I’m not exactly sure who that gentleman was, Orvel Faubus keeps jumping into my mind, I’m not sure. I think he was a governor down south somewhere. At any rate, the NAACP decided that they would fight against having that gentleman get into the office of the presidency, and we were successful I might say, but that has never happened again. To my knowledge the NAACP is non-partisan, but we encourage folks, and that’s it, to educate themselves about who is running, and we tell you that if you do that and do that properly you are thinking along the same lines as we are about who should be in office here in America.

Si- What changes do you think need to happen for our local civil rights organizations to have a continued impact within our community?

Richard- The Sioux City Human Rights Commission since its inception, I believe, has never been properly staffed. You can do much more, many more things, if you have the staff and the people to do what you feel need to be done. The Sioux City Human Rights Commission started off with mainly the director and then they added, of course, the secretary. The gentleman who was the director prior to myself, John Stokes, that’s what he had to work with, was himself and a secretary. They did a beautiful job, but you can only do so much; two people can only do so much. I was fortunate when I came on in 1992 as director, I was fortunate, to encourage the city council, some of the city council, I should put it like that, the majority you need three votes on the city council, so I was successful in getting them to add one more position to the Sioux City office of Human Rights. That individual worked for about one year, then decided they were going back to Washington where they were from and I couldn’t convince the council to continue that position. So it stayed open for awhile; then finally we were able, the commission and I, were able to get a grant from the Fair Housing Department, Federal Fair Housing, that really paid for a position, a housing position who could investigate and solve complaints of discrimination in the housing area. I am happy to say, that person is still on today, I left in 2004 when I retired and so that person has been there seven or eight years. They made a little gain there, but I still contend there needs to be, in that office, at least five employees, that’s my opinion. Others think along those same lines, but the problem is, of course, from the city council’s point of view is money, of course. How do they pay for these positions and all that? We always try and tell them you have to prioritize, what’s important to you. As far as we’re concerned, human rights, if you don’t have that you don’t have nothing. So we need to make sure that we’ve taken care of that. One of these days we’re going to get a council here again that will review all that, hopefully at the director’s request and make the commission office what it really should be. They do good work, there is no question about that, but there is plenty out there to do, because discrimination is alive and well even though we have been fortunate enough to get an African-American in the White House leading this country, another great achievement, a giant step forward to fulfillment, I believe, of Dr. King’s dream. I would hope the powers that be with the city recognize that and could make the commission all it truly should be staff-wise.

Si- Is there any questions from the group?

S- What was your biggest accomplishment for the NAACP?

Richard- Well, if we are talking here on a local level, the accomplishments on the big picture side, here in Sioux City the biggest accomplishment, I would say was when the NAACP was able to encourage the school district to hire minority educators. It was way back in the early, oh, late 50’s or early 60’s, that an aunt of mine, Mrs. Evelyn Freeman, was selected as an educator in the Sioux City Public Schools. She was the first, after her came a young man by the name Curtis Hayes, following him I think was Mr. Bobby Walker, who stayed here and retired here as an educator. So he has all that history and I hope he got interviewed by you. That I think was the biggest accomplishment of the NAACP here in the city of Sioux City. Although, I don’t want to diminish the role of the Human Rights Commission, because the Commission and the NAACP worked together, hand in hand, on a lot of different issues. Some of the people who were members of the NAACP were serving on the Human Rights Commission, and so they all collaborated, and saw what needed to be done. They were willing to go to the powers that be; they were not afraid to speak up and let folks know what they thought and what they thought needed to be done. In many, many cases they were successful in making Sioux City a better place for all.

Si- In what year did you serve as NAACP President?

Richard- I served first as a commissioner on the commission from 1989 until January of 1992, then I was, I went into the job of executive Director in March 1992 and I retired in March 2004, although some wanted me to go earlier than that, but I wasn’t ready!

Si- So what were some of the issues that you faced in that role with African-Americans and equality in Sioux City?

Richard- Of course when you serve in a role like that the issues are, I don’t want to say the same, but like in nature. It’s all about discrimination one way or the other. For African-Americans the majority of complaints I received and investigated were race-based complaints. Folks felt like they had been discriminated against, either by not being hired on a job or if they worked at a job, and they weren’t getting promoted, or they weren’t getting the same pay as others and all, they felt as though the reasons were because of their race. That was the biggest area of complaints that I was in anyway, that we dealt with.

Si- And then personally did you ever think you would come to a day where you would see that the United States of America would elect an African-American president?

Richard- Absolutely not! Let me say that emphatically, however, of course, like you, and everybody else, certainly very proud about it. I have the story, seeing how you mentioned that, that I must tell. When Senator Obama announced that he was going to run for President, I automatically said, you know, I mean I knew the who the guy was, but I didn’t know him well; I knew he was a fairly good guy, he deserved to be looked at and supported, let’s see what his policies are. After I did that I said, well I can support the guy, but I was going to support him financially. Give what the law allows that you can give to candidates. Someone from his office here in Sioux City, one of his staff called and asked if I would get involved as far as being a leader of the caucus on caucus night , and all of that you know, and I said, “Say, look, I’m supporting the guy financially, but I really don’t have time for that. Because I must be really honest, I’m going to vote for the guy but I didn’t think America was ready to vote that way.”
So anyway, the guy asked and I declined, said, “No, I would do what I can financially, but that’s it.”
Then I was sitting at home one night, watching T.V. the phone rang I don’t know about you guys, if you got that caller I.D thing, you know? The caller ID had said “Incomplete data”’ and usually when I get that on my phone I do not answer, because it ‘s somebody usually trying to sell something or whatever. But then sometimes if I want to argue with somebody, I say, “Let me get that phone!” so I‘ll take it. This time I decided well, I’ll take it. I picked up the phone and a voice that said, “Hello, Mr. Hayes?”, and I say, “Yes.” “This is Senator Obama.” And of course, I said, “Who?” He says, “This is Senator Obama,” and I said, “Hello, Senator, how you doing, what’s up?” You know what I mean? He asked if I would participate in his effort to become President of the United States of America, and asked if I would work the caucus and all that. And I said, “You know Senator, there is no way in the world I can say no to you, I’ll do the best I can. That’s how I got involved, other than financially, and, called some friends of mine to help with the caucus that evening, your mother and several others, and we did pretty well. As I indicated, once we got the news that Senator Obama had won the state of Iowa we were all really overjoyed, and surprised to say the least because no one thought, no one that I knew anyway , other than Senator Obama, even a couple of days or so before the caucus he spoke, I think, at Irving School, and I was in the line around the stage he came down he said to me, and we shook hands he says, “Mr. Hayes, I believe we can win.” I said, “Hey, I’m with ya!” So, I was still surprised, that he had taken Iowa. Matter of fact I have friends who called me from where they have moved to in other states, “Man, what’s happening in Iowa? What happened…we need them people…I didn’t think was so…” Well, I said, things have changed in Iowa. So, it’s really a great time, just recently, we saw the President, at NAACP one-hundredth anniversary banquet, he was our keynote speaker, he was encouraging us to work with our peers, to teach them the importance of education, the importance of hanging with their goals. Without down grading anybody, he said, “Everybody can’t be rappers, singers and all that kind of thing. I want folks to aspire to be doctors, lawyers, educators and I want some to aspire to be President of the United States of America.” Well of course that brought the house down that night, and we all jumped up, and gave him a big round of applause. So, he seems to be a great young man and certainly wish him nothing but the best and will do whatever it is we need to do to help him be successful as our president.

Si- Mr. Hayes, I know that we’ve closed our questions but if you could end your story as the executive director of the Human Rights Commission, President of the NAACP, a noble citizen, and active member, how would you end your story?

Richard- I would end my story by indicating, hopefully, be able to point to certain things within our community that indicates how far we have come and how grateful we are to all our citizens regardless of their color, national origin, whatever. I think in the final analysis that’s what counts. How many folks really feel that they are accepted and that they are a part of our community. I think that is really the most important thing. Folks don’t want to be pushed out, pushed away, denied; it happens far too often. Even today, I would venture to say, there are some stores that people go in that they are followed all around the store because they think that simply you are black, you’re going to steal something; that still happening here in Sioux City today. I would like to be able to say, all that’s over! But I’m a realist too, folks! I tell folks all the time that this discrimination and hatred is going to be with us unfortunately, I think, till the end of the world and the Lord come. As long as we are different from others there is going to be some dissension, somebody will always think they are better, than somebody else, there are always going to think they are more powerful or they in charge of other people, so there is always going to be a problem. What we work for in Civil Rights, we in human and Civil Rights here, what we work toward is lessening it. You can see at some times things get better, there seems to be less discrimination or whatever. Just as soon as, such as we are today, when jobs are being lost, folks are struggling, it gets worse. People begin to say, “If it wasn’t for those folks, we’d have a job. If it wasn’t for those folks I wouldn’t have to worry about feeding my family, and all that, they are taking this that and another.” Right now we’re in a bad time, but it is rebounding slightly, so they tell us, some of us can feel that. Things will start to get better but we will have to continue to work to sensitize, if you will, people to the reality that we are all just human beings. None of us is any better than any other. That’s, I guess, what I feel I would like to come to. I’d like to come to the time or the place when we could say, “Yes, discrimination based on anything is a thing of the past in this community.” It would be nice to say that, but you already heard my limitations. So thank you!

Si- Thank you for joining us today.

Richard - Yes, thank you very much, Laura, and I appreciate being involved. This is really something, that it’s going to be on record. We’re going to have a record of all of this kind of stuff that people can look back and see what was going on back then. That is a marvelous thing, because somebody said a long time ago, “If you don’t know where you’ve been, sure you don’t know where you’re going.” So, this is good, and I’m glad to be a part of it. Thank you very much.