Oral history interview with Percy Green, 1999

Biographical Note

Percy Green was born in 1936, A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Green graduated from Vashon High School in January of 1954. Green pursued additional education and training via correspondence courses from DeVry Institute in Radio and Electronics. Beginning in 1956, he was employed by McDonnell (later McDonnell Douglass) as a radio electric mechanic for military aircraft. Green was drafted in 1958 for service in Vietnam; he served domestically, and he returned to McDonnell in 1960. He became active in CORE through a fellow McDonnell employee, Eugene Tournour, and was fired for his involvement in civil rights movement protest activity. He was active with the St. Louis CORE chapter prior to breaking with the chapter to form the Action Council to Improve Opportunities for Negroes (ACTION)

Scope and Contents

In this interview with Sheila B. Michaels, Percy Green discusses his upbringing in St. Louis Missouri, education and training, military service, engagement with CORE's protest activity in St. Louis, the formation of ACTION, and his individual protest actions. Green discusses his training with DeVry Institute and his employment with McDonnell as a radio electric mechanic assigned to work on F-101 and L4H ("The Demon") aircraft. Green discusses being drafted during the Vietnam War; his training in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey; and his assignment to Fort Bliss in Texas. Green devotes the majority of the interview to discussing CORE activity in St. Louis, including the Jefferson Bank protests, the resulting home raids, and arrests of CORE leadership. He recounts leading St. Louis CORE's employment committee, class distinction within the St. Louis CORE chapter, and the split of the St. Louis chapter after the Jefferson Bank protest, which resulted in the creation of ACTION. Green also recounts his other protest activity including a hunger strike to protest Jefferson Bank's hiring policy, and efforts to convince City officials to divest money from the bank because of its discriminatory hiring practices. Green also discusses his work to reveal the Veiled Prophet beginning in 1965. ACTION succeeded in 1972, and they continued pressing St. Louis leaders to end the festival whose Reconstruction Era origins focused on St. Louis' elite white business leadership. Green also discusses the role of St. Louis' newspaper in perpetuating negative attitudes towards its black citizens; protests at Southern Bell and the United Way; and his protest at the St. Louis Gateway Arch

Subjects

• Aircraft industry--Missouri--Saint Louis.
• Civil rights demonstrations--Missouri--Saint Louis.
• Civil rights demonstrations--United States.
• Civil rights movements--United States--History--20th century.
• Discrimination in employment--United States.
• Green, Percy--Interviews.
• Interviews.
• Michaels, Sheila, 1939-2017, interviewer.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• St. Louis Committee of Racial Equality.
• United States--Race relations--History--20th century.