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Were you ever in personal danger? How did you respond?
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Ozell Sutton
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
But when all hell broke loose, and they started driving the
blacks back toward the church, this police officer runs up to me with that long riot stick and he
punches me in the stomach with that stick and he told me to "get." And I'm crying out like a
crazy somebody. I wouldn't run, and I couldn't fight. I couldn't fight because I didn't have
anything to fight with. He's got a stick and a gun, right? I have nothing. So he starts wailing
on me with that stick and tells me to "get." Now, if I'd have had some sense, I guess I would
have run. That's what he wanted me to do. But I wouldn't do that. And I was wheeling, and
then he got mad because he couldn't hit my head, because as big as my head is, I can get it way
down in my shoulders, at least in those days I could. He beat up my shoulders and arms pretty
good, but he never hit my head a single time. I tell everybody, if you think that Muhammad
Ali could do the ropedy-dope you should have seen me. You should have seen my weaving
and bobbing and I think golly, I would have made Muhammad Ali look like a neophyte. But
he never hit my head a single time. The only thing that saved me was a young white man.
Stanfield was his name. I knew him from the days I was director of the Arkansas Council on
Human Relations. When I was director of the Arkansas Council on Human Relations, he was
director of the Virginia Council on Human Relations. And I had gone on to work for CRS and
he'd come down here to work with the Southern Regional Council. He was a field rep for the
Southern Regional Council. Back in those days, it was a small world -- we all, just about, knew
each other. So, Stanfield stepped down off the sidewalk, now they weren't bothering Stanfield,
and he grabbed me by my arm and stashed me up there where he was.
Question:
That must have been terrifying.
Answer:
It was and it hurt a whole lot.
| Ozell Sutton
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
My wife would always accuse me of not telling her a lot of things
when danger was involved. I just didn't want to tell her, because I didn't want her to worry.
When you're way over there, you worry more than the person who is present and facing
danger, because you don't know what's going on there. Quite often, I didn't tell my wife and
my children what things were really like. It was only later when they found out what things
were really like that night and other times during the Memphis crisis. I just didn't talk about it
too much, because I knew if every time I left home to go there, then I'd have to go through all
this stuff. And I'd rather not do that.
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