Densho Digital Archive - Bill Hosokawa Interview (denshovh-hbill-01-0025)

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AI: Moving away from your coverage of the war, of the Korean War and the Vietnam War, also significant in the '50s was the African American, or at that time, black Civil Rights movement. And in 1954, of course, was the Brown v. Board of Education case decided by the Supreme Court. I'm wondering, what was your reaction to that decision at the time when you heard that?

BH: I thought it was about time.

AI: And did you, did you see or feel any direct connection between that case and the efforts of the African Americans, between that and the struggle of Japanese Americans for equality as full Americans?

BH: Well, I felt that there was no comparison. The blacks have had a very, very rough time, and over a longer period. And because of education and lack of education and the old prejudices that exist in the South and all that, they still have a very rough time. There, there really is no comparison. Our difficulty was much more low-key, and the, the worst part of it was concentrated in the evacuation period, when our rights were suspended. But the blacks had no rights to suspend. They, they just were slaves without chains. And I was running the newsroom at the time of the Little Rock violence there. And I was partly responsible for sending a black reporter we had and a white reporter and sending them down together to Little Rock. And they covered the, the demonstrations there individually and then got together after, at night, to compare notes and then file a story for us. When the Post hired its first black reporter, the boss called me in and says, "Take him out to lunch and we'll see how he is." And so there was some faith in my judgment, an awareness on the part of the management that this guy might be a great newspaperman or he might a rabble-rouser. And they wanted to be sure.

AI: And when you made that assignment for a white reporter and a black reporter...

BH: Yeah.

AI: ...to both go to Arkansas...

BH: Yeah.

AI: ...that in itself at that time, must have been unusual for a newspaper such as the Denver Post or any newspaper, comparable newspaper, in a city of that size.

BH: Yeah, I would think so, although that was such a big story that many people sent their own correspondents over there. But the idea of using a black and a white together was quite different. And not many newspapers had black reporters at that time.