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African-American Oral Histories

Berl Handcox
Clip 1: Transcript


Activism

Running Time: 1 min 40 sec

RT: Do you, or did you consider yourself an activist?

BH: Somewhat, yeah. I’d like to think that I could be a fox, and an activist. I could be a sneaky activist.

RT: How’s that?

BH: Well, I could do it best in convincing people to try to see it my way if it’s one on one. I don’t think you have to be in the middle of the pit with a loud voice to be an activist. You can do that sometimes better, I mean, actually, when I think about it, kind of like on the big scene, on the national scene, you got all these quote, unquote, lobbyists? You don’t see them on the floor, raising hell. You invite somebody to a cocktail party, or to your house, or to a fishing trip, or hunting trip, or whatever turns them on, where you can bend their ear one on one, and try to get your point across. Are you an activist for doing so? I think so, if you can be successful in doing. You don’t have to be loud and rude and obnoxious to be an activist, I don’t think. And that’s the road I would travel.


Disclaimer:
“Oral Narrative as History.” Students received class credit for this work, and were under the supervision of Dr. Martha Norkunas, director of “The Project in Interpreting the Texas Past.”

Every effort has been made to transcribe the audio recordings exactly. On occasion a word, or phrase, was difficult to hear and this is indicated by a question mark in brackets.


Berl Handcox

Interviewee: 
Berl Handcox

Interviewer: 
Rick Taylor

Date of Interview: 
February 23, April 5,
2004

Place: 
Mr. Handcox' home, Austin, Texas

Recording Format: 
Digital audio tape (reformatted to compact disc)