Oral History: Joe Duster

Oral History; Work/ Business; integration

Joe Duster

Cathy Wood

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MP3; RTF

English

Sound Recording-Nonmusical

FLPL_RCD_07.jpg
FLPL RCD 7.rtf

Audio

20:44

Florence African American Heritage Project
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Florence-Lauderdale Public Library
Interviewer: Cathy Wood
Interviewee: Joe Duster
C: This is Cathy Wood, I’m here at the history harvest on November 19, 2017. We are here at the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library, I’m here with Mr. Joe Duster, um, is that your full name, Mr. Duster?
J: Joe Louis Duster.
C: And when were you born?
J: February the 1st, 1957, the first day of Black History Month.
C: (laughs) Where were you born?
J: In Lauderdale County.
C: Was your family from Lauderdale County?
J: Yes they were.
C: So did you have a lot of brothers and sisters?
J: One sister.
C: Is she still here in the area?
J: Yes she is.
C: Are your parents still here?
J: They are deceased.
C: So where did you go to school?
J: W.C. Handy Elementary, Forest Hills, Burrell Slater Junior High and Bradshaw High School.
C: Sounds good, I miss Bradshaw High School. When did you graduate from high school?
J: 1976.
C: So after you graduated, is that when you started your experiences that you are going to tell us about today? Tell us why you are here, what your wanted to share about your black history experience here in Lauderdale County and Colbert County.
J: Well I would like for the people to know that, the thing that God allowed me to accomplish in my lifetime pertaining to black history, to share some of my past experiences and the hardship I encountered during my journey.
C: Well I’m just going to let you talk and to tell your story, is that ok?
J: Yeah. First of all, I grew up in the West Florence area. We grew up dirt poor, there were seven of us in a four room house. We had no running water at one time, we had to water from outside from the hydrant…outdoor bathrooms
C: So your parents, you and your sister, and…
J: My uncle, and my mother and my grandmother, I was raised by my grandmother.
C: So you had other family living there with you?
J: Yes. And when we would, they would take us on field trips to the Coca Cola bottling company, fire station, police station, things of that nature. Ever since I was a little child I used to like to see the firemen ride on the back of the truck and the garbagemen, and I decided that that’s what I wanted to do, one of the two. So I ended up working for the city of Florence once in the sanitation department and that didn’t go over so well, so I pursued my dream in the fire service.
C: Why didn’t it go over well, did it have something to do with you being black?
J: No, it didn’t…
C: Just wasn’t a good place for you…
J: It wasn’t cut out for me…
C: Wasn’t what you were meant to be?
J: And I went to the U.S. Navy right out of high school, and then when I got back to Florence—I did firefighting and damage control in the Navy—when I came back to Florence, I joined the Muscle Shoals Jaycees, which is an all-white organization, I was the first African American to join that organization in 1979.
C: Why did you decide that you wanted to join the Jaycees, and why did you decide you wanted to join an all-white branch?
J: Well because I worked the Federal highway prior to that time in 1978. And a guy from Pennsylvania, his name was Dwight—I can’t remember his last name—he encouraged me to join. He was a member, and he said, ‘you’re a well-rounded, level-headed guy, why don’t you join the organization?’ And I told him I would, I mean…and I got to thinking, I said well, this would be one way to prove that a black man can communicate in an all-white organization.
C: Right…
J: So I joined the organization, and after I joined the organization I pursued by other interest in the fire service because ever since I was a child, like I said before, I wanted to be a garbageman or a fireman. We went to the fire department when we were in elementary school, and to see the shiny trucks and to peak through the window and see all the…and not a black man there. I said that one day, this is what I’m going to do. I lived on the corner of Fayette Street and Mobile Street, which runs straight through the city of Florence. Mobile on the west side of Florence. And when I would go to elementary school, there was a fire hydrant at the corner and I would play with it every morning on the way to school. Take the cap off and just play with it.
C: Wanted to see how it worked?
J: Yeah, and then…when I went to Junior high which was Burrell Slater which was on College Street at the other end of the street, there was another fire hydrant and I would see it every morning on my way to school.
C: There were your signs, right there.
J: My destiny was calling me. I didn’t realize God had a plan for me, I didn’t realize it at that time.
C: We never do, do we?
J: No. And I applied and they put me on a roster, a waiting list. And I kept up with it for years. And when it got down to me being number two on the list, I went and checked on it…and the guy before me, something happened to his back, there was an injury or something. So it was my turn. So I went and inquired about it and they told me they didn’t have an application on me. At City Hall. And I was an angry young man then, so I said well when I come back me and my attorney will help you find it. So when I got back somebody had called me and they called me back.
C: What year was this?
J: It was in 1981. And I took the agility test, the written test and everything, and I finally got a call, and the fire chief called me in and told that this was a trying time for he and I both because I was the first African American…He said we live together, this is not like a regular eight-hour job, and the personnel was all white, and he asked me if I was sure that I really wanted this job and I told him yes. And by the grace of God, this is of God’s will. And I was sworn in September 21st, 1981 in City Hall.
C: Wow, so what was that experience like at the beginning, to get along with the other firefighters.
J: Well I had to deal with the racial jokes and the unwantedness and there were some guys that made my life just miserable, trying to make me quit, I was hailed in fires to try to frighten me, I mean overcome with smoke. And like I said the racial jokes. And I would oftentimes eat by myself. I was at the Number 1 station where there were twelve men. There were some guys, every guy there wasn’t bad, but I mean…there were some guys that really took offense to some of the things that were happening to me there. But I can understand that they weren’t in a position to speak up because when you are in an all-white organization you are being outcast. And there was one guy that really, he and I became friends. And they called him up and they told him that they didn’t want him associating with niggers, and he ended up losing his job behind that. And the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross the very first day while I was on shift, and the guys were afraid that they were going to come and drag me out. And the reality was that I didn’t know that I wasn’t wanted there. So my whole sixteen years there, it was just having to deal with…when you’re dealing with ninety men…you know I was sent to different stations, worked with different people, it really took a toll on me. Sometimes mentally because I had a lot of anger inside of me because of the mistreatments. And as time went on, the Lord strengthened me because I realized it was His will. And I ended up in the latter years of my life, I got injured. And the fire department forced me off because the doctor said they didn’t have light-duty. Unfortunately when I came up on disability because of an injury, they had light-duty after I had gone and come back again, and did away with light-duty I guess because (they didn’t want to pay disability). It was some type of journey and I still think about the things now, the mistreatment, the differential treatment, the racial jokes, the name-calling, the belittling, and things of that nature. But the majority of guys that were there…there were some guys that said if they hire niggers they would quit, that they wouldn’t be there and things of that nature, so they made it a lot harder for me. So where some of the guys put out 90 and 80 and 50 percent, I had to put out 110, 120 percent.
C: What…why didn’t you quit? What made you show up everyday that you were supposed to?
J: Because it was in God’s will. Even though I wasn’t as spiritually connected with God as I am now, I understood then that it was God that made all things possible for me. And I was bound and determined to make things better for the people to come behind me. And I got promoted to an engineer, which was a driver. Which, uh…one of the captain’s tried to pass over me and pick somebody else but one guy stood up for me, he wasn’t going to drive and be a lieutenant was well, so that’s how I became a driver. And then I became a lieutenant fire inspector and I came up through the ranks. The first African American to work in upper management, which is fire prevention. And I was the first African American to work on the Natchez Trace, I helped to build the Natchez Trace was an honor within itself…
C: Was that before you…that’s where you met the man who suggested to you about the Jaycees, right. So what did you do on the Natchez Trace?
J: I was an engineering aide, we cut the center line for the road.
C: So is it your fault it’s so windy and slow? Can I blame you for that?
J: No those plans had been implemented before I was even born. We had to get bottle tops out of trees that had grown in the road to make the centerline of the road. They were embedded in the tree, because they started out in the 1950s before I was even born. So you can’t blame me.
C: I just thought finally I found the person! So um back to your experiences as a firefighter if you don’t mind. So you were there sixteen years, so you left in 97. When you left were there any other African Americans hired then?
J: Yes there were.
C: So did you see a difference in behavior of white people accepting the blacks more in those sixteen years…
J: Yes
C: So when you left after sixteen years you would say it was a much better situation than when you started?
J: To a certain degree. I still talk to some of the black guys. It’s still the same basically, it just isn’t as blatant like it was when I started. The racism wasn’t as open. And some of the guys, they didn’t have to experience the things that I experienced. For instance, I was sitting at the eating table one day with all twelve guys and my battalion chief had so much anger inside of me, he jumped up on my back at the eating table.
C: Physically assaulted you?
J: Physically, yeah.
C: And nobody else did anything?
J: Nope.
C: Were you hurt, were you injured?
J: It kind of bothered my back, 350lb man.
C: So are you married, were you married then?
J: I was married then.
C: So how did you balance the stress you felt at work…
J: It wasn’t easy because my ex-wife, she was the first black deputy director in the state of Alabama in emergency management as well and we…there was a lot of pressure on both of us. And uh, it created problems in our marriage because she and I were bitter when it came to a lot of things.
C: Do you have children?
J: I have a daughter.
C: Does she understand what her parents did that makes things easier for her now?
J: As a matter of fact, the TimesDaily did an article on her.
C: What’s her name?
J: Chandelis Duster. She works with NBC news in Washington, D.C. She’s a producer and…
C: Wow!
J…journalist and reporter.
C: You must be very proud of her, I’m sure you’d be proud of her, we’re proud of our children no matter what they do.
J: But it made her a lot stronger too, she spoke about how she witnessed some of the things her parents had to go through to get where they were.
C: But you’re the one that bore the brunt of it, that you had to do so that young people today don’t have to, and do you feel like your generation really had to go out there and take all that?
J: Yes we did. To make a difference you have to sacrifice. And uh, right now in Florence we have several black lieutenants, we have a black training chief, and we have a black fire chief.
C: I hope they know where all that came from.
J: Yes ma’am I am sure that they do.
C: Well I want to go back to the Jaycees are you still in the Jaycees?
J: No I’m not.
C: How do you feel like you were accepted there when you first started?
J: It was a different type of experience, but they welcomed me and made me feel comfortable.
C: Was there anything that we haven’t talked about that you wanted to make sure you mention about your career and the things you’ve done, that you’ve pioneered for others behind you?
J: Well, God led me to write a book, the name of which is Let Not Your Heart be Hardened. Because there’s so many things in this world that can cause one’s heart to be hardened injustice, poverty, pain, hatred, and power. And the book is the story of my life growing up in poverty and all the bitterness and resentment that I encountered in the fire service. And I was bitter in the latter years and I ended up getting a divorce, and things of that nature. I turned my back on God because I was bitter at all of the things that had happened in my life, especially when the fire department was my world. I worked so hard to get there, then I got injured, it really affected me somewhat mentally. And during the course of those years I had a revelation, a beast came from my soul. I died spiritually and God gave me another chance at life because I could have had a heart attack and went straight to the pits of Hell physically. And the Lord put the words in my mouth to spread ‘let not your heart be hardened for the things of this world.’ He said, ‘my words are true pure and everlasting, and all things in this world shall come to pass.’ So my thing is that, I want to pass on to the younger generation that all things that are accomplished and acquired by you in righteousness should be passed on, or you have lived your life in vain.
C: Where can people find your book?
J: Amazon.com. The title of the book is Let Not Your Heart be Hardened
C: When did you write it?
J: I started writing it in 2011. And the manuscript was written in Zambia South Africa by someone I never met that I don’t even know. We exchanged it over the internet, I typed to her what I wanted, then she would send it back and I would edit and present the story the way that things happened.
C: That’s amazing!
J: That’s the power of the Holy Spirit. God took me to Africa in spirit.
C: So why did you feel it was important to come here today to share your story?
J: Well because, like I said all things that are accomplished in righteousness should be passed on or you have lived your life in vain, so my life will no more, will not be in vain.
C: What advice would you give young people, high school students…what do you want them to know, how would you encourage them?
J: First of all, put God first in your life. Let the Lord lead and guide you. Follow your dream. In order to be successful, you must prepare and you must have a dream. In order for your dream to come true, you’re going to have to be obedient to the Lord and to yourself. But most of all, never, ever, ever give up.
C: You didn’t.
J: And I never will.
C: We’ll conclude the interview and Mr. Duster thank you very much.
J: Thank you.

Cathy Wood

Joe Duster

Florence-Lauderdale Public Library

00:30 to 02:52--Joe Duster's early life in Florence
02:53 to 05:20--After high school: Navy; Federal highway; Jaycees
05:21 to 20:44--Becoming a firefighter; facing discrimination and racism; career as a firefighter