The Evolution of a Civil Rights Leader
When Herbert Henderson tells you he grew up in Mayberry, you might be inclined to think of a small town with the second-hand on the clock moving so slowly it could almost stand still, if not go backwards. You think of fi shing at the lake and Aunt Bee’s homemade pies, that goofy trigger-happy policeman and Floyd the barber sitting on the bench outside of his shop chatting with locals. You think of simpler times and an appreciation for humanity—a “love thy neighbor” approach to life.
This is not the Mayberry that Herbert grew up in. No, his Maybeury, spelled differently in West Virginia than in the TV version, was located in a coal town in McDowell County where he grew up with his fi ve brothers and three sisters. In his Maybeury, the white kids went to a different high school than the black kids and the black kids had to get up before dawn to catch the bus to school while the white kids got to sleep in in an effort to keep the races segregated even in transportation. His Maybeury offered the black kids second-hand books that were often outdated and used football equipment salvaged when the white school cleaned out their locker rooms. Yet, if you ask him what he thinks of white folks, he will tell you, “Not all white people are bad.”
Recognizing A Flawed System
This isn’t the kind of statement you would expect from an African-American man that grew up in the face of segregation and racism, knowing at an early age that the “system” was broken in a bad way. Herbert has walked away from bigots, judgmental co-workers and even crosses burning in his yard to become a leader of the civil rights movement that has given hope to African-Americans across the country.
The racial injustices targeted at African- Americans in West Virginia in the 50s were evident even to young Herbert.Thinking back to the days he spent in the black high school in Maybeury, remembering the hand-me-down textbooks and football gear, he recalls an epiphany from his adolescent years: “I fi gured it out…it was a hell of a thing that went on there, but there was nothing I could do about it. It was part of the system at the time.”
Herbert’s father worked as a coal miner to feed and clothe his nine children. Every day he put on his work boots and headed underground to earn a paycheck and every day he told his kids, “You’re not going in the coal mines.” Because of his father’s resolve, neither Herbert nor his fi ve brothers had to enter a life-long career in the dangerous underground world that his father knew so well. He says his parents didn’t know how to “get out from under the system” because they were poor, and yet Mr. and Mrs. Henderson somehow managed to instill in their children the idea that education is the key to a brighter future and better life.
Finding A Purpose
Like several of his brothers, Herbert started his adult life by enrolling in the military. Two weeks shy of his seventeenth birthday, he enlisted in the army, forging his father’s signature. He then left Maybeury for a two and a half year stint in the army, where he learned even more about the evils of racism. After traveling the states and the Far East, he returned to West Virginia to fi nd higher learning and a knack for football at West Virginia State College. His plan was to attend medical school after graduation, but he was invited to try out for the Pittsburgh Steelers—an opportunity this former all-conference player and team captain couldn’t pass up.
War cut his time with the Steelers short, though. “I had forgotten about the Korean War,” he remembers of the time, chuckling at the way fate tricked him. “I was in the reserves and I’ll be damned if I didn’t get a telegram telling me to come back in the army again.” The telegram took him to the artillery center in Oklahoma where his continued military training included two years of college crammed into his four-month stay.
After becoming an artillery offi cer, Herbert went to Japan to receive training in chemical warfare. While there, copies of the New York Times arrived, the focus of which was on the controversial Brown v. Board of Education. Herbert, the only black man in the battalion, remembers the time as if it were yesterday. “We got the New York Times…everyone was passing them around. It was talking about Brown v. the Board of Education. I read it and then I wrote my mom and said I’m not interested in medical school anymore. I made up my mind—I wanted to be a part of that.” Herbert decided he would go to law school upon returning to the states, even though the brigadier general guaranteed him a successful military career in spite of his race.
The experience of being refused food was nothing new to Herbert. Having just returned from his stay in Japan, where he made a life-altering decision that would eventually lead to his involvement in the NAACP, he met some white military men at an airport that had become his friends through their service together. Trying to decide on dinner, Herbert chose a hotdog at the airport. Dressed in his military uniform, with his medals and ribbons displayed proudly on his broad chest, he asked the girl behind the food counter for a hotdog and was surprised when she said no. He remembers, “She said ‘I can’t sell to you’ and I said, ‘I beg your pardon?’ She repeated, ‘I can’t sell to you.’” He had just returned from Japan where his offi cers and enlisted men worshipped him and he was being turned down a hotdog in the country he had been risking his life to defend. “(My friends) were mad; I was mad,” he remembers. “I never did call my white friends again.” The anger towards white people that threatened to overtake him in the wake of this single incident fueled the growing resolve he had to go to law school and make things right.
Standing Up…And Standing Out
George Washington University had never had a black student before Herbert Henderson. When he filled out his paperwork, there was no blank for “race” but he didn’t think anything of it until he found himself as the sole African-American on a very white, prestigious college campus. “I was there for three years,” he says, “and none of the white students ever spoke to me.” It was a challenging period for him not only as an African-American but also as a student. Of his class of 365, only half passed; several students committed suicide because the pressure was too great. These white students succumbed to the pressure and didn’t have the added weight of racism to deal with like Herbert did.
Hard times didn’t end with graduation from law school. Herbert and his young wife, after much searching for the right place to grow roots and start a family, settled in Huntington, West Virginia. While he remembers lawyers that were prejudiced against him, he says that his experience with most of them was that they were embarrassed when he was turned down for jobs at their practices. One funny thing he remembers about the white lawyers trying to avoid uncomfortable situations caused by Herbert’s race was that they would always disappear at lunch; going to lunch with Herbert was diffi cult because he would be refused service in the restaurants in town.
Unhappy with his family’s living conditions, Herbert used the ruse that he had other job offers in California to get his family moved out of Huntington’s “ghetto”—a part of town where black people couldn’t buy homes or wouldn’t buy homes and didn’t try to overcome the limits like these placed on them by white people. He mentioned the option of leaving the state to a white lawyer. A couple of weeks later the chief judge in Huntington approached Herbert about buying a home in order to get Herbert to stay in town. By this, he began to realize that not all white people are bad.
Herbert and his family settled for a different house. Shortly after moving into their new home, they found out the neighbors were passing a petition to keep the Hendersons out of the neighborhood. He didn’t pay attention to the tactics of the bigots that lived around him. Even when burning crosses and torches and signs reading “Nigger go home” appeared in his yard, he didn’t run with his tail between his legs.
Becoming A Leader
The hard times paid off when, in the 60s, Herbert was able to get involved in the NAACP, becoming the state president for the civil rights’ organization. He spent several years traveling between New York and Huntington, working for the organization the fi rst half of the week and focusing on his law fi rm in Huntington the second half of the week. This was the opportunity he had been waiting for; he had fi nally realized the dream that began in 1954 when he picked up the New York Times while stationed in Japan.
Herbert received several awards during his work with the civil rights movement, but the one he is most proud of is the Robert Ming Award from the NAACP. He was bestowed this prestigious honor in 1995 by the organization’s board of directors. He served as state president for the NAACP for 20 years and as interim General Counsel for the NAACP National Headquarters in 1984, 1989 and 1990. He also received the Justitia Offi cium Award, the highest honor of the WVU College of Law in 1989; the T.G. Nutter award by the WV Conference of Branches of the NAACP; the Living Dream Award for Civil Rights from the WV Martin Luther King, Jr., Holiday Commission; and entrance into the National Bar Association 1998 Hall of Fame, as well as being named a WV Bar Foundation Fellow. He has been referred to as Mr. Civil Rights for the work he has done to bring justice to minorities.
One other honor that came rather unexpectedly to him was his recognition by the African-American students at George Washington University for being the fi rst black student and paving the way for future generations. “It was about 15 years ago,” he remembers. “I was in the offi ce and some guys called me and they sounded like they’d been drinking beer or something. They said, ‘Is your name Herbert Henderson?’ and I said, ‘Yeah.’ They said, ‘What year did you fi nish?’ I told them and the guy (on the phone) fi nally came out and said, ‘Are you black?’ I said yes…and you could hear them all talking in the background, going crazy. About a month later, the black students (at George Washington University) went to the dean and they fl ew me up and introduced me to everyone. They wanted to see how I was and I told them stories about how I would smoke at break time and how I would stand next to a group of white guys and try to be close to them and they would always walk away. I told them how it was for three years and those grown women—tears rolled down their faces, they cried like babies. ‘How could you do it for three years,’ they would ask. I told them it was tough.”
Escaping The Chains Of Hate
As a man that has faced hard times at the hands of white people, it’s hard to imagine him escaping a life that harbors bad feelings towards them. Herbert says his church and his belief in Jesus Christ has helped him to not hate white people for the injustices he and other African- Americans have suffered. “I’ll put it this way, like I told my students at Marshall, all black people are not bad, all white people are not bad, and you’re crazy if you think they are. And for everybody that is a bigot, there’s one out there (that’s good). What are we looking at—the color of skin or what you’re made of?”
If a young African-American asked him what the one possession is that they would most need to succeed in the world today, Herbert says his answer would be education. “That should be the most important thing for African-Americans. There’s no question in my mind about that because if you’re smart enough, you can go any damn (place).”
Paving The Way For Future Generations
Trent Redman is just one of the many young African-American professionals that have benefi ted from Herbert’s life work of establishing and defending the rights of other African-Americans. A 1997 graduate of West Virginia University’s law school, Trent is a managing member of Redman, Payne and Muldoon, PLLC, and has served the state as a public defender, a magistrate court judge and an assistant prosecutor.
Trent sees the opportunities for African- Americans today to be far greater than those offered to his parents—the working class poor of the Appalachians in the 60s. “Today,” he says, “African-Americans have greater access to greater resources. The world economy has come to the front door of West Virginia and its citizenry, black as well as white. The Internet has created a playing fi eld that is inviting to all, if you can gain the knowledge and acumen to get in the game.” He agrees with Herbert’s assessment of education being vital to the African-American’s success, adding, “In the past, without education there was no hope for black people to succeed. However, as the global market has become more important to individuals, education is a means by which all people have access to greater opportunities. Education is a platform to economic viability.”
Herbert faced discrimination when fi nding a job after completing law school, but Trent’s work-related obstacles in the same fi eld are based on his experience and not his skin color. “In today’s West Virginia,” Trent explains, “the question is not whether an attorney is black or white; it is whether the attorney will work hard and be honest with his clients and the court.”
In the early 60s, Herbert found himself surrounded by bigots that would not serve him meals in restaurants or sell him a house. Today’s Huntington is far different for Trent than it was 40 years ago for Herbert. “I was extremely lucky when I came to Huntington because I was received with open arms both personally and professionally within the community. I was embraced by my neighbors as well as the judiciary and bar from the moment I came to Cabell County.”
Racism still exists, but Trent is grateful to the civil rights leaders like Herbert that have kept him from having to endure the same injustices that his parents had to face years ago. The instances of racism and discrimination that he has had to deal with are instances he credits to individuals who are ignorant and fear what they don’t know. “For instance,” he explains, “many think that the only reason I got into law school was because I was black. Maybe it was; however, most of those people never considered my undergraduate degrees in biology and chemistry, my LSATs score or my GPA. For many, it is easier to just assume without investigating that I am what I am solely because of my skin color.”
Men and women like Herbert Henderson fought the broken system so that today’s young African-American professionals like Trent Redman would have the law on their side. Is Trent bitter towards white people for the way his parents and leaders like Herbert were treated? “I believe that civil rights leaders did what they did so that I wouldn’t have to harbor ill will. I am owed nothing from the people for something a member or members of their race did decades or days ago. I must, as a reasonable and intelligent human being, realize that I cannot experience life most fully if I carry the grudges of the past.”
