I Saw the Stars – Incredible 1939 WPA Interview
The WPA preserved this astounding interview with John Wesley Dobbs, a tireless advocate of African-Americans and equality. Also remarkable: his grandson, Maynard Jackson, became Atlanta’s first black mayor and is the namesake of the Atlanta airport.
1946 Family Photo, from Amistad Research Center collection
Dobbs, like many of his generation, had a difficult life. His mother’s work was in a distant city, so he was raised by grandparents and extended family. At twelve, he had to start working as a paper boy to buy shoes and clothes to attend school.
The lucky “break” (his words) came when a pastor paid for his first year of college at Atlanta Baptist College. Despite having to drop out to care for his mother, Dobbs persevered. He studied on his own and passed the civil service exam. He got married in 1906 to “Miss Irene Ophelia Thompson, a native of Columbus, Mississippi.” He found a great job and raised six daughters who all went to college. Never one to sit back and relax, John Wesley Dobbs devoted his later life to voter registration and public speaking. He was invited to help in the re-election campaign of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936.
John Wesley Dobbs is a fascinating. One of his daughters was the first person to integrate the Atlanta Public Library. Mattiwilda, his fifth-born, was one of the first African-Americans to perform with the Metropolitan Opera Company. His grandson grew up to become mayor of Atlanta.
After decades of vigorous efforts on behalf of integration and community development projects, Dobbs died the day the city desegregated its schools. Both Martin Luther King Jr. and Thurgood Marshall attended his funeral.
Battered by both poverty and racial prejudice, Dobbs managed to overcome. He “kept [his] mind on what [he] wanted to accomplish in life” despite detours and disappointments. When he carved out success for himself and his family, he then used advantages gained to better the lives of others in the community. What a story!
More info on John Wesley Dobbs
- Wikipedia has a good article citing his accomplishments
- The Amistad Research Center holds the collection of the John Wesley Dobbs papers
- Amistad’s article with a list of his children and their accomplishments
- 3chicspolitico blog has a great article about Dobbs and his children/grandsonhere: African-American History: Black Politics and Black Families- John Wesley Dobbs and Maynard Jackson
- Where Peachtree Meets Sweet Auburn: A Saga of Race and Family [Paperback] by Gary M. Pomerantz is available at Amazon
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I SAW THE STARS
from American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1940
excerpts from [I Saw the Stars] – interview with John Wesley Dobbs
John Wesley Dobbs, President, Atlanta Civic-Political League & Retired Railway Mail Clerk
December 2, 1939
…The fact that I stopped college didn’t stop my thirst for knowledge. I went to the libraries and read intensively along three lines of my choice: literature, history, and philosophy.
…I married, in June 1906, Miss Irene Ophelia Thompson, a native of Columbus, Mississippi. To this union were born six daughters. All are living. After their birth I was determined that they should have every advantage, every one I missed, and more. I guess my denial of many things during my youth caused me to be more determined.
The first four daughters are graduates of Spelman College. Two of these girls were graduated from Spelman as valedictorian of their class. All four of them have earned masters’ degrees - two from Columbia University, one from Atlanta University, and the other from European universities.
This daughter, my oldest, became head of the French Department at Spelman College, a position she kept until her marriage. Another of my daughters was head of the English Department at Jackson College, in Jackson, Mississippi, and she held this position until her marriage. One of my single daughters is head of the English Department and Dramatics at the Georgia State College, Savannah, Georgia, and the other is head of the Home Economies Department at the same school.
My two younger daughters are in high school. One of my daughters finished Spelman College at the age of nineteen years and held her masters’ degree at twenty years. She was able to get a job because of that right away at the age of twenty years.
…I will say I came from a very, very poor beginning with very little to back me in my ambitions and whatever I have accomplished, if there is anything, I have done if from sheer determination and because I looked up and saw the stars. I have struggled to be useful to mankind.
I say often, ‘It’s what one sets his mind to accomplish that he accomplishes and one cannot just sit by and wait for opportunities to be poured in his lap. He must go out and help make them and then take advantage of all that pass his way. That in what I did. I went out and looked for my opportunities, with my eyes on the stars, and took advantage of all I found.
I didn’t sit idly by and wait, just because I came of very poor parents who separated when I was still a baby, and left me with relatives who were too poor to give but the barest necessities to the members of the large household. I made up my mind at an early age to do something and I guess I can sum it all up by saying I can compare myself with the two ships:
'One ship sails east, the other sails west by the same wind that blows. It’s the set of the sail and not the gale that determines the course as she goes.’
I sat my 'sails’ to rise above poverty and ignorance and whatever the 'gale’ I still kept my mind on what I wanted to accomplish in life, and each day I have tried to do those things that would reflect credit on me, my family, and my race. I have devoted my life and my talents to helping pave the right road for my people.“
[Note: I added some line breaks to make the paragraphs more readable. Read the full, original transcript at the American Life Histories link above.)