Making a Way

In 1973/74 when the gasoline shortage hit, the federal regulations stated that the wholesaler who had supplied us with gasoline in the previous year had to set aside at least that amount for the following year. However, none of our suppliers had gasoline all of a sudden regardless of the regulations. I contacted Birmingham, the regional office in Atlanta, and even the Washington, D.C. office, but nobody could get any gasoline for us. There came a morning when my gasoline supervisor called me and said he had pumped the last gallon of gas into the buses. I went to a lot of places, called several major suppliers like Gulf, Standard Oil, and BP. None of them had gasoline. Well a retailer in Montgomery, a black retailer, said he’d let me have gas but I had to transport it from his pump; he couldn't deliver it. He suggested where I could buy a 500-gallon truck, so we bought it and pumped 500 gallons from his supply. That saved us for another day! Then my school attorney, who lived in Alexander City, got his local distributor to agree to sell us gas. But when the Alexander City distributor delivered the gas to us, the local distributors in Tuskegee heard about it and complained to the corporation. They threatened to cut him off if he continued delivering outside his own area, so that source dried up, too.

In desperation that next morning, I told my secretary that I was going north on I-85. I didn't know where in the hell I was going, but I’d call her. And when I got 25-30 miles up I-85, I happened to look across at south 85 and saw a gasoline tanker going south. I crossed over and caught up with him. When he stopped to make a delivery, I introduced myself, told him my problem, and he suggested that maybe I ought to try independent deals. I told him I had called Gulf and Standard and he said, “No, you need to try independent dealers.”

When I went back to the office, we looked up independent gasoline dealers and called all the numbers but one that I had purposely ignored because the name of the company was obnoxious to me. The name of the company was Rebel Oil Company. Having gotten nowhere with the other companies, I finally decided, “I guess I’ll call these damn rebels.” So I asked my secretary to call Rebel Oil, and the owner got on the line. I gave the man the particulars of my problem. He said, “Well, let me call you back within 10 minutes.” I’m satisfied he wanted to verify whether my call was a hoax or legitimate. And sure enough, he called back. He didn't ask for me by name. He said to my secretary, “Let me speak to the superintendent.” And he asked, “What’s his name?” and she told him. And when I got on the line, he told me, “Well, I've got a tank car with 10,000 gallons in it. We can have it over at your place by 9:30 tomorrow morning, but we have to make a one-drop delivery and here’s what it costs, and before we unload, you have to give my man a cashier’s check for that amount. I said, “We’ll have it.” And when that taker pulled in that next morning, all of those segregationists were shocked. Strangely enough, within 24 hours the three local distributors had gasoline. So we were able to resolve that problem.