People were burning rock ’n’ roll records in the city squares back then

 
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The only white people you ever saw down there were the people who came to buy bootleg beer or whiskey. But Slaton’s a small town, and I could hear this music through my window coming from this place a few blocks away called the Black and Tan Café. So I’d sneak out my window and go through the alleys and the back roads and sit outside this place and listen to the music. I’d just sit out there in the parking lot and listen to the music. I remember the smell of that place - it was like whiskey and sweat. There was a lot to see in that parking lot, too. Slaton was a dry city, no alcohol sold, so the only booze available was bootleg beer or whiskey, and there was a bootlegger right next to the Black and Tan. Every once in a while I’d see a big ol’ Buick or a big ol’ Oldsmobile pull up there to the window, flash its lights, and, by golly, hell, that’s ol’ Joe T.! Why, he’s the drugstore owner and a deacon in the church! I’d see some of the so-called respected city fathers and captains of industry of Slaton down there associating with this element that was completely taboo. Not only that, they were buying alcohol. And I thought, Man, somethin’ ain’t right. I was always being told, “Don’t ask, don’t do it, it’s wrong,” and “If you do it you’re gonna die and go to hell!” and then I’d see the same people who told me not to do it doing it themselves.