Dionne Warwick sat down for an interview with Jennifer Hudson and reflected on the challenges she faced during the civil rights era. Warwick said it wasn’t segregation she faced at the time, but rather “degradation.”
The “Heartbreaker” singer specifically recalled a disturbing experience she faced when she was on tour with Sam Cooke in South Carolina. Warwick said she remembers going into a restaurant with Cooke at the time and being told that she can’t sit down.
After being told to go stand in another corner of the restaurant, Warwick said she did as she was told and then asked for a menu. But the waitress snapped, telling the singer, “You just wait until I’m ready.”
Warwick said that’s when she had to remind the waitress that she’s from East Orange, New Jersey.
“I’m a hoodlum, yeah,” Warwick said. “I told her to take the food we’re going to order and stick it up her …”
When she got back on the bus and the crew asked for the food, Warwick said she told them it’s “hung up in that woman’s butt.”
An officer approached the bus a few minutes later, Warwick said. When the officer asked for some “gals” who were making trouble, Cooke stepped in and said “there are no gals on this bus.”
“We have ladies and gentlemen,” Cooke told the officer, according to Warwick.
“This happens to be a private bus and happens to belong to me,” Cooke added. “I’m going to ask you very nicely, please leave.”
The officer did as he was told, Warwick said.
Cooke then turned to Warwick and said, “You could have got arrested, look at the publicity we could have had.”
Warwick, however, wasn’t worried about any publicity. She was only proud to stand up for her rights.
Warwick also told the same story in the Netflix documentary ReMastered: The Two Killings of Sam Cooke, Technique reports. The 82-year-old talked about how Cooke often stood up for “anybody that he cared about,” including that day in South Carolina when the officer approached Warwick.
