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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Griffin African American Oral History Project
Subject
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Georgia--History, Local
African Americans--History
Georgia--Communities
Description
An account of the resource
The Griffin African American Oral History Project is a collaboration between the Griffin Branch NAACP, the Griffin Campus Library of the University of Georgia, and the Richard B. Russell Library. The seed was planted in the meetings of the Educational Prosperity Initiative which is also chaired by the president of the Griffin Branch NAACP, Jewel Walker-Harps. Collaborators on the project include: Griffin Housing Authority; Spalding County Collaborative; Fairmont Alumni Association; University of Georgia—Athens and Griffin campuses; and the Educational Prosperity Initiative, which is an affiliate of the Spalding County Collaborative and others. Interviewers on the project include: John Cruickshank, librarian at UGA-Griffin Campus Library; Jewel Walker-Harps, President of the Griffin, GA Branch of the NAACP; Art Cain, coordinator of Continuing Education for UGA-Griffin; Be-Atrice Cunningham, project manager for College of Agricultural and Environmental Science for Griffin; and Ellen Bauske, senior public service associate at the Georgia Center for Urban Agriculture in Griffin. Rich Braman was the sound engineer for this project. <br />The Griffin African American Oral History Project intends to document the experiences of people who lived in Fairmont Community in Griffin, Georgia during the civil rights era and through its transformation to the present day.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
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2015-2018
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
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Oral histories
Identifier
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RBRL418GAA
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Griffin, Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.4
Interview with Cheryl Head Rashad and Raymond Head III, June 22, 2017
RBRL418GAA-015
RBRL418GAA
Griffin African American Oral History Project
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia
Cheryl Head Rashad
Raymond Head III
Be-Atrice Cunningham
Jewel Walker-Harps
Ellen Bauske
Rich Braman
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0
Kaltura
audio
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79
Parent's careers / Fairmount High School
If you all could start off telling...
Rashad talks about her childhood and describes her mother's job as a teacher and her father's job as a tailor. Rashad recalls finding out about the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the impact it had on her world perception as a child. Rashad describes Fairmount High School, and the quality of the teachers.
Fairmount, Georgia;Griffin, Georgia;Philander Smith College
489
Fairmount High School (cont.) / segregation in Griffin
Wherever we went, there was first place...
Rashad talks about the nature of the teachers at Fairmount High School. Rashad mentions how they still enjoyed recreational activities despite the disadvantaged developments innate to segregation. Rashad describes her parents' upbringing and the effects segregation had on their childhood.
Fairmount High School;Griffin, Georgia;Juanita Morris;Mississippi Delta;segregation
917
Businesses in Griffin, Georgia / Impact of Fairmount High School
Being a business man himself...
Rashad talks about her maternal grandmother, Pauline Head, and the impact she and the rest of her family had on the businesses of Griffin, Georgia. Rashad recalls the cultural impact Fairmount High School had on the Griffin community.
Cleanwell Pressing Club;Fairmount High School;Griffin, Georgia;Pauline Head
1304
Dealing with discrimination
I had a neighbor next door to me...
Rashad talks about ways in which the Griffin community promoted moral standards in the children. Rashad recalls how community recreation was completely segregated and describes some of her earliest memories of segregation. Rashad mentions the ways in which her mother confronted discrimination.
discrimination;Fairmount High School;Griffin, Georgia;segregation
1718
Dealing with discrimination (cont.) / Desegregation
She said, " I am a married woman...
Rashad relates some instances in which her mother, Ceiola Head, responded to discrimination during Rashad's childhood. Raymond describes the cultural shift in Griffin towards a desegregated community. Raymond talks about the Ku Klux Klan's impact on integration efforts, and their retaliation towards black businesses and residents.
discrimination;Griffin, Georgia;integration;Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
2128
Desegregation (cont.) / Attending Griffin High School
Can you tell us a little bit more...
Cheryl talks about the Biracial Committee of Griffin Georgia, which was created to ease tensions between blacks and whites during mandatory integration. Raymond explains how he came to attend Griffin High School and the difficulties that came with integration.
Fairmount High School;Griffin High School;segregation
2615
Assimilating into Griffin High School
Now, how did the kids take us?
Raymond recalls the strategies he used to stay safe as one of the first black students to attend the newly integrated Griffin High School. Raymond mentions other strategies used by the other black students to promote assimilation. Raymond describes his first impressions of Griffin High.
Griffin High School;integration
3009
Assimilation (cont.)
And I recall a situation...
Raymond recalls some interactions he had with different students at Griffin High School, and some of the subtle discrimination methods used by some Griffin community members after integration. Raymond mentions of his regret at not being able to attend Fairmount High School.
Griffin High School;integration;Tennessee State University;University of Tennessee
3416
Reflecting thoughts on integration
My only concern after I went through...
Raymond reflects on his time at Griffin High School, and mentions his wish for more individual instruction at the school. Raymond describes how his experience at Griffin High School has impacted his adult life and career. Raymond expands upon the integration process in Griffin.
Griffin High School;integration;Spaulding High School
3765
Effects of integration on the black community / Black businesses
Well, your family was...
Raymond reflects on the Griffin African American community's reaction to integration. Raymond recalls some of the black businesses located around his hometown of Griffin, Georgia.
desegregation;Griffin High School
4280
Clubs in the Griffin community / Running for office
Your mom was a member of the...
Raymond and Cheryl recall some of the community clubs around their home town. Cheryl lists some of the clubs her parents regularly participated in. Cheryl relates some of the memories she has about her father, and his decisions to run for office in the city of Griffin.
Busy Matrons Leisure Hour (BMLS);community clubs;Griffin, Georgia
4741
Raymond Head Jr.
So it took a couple of tries...
Cheryl talks about her father's rise to the position of city commissioner of Griffin. Cheryl discusses her father, Raymond Jr.'s, impact on the Griffin community.
city commissioner;Griffin, Georgia;National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP);Raymond Head Jr.
5168
Raymond Head Jr. (cont.) / Concluding thoughts
When I look back at what my dad wanted...
Cheryl recalls her father, Raymond Head Jr., receiving the General Griffin title by the Griffin community. Cheryl talks about her father's passing and recalls the presence Raymond Jr. had on the community. Cheryl and Raymond share their thanks for their supportive community members.
General Griffin;Griffin, Georgia;Raymond Head Jr.
Oral history
rbrl418gaa-015_rashad_head RICHIE BRAMAN:Okay, perfect. Anytime you're ready. JEWEL WALKER-HARPS:Be-Atrice. BE-ATRICE CUNNINGHAM:Today is June 21, 2017, and I'm Be-Atrice Cunningham, and I'm joined by. WALKER-HARPS:Jewel Walker-Harps, Griffin branch, NAACP. ELLEN BAUSKE:Ellen Bauske, Center for Urban Agriculture. BRAMAN:Richie Braman, also with the Center for Urban Agriculture. CUNNINGHAM:And today, we'll be speaking with Ms. Cheryl Head Rashied and Raymond Head III, the children of the late Raymond Head Jr. We're at the University of Georgia, Griffin Campus in the Center for Urban Agriculture's conference room in Griffin, Georgia. And we're conducting this interview as part of the Griffin African American Oral History Project. Thank you both for joining us today, and thank you for coming in just to share your story as well as your family's story. If you can, please just start off by stating your name and your birth year. CHERYL HEAD RASHIED:Good afternoon, thank you. My name is Cheryl Head Rashied. I was born in 1948. RAYMOND HEAD III:And my name is Raymond Head III, and I was born in 1950. CUNNINGHAM:All right. And if you-all could start off by just telling us a little bit about your early life, if you can tell us about your childhood. Like where did your start off, where did -- where were you born, and where did you grow up? RASHIED:Thank you, Be-Atrice. Because I am the oldest of the Raymond Head children -- I'm the oldest sibling, one sister, Raylanda, and my youngest brother Raymond. We are stairsteps; we are a year apart. Born in Griffin, Georgia, at 438 North Fourth Street in Griffin right in the Fairmont community, which was the center of our life as children. Everything took place in this community. We were a small community. My mother, Ceola Johnson Head was a teacher. My father at that time, as a child, was a tailor. He worked at what we call the shop. It was Cleanwell Pressing Club. He was there. My mother said that he spent most of his time at the cleaners, and that's where we knew him to work. Mother was a very good mother. Being a teacher, she wanted us to do the things that she thought were best for us. My brother Raymond was in her class in the second grade? HEAD:Third grade. RASHIED:Third grade. She was a third grade teacher and so we grew up as teacher's children. Then you always said, "Preacher's children and teacher's children, they had to walk that straight and narrow," so... And she was very strict about us doing homework and being the best little children that we could be. I think my brother was in her class at one time, is that correct, Raymond? HEAD:That is correct. RASHIED:And when those grades weren't quite what he wanted them to be, what happened? CUNNINGHAM:(laughs) She didn't spare the rod. (laughter) RASHIED:She didn't spare the rod. She got him straight before he could get back to the class, and when he was back into the class, he fell in line. So we had a very happy childhood in Griffin. My mother was a -- she called herself a U-All girl. She was born in Arkansas; she grew up in Mississippi. She was raised in Mississippi, so she -- growing up in the '40s, she knew about being a child of the South. And my bro-- my father, also a Griffin boy, growing up in Griffin. They met each other at Tuskegee Institute, which is now Tuskegee University in Alabama. And they started their romance right at the end of my father's schooling there. So I had a very -- a good childhood. Fairmont, as I said, was the center of my world. I was a pretty good student. I was considered an honor student and enjoyed my friendships with my friends. I think everything was all well in my world until maybe 1963, and that was the year that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. And I can remember my biology teacher making that announcement to the class. And she came into the biology lab and said, "The President has been shot," and I thought this is the most terrible thing, how could the president of the United States be shot? And she was quite disturbed by this fact. And so I can remember quite distinctly walking home that day thinking that if this can happen, anything can happen, anything terrible. My world seemed to be changed in a sense. And maybe right about that time in 1963, we started to have this upheaval all across the country in terms of civil rights. But up until that time, my mother and my father -- I would say we were maybe sheltered from most of the woes of the world, and we had a happy childhood. I went on to graduate. I married out of high school. I was what you would call a child bride to Reverend Shropshire's son. We were high school sweethearts and so we had one child, but I continued my education and graduated from Philander Smith College in Little Rock, and that is where, you know, I became an adult. But up until that time, everything was a good, good life for me. Fairmont -- you've asked about Fairmont, Fairmont High School to me was like a prep school. We had very professional teachers who were concerned about us as young black students, and they wanted the best for us. If you look in any of the Fairmont yearbooks -- and I have started a collection of them -- you will find that we were all well groomed. They wanted us all -- we dressed alike. In the choral pictures, all of the young ladies, your legs were crossed the same. If you had on gloves -- the hair, the dresses were all made the same. The young men dressed a certain way. We wanted to show that we were good and decent people and so our activities, we were outstanding in everything that we did. We -- wherever we went, it was first place whether it was in sports or chorus or dramatics. The teachers were -- they were young teachers themselves. A lot of them were just out of college and so they made us want to do the best we could there. And the record will show that even now that most of us have continued to go on to uphold those standards. I don't want to ramble. I know you've asked me about early childhood but anything in particular? Then, I can refocus on that, so I can stay -- JEWEL WALKER-HARPS:Who was the biology teacher (inaudible) -- RASHIED:Ms. Crew. WALKER-HARPS:Crew. RASHIED:Crew. WALKER-HARPS:Beuna. RASHIED:Beuna, Crew, Ms. Beuna Crew, C-R-E-W. Yeah, she was the biology teacher. I had many teachers that I was very fond of. I know that you interviewed Juanitress Morris and her mother Mrs. Juanita Morris. I remember she asked me to come into her class to do a dramatic presentation one day. I -- they said that I poured water on the house. I made them cry that day. And so I had to do this performance for all of the classes, and her class was one of the classes, so I do remember that. But that -- as I said, Fairmont and the Fairmont community was the center of our lives. My late grandfather -- paternal grandfather Raymond Head Sr. was a prominent businessman in Griffin. And there was a park in the community that was named for my grandfather, so not only did my -- was my father honored to have a park named after him, but my grandfather also was the first Head Park, and that was there in my community. And it was all that we had for our reco-- recreational activities because everything was segregated. We, every Fourth of July, have a very vivid memory of being in that park, and families would spread out all through the park with their blankets and picnic baskets from the top of the hill all the way down to the pool. And because the pools were segregated and even in Atlanta, some of the kids were not able to swim in these pools, and they would come down to Griffin by the busloads. And they would be lined up at the pool on Johnson Pool Road, and it was the happiest time. Those were really happy times. So we were a very close-knit community because everything was segregated. We played together, we went to church together, we went to school together, all of our social activities were together. It was just us. And so little did we know at that time, the tide would change, but I was used to segregation. Of course, we're not talking about that now, but that -- it was a happy childhood. WALKER-HARPS:Very clear. RASHIED:Thank you. CUNNINGHAM:So you did mention that your -- both of your parents were childrens of the South. RASHIED:Yes. CUNNINGHAM:Did they tell you anything about what life was like for them growing up? RASHIED:Yes. My mother was an only child. She grew up in the Mississippi Delta, Swiftown, Mississippi. She went to high school in Greenwood, Mississippi. Her father had a country store, and I can remember that. I remember my maternal grandfather. He came to Griffin, had a stroke, and died when I was five years old. That was quite devastating for my mother. But he was very fond of my mother and called her Sister. She had a lot of nicknames growing up as an only child. But she knew about segregation being an only child out in the country and being an only child -- my maternal grandmother was from Arkansas, and they met in Arkansas and moved to Mississippi. Her grandmother lived with her and so I think she was probably a spoiled child. She always told me she had nice clothes. They were able, my grandmother, to dress her in nice things and so she had a good childhood. I can remember traveling back with her to Mississippi, and we would always have to travel during the day. You couldn't travel during the night going back in that part of the country nor could you get a hotel. And people would put up their homes where you could stay. I remember staying -- I don't know if you remember that, Raymond or not -- but staying at a house as a little girl. These were strangers, but there would be certain homes that you could stay with because it wasn't safe to travel during the day. And I remember once going through Mississippi, and we stopped at a little hamburger shack, and I remember us getting out going to get these -- try to get a hamburger. And the man said, "You-all need to go back to the back," and I remember my mother saying, "We don't do the back," and we got back in the car. And I remember I wanted a hamburger, but we did not. And so that was life as what I know of my mother growing up in Mississippi. My father and his brothers because there were three little boys, they had, I think, a happy childhood. And I think because my grandfather was a prominent businessman during that era that they were able to have a pretty good life during that time. I recently found out that my paternal grandfather had gone to Savannah State College. I did not know that, and I'm going to have to do research. Up until that time, I only -- I really didn't know, but I just found that out. But being a businessman himself and my maternal grandmother, they all wanted the best for these three little boys. And by him opening this business, the Cleanwell Pressing Club, afforded them these opportunities that a lot of kids did not have. Some would say they were lucky; I say that they were blessed that our opportunities... Because my mother being that only child and they wanted to send her to school and give her that opportunity, gave her an opportunity that a lot of young girls did not have and so that was a blessing. The same thing for my father, his mother and father wanted the best for him. They were just afforded an opportunity that a lot of people were not able to have, and that gave them this gift of an education that allowed them to help us and further us along. So -- WALKER-HARPS:So that was -- excuse me. Ms. Pauline was your paternal -- RASHIED:My paternal grandmother. Pauline Phillips Head was my paternal grandmother. That was Raymond Jr.'s mother. She was a wonderful grandmother and mother. She was a Griffin girl. She came from a family of about 17 children if I'm not mistaken on that number. And so she met Raymond Sr., and they made their home there in Griffin. She was also a part of the Head businesses. Raymond Sr., my grandmother, Pauline Head, Otis Jr., and Phillip made up the Head Enterprises businesses of that day, and so... CUNNINGHAM:Earlier, you alluded to some fond memories of growing up in the Fairmont community with the picnics. Are there other memories that you'd like to share with us of what the community was like? RASHIED:As I said, the community was very close-knit. I had my little friends, girlfriends there in Griffin. I can remember us doing things that children do, making mud pies. And I was always creative coming up with parties, creating little clubs and those types of things. But Fairmont, the school provided many extracurricular activities for us. I was in the drama club, so I definitely enjoyed that part of it. Mr. Felton Stringer was one of my favorite teachers, and he had me to join the drama club and so I enjoyed going to a lot of the competitions for dramatics. And I remember one year, we took first place, and I took best actress, and a friend of mine took the best actor part. So I always like to say I have a little actress in me. I miss my calling on that, but I did enjoy that, and so... But there were the football games, and one thing, we had a very fine band. I would say one of the best in the state and one of the best directors probably in the country, Mr. Rufus Tucker. And that band would come down Fourth Street, on my street, on their way to the stadium on Saturday nights. You remember that? HEAD:Mm-hmm, right. RASHIED:Tray and you were -- were you in the band during that time? HEAD:In the ninth grade -- RASHIED:In the ninth grade? HEAD:-- I was in the band. RASHIED:In the band. And they would come down. HEAD:Right. BAUSKE:What did you play? HEAD:I was a trumpet player. BAUSKE:Great. (laughter) RASHIED:But they would put on a show when they -- see, when they got in front of our house, they knew that they would have a big crowd of people. Because people would come from all of the streets over because they knew they were coming down Fourth Street. And they would go all the way down Fourth Street because it ran straight to the stadium. And their majorettes, I always thought we had the prettiest girls were the majorettes, and they would be stepping, and they would start to play, and that was a very fond memory of the band. And so we were outstanding and everything. I would say the cheerleaders, the band, the chorus, the organizations that we had, I enjo-- WALKER-HARPS:So you know Bogarsette? RASHIED:Bogarsette, I was a Bogarsette. That was a social club that was formed by Mr. -- the late Mr. Philip Hood who was a favorite teacher of many, and I believe Ms. CJ Motley?. It was a club that was formed based on the sororities and fraternities of the colleges. And so you had to -- you were invited to join. You had to go through an initiation just like you would in a sorority or a fraternity. And I was invited to become a Bogarsette, and thank you for reminding me of that. That was a fun time because we looked up to the older girls. Once we got down to Fairmont, we just thought Fairmont was the world. Fairmont was such an impressive school even back in the '50s before I got there. As I said, the teachers just instilled in us that you have to be the best, you have to give your best, you want to look the best -- your best. You had to act your best when you were out in the street so to speak. I had a neighbor next door to me, and you just did not get out in the streets and act any way. She would come out -- one of the neighbors, she would come out and reprimand you. She didn't like the girls with shorts too short. She didn't like the boys playing in the baseball field across the street. Is that right, Raymond? HEAD:That is correct. RASHIED:And so you had to straighten up. And another thing about our community, we say it takes a village, it was a village in those days. If I did anything at Fairmont that was not correct, I didn't have to wait to get home or wait a week or so for my mother to find out about it. She knew it when I got home. It was already known, and believe me, I found that out quickly, and so... And plus, I had my uncle Phillip Head's wife was a teacher, and she was a librarian. And she called me into the library once. I think I was talking to my daughter's father, that high school sweetheart and called me into the library about it one day, so... So needless to say, things got back home pretty quickly in those days, so... But there were -- Fairmont, as I said, there were dances and all of the wonderful things that you can think of in that community. And the church also was quite vital to us during that time. That's -- a lot of people's social activities were there in the church, so the church and the school played a major part in my life, so -- CUNNINGHAM:So those major events like the marching band coming down the street, did that bring in other ethnic groups to join in, or was it still very segregated? RASHIED:No. We're talking about segregation. No, that was strictly -- we played football teams in the local vicinity. Everything was totally segregated. I never -- we had no interactions with Griffin High School or, I didn't realize, Spalding High School during that time, but Griffin High School was the high school that I knew the most about. So there was no interaction there at all. It wasn't until much later on during the civil rights era that I even had an opportunity to talk to anyone of another race, so to speak. I would be with my mother if I had an opportunity to say something, but I don't recall ever having a conversation. So no, we were living in a segregated society at that time. CUNNINGHAM:Can you tell us about your earliest memory of segregation in Griffin? RASHIED:Yes. I remember my earliest memories because of little things like the water foundation. You did not drink from the white fountain that we had our own water fountain. We had our own entrances in certain places. My mother -- my father was soft-spoken. My mother, she -- I think coming out of that segregated Mississippi, and Mississippi was notorious in those days with this reputation for, in said terms, the segregation. But my mother, I would be with her sometimes, and she did not mind speaking her mind. And we would go into the local stores downtown and we would -- there were no black salesclerks. They were all white. Everyone was white. You may see a black person running the elevators or doing some janitorial work or those types of things. Those were the jobs that we held. We'd go into the store, and a white clerk would say, "May I help you girls?" The wrong thing to say to my mother. She would immediately say, "There's only one girl standing here, and that's my daughter." She was quick to point that out. That was thought of -- whereas now, you may not think anything about that, but that was thought of as an affront. We were taught to address everyone by a first -- not by a first name but as old folks would say, "Put a handle on it." You were Mrs. Harps or you were a Ms. Rashied or a Ms. Whomever or a Mr. Raymond, but you did not address adults in that way. But during that time, the social mores were that black women were called by their first names, black men were called by their first names. There was no such thing as Mrs. Head. But she also went into a pharmacy. This was written in a book. A pharmacist in Griffin wrote this story that my mother went into the pharmacy. She and this pharmacist had cordial conversations with each other. He would always fill her prescriptions. But on this particular day, I don't know if my mother had just become tired of this or not, but the point was that she... When he filled her prescription on the labels, he would put Ceola Head. Now, the doctor who was Dr. Releford -- Charles, Releford who was a black doctor, the first black doctor -- well, not the first but he had come to Griffin to practice -- would put Mrs. Ceola Head. And my mother told the pharmacist that she wanted to speak to him in private. And she pulled him to the side and told him that -- she called him Dr. B? -- "I noticed that you fill my labels as Ceola Head." Oh, and then my mother, this part of her came out. She said, "I am a married woman. I am legally married, I have a husband, and my children are not bastards. Why do you not address me or label it as missus?" In fact, he addressed her as Ceola whenever she came into the pharmacy and so, as he wrote, that changed his life. From then on, their relationship was not quite the same. But he stated that this was the beginning of a change for him -- that he had never addressed a black woman by the title, missus. That was something they were not used to. He even stated in his book that if he felt close to a black woman, she was an -- well, I would say auntie?, they would say antie. (laughs) But she was never addressed with a title. So that was my mother and some of the things that we encountered or I encountered growing up. But I was very much aware that we had our place. We knew that we couldn't eat at the lunch counters downtown. HEAD:Correct. RASHIED:You want to add something to that? HEAD:Right. We could not eat at the lunch counter. In fact, there were different lunch counters in the five-and-dime store, one was on one wall and one was on the right wall, and you had to choose. You didn't -- really didn't have a choice, so you either ate where you were supposed to or you didn't eat, and that was a part of that segregated period. And that led up to a lot of the picketing that eventually came forth when we decided that it was time for a change. CUNNINGHAM:Well, can you tell us a little bit more about the racial climate during the early days of desegregation? HEAD:The racial climate, I think when we all -- when things began to change or there was a movement for change, well Dad was very instrumental with other black leaders in the community to, in fact, change. And, in fact, they put together a group -- a biracial committee that met often to smooth things through in Griffin because they did not want the hostilities or the violent climate that you had in some of the other southern cities. But there were, were tensions. In fact, there was an active Klan group in Griffin that made it known that they were against any type of possible integration in the city. So when the actions actually began, we started picketing, a group started picketing the five and ten-cent stores, and that was more observed by the populace because most of the downtown businesses were owned by whites. And it got a lot of press in the Griffin Daily News, so you had a lot of people that would fight against that. For instance, our business was a cleaning business and tailoring business. We had a lot of whites that brought their alterations to Cleanwell cleaners because as she just said, my dad was an excellent tailor. But on some days, you would have an individual, a white individual have a bundle of clothes in his hands, and he will walk up to the door and then he would turn around with the clothes and return to his car. Now, either he was a customer or he was not a customer, and a lot of times, we thought he was not a customer. He was sending a message. And some of the messages that were sent really concerned us because I was there a day when the Klan drove up to the business, got out the car, put a cross in front of the business, and set it on fire, and left. I remember when the Klan came and picketed our businesses. I'm on a picture now with one of my nieces, she was a baby, I was holding her in my arms, passing the Klan. Not only did they burn a cross in front of our business, we also had a cross burned in front of our residence one night. Also that cross was burned in front of one my relative's home, my uncle Otis's home. So that really brought the community to be more security conscious of what's going on, and they would patrol during the night the neighborhood to assure that the community was safe. So, yes, there were some hostilities that were there. And I believe there were situations where the police, local police did capture groups that had guns, that had no idea, but they were on a watch list in Griffin, and they were concerned. The Klan was the real concern that we had. And then they met at the local church a lot of times, my father and the other leaders, and they would come by and throw tomatoes at us as we were coming out of the church. So to answer your question, yeah, there were tensions and there were concerns for our safety during that particular time. But as me being a part of the integration of the schools, eventually, it went on without a hitch because of that biracial committee. Because it brought whites and blacks together, the clergy, and civic leader to work through the difficulties that could possibly come up during that time. CUNNINGHAM:Can you tell us a little bit more about the biracial committee, maybe who it was made up of? HEAD:I really can't say who all was on the committee. CUNNINGHAM:Sure. RASHIED:I do know that Mrs. Mary Fitzhugh was one of the white members of the commu-- of the committee. I recently saw their names. I know my father was a close friend of hers, and she was quite active. St. Stephens Episcopal Church was active in helping. The church provided -- were having meetings there at some point. And, also, I believe UGA here may have had some -- was a positive -- like had a positive influence towards the integration process. But I'll think a minute. Go ahead, I just -- HEAD:I'm all right. RASHIED:-- know Mrs. Fitzhugh. WALKER-HARPS:Do you remember those persons who were -- (clears throat) excuse me -- on the committee from the school? There was a committee established between Griffin High and Fairmont High that were -- a plan of integration as far as the students were concerned? HEAD:No, I don't remember. All I know is my dad was very active in a lot of different areas during that particular time. I was still just a student, (laughs) you know? WALKER-HARPS:Oh, what was life like for you as a student, once you were in that group that transferred? HEAD:Right, I was in the first group they transferred, and it was definitely eye-opening. Now, how did I come to that point? I'll explain that. We did have a great family, and growing up, we had loving parents, and they were educated, and I'm blessed that my dad was in the household. And we also experienced a lot because we traveled a lot. Traveled down to Florida to the beaches, and every summer, we would go to the Little Rock, Arkansas, to visit my grandmother, my mother's mother. And while visiting there one day, and I must say that my grandmother would take us all around Little Rock, Arkansas. She liked to walk (laughter), and that's the hardest place that I've ever been. RASHIED:Yeah, -- HEAD:But I do recall during that time she took us over and showed us Central High School who had the Little Rock Nine integrate at the school. And I thought I have never seen a high school as huge as this particular place. It was just awesome. And then I kept thinking about the nine that had to go in there and integrate and had the guards on their side to go in there. I saw that school. Now, here I was in Little Rock, Arkansas, at my grandmother's house, and my mother said, "I just talked to your dad, and he wants you to go to Griffin High." and I said to her, "Go to Griffin High for what?" (laughter) "See, he wants you to integrate Griffin High," and I said, "What? Is Daddy crazy?" RASHIED:(laughs) HEAD:"Integrate Griffin High? I've been with my friends from the first grade all the way up to the ninth grade, been to Fairmont just that last year, the ninth grade, and you want me to transfer to Griffin High?" I said, "I'll have to talk to him when I get back home." (laughter) So when I got home and I approached my dad -- and sometimes, you just have to listen. And he said, "Well, the reason I want you to do it, there have been a lot of families who have committed their kids to doing things in the movement, particularly those that have gone uptown and walked the picket line and chanted and did different things. And I don't want it to seem as if we have sheltered you-all, your sisters" and me. "And I want you to be a part of something, and I want you to do this." Well, he put it that way. (laughter) I said, "Well, I can understand your point," and I said, "I'll do it." Well, that day finally came during the fall of '66. I'm leaving Fairmont High School, and of course, my sister has explained how -- vividly what a great school that was. Now, my take on leaving my community high school to go to Griffin High was like being between two worlds. One world of familiarity where I knew everybody, a world where I had support, a world where I knew I could get academic success to another world that I knew nothing about. There was a fear factor, and the fear factor was the unknown. The fear factor was not knowing what I didn't know. I didn't know what I should know. But I recall that day that I walked into Griffin High, and I said, "Wow, this is a big school, never seen a school this large other than Central," and it makes two or three of Griffin High. But I recall walking down the hallway -- I don't even know how I got to school that morning. I'm sure my mom and dad dropped me off. But as I walked down the hall, one of the students, white students saw me coming down the hall, and he said, "There goes Martin Luther King." (laughs) Now, I didn't know if that was an insult, but when I processed it, it made me feel real good because if he had to say something, that's what he said to me, "There goes Martin Luther King." And at that particular time, that's when I realized exactly what I was there for -- to show my integrity, the people behind me that had to come through behind me. I knew that I had them on my shoulders, and it was important, (clears throat) excuse me, for me to go in there and do my best under the circumstances that I had. It was not easy. It definitely was not easy because at that particular time, I think Griffin High had about 2000 students or maybe more, and there were 12 of us in that first wave in '66 to go in there. Now, I can't name all 12 because I had no idea who was coming into that school that day. But there were individuals that came in as seniors and juniors. I came in as a pure freshman, the 10th grade. It was an interesting experience. Now, how did the kids take us? Well, first thing you wanted to do was just be observant. You had also a concern for your safety because I knew what had gone on previously out in the community, the forces that did not want this, and I didn't know the forces who agreed with it, so I was in a land of unknown. So in order for us to feel that safety net, what the administration decided to do during our lunch hours was to segregate us, in a sense, at one table in the cafeteria adjacent to the teaching staff so as we could be viewed, assuming for safety reason. And I'm sitting at the table, and I'm looking out at all the student. Well, that lasted for about two months, and I recall telling my tablemates -- and this was an all-black table. I said, "If we are going to be students here, we are going to have to assimilate." I said, "So today is the last day I'm sitting at this table." Well, the next day came, I got my tray, went out into the masses, and set my tray down. I cleared about 10 or 15 (laughter) students when I sat down and ate my meal. And then the others started joining different tables, and, I don't know, we cleared out the cafeteria (laughter) that day. But we had to do what we had to do because if we were going to be a part of that school, then we wanted to assimilate. Now, the next thing I know, I'm getting a call to the principal's office. And the principal asked me what was the idea of us leaving our table to go it sit out in the cafeteria and asked me if I was the leader. I said, "No, sir, we -- I'm not the leader. We all agreed that if we want to be a part of this school, we had to assimilate in this school," and I heard no more from him. But going forth in the classrooms, a lot of the classrooms, I was the only black in the classroom. And I always sat along the wall, and of course, my mother told me that would be possibly a safer place to sit because I could observe things around me. Now, I had to go in and sit in the classroom, worry about my safety, worry about the academics, worry about not being communicated with, just being there feeling alone, away from all of my friends. And that was kind of hard to get through. Also at Griffin High, I was in awe of the academic selection that they did have -- Latin, humanity programs, humanity class, and a speech class. And I chose to go into the speech class, and I never would forget that one of my first speeches to the class -- I don't recall what the topic was, but when I got up to speak and I looked out and saw all these white faces, I froze. I couldn't say anything. And I recall -- I'll never forget; Ms. Elliott was the speech teacher. Afterwards, she pulled me to the side, and she said, "It's going to be all right. Next time just take your time." Ms. Elliott was the one who actually named -- won the contest that named the Atlanta Falcons; I'll never forget that. But the next time, I recall doing a speech on the sinking of the Titanic, and I think I had them crying in there, but that was an experience. Now, there were other experiences that were positive and negative. I can say from a positive experience that there were kids in there that were friendly, and there were kids in the class that were not so friendly. I did observe and notice that you-all aren't that much different from the kids in my community or the overall community. There were different socioeconomic backgrounds in that population. I could tell the kids with the parents who had the businesses and had the money. I could tell the blue-collar kids, the kids whose parents either worked at the mills, or the kids that were struggling because I noticed the division that they had in their culture, and I had to adjust. So the person who worked at -- parents worked in the business and they're the popular kid, they would speak because what did they have to lose? But I had the haters over here who would leave notes, the KKK on your desk or in study hall, the massive study hall with 50 or 60 people and you're sitting there trying to study and spitballs come at you and what have you. But I always held my integrity in the situation because I knew that was important, that was important, and those were some of the things. And I recall the situation, a biology teacher that took the class out on a field trip. Behind the football stadium, there was a cemetery, and we were looking at plant specimen. And after we had completed that, he pulled me to the side and said, "I'm -- Raymond, I'm going to take the class to this soda café before we come back to the classroom. And you can go up to the gym and wait till we get back," and I said, "Well, why is that?" He said, "Well, they don't accept blacks in the soda café." I said, "Okay." So as I walked off, this white student came up to me and said, "Raymond, I'm sorry that had to happen." And there were those students that sympathized with the situation knowing the difficulties that I had to go through in that environment, but I kept my head high and kept doing what I had to do. By my senior year, I pretty much had conquered all my fears and what have you. I did go out on the baseball team, made the team as the first black baseball player. Didn't get much playing time but I recall one day at practice, I was in the batting cage -- well, I was waiting to go into the batting cage, and the sheriff for the city was out there to practice. And the coach -- in my earshot, the sheriff told the coach, -- I'm waiting to go in the batting cage -- he said, "I see you got a new batboy," and I said, "Wow." Those were the little things that I had to do-- deal with. And then it came a time when the team got a new uniform and when it got to me, I got an old uniform. Well, I had to tell my mom that, and of course, she went and got that taken care of. I ended up getting the new uniform. (laughter) But those were little things. I don't want to, you know, harp on all the negative things because I did get a lot from the experience. But when I got to be a senior and it was time to decide what you want to do once you left there, I went to my counselor and sat with her, and she said, "Well, what are you interested in doing?" I said, "I want to go to college," and she said, "Well, where do you want to go?" I said, "Well, I like to go to Tennessee State University." And she said, "Well, you know they got some good trade schools available, and I think you'll be more cut out to go to a technical school. I said, "Well, that might the case, but I really would like to go to Tennessee State, can you get me some information on that?" She said, "I can get you some, come back tomorrow." I come back the next day, and of course, you know through the counselor, you get the application, and they have the -- well, the book on the school. And when she handed it all to me and when I got the time to look at what she had given me, I said, "Okay, Tennessee State University," and I said, "Wait a minute. Listen, Tennessee State University is in Nashville." She had given me information on the University of Tennessee." (laughter) CUNNINGHAM:I see. HEAD:Now, that didn't quite -- (laughter) That's in -- so I actually took it back and said, "You know what, I appreciate it, but this wasn't the university I was speaking of," (laughter) but I ended up graduating in that class. I think there were more like 600, 700 in that class, and out of my incoming 10th grade class, I don't remember how many that were in that class, but we graduated. In that class, there were eight blacks, six females, and myself and another male. There was eight of us, and I always said that I knew how Custer there at the Little Bighorn felt having had that experience. But all in all if I look back, I don't know if I would do it again, but they say I broke a barrier. I -- I'll take it. You know I re-- when you-all mentioned the Bogarsette, the male opposite of Bogarsette at Fairmont High was the Bogarsun, and all my friends were in there. And I never -- I hate to this day, I wasn't a part of that. And as far as clubs or any organizations at Griffin High, I was never in anything. I was in the band from the third grade up until the ninth grade, but I refused to get in Griffin High Band because of not wanting to play Dixie. And I mean it is what it is in that respect, so I didn't get in the band. And at no time during my three-year matriculation there did any of my classmate ever invite me to anything. CUNNINGHAM:Can you share with us about some of the differences that you saw at Fairmont High versus Griffin High as far as racial equalities or racial inequalities? HEAD:Well, I think if you just say what other differences were, as I said, there might have been on the academic side some different courses that were offered there. For instance, I say, Latin was over there that might not have been at Fairmont High School. But everything else that they participated in, the different extracurricular activities that they were at Fairmont. My only concern after I went through the experience is that I didn't get the one-on-one that I would have gotten with the instructors. And that mentoring, I didn't get that, so I actually felt I was somewhat behind in leaving Griffin High. I do recall going back to my 40th class reunion, and my wife said, "Well, why are you going back? Nobody is going to know you." She said, "You aren't going to know anybody." I said, "Well, that might be the case, but I want to know that I -- I'm still a Griffin High" -- and at the time they were the Eagles -- "I'm Griffin High Eagle." And I did show up, and I'm on the picture, the only black on there, none of the other black classmates showed up. But it was interesting, I got a lot of people that came up and spoke to me that remember me from the class. But there were a lot of people in the class -- and we were -- my wife and I, we were the only blacks at the event -- that came up and asked me about my experience and applauded me for that. And they said, "That had to -- you had to have a lot of strength to do that" because they want to know was I the only one at Griffin High? I said, "No, I wasn't the only one." But there weren't too many differences that I can see. As I said, it was probably more close-knit at Fairmont High in the fact that, as I spoke earlier about, the socioeconomic of the groups at Fairmont High, it was all one. Whether you -- your income level were below poverty line or you were very well off, it didn't matter, we were all one family. Griffin High, you saw the division, and you saw who dealt with each other. And I recall that in my observance, I always would hear the students talk about, "We're going to Daytona, going to Daytona." I said, "Well, what's in Daytona?" but that was where they would go for their breaks and have a good time. And even though I didn't get to Tennessee State University after graduation, I ended up at Bethune--Cookman College, which is located at Daytona Beach, and I say, "Now, I know why they (laughter) there down there." I had a great, great -- we had a great time there. I felt I had to go back home, and that was where I went when I left Griffin High. But for the experience, I'm able to deal with people of different culture, race, ethnicity, and all, it was a great learning experience for me. And it has helped me in my career. I'm retired now, but it has helped me along in my career. Because I've dealt with the different people in the positive side and the negative side, and through that, kept my head and was able to resolve issues. And it was a good experience. BAUSKE:I have a -- you went to Griffin in 1968? HEAD:No, in '66, I graduated in '68. BAUSKE:Okay. When was Fairmont High School fully integrated and closed as a high school? HEAD:I'm thinking it was around '70, wasn't it, 1970? RASHIED:Seventy -- between '70 and '72. I -- HEAD:Nineteen seventy -- RASHIED:-- but the last -- maybe '72-- HEAD:Two. RASHIED:-- was the last class that I know from Fairmont. Yes, That's about right. WALKER-HARPS:Well, it was at that time when you de-- when they decided that the, oh, the football team would be the Bears instead of the Eagles -- HEAD:Right, right, that was the compromise. RASHIED:The compromise. HEAD:And I am -- I also might add, too, that after my junior year -- I'm sorry, after my whatever would've been my sophomore year, the 10th grade that all the classes or groups started coming into Griffin High like from Spalding Junior High. And then there's -- we were -- it began to multiply in a sense and have a sense of camaraderie there to help everybody through. Because I said one of the first athletes who played football was Marvin Martin, and he was a great athlete over there. And once they found out that he could play, and they played him, and he broke a lot of Griffin High's record, and that kind of softened things up and made it lot better. WALKER-HARPS:Was that the Fernando's brother? Was that -- HEAD:Right. I believe it is, yeah. WALKER-HARPS:Fernando's. HEAD:Right. And that kind of lightened things up, but it was a good experience. CUNNINGHAM:Well, your family was definitely supportive of desegregation, but what about the rest of the black community? What's your sense in how everybody else felt about desegregation? HEAD:Well, I think it was inevitable. They knew that it was coming; it's just that they weren't pushing their kids to go in there. And it was just a certain group, for instance Ms. Denson, her daughter Hanthi, she came over. And so there were the families, and these were some of the families that were leaders in the community saying that "If we're going to do it, we got to sacrifice our kids to step out and do it." And once we were able to test the waters and break the ice, then they came. And then eventually, as I said, a few years later, it was -- everybody was coming. CUNNINGHAM:But when you first went in, were you concerned about any backlash? HEAD:Backlash in the sense of? I'm not -- CUNNINGHAM:Backlash from other cultures. HEAD:Well, the -- well, you know, I was too focused on trying to get through there, too concerned as to what was going on outside of the wall. I was just trying to be safe, hope this environment was safe. And, of course, that was on my dad's watch as far as the backlash and was going on. I think all of us that went there, we represented our community very well. There were no problems or concern that the police had to be called in because of something we did. I'm not -- and I don't know if anything -- any -- no -- nothing came in because of anything that was done to us, I mean physical harm. So I think it was really a peaceful transition for us. And it was -- and I think the record will state that Griffin was in the forefront of a lot of communities around here as far as integrating their schools and their public accommodations. And then that was, you know, a great success due to the contribution of the biracial committee for getting ahead of this and doing exactly what needed to be done because they had the vision to see. CUNNINGHAM:That's true. WALKER-HARPS:But you were not -- students were not volunteers to go. They were pretty well selected and were pretty well screened students and teachers, am I right? Were pretty well screened to make sure that they would be the ones who could do what needed to -- HEAD:I don't know if... Either you volunteer or wanted to go because my dad wanted me to go. But as far as screening, I would've much preferred just to have stayed. (laughter) Because -- and I say this because I knew I had some deficiencies. Well, math was one of mine, and I knew that if I was going, for instance, to a situation where I didn't get really -- had issue with some of the fundamentals, what would that do for me? Because I got all these other issues that I've got to deal with, and I will fall back academically. And I don't have the support to help me along over here. I would have to kind of go back and because my mother was a teacher, so that was a big help on the problem that I did have. But I think more so, everybody that went to the various schools volunteered to go, and no one said, "Well, we're going to send him because his academics are great and he can go and handle the thing." Now, in the group that I went over with at Griffin High the first year, there were some seniors that went over that were great in academics. And, obviously, they wanted to go for whatever their reasons were, but I can't speak for them. But everybody gave their best. And I don't think no one can say that, hey, they were ill prepared when they came over here. Just as I had deficiencies in math, I looked over at some of my counterparts, and they had problems too (laughter) they were dealing with. I said, "Why are you in here, you know you need to be in here. You hating on me? (laughter) You need to be listening to the teacher." (laughter) But so it's -- it's no di-- we were all kids, you know? And we were coming up in a time period of change, and some folks didn't want to see change and some people did. WALKER-HARPS:I have one other question, and you may not know, you may have been too young, yeah, but do you remember the other businesses that were around in your community, immediate community as well as downtown where your dad's business had been -- your family businesses were? Because it was not just the Pressing Club, it was the café -- well, (inaudible) of the café, the sandwich shop, and maybe something else that I don't even know about. But do you remember other businesses that were prominent during that period? HEAD:Oh, sure. You had Ms. Denson who had her salon, hair salon. RASHIED:Ralph and Mary's. HEAD:Yeah, Ralph and Mary -- RASHIED:Ralph and Mary's. HEAD:He was my barber and then you had several barbers in that -- in the area. Then, you had your cab drivers who had their businesses and what have you. You had the shoeshine parlor there. They -- there were businesses, and of course, the church was there in that area where the cleaners were, and they had a lot of things going on. WALKER-HARPS:Eighth Street. HEAD:Eighth Street. RASHIED:Eighth Street -- HEAD:Right, you have a lot -- RASHIED:-- yeah, that's right, yeah (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) -- HEAD:-- going on during the weekend and what have you. But that's just in that little pocket because if you go into the community, you had your local grocery stores and mom and pop, Simmons -- RASHIED:Simmon's Grocery HEAD:-- Grocery -- RASHIED:-- in our -- HEAD:-- on Fourth and Tinsley, -- RASHIED:-- neighborhood. HEAD:-- what have you. RASHIED:Oh, yeah, that was the -- there was a bamboo shack, yeah, a bamboo shack in our -- CUNNINGHAM:What was sold there? RASHIED:That was a little -- it's little snacks, cookies and then I think they had a little -- you get sodas and pig feed and (laughter) pickles and different little things like that. And also, I know Snow's? Rib Shack, that was popular over -- HEAD:Around Solomon. RASHIED:-- on Solomon Street. HEAD:Yeah, and Touchstone had -- RASHIED:Touchstone had their -- HEAD:-- a lot of eateries, what have you. RASHIED:They had their own service stations. There were quite a few black businesses, Van Field's service station and I'm just trying to think. HEAD:Touchstones' gas station. RASHIED:You know there, they had their gas station. WALKER-HARPS:Funeral homes. HEAD:Yeah, the funeral home. RASHIED:We have Miller's Funeral Home and that -- so there were -- WALKER-HARPS:Crockett's. RASHIED:The Crockett's yes, yes. WALKER-HARPS:Stokes. RASHIED:Stokes, yes, they had the funeral home and beauty shop. They were in business. I'm just trying to think of this -- I don't remember -- forget anybody, but there were quite a number of black businesses in Griffin at that time. HEAD:Right. And, of course, the auto dealers-- not the dealerships but the auto repair, a lot of businesses. You took your car in to be serviced and what have you in the community. RASHIED:Yes, yes WALKER-HARPS:Did either of you go to Bowden's Nursery? HEAD:No. RASHIED:No. I know where that was but never -- and I remember when it opened, but no, we did not go to the Bowden's Nursery, so... And that was over in the Fairmont community over in the projects. WALKER-HARPS:Because your mom was a member of the Confederate Women's Club. Did she speak about that, or do you remember? RASHIED:Now, that one I don't remember. There were quite number of social clubs in Griffin. My mother, they started what was called the BMLH Club and that was the Busy Matrons Leisure Hour. That was a bridge club. My mother and my grandmother and a number of teachers and different women were a part of that. There were a number of other social clubs. There was the Lacey Oak club and then you had a garden club. And my father, they had their -- WALKER-HARPS:Cavaliers. RASHIED:-- Caballeros. The Caballeros was started. They also had the Mr. and Mrs. Club that was the married couples clubs. So there was your social Griffin, and there were your -- HEAD:Bridge club. RASHIED:-- bridge club, well as I said, that'd be on the leisure club is your bridge club. You had your businesswomen that had their clubs. So there were a lot of activities going on in Griffin. The veterans club was the center for entertainment at the VFW Post 8480, and my father Raymond was a veteran and one of the first commander and quartermaster. But that's where all of your entertainment was up at the VFW club sitting up on a hill. And that club, also my father would book a lot of acts for VFW. So we saw the likes of James Brown, Otis Redding, you name it, Little Richard, Gladys Knight & The Pips. All of these people came through Griffin, as they say, cut their teeth right there in Griffin. And I would always ask my dad to get autographs of people when they would come to the club, and it was quite a popular spot. We didn't have any other entertainment. Of course, I wasn't able to go. This is in my mother and father's day, and they were -- you know, would go in and enjoy that. But there was -- that was fond memories of knowing that these famous people would come through with their acts right in little old Griffin, Georgia, yeah. WALKER-HARPS:You'll often hear people today talk about Raymond's prominence with the VFW and the professionals, musicians who came to Griffin as a result of him, his work, and Jimmy Holland and (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)). RASHIED:Yes, yes, Mr. Jimmy Holland, a musician, and he and my daddy were great friends. And they -- there were so many memories there that I wish that I had recorded from those days when the club was the hot spot in Griffin. I'm just trying to think of some of the other acts, but if you name some of these -- Ike & Tina Turner Revue, that's one. I had -- did a Motown Revue for the Fairmont Alumni Association for one of our reunions and put on a Motown show. And I took a letter that came from a booking agency out in Texas where they had written to daddy and they had included this flyer about the Ike & Tina Revue. And they were getting started back in those days, and they were right over there at the VFW. So that was another one of Daddy's favorite places, so he did a lot of work over there with the vets. He was a veteran of World War II, and he served in the Pacific Theater. He went to Hawaii, and I think he did about two years, but he went out right after college. He was drafted. And in fact, all of my brother -- his brothers also were vets, so they were all members of the veterans club, the VFW. BAUSKE:Can you turn up?-- WALKER-HARPS:One of -- BAUSKE:Go ahead, I'm sorry. WALKER-HARPS:One of his other sacrifices -- I consider a sacrifice -- was his serving as the first African American elected city commissioner. At that time, it would have been a sacrifice. It was not something that was common to us, and I'm sure it was not an easy deal for him. But we remember and appreciate him for having given to us -- that service for us rather. RASHIED:Well, thank you. My father, I always think of him as just a hometown boy. He loved Griffin, and he was a regular person, a very even-tempered man, very patient, very kind. And so when the opportunity came available, I understand that he was drafted in a sense to run for office. But he would not have shied away from the opportunity to do so because, as my brother said, they were testing the waters on a lot of fronts at that time. And that was about 1968, and the office for city commissioner, they wanted to try to see if we could get some blacks into office. My father knew that there were a lot of needs in the black community. You know with sidewalks and all types of services that we just did not have. And he, I feel, was the right man for that job. As I look back, that was his calling to do so. He said that he wanted to see Mr. A. C. Touchstone that was a local businessman and prominent in the black community, wanted him to run, but Mr. Touchstone thought Daddy should, and he did. And I remember my dad telling the story how he went over to the garment plant and passed out some handbills and cards to a lot of women over there. You see, he had about 500 and went in there and passed them out to all the ladies, and I guess he was feeling pretty good about that. And then he decided to go and thank the manager for letting them come into the plant to pass them out. He said he saw all of those business cards on the floor, you know just about all 500 of them. He said probably they had tossed them. So it took a couple of tries. Sixty-eight and '69, he did not win, but by 1972 was the right timing, and he became the first black city commissioner for the city of Griffin at that time. WALKER-HARPS:Well, he helped to make it the right time because I'm not sure if his (inaudible) is on the lawsuit, but I know that he worked with those very diligently to bring about or to outlaw all the process of having to elect by at-large, the single-member districts. And that allowed the opportunity to exist so that we could elect an African American, and that was the door opening that brought in all of the African American who served as (county?) and city commissioners. RASHIED:Yes, yes. It -- you're absolutely right. You have played such a major part in that story also, Mrs. Harps, to me-- be commended also for your service to the community. I hope you've been interviewed because she's been on the forefront forever as I was talking to my brother about her work in the NAACP. I know that my father thought the world of you in terms of your works and just as a person and as a teacher also, one of the teachers that was most admired in our school. And so we have to thank you for all of your contributions -- WALKER-HARPS:Well, thank you. RASHIED:-- also. WALKER-HARPS:Thank you. But Raymond was my backbone. I spent many hours down there either sitting talking or standing at the counter talking. When I would go in, Phillip will usually say, "Raymond, Ms. Walker's here" (inaudible) say, "Ms. Walker's here." (laughs) You know (I'm glad?) to do that. I was there for advice and assistance or whatever, and he was always willing to give and then to share. I will always be indebted to him and to the services that your mom did as being a very well-known, solid teacher. RASHIED:Thank you. WALKER-HARPS:Yeah. She was select-- when time to select our outstanding teacher, she was in my number. RASHIED:Thank you very much. HEAD:Thanks. RASHIED:We appreciate that. My father Raymond Jr., he had that about himself and often go to the shop, as I said, Cleanwell, and someone would be sitting next to that sewing machine talking. He had a mild manner, a way of talking, and people seem to enjoy just talking and having conversations. I think my brother has that gift. I always enjoy hearing stories that he tells. And my father also had that gift, and he'd be sewing at the sewing machine, and someone would be sitting beside him, and they were talking. He was very generous with his time and his gifts, and as I said, he was just a hometown boy. And as they say a homeboy -- town boy that made good at -- I'd like to think of him like that. He loved the city of Griffin, and he loved the people of Griffin right up until the time in his last years. Eighty-nine years old when he passed. I will be taking Daddy to church, and he'd have his Tuskegee cap on. He loved his school, and he loved his school, and we buried him with his hat in the casket. But Daddy would be sitting on the passenger side, and he'd see some of the local home folk on the street or something. He'd raise that one finger up to let them know that he was acknowledging them, and that was just the type of person that he was. He -- WALKER-HARPS:A very giving person. RASHIED:Very giving. I -- WALKER-HARPS:Never wanted anything for himself. He's always going to welfare, to (Medic-- to Medicaid?). RASHIED:Hmm, well, I thank you. He was very generous and is giving. There was a man that would come to the house a lot of times, and he'd want a little loan, and Daddy always would be very accommodating with his gifts. To whom much is given, most -- much is expected and so he certainly lived up to that. He wanted to give back to his hometown, and I think he did his very best and so did his brothers and father and mother. And my mother and the aunts, the whole family gave us or left us a wonderful legacy, and it's just our prayer to try to live as good a life as we can in memory of them and all that they left for us. WALKER-HARPS:Yeah. Well, we appreciate this, sitting here with Raymond III, (laughter) reminding me -- I almost came to tears because it just took me back some years. HEAD:Right. WALKER-HARPS:You're so much like your dad; I can almost see him in you. It's wonderful. CUNNINGHAM:Is there anything else you-all would like to share that we haven't covered? RASHIED:I'm trying to -- HEAD:Well, no. I just really appreciate the opportunity to express something that pretty much has been held in check for many years. I've never had the opportunity to really tell, you know, a side of my story other than to my sister here of what really went on and... But it wasn't all about me. The other people that walked that path with me, you know I respect their sacrifices. And when I do run into them, we'll talk about it, and I let them know that we did something that we didn't think that could be done. And we all ended up having great careers. And we have been blessed since that time. And so when I look back at what my dad wanted, I can understand the day why it is the requested that of me. It has made me a better person, and that I appreciate. WALKER-HARPS:I wonder who had (inaudible). You filled the gap that I was trying to locate someone who actually had those experiences. HEAD:Right. WALKER-HARPS:And I didn't -- so like I said well, I thought, maybe Raymond Head Jr. was one of those persons, and I said, "Okay, I'm going to have Cheryl with me there also," yeah, sure. HEAD:Right. WALKER-HARPS:We appreciate it so much. I mean you don't realize just how much you helped fill the gap in terms of history for this community. And as we said, it will be here for your grandchildren or granddau-- their grandchildren forever and ever we hope. And thank you. CUNNINGHAM:Before we wrap up, I just want to touch on one item. I understand that your dad was the first African American General Griffin. Do you-all recall being -- him being named that by the community? And if so, can you tell us a little bit about that? RASHIED:Yes, I do recall it. And that was quite an honor for my father. There was a General Griffin Ball, and I did attend the ball. And my father, we found him a uniform that he could wear. I think that he thought it was the best that would exemplify how he thought General Griffin would look. And he had a big hat, and he had a sword. And my mother had on like a southern belle gown, and we were at the General Griffin Ball. But that was a very high honor to be chosen as General Griffin, and a black General Griffin at that because, as we know, that is the founder of our beloved city. And so the General Griffin group chose him that -- bestowed that honor upon him that year. And he... And when they had their other activities in the city, they would wear their red coats, and they had their red blazers. And so when my father passed, they were all sitting on a row there at the funeral services, and they were all really, really nice gentlemen. And always Daddy was quite fond of them and thought highly of one or two -- WALKER-HARPS:Yeah, Elmer George. RASHIED:Thank you. I can remember Elmer, but I could not remember his -- Mr. Elmer George was a very -- WALKER-HARPS:Very special -- RASHIED:-- very lovely man. WALKER-HARPS:-- man. RASHIED:Yes, he was. WALKER-HARPS:And to meet him because of your dad. RASHIED:Well, he was a very nice man. Yes, I had talked to him on a couple of occasions, and thank you for giving his last name. I didn't want to mention the first name; I couldn't remember the last. But that was a highlight of Daddy's career, so to speak, to be chosen to be General Griffin. And when they erected the General Griffin statue downtown in front of the bank, -- well, it's not the bank anymore but the city -- it's at the city of Griffin building down there -- Daddy was there. He had on his General Griffin jacket. He was in a wheelchair by this time, but he was right there with his General Griffin -- other General Griffins, and that was quite a special moment for him -- WALKER-HARPS:At that time, -- RASHIED:-- and honor. WALKER-HARPS:-- it was tremendous. It was a very, very special because even though we have black now, but at that time -- period of time it was unheard of. RASHIED:Yes. WALKER-HARPS:I mean we were astonished in the community. RASHIED:Yes. WALKER-HARPS:What year was that, around if not exact? RASHIED:Let me see a moment. I had a copy of something that may have had that on it. I didn't have a copy of that page, but I -- that was -- let me think. That would've been maybe between... My father passed in 2010, so I'm going to say somewhere maybe 2007, '08, or '09, somewhere along in there. CUNNINGHAM:That he was the general? RASHIED:No, not when -- no, no. I'm getting confused. That would have been early -- let's see, all right, oh, gee -- when -- late '90s, somewhere in there, late, late '90s or -- WALKER-HARPS:It's quite a while. RASHIED:It's been quite a while ago, sometime in the '90s, yes. And yes, that was quite an event. CUNNINGHAM:Well, is there anything else that you-all would like to share to wrap up? RASHIED:Well, as my brother had stated, I'd like to say thank you to all of you, to the committee for the African American History -- Oral History Project. It has been quite an honor to sit and talk about our memories. There's so much that I could never tell once you're telling your story. And we touched on a little of my story and then you've got your father's story, your mother's story, and all of these different stories that make one. And there's so many branches on the family tree that you could never tell the story. But we are thankful that we had the parents and the (four?) parents that we had that have brought us to this day. You can't do anything alone. As the song goes, "No man is an island, no man stands alone." And so it has taken a lot of people to bring us all to this moment. But, again, we're thankful and appreciate you. My father lived by a very simple rule, and that was to treat everyone with a sense of fairness and a measure of respect, and that is what takes us through life. We have not accomplished any great things. I'll never accomplish what my father has accomplished, but we live by that rule. And the Bible just has a very simple rule, to love one another, and if we can do that, then I think we will be -- we'll be okay, but we're still trying to learn that. We're in some very troubling times today, but it's a very simple rule. If we can just treat each other fairly and respect each other, I think we will do so much better. And those are the things that helped us to get to this point. And we were a lot closer back during those days as kids, and those were happier times for us, a lot more carefree. But we continue, we that are left behind, we grow older and wiser, and we continue to try to live out the legacy that we were left. And that's pretty much it. HEAD:Well, I think my sister pretty much wraps it up. I again thank you all for this opportunity. And we are from -- our dad and mom that left us a great legacy that we are passing on to our children, and what have you. And as we are still getting a little up in age now, I like to end it by saying, and we still rise, thank you. CUNNINGHAM:Thank you so much, both of you thank you so much for your time. RASHIED:You're so welcome, so welcome. BAUSKE:And all -- what did I miss? Oh. (laughter) (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) WALKER-HARPS:We talked -- END OF AUDIO FILE
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audio
0
purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL418GAA/findingaid
Location
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Griffin, Georgia
Duration
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95 minutes
OHMS Object
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https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL418GAA-015/ohms
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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Interview with Cheryl Head Rashied and Raymond Head III, June 22, 2017
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RBRL418GAA-015
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Cheryl Head Rashied
Raymond Head III
Be-Atrice Cunningham
Jewel Walker-Harps
Ellen Bauske
Rich Braman
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audio
oral histories
Subject
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Civil rights
Segregation
Discrimination
African American women
United States--Civil rights
Description
An account of the resource
Cheryl Head Rashied and Raymond Head III were born in Griffin, Georgia in 1948 and 1950, respectively. Cheryl and Raymond are the children of civil rights activist Raymond Head Jr., and experienced first-hand the effects of discrimination on the Griffin community. In this interview, Cheryl and Raymond discuss their experiences with mandatory integration, retaliation by Ku Klux Klan, and remember Griffin during the 1950s and 60s.
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2017-06-22
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
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sound
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Griffin, Georgia
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-
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Title
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Griffin African American Oral History Project
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Georgia--History, Local
African Americans--History
Georgia--Communities
Description
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The Griffin African American Oral History Project is a collaboration between the Griffin Branch NAACP, the Griffin Campus Library of the University of Georgia, and the Richard B. Russell Library. The seed was planted in the meetings of the Educational Prosperity Initiative which is also chaired by the president of the Griffin Branch NAACP, Jewel Walker-Harps. Collaborators on the project include: Griffin Housing Authority; Spalding County Collaborative; Fairmont Alumni Association; University of Georgia—Athens and Griffin campuses; and the Educational Prosperity Initiative, which is an affiliate of the Spalding County Collaborative and others. Interviewers on the project include: John Cruickshank, librarian at UGA-Griffin Campus Library; Jewel Walker-Harps, President of the Griffin, GA Branch of the NAACP; Art Cain, coordinator of Continuing Education for UGA-Griffin; Be-Atrice Cunningham, project manager for College of Agricultural and Environmental Science for Griffin; and Ellen Bauske, senior public service associate at the Georgia Center for Urban Agriculture in Griffin. Rich Braman was the sound engineer for this project. <br />The Griffin African American Oral History Project intends to document the experiences of people who lived in Fairmont Community in Griffin, Georgia during the civil rights era and through its transformation to the present day.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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2015-2018
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Oral histories
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RBRL418GAA
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Griffin, Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object Text
Contains OHMS index and/or transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable.
5.4
Interview with Curtis Jones, June 27, 2017
RBRL418GAA-016
RBRL418GAA
Griffin African American Oral History Project
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia
Curtis Jones
Art Cain
Jewel Walker-Harps
Ellen Bauske
Rich Braman
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audio
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47
Mandatory and voluntary integration
I am Curtis Jones, superintendent of the Bibb County School System...
Jones talks about how his parents' careers affected his upbringing. Jones recalls his experience in being one of the first black students to integrate into Sacred Heart Elementary. Jones relates his transition to Junior High School and talks about some of the friends he had growing up. Jones details the process of mandatory integration and his first days attending the newly integrated Griffin High School.
Bibb County Public School District;Griffin High School;mandatory integration;Sacred Heart Elementary School;Spaulding Junior High School
511
Griffin High School experience
So I will tell you what my thoughts are...
Jones describes the differences between voluntary and mandatory integration, and his experience with both. Jones recalls how his mother helped him with the transition to attending a white school. Jones mentions how his experience at Griffin High School had an impact on his future career. Jones talks about his decision to run for president of the student body at his school, and how he built a following among the students for his campaign.
Fairmount High School;Griffin High School;Griffin-Spaulding County;mandatory integration;Sacred Heart Elementary;Virginia Ball;voluntary integration
957
Football and the Army
Athletics did that, and when...
Jones talks about how his experience on Griffin High School's football team assisted him in gathering support for his student presidential campaign and also influenced his decision to go into the Army. Jones recalls how he came to attend West Point Military Academy. Jones mentions his friends in high school and how they impacted his high school experience.
Air Force;Griffin High School;military;United States Military Academy West Point
1329
Integrating Griffin High School / Returning to Griffin
Now, I'll tell you when there was competition...
Jones recalls how the consolidation of the Griffin and Fairmount High School football teams spurred competition, as players from the historically black and white schools initially viewed each other as rivals. Jones talks about returning to Griffin, Georgia after graduating from West Point Military Academy and how he came to lead the ROTC branch at Griffin High School. Jones mentions how he became the first black principle of Griffin High.
competition;Fairmount High School;Griffin High School;integration;Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC)
1772
Becoming the Superintendent of the Griffin School System
So when I joined the staff in '97...
Jones relates how he rose from the position of ROTC leader to the position of principal of Griffin High School in 2005 to finally the position of Griffin Spalding Superintendent. Jones shares how he was received by the white staff at Griffin High School. Jones adds how his experience attending Griffin High School eased his experience of transitioning into the role as principal.
Griffin High School;Walter Pyron;William Walker
2169
Administration issues
And the principal who was going...
Jones talks about how opening Spalding High School proved to be a contentious subject for the employees of Griffin High School. Jones relates an experience he had with an angry mother who felt threatened by the majority African American administration of Griffin High School. Jones mentions how he dealt with a problem among staff concerning dress code.
Griffin High School;Spalding High School;Todd McGee;Walter Pyron
2601
Experience in the Army / Integration and merging
So, in the military, I was an...
Jones talks about his twenty year career in the military. Jones explains the process of merging the staff of Fairmount and Griffin High School. Jones emphasizes how creating separate schools for grades 6-8 assisted with the distribution of staff after mandatory integration. Jones shares how this integration method was also applied for the sports teams of Griffin High School.
Albany State, Georgia;Fairmount High School;Fort Benning, Georgia;Fort Leavenworth;Germany;Griffin High School
3080
Family and career experiences
Mom and Dad came from Texas...
Jones talks about his upbringing and recalls his experiences visiting his grandparents. Jones talks about his family's history and his father's career in the army. Jones shares how his parents upheld their beliefs in the Civil Rights movement in their decision to allow him to integrate to Spalding Middle School. Jones relates some of the decisions he had to make as superintendent of the Griffin school system.
Kiwanis Club of Griffin;Sacred Heart Elementary School;Texas;Trinity CME Church;University of Georgia
3569
Concluding thoughts
Here's a story about Dr. Bradley...
Jones recalls some of the interactions he had with Dr. Bradley, while trying to become the principal of Griffin High School. Jones shares how, despite his lack of formal education in the way of administration, he managed to make improvements in the Griffin school system.
Dr. Bradley;education;Griffin, Georgia
Oral history
rbrl418gaa-016_jones ART CAIN:Okay, it is June 27th, about two o'clock, in 2017, and we're here in the conference room for the Center for Urban Agriculture. We're here with Colonel Jones, who is the former superintendent of -- should say Curtis Jones, who's the former superintendent of Griffin Spalding County schools and currently superintendent of schools in Macon, Georgia. My name is Art Cain. I'm here at the University of Georgia in the Office of Continuing Education. CURTIS JONES:Hi. I'm Curtis Jones, superintendent of the Bibb County school system. I'm also a resident of Griffin Spalding County, and I am a former superintendent here for six years. JEWEL WALKER-HARPS:Jewel Walker-Harps, president of the Griffin branch NAACP, and cosponsor of the African American Oral History Project. ELLEN BAUSKE:I'm Ellen Bauske. I'm with the UGA Center for Urban Agriculture. RICHIE BRAMAN:I'm Richie Braman. And I'm also with the UGA Center for Urban Agriculture. CAIN:Okay, I'll start. Curtis, I have considered you a literal icon here in Griffin. You've had many distinguished accomplishments over your career, being the first African American principal at Griffin High School, first African American superintendent of schools here in Griffin. Prior to that a distinguished career in our military. And now currently superintendent of Bibb County schools. And what we want you to do is just kind of reflect back and tell us how you got -- how you were able to be able to set yourself up to have such accomplishments as you've had over the course of your career. JONES:I appreciate that. Truthfully it's not about me, it's about a lot of folks. And I'll tell you it begins with my mom and my dad. Mom was a teacher here in Griffin Spalding. She taught at -- as far as I can remember the first school was Annie Shockley Elementary. And I'll tell you, being a child of a teacher at the school can be hard, right, Richie? We were able to get in trouble, and whenever I got in trouble in second grade, they said, "Boy, I'm going to tell your mama." I learned to get straight. I will tell you that my dad was a minister here at Trinity CME Church. And because of that it created a foundation. After going through an experience at Anne Street and being in segregated schools for grades one through four, voluntary segregation -- integration occurred, and I was allowed to go to Sacred Heart Elementary School. And while at Sacred Heart I learned a lot of different skills. I remember my brother, my sister, and I were usually the minorities in our class, and it was the first time you had to wear a uniform. At that time it was a white shirt, navy blue pants, and black or brown shoes. As you've already mentioned though, I learned to wear a uniform for 20 years after that, when I joined the army. That became though part of the experience that my parents put us through, because while I stayed at Sacred Heart for two years, what I found was that when it was time to go to seventh grade, I had to make a decision. Was I going to go to what was called Spalding Junior High or go to Kelsey? One was a majority black school, one was majority white. We currently at that time lived in Barnesville, and we commuted back and forth every day. And so like most kids I just turned to the people who were in my class and said, "Where are you going?" And the majority of them said Spalding Junior High. So I went too. I think at that age it was trying to be, you know, know who your friends are and go. I also will tell you though that I think part of it started with my parents allowing me to play football when I was in sixth grade. Eleven years old, never played organized sports, but I will tell you that I still remember this, but at the end of that first season I got the most valuable player award. (laughs) And I still remember what it looks like. But it was different, because I truthfully had more fun practicing than playing the football games. Practice, you know who your friends are, you're competing with them, you talk to them about what you're doing. After that I went to junior high, and that was a very unique experience. And I will tell you it was unique in several ways. There was one individual named Wayne K. who was -- I'd known when I was in first grade. And then Wayne and I separated. We came back together in seventh. And Wayne was in advanced classes and I was in regular classes. But we were both able to compete. Later on Wayne went on to Howard University and became a lawyer. Another person I met when I was there was Randal. Randal came from Pike County but Randal also went on and became a state legislator. And -- WALKER-HARPS:Randal Mangham? JONES:Yeah. Randal Mangham. And so he and I became friends at that point. It was interesting when we went through that. But learning football and learning who people were and creating relationships I think was key for me at that point, because it was interesting, but during that time of voluntary integration, I remember in eighth grade I ran for student body president. And I was riding home in the car with my mom one day. She said, "Boy, you ran for president of that school?" (laughs) And I said, "How did you know?" And she said, "I know. You going to win?" I said, "Mom, I don't know." Turned out I came in second. But it was surprising to Mom that, you know, we even came that close at all. And she also thought it was funny because -- I'll say this to you, Jewel -- I ran. Randal ran. Wayne ran. A girl named Michelle R. ran as well. A bunch of us ran. We were just kids going to school. And then I think, Art, what happened for me also though was I went to Griffin High. And Griffin High, when now you had mandatory integration of schools, and that for me was in the tenth grade. And what I remember distinctly about that summer is this. At the time the integration of schools was based on the seventy-thirty percentage. Seventy percent black, 30 percent -- no, 70 percent white, 30 percent black. And there was a guy who I knew, Danny Wayne. Danny Wayne was the copresident of that class. And Danny Wayne was another student who was with me at Annie Shockley. He was two years ahead. He was a person I looked up to. I said, "Like man, I want to grow up and be like Danny." So I come back after all these years and I see him for the very first time and he's copresident. And Danny is writing on the blackboard. And he puts twelfth grade seven white three -- seven Griffin High three Fairmont. And then he -- eleventh grade, seven, three. He got to tenth grade. And he wrote six parentheses one, three. And I remember sitting there looking at that and saying, "What?" And a friend of mine, Tony Head, who I played with later, said, "Curtis, why are you looking at that like that?" I said, "Why'd he put six, one in parentheses?" He says, "Because it's seven white but you came from Spalding. They voted you in so they're trying to figure out how to count you." (laughs) And I felt like holy cow. And so Danny then went over -- yes, sir. CAIN:I just -- JONES:Am I talking too much? CAIN:Can you tell us a little bit (inaudible) continue but I just wanted you to tell us a little bit about that distinction between voluntary integration and mandatory I guess. JONES:Okay. So I will tell you what my thoughts are. Mom was a teacher. And I remember when I was going to Annie Shockley, which was an all-black school -- now it's called Anne Street -- Mom was a teacher there. And I think teachers were required to send their children to public schools. Was -- that was my impression. But that year Mom said, "Curtis, you don't have to go to Anne Street any -- to Annie Shockley anymore, we want to put you in Sacred Heart. And -- but it's voluntary. You don't have to go." That was what she said. And I said, "Is anybody else going?" And I said, "I don't know." And so that whole idea of voluntary was you were able then to go to a white school if you were black or a black school if you were white. But you volunteered to do that. And really it kicked in for me when -- between that Spalding Junior High and Fairmont. Because I didn't know at the time there were two different middle schools. I just didn't. I just stayed in my class or stayed in my lane. And so when we got there it was probably -- if it was seventy-thirty when I got to high school, it must have been ninety-ten (laughs) when I was in junior high. But I will tell you, the people who were there wanted to be there. And we kind of band together a little bit. But it was interesting. When I got to tenth grade there was no longer that option. And I'll be honest with you. My experience now tells me that Griffin Spalding did it well. They decided to have one school where all seventh graders went, one school for all eighth graders, one school for all ninth graders. And then one high school for grades 10, 11, and 12. That didn't happen all over the South but it happened here in Griffin Spalding. And I remember my mom telling me -- she came back from a board meeting and she said, "You know," and she named the principal, he was the principal up at Beaverbrook. And he just said, "You know, we've been dragging our feet on this for about 15 years, they just told us it's time to do it, so we're going to do it." CAIN:So it was that transition from that voluntary period until -- JONES:To mandatory. CAIN:-- full. Yeah. JONES:Full integration. WALKER-HARPS:The law insisted that you do it when it became mandatory. When we consider prior to then when we -- teachers and students transferred that it was voluntary. But I never did because I went -- and I didn't volunteer, I went because -- JONES:(laughs) You were told. WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible). JONES:Well, you know, the thing that was interesting is my mom was told that same year that I went to Sacred Heart. She ended up being assigned to Beaverbrook and I remember she was scared. And it's interesting when you're a child and you see your mom worried about that. Didn't know about the north side of Griffin or Spalding County and she ended up going there for that one year. And I remember hearing, heard Mom and Dad just talking about it. But she went. And my impression was -- now this is where I may get in trouble -- the black schools picked who they thought were some of the very best teachers that would go, that would not embarrass them. And then later my impression was that some of the white teachers who went to the black schools may not have been the very best but they were some -- the ones with the best attitudes about I can go and I can make a difference. And that ended up being key. Part of what made it work for me though was Mom. Mom went to Beaverbrook. Later she went to Jackson Road with a principal, Gladys Harden. Stayed there for about 20 years I think. WALKER-HARPS:At least. JONES:Became a part of that family. And was special. But I think that experience in Griffin High worked for me. When you talk about being the first black principal or the first black ROTC, I will tell you it started for me back in high school. In high school when I was in eleventh grade I ran for student body president. Truthfully it was I think having white friends and black friends, playing football, being somewhat, you know, known. And that same guy who was with me who said, "Curtis, they're trying to figure out what to do with you," that was Tony. He got elected vice president. I got elected president. And after that my mom came to me and said, "I'm just surprised. I never thought that would happen at this point in time." But I also remember a Ms. Ball. Ms. Ball was the counselor at the school. WALKER-HARPS:Virginia Ball. JONES:Virginia Ball. I wasn't sure how much names I could use. I can use them? WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible). JONES:Okay. Virginia Ball. Had been my second grade teacher when she was Ms. Hodo at Annie Shockley. Then when I was getting ready to go to fifth grade she'd gotten married, became Ms. Ball, was going to be my fifth grade teacher. Well, I get to high school, and there she is the counselor. And I remember Ms. Ball saying, "Curtis, you're fortunate, you're going to be president of the student body. But you need to work something out. What's going to happen when you leave? We always need to have some kind of representation. And so I think you ought to do something like the president is black, the vice president is white, or vice versa. But they need to do that." I said, "Ms. Ball, how can I do anything about that?" She says, "You're the president of the student body, the first one that we've had, just talk to the principal." And so I did. I went and talked to Coach Gray and I just shared that idea with him and he said, "Curtis, why would we do that?" And my response was, "You run for president of the United States, you're on the ticket, let them run on tickets. And doesn't have to be mandatory but if things are like they are I think people are going to see diversity as a good thing." I was surprised but when I came back to Griffin after 20 years in the military, people running for student body council at Griffin High were running on tickets. One black, one white. And that's who was winning. Not mandatory. But people were still electing that way. That was surprising to me. CAIN:Just to back up a little bit about your run for president, student body president at the time. Was that -- how did you -- because you were kind of in two worlds. How did you cultivate the kind of relationships in both worlds that allowed you -- allowed for you to get that kind of vote from your student body colleagues? JONES:I think in a lot of ways it was athletics. When I played football I started off in the city league. And back in that day elementary schools had their own football teams. And so we played and I learned who the players were, they learned who I was. That second year they stopped having school teams but they just had rec teams and you signed up. But truthfully the athletes knew each other. And that group of us in that particular year, we were pretty special, I'll be honest. We got together in eighth grade. So and that just became the nucleus I would say. But that group of us, we stayed together. We were undefeated in eighth. Undefeated in ninth. About four of us made the varsity as sophomores. And then when we became seniors our team went nine, one, and one, won the region championship, beat R. E. Lee for the first time in recent history and people were happy. And I just think it was just a special group that came together. Randy Pass was on the team, ended up playing for the New York Giants, went to Georgia Tech on a scholarship. Tony Head ended up going to Georgia Tech, doing very well. Terry Willis, who was -- went to Fort Valley. David Wolfoff, who became a city policeman here, went to Fort Valley on a scholarship. Setter Jun, Keith Tubble. I mean we were just -- we were pretty good. But I think athletics did that. And when I got to West Point what I learned was that it's on those fields when you're struggling with something that is unique -- not unique, but common to everybody. You form a friendship. And I think that happened for us at that time. We were special. I'll tell you now. It was scary. I remember my sophomore year when we were playing one of the very first games. Might have been like the third game of the season. It was a home game and there was this guy who was walking on this guy's yard and he got killed. Shot, because he was trespassing. After that they changed all our games to day games. We started playing on Saturdays. Coach Dowis, who was our head football coach, Johnny Goodrum, who was an assistant coach, made a difference though. That next year they took us up to summer training camp and they said, "Look, forget what's happening there. This is about us and what we're going to do." And that training experience for us just bonded us in a way that you can't imagine. You ever seen the movie Remember the Titans? CAIN:Mm-hmm. JONES:It was just like that experience where we went up and went to camp and we came back. And we were just unique. So anyway I think living in both worlds worked for me. It made it easier for me to then decide to go to West Point. That was probably life-changing for me in more ways than I realized. Now I'll tell you, I only did one year of ROTC in high school. Didn't want to be in the military. (laughs) No. Didn't want to wear a uniform. But West Point was unique. And when my dad found out about the opportunity for me to go, because Congressman Jack Flynt gave me a nomination, he said, "Son, if that works for you that's the thing to do. I'm trying to save money for you to go to college. But if you do this it'll help us out a whole lot." And that by itself was unique. Just, you know, sometimes it just turns out how things happen. I was in a French class. Mr. Russell was my French teacher. And Mr. Russell said to me -- he was absent one day -- and he said, "Curtis, what did you say with that substitute teacher who was in here?" And I said, "Sir, I didn't say anything. (laughs) I didn't do anything. I'm sorry." He says, "No no no, it's good." And he was out again and she came back. Turned out later I found out she was really a vocational teacher that they had sent in. And -- but we were talking about race and issues like that. And she just came up to me one day and said, "What are you going to do when you graduate?" I said, "I think I want to fly airplanes, maybe be a pilot." And she said, "You think you can do that?" And I said, "I guess." So she said, "I got a person I want you to meet and I'm -- he's going to give you a call." That person was Jack Flynt. She had been his teacher. And so he called, asked me to come out to his house, he lived down there on Poplar Street. And he told me. He says, "Curtis, you impressed my former teacher. I still listen to her. She asked me to give you a nomination for West Point. I don't -- I mean for the Air Force Academy. I don't have any. But if you're willing to go to Military Academy I can get you one of those. And if that doesn't work out for you, I have a friend named John Conyers," a guy from I think Michigan, or Pennsylvania. CAIN:No, Detroit. JONES:Detroit, Michigan. "He can get you a nomination to the Air Force Academy if you like that." And I said, "Yes, sir." I'm thinking like man. That was how I ended up going. But West Point changed and it was all because of football and being willing to work with people. So a long answer to a short question. CAIN:Great answer. WALKER-HARPS:You talked about several young men who went to Spalding with you. Did you bond as a unit or was there rivalry among you? JONES:Well, Randal was on the football team and Randal Mangham is the one who became a state legislator and he and I ended up being -- we continued to be friends. With Wayne, Wayne and I had been -- Wayne came to Anne Street -- Annie Shockley -- for like two weeks. His mom was my first grade teacher. And he then left and went to Moore Elementary and attended school there until we got to junior high. There was no competition among us. Wayne was just smart. I was an athlete. And so I don't think we had any kind of competition among ourselves. What I learned is that there was safety. And so sometimes you see somebody in the hallway and they would just give you a look or a nod and you felt like it was okay. I remember though there was a -- in middle school, you know how you have bullies? There was this one family moved in. And they were fighting everybody. (laughs) They were fighting everybody. There was one black boy there who was, what's his name, James Leeks. James said, "Look, I'm not going to fight you." But these three brothers that moved in, they were Caldwells, they were going to fight everybody. And so they did. And we had a big fight in the gym between James and the middle Caldwell boy, first name was Joe. And it just happened. You know, but to be truthful, whenever that happens, teachers aren't around. (laughs) Principals aren't around. It just happens. And everybody knew that fight was going to happen. And when it was over, I remember the Caldwell boy looked at me and said, "All right, I'm going to fight you tomorrow." (laughs) I looked. And I said, "Why?" He says, "Because I'm going to be king of the hill." And I said, "Okay. You can be king of the hill." He says, "That's it? We're not going to fight?" And I said, "No." He threw his hands up in the air and said, "Yay, I'm the best." And for him that was a big deal. So that's what he wanted to do. But there was no competition for us. You know, we were just trying to make honor roll, trying to do well. And that's just -- that was what it was. But again when I played football I'll tell you this. Mom was driving a Simca, and practice would be after school. And I could see the car up on the hill every day just waiting to -- waiting for practice to be over so I can get my stinky behind in the car and ride 17 miles to get home. But there was no competition for that. Now I'll tell you when there was competition was when we integrated the schools in high school. That first year when we came together, you have to think about it this way. You had two football teams, one black, one white, one Fairmont, one Griffin High. And you had two returning quarterbacks, two returning centers. Everybody was a starter who was coming back. And the question became how's that going to work. Johnny Goodrum, who ended up being assistant coach, had been -- and Coach Hiram Whitaker had been the head football coach over there. They made him the assistant coach for Coach Dowis. Trying to pull staff together, trying to pull teams together. I mean that was hard. It was very hard. Because people thought they were going to start. For me it ended up being a little bit more difficult. And I'll tell you why. Those black boys who were at Fairmont, they didn't know me. This was just a little black boy who was over there playing with those white boys, who can't play. And they were going to show me they could play. And I tell you what. (laughs) We had drills. And they lit me up. Day after day after day. But eventually I think I won them over by just keep -- I just kept coming back and just kept trying to learn. And I'll say this. Coach Goodrum, who was the backs coach at the time, he was setting me up too. Curtis, go over there and run the ball. Oowee. But after that, turned out to be okay. Here's what else happened though, Art, that made things work for me. After going to West Point and coming back after 20 years, and I found out that Mom was sick, and she needed help transitioning from the hospital to come home, and for me it was a transitional period. I had three children. We wanted them to learn their grandparents. I came back to Griffin. And I went into a meeting with one of my friends down in Barnesville, Carl Ogletree. And Carl said, "Curtis, go find out about ROTC in Griffin. My wife is a teacher and she can find out if we can start one here in Lamar County. You go up to Griffin and find out how to do it." Well, I did. And in Griffin they told me, "It's a federal thing, you just can't start one. They're not starting any more. But our guy Colonel Imes is getting ready to retire. Why don't you come interview for that job?" And I said, "Like whoa, okay. I don't have a uniform." "You don't need a uniform, just come on up." This was like on a Tuesday. I got home, I got a phone call. "This is Colonel Imes. Is this Curtis Jones?" "Yes, sir." "I understand that you're interested in Junior ROTC." "Well, I really don't know a lot about Junior ROTC." "Well, I'm getting ready to retire. I've been here for 20 years." And I'll tell you that caused me pause. And I'll tell you why. When I was in high school at Griffin High ROTC started in 1966. Major Pelt came aboard in 1967. And then they had a couple other people that came on. But I'm talking about in '97 when I got back, Imes had been there for 20 of those 30 years. That's how long he had been at Griffin High. He was an institution. And he called me up, interviewed me, and said, "Look, I'm going to recommend you for the job." As I was getting ready to leave I saw this guy. And he was a black NCO. And he said, "Hey, sir, how you doing?" I said, "I'm fine, how are you?" And he said, "I'm good." He said, "You Curtis Jones?" And I said, "Yes, sir, I am." "One that played football at Griffin High, number 21?" "Yes, sir, I am." "One that used to play for the Saints back when you were in the sixth grade?" "Yes, sir, I am, how do you know that?" He said, "I used to be a recruiter back in Griffin, I saw you then. My name is Lee McRae. And you up here interviewing for this job?" I said, "Yes, sir, I am." He said, "I think you're going to get it because they're looking for somebody from Griffin to come on back and you're just a Griffin kind of guy." Because of Lee I think I helped get the job. Went in for an interview with the principal, who was Mike McLemore, was the incoming principal. And Larry White was the outgoing principal. They did a joint interview. McLemore said, "I'm going to recommend you for the position," so we started out together. And I'll just tell you that that just turned out to be a blessing for me with Lee McRae and how that turned out. But again I think it was part of having my being in both worlds because when I found out I was going to be recommended to be the principal -- this is four years later -- I needed some recommendations. And he was one of them. And so was Dr. McLemore. But I will tell you something that worked for me. Having done ROTC for four years at the school, and having done the interviews, I'll be honest, I was scared. I mean Griffin High was a big school. It was like 1,900 kids, one of the biggest in the state. And people used to come to Griffin to see what a school looks like. And this is from a guy who's been in the army for 20 years but didn't really know a whole lot about what to do. I'll tell you Mom said to me, "They going to make you the principal? What are they thinking about?" (laughs) I said, "Well, Mom." I said, "I don't know." And so what happened was I ended up interviewing, got the position. And during one of the very first meetings we had -- this is another thing that worked for me -- we went out on the football field to talk about what happens during a bomb threat. And when we were coming back in all the black staff peeled off to the right and went down the 600 -- down the 800 hallway into a room. And Doc Richard Beaton was walking in with me, and he said, "Where are all those folks going?" And Kay Moore, who was my secretary, about to be my secretary, said, "Oh, the black staff wants to meet with Dr. -- with Colonel Jones." And he said, "Well, I want to go." And she said, "No, you can't go, this is just for them." And he said, "Oh. Okay." Well, he said, "When you finish that you come talk to me." I said, "Doc, I'll come see you." So I went into the room. And they said to me, "Look, you're the first black principal for Griffin High School. We want you to be successful. We don't want you to do anything stupid. We're going to support you. We're going to do our very best. We ask that you do your very best as well." And I said, "Okay." And we kind of came to that common understanding. Never met like that again. Never had that conversation again. Until I was asked to speak at a black history program and I shared that story probably, I don't know, it may have been 16 years later. Where that group just said, "We're going to support you." And I can tell you I can remember occasions now that may not seem significant where they helped me. I'll give you one. I was asked to make morning announcements when I was the principal. And, you know, going through school, you learn phonics and how to speak, but there was this word that I said that was wrong. I would always say, "And this," how did I say it? I said, "And this Saurday I want you guys to come in and talk to us about how to do this." Or, "This Saurday we're going to do this." Jewel McCann was one of my English teachers. She came down and she said, "Look. If you're going to be principal of this school you're going to stop saying Saurday. It's Saturday." I said, "Yes, ma'am." That was the small kinds of things they did to help me out that, you know, in some ways will take away your credibility but in other ways -- and so she helped me with that. BAUSKE:I'm confused about ROTC and principal. JONES:Okay. BAUSKE:Can you talk about that (inaudible). JONES:What happened? BAUSKE:Yes. JONES:So when I joined the staff in '97 the principal made me the chairperson of the discipline committee for school improvement. The next year, he made me the -- a -- I guess I was the cochair a second time of that committee. Then my third year, he put me in charge of the school improvement. And that fourth year he retired. And so based on that and working on SAT improvement, the superintendent and others asked me if I'd apply for the position. And so I then moved from after four years of doing ROTC, I became the principal of the high school. And then after being principal of the high school for four years I was talking to Walter Powry, who was then the assistant superintendent. And I was saying, "Dr. Powry, you know, I've been doing this now for about four years, I'm trying to understand. Where am I going?" And he says, "Curtis, I'm probably going to retire in about two years and I think you're going to be taking my place." Turned out he retired that year, and I applied for that position and I got it as well. BAUSKE:And what year was it? JONES:That was 2005. So I was assistant super -- so ROTC for four years, high school principal for four years, and then I became the assistant superintendent for administrative services for four years. And then after that I applied to become the superintendent and I got that as well. That was another story too. I'll just give you the short part about help. I was a member of Trinity CME Church, that's where my dad had been a pastor. Johnny Goodrum was a member of that church as well as some other folks who were educators. And one day I was -- got a phone call from Johnny Goodrum, and he said, "Curtis, can you meet me down at the church?" And I said, "Yeah, coach, I can meet you down there." Told you he was my previous coach. He says, "There's some people want to meet you, they understand you're going to be -- you're applying to be superintendent and they just want to talk to you." "Okay." I told my wife about it and she said, "What are they going to do?" I said, "Dear, I don't know." So I went down to the church and inside the church there was William Matchett, Dr. -- was the principal at Moore -- WALKER-HARPS:Nesbith. JONES:Dr. William Nesbith. Johnny Goodrum. Mr. Walker. WALKER-HARPS:William Walker. JONES:William Walker. Were there. And Coach Goodrum. And Coach Goodrum introduced them all. Truthfully I'd never really met any of them before except Goodrum at the time. And kind of knew Matchett. And he just told me, said, "They want to talk to you because you're going to apply to be the superintendent." And it turned out they didn't -- I thought it was going to be an interview. It turned out them just telling me stories about what happened with them as they were administrators and going through and lessons that they learned. So I was there for about an hour and a half just listening to these wise guys tell me about what they had learned and some of their experiences. And then after that I told my wife about it and she said, "What'd they ask you?" And I told her they just talked to me. Later I found out though that that group had actually called the superintendent and some board members and they endorsed me for being superintendent. And Jesse Bradley, who at that time was the superintendent, said, "Curtis, I want to be honest with you. You got people on the north side of town and people on the south side of town. You got people on the north side of town, that's the black side, and they're supporting you. You got people on the south side of town," and they're supporting this other internal candidate who was there who turned out -- who was white. And he says, "But the advantage you have is you also got some people on the south side of town calling for you as well." He says, "I don't know if that's going to make a big difference or not but it means something to me." And I ended up getting the position. So that ended up being unique as well. And I'll be honest. As superintendent I fully felt supported by everybody. And I was worried there for a while, you know. Ms. Harps scared me for a while. She was president of the NAACP, I said, "Oh Lord, what is she going to call and ask me? What do I have to do? I'm trying to raise the graduation rate. Just give me some time." (laughs) WALKER-HARPS:You had advantage. Your mom and I were very very good friends. And your dad had been a good friend. JONES:And he was also friends with Calvin Hill, who was my ninth grade science teacher. Remember I told you when I was in first grade, when I was in elementary? I was in tenth grade biology class with some students. And I'll be honest. Biology was hard. And Mr. Hill was the teacher. And I remember one day we were getting ready to do some -- cut some frogs and that kind of stuff. And people were just acting silly. And so I started acting silly with them. He just grabbed me and took me aside, said, "Look, boy, I know your daddy, you keep that up, I'm going to call him." And I said, "You know my dad?" He said, "I know Curtis. And I know Roberta." And I said, "Ooh." (laughs) Didn't get out of line anymore after that. So for me I think that helped me out some so -- CAIN:Can I -- WALKER-HARPS:How well were you received by the white staff at Griffin High? Because that was their first experience having to receive orders from a black person? And particularly a black man. Were there challenges? JONES:Well, yes and no. So the first part of it is Mr. Johnston, who had been the French teacher when I was in high school, Jim, James Johnston, was one of the ones who wrote a letter of endorsement for me for going into the position. He had been Evelyn's teacher when we were in high school, and so he still remembered, he was one of the ones who I visited when I came back. Mark Fenezee had been my ninth grade science teacher, and so now Mark was the head of the counseling department. There was also Ms. Jackson, who was my ninth -- my tenth grade math teacher, who was there for that one year, who introduced me to Evelyn, who I -- became my girlfriend and my -- now my wife. And so I was not a total stranger to some. And so that helped when I first got there. And when I became the principal, because I'd been on the staff and had led the leadership, there -- most of them were willing to come on board. We had another issue that divided us more so than being a black principal, and that is that we were opening Spalding Junior High -- Spalding High School at that point in time. And the principal who was going to be for Spalding High was located in that building and was actively recruiting people. And at this point now I'm going to be the principal and he's telling people, "Come on over with us to Spalding High School because we're going to have a great school." And people are like, "Well, wait a minute, you saying we're not great?" And so -- and well, you're great, but you're going to stay here, we're going to go do this other thing. And it was like oh. And so it just divided the staff. And it started before we even had opened Spalding High. And so that was difficult because I'm now the person who's going to be the principal of the school. Todd is the -- yeah. Well, put his name -- was -- WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible) it's okay. JONES:Todd McGee was going to be the principal of Spalding High. And he pulled in one of our assistant principals who was out who was making this. That's what was hard. And then trying to figure out how do you divide a staff and keep things going. And wondering are you losing -- and who you're losing. It turned out later, what I realized is that a lot of the people who went to Spalding had come from Spalding Junior High and were ninth grade teachers and they had never really felt as if they were a full part of the staff at Griffin High anyway. And so they were able to go and create that environment, that school that they wanted to have. Now here's a story though that was hard. One day I was principal of the school, and I walked out of the main office into the hallway and I looked down. And classes were going on. And I saw this group of people come out of the building. And it was a mother, her child, assistant principal, teacher. And the mother said, "Look, I'm not going to talk to you anymore. I'm just going down. I'm going to see the principal." And the boy looked up and said, "Well, there's the principal right there." And she says, "I ain't going to talk to him, I'm going downtown." And so they left and went downtown. Wally Snell, who was my assistant principal, and Clint Middleton came, who was the teacher, came, told me what had happened. They said, "Son is not doing well, he's failing, we tried to tell them that. But, you know, they wanted to talk to you but we just said going downtown." So they did. Little while later I got a phone call from Walter Powry and Walter said, "Curtis, just had this parent come see me. And she's not happy. But I told her she got to follow chain of command, she's coming back to see you. But I'm going to tell you now race is a part of this issue." And I said, "Oh, okay." So I thought about it. She was white, her son was white. Clint Middleton was a black male. Wally Snell, the assistant principal, was a black male. I was the principal of the school, a black male. She got downtown and saw the assistant superintendent Walter Powry, a black male. (laughs) She came back in and saw me. What I did though was Jamie Cassidy, who was an assistant principal I had, was on campus, and I called Jamie in, who was white. We met, we had a great conversation. But the conversation started off with the student looking at me and saying, "Colonel Jones, just want to tell you, I don't really have a problem with Negroes. I mean I have a lot of friends who are." And I said, "No problem." And so that was -- we had situations like that, I guess, you know, but Cassidy was great, he helped that environment. And I'll tell you I learned something. People want to take care of their kids the very best they can. And they just want to believe that somebody understands. And what that parent was looking for was somebody who she thought understood. For her that was Cassidy. WALKER-HARPS:I would think that more so than race your military background and your procedure, your attitude would have had more effect than race. JONES:(laughs) WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible) after having come back from the military, and your sternness, and your being so adamant about what you believed. JONES:Well, that did get me in trouble. We were coming back from a meeting in Macon one day. And it was my first year. And my secretary called and said, "Colonel Jones, I have a petition from some teachers." "A petition?" "Yes." "What is it about?" "They don't think you're enforcing the dress code with students and so they're mad. And so they --" "How many people signed that?" "Oh, 25, 30." "Are you serious?" "Yes, sir." I said, "Tell you what. We're going to have a faculty meeting. We're on our way back now. I want everybody to meet me on the JROTC rifle range." "The rifle range?" I said, "The rifle range. I want you to take the chairs in the rifle range, I want you to divide them in half, I want them facing each other, one on one side of the room, one on the other. We'll be back in about 35 minutes." Got back to Griffin High School. Ms. Moore met me at the door and said, "They're all down on the rifle range." (laughs) I said, "Okay." Went down to the rifle range. My assistant principals were waiting for me. I walked in. I said, "Look, I see this petition. People say that they're upset about dress code. I am too but here's the problem. If you have a child for first period and the child is not in dress code, you didn't do anything about it, and that makes second period, third period, fourth period, and fifth period teachers all upset because they think everybody's breaking dress code just because you didn't enforce it. So right now in this room we got the people on this side who are the ones who signed this petition. And on this side is those who didn't. I will do whatever it is you want me to do, I work for you, so here's the deal. All of you who think we're not enforcing dress code, you need to talk to these on this side about what it is you need to do. And you-all finished having that conversation come get me and my assistant principals, we'll be waiting on you in the hallway. Just tell me how you want to do it." I turned around, I started walking out. And one of the teachers said, "Colonel Jones, can I ask you a question?" I said, "No. You need to ask them over there." We walked on out. About 5 minutes later, maybe 10 minutes later, Dr. Beaton came out and said, "We worked it out. We have a way. We're going to enforce the dress code now. We understand." And the other thing that we did though was at that point we were starting to record all of our faculty meetings because football coaches couldn't be there. And so later on I went back to look at the tape. And this one teacher I had said, "Turn off that camera, they're trying to turn us against each other." (laughs) So but so that sternness did get me in trouble. I still have teachers today who remind me of taking them down to the rifle range. But that was the way we tried to approach things. Just straightforwardly and dealt with it. Now if I had to do it over again I may take them to the cafeteria. But the rifle range (laughs) -- WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible). JONES:But I wanted them close. I didn't want them spread out. I needed them to be able to see each other and engage. WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible) called the rifle range. (laughs) JONES:It was called the rifle range. WALKER-HARPS:I thought you were going to say they were going to shoot (inaudible). JONES:(laughs) So that got us into a little bit of trouble. Dress code. But, you know, but we worked hard. We worked hard. BAUSKE:What'd you do in the military? JONES:So in the military I was an infantry officer for 20 years and -- BAUSKE:Start and finish? The dates? JONES:So -- okay. So I went to -- graduated from Griffin High in 1973. Started at West Point that summer for what's called Beast Barracks. Graduated four years later in 1977 and became an infantry officer. And just to tell you how much I am a Griffin boy, so Evelyn, who was still my girlfriend at that time, and was still a member of Trinity Church, my dad a pastor, we got married at Trinity, Dad did the marriage. My brother was my best man. Barbara, my sister-in-law was the maid of honor. Or Mycie was, the other sister. But it was in the infantry for 20 years. Was assigned to Fort Benning, Georgia for one tour of duty for three, assigned to Albany State College for three to teach Senior ROTC. Was assigned to Hinesville, Georgia where I did -- was an infantry officer. And then I also did one year at Fort Leavenworth as a just school, Command and General Staff College. And did a total of six years in Germany. Three of those as an infantry officer, our very first assignment, and then three years as a comptroller. Very unique experience for me. I was a new army major, was going to Heidelberg, Germany, I was a comptroller. And I found out that the budget I was responsible for was $1.1 billion. (laughs) And there's my first assignment. The army just threw you in there and said, "Figure it out." Later on I also had my last tour of duty in the Pentagon. So I retired in '97. But I was a comptroller there for the Joint Chiefs of Staff for fighting counter drugs and that budget was like $1.3 billion. So at least then I had some experience. So that was what I did but -- while I was in. CAIN:Can I back you up one more time? JONES:Sure. CAIN:Okay, you said when -- that when mandatory integration hit -- JONES:Okay. CAIN:-- and you had the two football teams come together that there was obviously a quarterback from one team was competing for -- from both teams were competing for one spot. If I take that and ask about integration between the two schools, Fairmont and say Griffin High, okay, or merging almost two districts together, you have that same kind of scenario, I would think, where you would have to decide who was going to be the English teacher at Griffin High, and you've got an English teacher at Fairmont and English teacher at Griffin High. You had that same kind of scenario as you merged those two entities together. Do you know anything about how that was dealt with? And whether there was fairness, the idea of fairness, in trying to do that merger? That had to be a little bit of a challenge. JONES:I don't have a great deal of knowledge about that. But here's what my initial thoughts are. Remember I said that we had one school that was for seventh, one school for eighth, one school for ninth, and then one school for 10, 11, 12? If you had the approximate correct class size you probably needed all the teachers you had, you just had to decide who was going to teach what. And so I don't think it was a -- I don't remember hearing any issues being discussed about somebody not being able to get that particular position. I mean you're -- almost always you were looking for some teachers who would come. And I remember even when I was there we had turnovers of black teachers and white teachers. So it wasn't quite the same in that regard because on the football team you only have 11 starters. Here it could expand based on the number of teachers to accommodate what you, you know, what you need to have. CAIN:Enrollments (inaudible). JONES:Yeah. I think it expanded. Made it easier to accommodate. What was hard was I think when you -- who was going to be the principal, who was going to be the assistant principal, who was going to be the head coach, and that kind of thing. And I do remember thinking that you had a football coach at Fairmont who became an assistant. And the new coach who was in charge had his own system that was different. And I'll tell you though. That quarterback situation was hard. Randy Jones had been a student that I knew at Sacred Heart who was now the quarterback. Eleventh -- he started as a -- I think he started as a sophomore and as a junior. Now he's coming back for senior year. And then you had Greg Wellmaker who started as a sophomore and as a junior at Fairmont who was coming back. And they were different. And the offense the coach wanted to put in. Because he was new too. It was only his second year. Was hard for them to figure out. And so you had to -- they had to figure out how they were going to make it work. I'll tell you though, my senior year, that whole idea though about -- I'm just going to say skill takes over. It was interesting. Our starting quarterback that first year when we got there was a guy named Charles Buckaloo. He broke his leg in the first game. The backup quarterback was David Sprine, who broke his leg in the third game. So now we're down to our third-string quarterback who was a guy named Willie Jordan who was a black kid who was a sophomore. Willie was a better athlete than both those guys. And Willie could throw the ball at least 45 yards on the fly. Came in, started as a sophomore, continued to start as a junior, and finished as a senior. Went on to Tennessee and played football. And so but people were just about winning. And I'll tell you. Football pulled this community together back then better than anything you can imagine. And I take pride in the fact that we were part of that group that started that whole process of just making it work. But it was, you know, kind of like making sausages. Didn't look good when it first started. You had to have the right people there to do it. WALKER-HARPS:Were you a part of the group that decided what the team would be called (inaudible) Bears or whatever and the colors or whatever? Were you a part of that group? JONES:I was not a part of that group, that was -- Danny Wayne was the president. And what they did was they pulled together a group of students from Fairmont and a group of students from Griffin High and those students had to come together, what those ideas were going to be. Now I think suggestions were made to them, but it's -- truthfully it was pretty much an equal compromise. If you remember, it was the Griffin High Eagles and the Fairmont Bears. And so they decided to make it the Griffin High Bears. Fairmont's colors were blue and white. Griffin High's were green and white. And so we ended up becoming the green and gold because Fairmont also had a gold color. And so it was just a compromise. Now some people said, "Why does a black school got to get the mascot? Why can't we be the Fairmont whatever?" But for the players when we got those new uniforms -- and I'll be honest, they gave us a bus. It was painted green and gold. And they started feeding us pregame meals. (laughs) Hey, we were doing fine. And we thought we were going to be pretty good, and we were, we were. All righty. Anything else? Have I talked about what you wanted me to talk about? CAIN:You've covered a whole lot and it's been -- I guess I could ask one more question, and it gets -- this goes back to early years. I know you're going to have to run here. Grandparents' influence. Influence from grandparents, great-grandparents on you, on the family. JONES:Okay. Mom and Dad came from Texas. And Dad was a minister as I said. Initially lived in Pike County. He got his church at Trinity, which is still here, where I currently attend. And so I didn't really know a lot about grandparents. I can remember the first time that Mom would take us back to Texas and spend time with our grandparents on her side of the family. I now know it was because she was working on her master's. And she was going to University of Georgia. And so she had to find something to do with us, because during the summers when Dad was having his church, either vacation Bible school was going on or it was revival. And so had to figure something out. So we would go stay with my mom's mom. And truthfully that's when I learned my cousins and my uncles, and that's when I learned a lot about them. And then later we would go visit my dad's family. And so that was a support. But what I came to realize is that on both sides of the family they had been down as sharecroppers. They moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area which is what we then recognized. And then the idea though was that -- that I came to recognize is my mom went to college. My dad went to college because of the G.I. Bill. Learned to cut hair. He was a barber. And then he had been in the field artillery. My dad's brother was a career army man, a sergeant. And I remember him talking to me about running a basic camp. And I had a picture. It was him and all these trainees and he was the only black person in that picture. And he said, "Curtis, in the army is the only place where I can tell white people what to do." I was teaching Junior ROTC at Griffin High and Sergeant Major Lang, who was one of my instructors, told me about a time when he was working with one of his cadets the year before I got there. Cadet did something and Sergeant Major Lang was in charge of rifle team. And Sergeant Major Lang had told him he couldn't stay on the team. Was kicking him off. He said the boy got up and said, "You know, there'd have been time back there when my uncle just would have hung you up for that." He said, "Like okay, well, your uncle ain't here so it's time for you to go." (laughs) Interesting times. So but Mom went to college, Dad went to college. But I also recognized as I thought back on that Mom at some time drove up to Jonesboro to get to work on her degree after school, and they had to make sacrifices. And so when Mom asked us to go to Sacred Heart and then said, "You need to go to Spalding," it was really them putting their values about the importance of integration with their own children to what it is they believed. When the March on Washington happened Mom and Dad didn't get to go in '63, but when it happened that second time around they went, because they wanted to be a part of that process. And so I think in some ways I recognized that and kept up with it. But it wasn't like they, you know, they talked about it all the time. It's just who we were and what we did. I didn't tell you, but we grew up on Railroad Street down in Barnesville. And it's just a way of keeping humble and knowing where you came from and what you're doing. WALKER-HARPS:What challenge or challenges did you face when you first -- from the community when you first became superintendent? Because the schools are usually the focal point of the community and of particular interest to businesspeople. JONES:Yeah. WALKER-HARPS:And special challenges or just in general (inaudible). JONES:Well, for the most part it was good. Jesse Bradley, who had been superintendent kind of set me up by when it was time for him to have -- he had a seat on the chamber of commerce, in the Rotary. He put me in Kiwanis. We built a -- we started working on this idea of -- it wasn't the College & Career Academy. It was a different idea. Oh, I know, it was UGA was working with the school system to try to approach this poverty issue. And so with Archways. And so Dr. Bradley put me on that. So that put me in good stead to create relationships. I remember he said, "Curtis, I need for you to join Kiwanis. And we'll pay for your membership." It's like oh, okay. And he -- in order to be fair he then went out to the other people in the senior cabinet and offered them the same opportunity. But I eventually became president of the Kiwanis club here in Griffin. And one of the members was about 90 years old, had been a former I think county commissioner -- county manager. And he was getting married and -- at 90. And he invited me to his house for a party that was going on. Turned out his granddaughter had been one of my students when I was the principal at Griffin High School, and I went over. And Evelyn went with me and at this point now I've been named to be the superintendent. And he came up to me while we were at his house with this celebration and he said, "Curtis I'm just going to tell you now. Never had a president that looked like you before but I'm going to support you." And it was like okay. And I told that to Evelyn. And things I think were okay. I was a member of the chamber, and so they were pretty supportive of me. Bonnie Pfrogner was a -- was I would say a supporter. And so if there was resistance I think it was this. If it turned out I'd done something that they didn't approve of, then I'm not sure that leash was too long for me that was out there. And so they may have been willing to pull back. I'm trying to think. Do I really want to tell you this? WALKER-HARPS:Sure. CAIN:(inaudible). JONES:So at one point when I was superintendent it was time for me to name an assistant superintendent and I had a couple people came to me and said, "Curtis, you have support on both sides of town, north and south. But I don't think this town is ready for two blacks to be superintendent and assistant superintendent. So before you make a recommendation you need to think about what your choice is going to be." That was a reminder to me that things had not progressed as much as we -- as -- maybe as much as I'd thought they had. That was different. But I don't remember. Fundraising kept going as strong as it had been. Anna Burns was on my staff. She was very good. Worked very hard. And in fact it increased. She worked very hard to increase the number of partnerships we had. I was able to name a number of people to be principals of schools. And I didn't -- I only got pushback on one, my very first one. But overall I think Griffin -- I think because of the background and even though I didn't live in Griffin, I think most people thought I did. And I think most people just saw me as a Griffin person from -- for, you know, forever. And so I don't think it was a lot. I cannot say I had any issues. Dick Brooks, who was at First National Bank, was very supportive as well. So I think it went pretty well. WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible). CAIN:(inaudible) Jerry Arkin was supportive too. JONES:Dr. Arkin was very supportive. CAIN:Very supportive. JONES:In fact I didn't know how to use him enough. (laughs) And so were you. To be quite truthful, Art. WALKER-HARPS:Much of that probably, would you agree, came about because of the personality and the people person that Jesse Bradley was and his willingness to take you on and take you in (inaudible). JONES:I would agree with that. I will tell -- here's a story about Dr. Bradley. When I was interviewing to become principal he -- it was just a one-on-one interview. And he said to me, "What kind of principal you want to be? Just a general." And I said, "Dr. Bradley, I just want to be a good principal. I don't want to be a black principal. I want to be a principal who happens to be black that does a good job." And he talked for the next 20 minutes about wanting to be a good superintendent. Not a white superintendent, but a superintendent who happened to be white. We bonded from that moment on. And it was -- I don't know if something was going on with him at that point in time but I will tell you that I do know that some board members ran initially to get rid of Dr. Bradley when he first got there. But all I ever saw him trying to do was what he thought was right. He made hard decisions. Some weren't always popular but he worked hard. WALKER-HARPS:Yeah. I had an issue with him when he first came. But then we became very good friends, very supportive of me and I liked him a lot. And I see him occasionally now. But (inaudible) Curtis. JONES:(laughs) Well, that's because you're not -- people weren't sure what the agenda is that people get hired with or what it is they're trying to accomplish. And if you don't have great communication then people will fill the gaps. But I'll tell you. He was very supportive of me. He even was the very first person through Mike McLemore who asked me if I wanted to become an assistant principal. I went home, told that to Evelyn. She said, "You only been in this for two years, you going to be an assistant principal?" (laughs) Said, "No." And then he encouraged me to go to a conference to learn about how to improve SAT scores. I came back, I briefed them on the plan. We implemented the plan. And I do believe that was another key reason for why they decided to go ahead and let me apply to be principal of the high school. And then I mean truthfully, if I -- as I look back on it, it was that, then assistant superintendent, and then putting me in places so I could develop relationships. So Dr. Bradley I think just wanted to do the best. And truthfully he will tell you he only came here for four years -- for three years. They hired him to come in to clean things up. And then he just stayed. He was good. WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible) you came to the system with little education background (inaudible). JONES:Correct, I'd been in the army for 20 years, and -- but what I think was happening -- well, you got to understand now. Dr. Bradley came from the prison system. WALKER-HARPS:(inaudible). JONES:(laughs) And so the idea is that you're looking for leaders. WALKER-HARPS:Clean things up is (inaudible) about. Yeah (inaudible) system. BAUSKE:(inaudible) army. JONES:Well, and I did have somebody come back and tell me when my time was up to leave Griffin, they said, "Okay, we've had Bradley and now we've had you. Now we need a real educator." I said, "Okay." I thought we did pretty good. We made some improvements while I was here, and I'm very proud of the time and the people that worked with me. But -- and I'll be honest. James Westbury, who was the board president when I left, said, "Curtis, we trained you well. Now you're leaving us." And I had to apologize for that. But I'll be quite honest, they did train me well, gave me a lot of opportunities. And I feel very fortunate. I feel very fortunate to have been in Griffin too. And I say that. Very proud of what's happened the 18 years that I was here. For me it's the American dream to be quite truthful, 20 years in the army, and now 20 years in education. WALKER-HARPS:Well, we're proud of you. America is. I am. I'm not always agreeing, but we manage to coexist. So but we are proud and thankful. Your contribution that you made to this community. JONES:Well, appreciate it. WALKER-HARPS:Wish you well. And there's no point in wishing you well in Macon because you're already doing so well that we -- JONES:Well -- WALKER-HARPS:-- just need to commend you on how well you have been received and the progress that you've been able to make. JONES:We appreciate it. But again I'm really proud of the work that we did here in Griffin. And the people who were principals, assistant principals. And, you know, and I'll be remiss if I didn't say something about my wife who was a -- truthfully an inspiration. I used to go home and say, "Evelyn, what is this stuff? Evelyn, what is this?" She was a teacher at Anne Street for a little while. Then she moved to Jordan Hill only for a couple weeks. Went on over to Orrs. Then became a gifted one teacher here in the system. And then an assistant principal at Anne Street again. Became the principal at Anne Street. And now she's at Orrs. But she's the true educator. Evelyn has worked in Department of Defense schools, Fairfax County, she just solves so much. And has been able to contribute so much. And truthfully if I ever was successful in any ways while I was here, a large part of that would be because when I was about to do something Evelyn would say, "What are you doing?" (laughs) And I would explain some of it and she'd say, "Well, all right, now, you know what you're doing." And just gave me reason to think. So I have to thank her as well. WALKER-HARPS:Evelyn was always destined to be an educator. When she -- eighth grade, and my student, you could see the potential of that girl. JONES:Well, I truly admit that she's not as smart as I am. Well, she's not. I married her. (laughs) WALKER-HARPS:Oh, okay, I think that's (inaudible) that is a wrap-up. So again we say thank you for taking time and the interest to come and share with us on this project. JONES:Thank you. WALKER-HARPS:Appreciate it. JONES:I appreciate it. CAIN:(inaudible). JONES:Thank you, sir. I didn't recognize you, sir. END OF AUDIO FILE
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audio
purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL418GAA/findingaid
Location
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Griffin, Georgia
Duration
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66 minutes
OHMS Object
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https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL418GAA-016/ohms
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Curtis Jones, June 27, 2017
Identifier
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RBRL418GAA-016
Creator
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Curtis Jones
Art Cain
Jewel Walker-Harps
Ellen Bauske
Rich Braman
Format
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audio
oral histories
Date
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2017-06-27
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Type
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sound
Coverage
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Griffin, Georgia
Subject
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Discrimination
School integration
Military education
United States--Veterans
African American veterans
United States. Army--Officers
Education
Description
An account of the resource
Curtis Jones grew up in Griffin, Georgia during segregation. As a child, he was one of the first students to integrate into Sacred Heart Elementary and later was one of the first to integrate into Griffin High School. Jones attended West Point Military Academy before he served in the army as an infantry officer, a position he held for 20 years. After retiring from the army, Jones became the first African American superintendent of the Griffin School system. In this interview, Jones talks about his school experience, military and educational career, and he discusses integration and discrimination.
OHMS
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Griffin African American Oral History Project
Subject
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Georgia--History, Local
African Americans--History
Georgia--Communities
Description
An account of the resource
The Griffin African American Oral History Project is a collaboration between the Griffin Branch NAACP, the Griffin Campus Library of the University of Georgia, and the Richard B. Russell Library. The seed was planted in the meetings of the Educational Prosperity Initiative which is also chaired by the president of the Griffin Branch NAACP, Jewel Walker-Harps. Collaborators on the project include: Griffin Housing Authority; Spalding County Collaborative; Fairmont Alumni Association; University of Georgia—Athens and Griffin campuses; and the Educational Prosperity Initiative, which is an affiliate of the Spalding County Collaborative and others. Interviewers on the project include: John Cruickshank, librarian at UGA-Griffin Campus Library; Jewel Walker-Harps, President of the Griffin, GA Branch of the NAACP; Art Cain, coordinator of Continuing Education for UGA-Griffin; Be-Atrice Cunningham, project manager for College of Agricultural and Environmental Science for Griffin; and Ellen Bauske, senior public service associate at the Georgia Center for Urban Agriculture in Griffin. Rich Braman was the sound engineer for this project. <br />The Griffin African American Oral History Project intends to document the experiences of people who lived in Fairmont Community in Griffin, Georgia during the civil rights era and through its transformation to the present day.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
Creator
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Publisher
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
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2015-2018
Rights
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Format
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Oral histories
Identifier
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RBRL418GAA
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Griffin, Georgia
Oral History
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5.4 Interview with Kenda Suzette Fuller-Woodard, December 13, 2017 RBRL418GAA-017 RBRL418GAA Griffin African American Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Kenda Suzette Fuller-Woodard Art Cain Jewel Walker-Harps George Braman 0 Kaltura audio < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_9jovdvop& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[Kaltura.addCrossoriginToIframe]=true& ; & ; wid=1_aayq4o1g" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; sandbox=" ; allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; 39 Fairmount, Georgia community / Early education Okay, well actually, this journey... Fuller-Woodard talks about growing up in the Fairmount community of Georgia. She describes the demographic of her childhood community, as many of the community members were educators. Fuller-Woodard mentions her experience graduating from North-Side Elementary School. Columbus Fuller ; Dave Franklin Fuller ; Fairmount, Georgia ; Margaret Fuller ; Moore Elementary School ; North-Side Elementary School 418 Church / Dave Franklin Fuller We went to church every Sunday... Fuller-Woodard talks about the spiritual nature of her community's church. Fuller-Woodard describes how her family, the Fullers, had owned a section of the town in Fairmount Georgia, owned by her great grandfather Dave Franklin Fuller during the 1960's. Fuller-Woodard talks about the impact of church on her upbringing. church ; Dave Franklin Fuller ; New Hope Baptist Church 804 Griffin, Georgia community At the age of fifteen... Fuller-Woodard talks about her great-grandfather David Franklin's family. Fuller-Woodard recalls watching the Fairmount High School band and football games. Fuller-Woodard emphasizes the sense of community in Griffin, Georgia and talks about her earliest memories of segregation. community ; Fairmount, High School ; Griffin, Georgia ; James Mancon 1250 African American businesses in Griffin, Georgia But I can say that I can... Fuller-Woodard relates her experience being one of the only black students in her educational community. Fuller-Woodard recalls some of the black businesses around the Griffin community during the 1960's. Fuller-Woodard talks about her uncle's participation in Civil Rights. American Legion ; Atlanta Life ; Horris Fuller Jr. ; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) ; Snow's Rib Shack 1667 Simmons's Grocery I know the Simmons... Fuller-Woodard talks about her family's account, which they used to purchase groceries from Simmons's Grocery. Fuller-Woodard describes more of the African American businesses around Griffin, Georgia. Bamboo Hut ; Benjamin Dey ; Griffin, Georgia ; Simmons's Grocery ; Spalding Undertaker 2114 Fairmount recreation center And my aunt Lucy Kate worked there... Fuller-Woodard describes her experiences at the Fullar-Woodard Nursery School and the Fairmount Recreation Center. She recalls the filling in of the segregated community pools prior to the opening of an integrated community center. Fuller-Woodard talks about her wish for a better educational community in Griffin, Georgia. E.G. Bowdin Nursery School ; Fairmount Housing Authority ; Fairmount Recreation Center 2589 Griffin community With the exception of Reverend... Fuller-Woodard lists the churches surrounding her community in Griffin, Georgia. Fuller-Woodard talks about how the substandard housing among other factors has led to the disintegration of Griffin. Fuller-Woodard describes her community as of present. community ; Griffin, Georgia Oral history No transcript. Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. audio 0 purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL418GAA/findingaid
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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Interview with Kenda Suzette Fuller-Woodard, December 13, 2017
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RBRL418GAA-017
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Kenda Suzette Fuller-Woodard
Art Cain
Jewel Walker-Harps
Rich Braman
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audio
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Religion
African American business enterprises
Discrimination
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Kenda Suzette Fuller-Woodard was born in 1959, and grew up in the community of Fairmont, Georgia. In this interview, Fuller-Woodard discusses living in Griffin, Georgia during the 1960s and 70s. Fuller-Woodard touches on a variety of subjects including her childhood community, Fairmont High School, the impact of religion on her upbringing, segregation in her community, local businesses, and the Griffin community.
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Griffin African American Oral History Project
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Georgia--History, Local
African Americans--History
Georgia--Communities
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The Griffin African American Oral History Project is a collaboration between the Griffin Branch NAACP, the Griffin Campus Library of the University of Georgia, and the Richard B. Russell Library. The seed was planted in the meetings of the Educational Prosperity Initiative which is also chaired by the president of the Griffin Branch NAACP, Jewel Walker-Harps. Collaborators on the project include: Griffin Housing Authority; Spalding County Collaborative; Fairmont Alumni Association; University of Georgia—Athens and Griffin campuses; and the Educational Prosperity Initiative, which is an affiliate of the Spalding County Collaborative and others. Interviewers on the project include: John Cruickshank, librarian at UGA-Griffin Campus Library; Jewel Walker-Harps, President of the Griffin, GA Branch of the NAACP; Art Cain, coordinator of Continuing Education for UGA-Griffin; Be-Atrice Cunningham, project manager for College of Agricultural and Environmental Science for Griffin; and Ellen Bauske, senior public service associate at the Georgia Center for Urban Agriculture in Griffin. Rich Braman was the sound engineer for this project. <br />The Griffin African American Oral History Project intends to document the experiences of people who lived in Fairmont Community in Griffin, Georgia during the civil rights era and through its transformation to the present day.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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2015-2018
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
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Oral histories
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RBRL418GAA
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Griffin, Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
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5.4 2019-08-30 Interview with Larry Caldwell, August 30, 2019 RBRL418GAA-021 102 minutes RBRL418GAA Griffin African American Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Larry Caldwell Art Cain John Cruickshank Be-Atrice Cunningham Rich Braman Jewel Walker-Harps 1:|16(4)|26(49)|26(184)|26(349)|26(524)|26(736)|26(949)|30(63)|34(145)|34(333)|38(41)|42(19)|42(206)|42(370)|42(542)|42(713)|42(911)|42(1049)|42(1192)|42(1338)|42(1489)|42(1663)|42(1811)|42(1963)|44(20)|50(134)|50(368)|62(24)|62(152)|70(92)|70(275)|70(466)|70(618)|70(810)|72(10)|78(103)|78(269)|80(25)|82(151)|86(103)|86(252)|86(434)|86(596)|92(22)|102(96)|102(283)|106(4)|106(177)|106(394)|108(14)|114(133)|114(289)|114(459)|114(621)|114(809)|118(36)|126(63)|132(18)|134(91)|134(245)|134(414)|134(603)|134(755)|138(150)|138(332)|142(50)|148(149)|152(76)|152(215)|152(378)|152(552)|152(710)|160(147)|160(305)|160(513)|160(630)|160(766)|160(917)|160(1097)|172(92)|172(217)|172(425)|172(631)|172(768)|180(16)|188(8)|192(153)|192(331)|192(512)|192(671)|192(881)|192(1104)|200(117)|200(288)|200(452)|200(624)|212(8)|212(189)|212(421)|214(65)|240(14) 0 Kaltura audio < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_2rov2udm& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; flashvars[Kaltura.addCrossoriginToIframe]=true& ; & ; wid=1_0653csy2" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; sandbox=" ; allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; 99 Growing up in Springfield Well I was raised up right here... Caldwell talks about his childhood growing up in Springfield, Georgia. Caldwell describes the poverty of his neighborhood, as he grew up in a segregated African American community. Caldwell relates how his father provided food for his family as a child. farming ; mill ; poverty 561 Life as a golf caddie When the crop got ready, when the hogs... Caldwell talks about the community of his hometown, Springfield. Caldwell relates his experience as a golf caddie and talks about one of his friends, Jim Cercy. Caldwell explains how his understanding of World War II influenced the way he saw himself in regards to the daily racism he encountered. caddie ; Jim Cercy ; racism ; Springfield ; World War II 1021 After Vietnam I'd join the Marine Corp., plus I told... Caldwell talks about his time serving in Vietnam, and how his experience brought insight after returning home during the Civil Rights Movement. Caldwell explains how he went to Griffin Technical Institute and worked in automobile repair and welding, and how he eventually came to work at General Motors. Civil Rights Movement ; General Motors ; Griffin Technical Institute ; Vietnam 1462 Effects of the Vietnam War And I tell them, how I did it... Caldwell talks about how once he got out of the Marine Corps he worked to help young men freshly out of the Marines get jobs. Caldwell shares stories about the people who influenced him as a young man, including some of the teachers he had. Caldwell describes the ways in which the Vietnam War mentally effected his emotional state, as well as that of community members returning from war. Caldwell explains how he dealt with his PTSD following the war. General Motors ; Griffin Tech ; Joe Baker ; post-traumatic stress disorder ; Vietnam War ; William Walker 1885 Teachers and the Griffin Community We were partying so hard at the time... Caldwell talks about how he decided to join his community's church. Caldwell describes the impact teachers had on his upbringing as a kid. Caldwell shares stories about his children, Ophelia and Demarcus. Caldwell talks about raising his grandson. church ; Demarcus Caldwell ; Just Wings ; Ophelia Caldwell ; Savannah State University 2346 Family Ophelia's oldest boy, the one... Caldwell describes the rest of his family. Caldwell talks about his love for his family, and the way his upbringing with his mother influenced his parenting style. Ophelia Caldwell 2759 Grandchildren and family history Do what you can to help... Caldwell talks about the ways in which he helps take care of his family. Caldwell explains how his father influenced the way that he raises his own children. Caldwell relates stories of his grandfather and how he made money making syrup and bootleg whiskey as opposed to accepting the life of a sharecropper. children ; church ; plantation 3176 Caldwell's grandfather (cont. ) / The Civil Rights Movement She wouldn't let him buy land... Caldwell describes his grandfather and the uses of syrup during his childhood. Caldwell recalls the impact that the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. had on his decision to join the Civil Rights Movement. Civil Rights Movement ; Griffin High School ; integration ; segregation ; syrup 3614 Civil Rights Movement (cont.) / The Griffin Pool They would tell us to go... Caldwell talks about resistance methods used by Civil Rights activists in Griffin, Georgia shortly after the death of Martin Luther King. Caldwell shares stories about the actions some members of the white community would take to stop integration. Caldwell relates a story about a pool in Griffin. Civil Rights Movement ; segregation 4087 Griffin High School integration When we was in school... Caldwell talks about the integration of Griffin High School, especially the integration of the football team. Caldwell explains how many black students were not able to play on the football team after integration. Caldwell relates how the integration of football teams resulted in better performance across many universities. Alabama State University ; football ; Griffin Eagles ; Griffin High School 4511 Racism and Discrimination growing up Everybody knew Mahalia... Caldwell talks about the most influential moments in his life concerning the civil rights movement. Caldwell discusses the hate taught through the racism he often encountered growing up. Mahalia Jackson ; Marine Corps ; racism 4924 Racism and Discrimination (cont.) I said, 'You taught her that, mam...' Caldwell shares his belief as to the origin of racism in the United States. Caldwell explains how he was often discriminated against by police as a child. Caldwell recalls how black police officers were not allowed to arrest white people shortly after integration. discrimination ; police ; racism ; Sam Bass 5390 Inclusion and the Civil Rights Movement All of them wasn't like that... Caldwell talks about some of the positive experiences he had with white people growing up, and the importance of white people in the Civil Rights Movement. Caldwell talks about the importance of taking care of others in the community. Civil Rights Movement ; discrimination ; religion 5802 Friendships (cont.) / Concluding thoughts Do you have anything else you... Caldwell talks about some of the white friends he had growing up, and the ways they defied the discriminatory precedent. Caldwell shares some of his experiences as a kid growing up in the Griffin community. friendship Oral history RBRL418GAA-021_Caldwell ART CAIN: We are here at the University of Georgia on August the 30th, 2018 in our oral history project. We have several folks who are here who will be interviewers, and we will have the privilege of interviewing -- JEWEL WALKER-HARPS: Mr. Larry Caldwell. CAIN: Mr. Larry Caldwell. LARRY CALDWELL: Yeah, Caldwell. CAIN: We will first introduce each of the interviewers and then let Mr. Caldwell start to tell us a little bit about himself. My name’s Art Cain. I’m with the Office of Continuing Education here on the University of Georgia campus. JOHN CRUICKSHANK: I’m John Cruickshank, and I’m the librarian here at the Griffin campus of UGA. BE-ATRICE CUNNINGHAM: I’m Be-Atrice Cunningham. I’m a project manager in the assistant provost’s office here at the University of Georgia, Griffin campus. RICHIE BRAMAN: I’m Richie Braman. I’m an administrator and developer with the Center for Urban Agriculture. WALKER-HARPS: I’m Jewel Walker-Harps, president of the Griffin branch NAACP, and a lifelong friend of Larry Caldwell. CUNNINGHAM: Mr. Caldwell, thank you so much for being with us today. CALDWELL: You’re welcome. You’re welcome. I’ve been looking forward to this. I’ve been notified about this weeks ago, and we were just trying to get a date and a time set up. Believe me ; I’m busy too. CUNNINGHAM: (laughs) Well, we are so glad to have you. So we’re going to start off by you just telling us a little bit about your background, your family background. CALDWELL: When I was raised up right here on the south side of town, in which is called Spring Hill, and that side of town was beyond poverty. That’s where I was raised up at. Our streets probably were the last streets in Griffin that they actually paved. Spring Hill and Boyds Row were dirt streets because they were black neighborhoods. I could go up to the road one block, and (inaudible) the cannery. When we were little kids, we got skates for Christmas. We had to go up the street just one block away because the cannery was there, and that’s where we skated at because it was concrete. That’s as far as that went because the cannery. You understand how deep (inaudible) is? That was on concrete. That’s about what it was like when we was coming up in my neighborhood as a young boy. And my daddy, he worked at Dundee Number One for 44 years. And after 44 years, his retirement was 44 dollars a month because the negroes weren’t allowed unions inside the cotton mills. Back in the ’50s and ’60s, no way there’s going to get a union in the cotton mill. They didn’t know the scale of wages they were making, and they didn’t understand at that time that they didn’t have benefits at all. He just had a job. When I was a young boy, I had to work. My daddy got me a job at the mill -- me and my brother. We worked at the mill 40 hours. The wages back then was a dollar and a quarter an hour. For one-week wages, 40 hours, I brought home 40 dollars because the quarter was taken out in social security and taxes. I only got a dollar of it. Every week, my check was 40 dollars. And I knew as a young boy then, I got to -- something got to be better for me. Daddy drove truck up there all them years, and that’s all he got: 44 dollars a month for 44 years. And the only way we survived, my daddy was a farmer. On each side of my house on Spring Hill where we lived, this man would come around during the spring of the year with his mule and his wagon. And he would plow up the yards on both sides of the house, and that’s where Daddy had his garden. We didn’t have any money, but we had plenty to eat because he raised it. In our backyard, it was a big tree back there. Daddy would raise so many onions, he would line them up around that tree and that’s where they hung. We had a smokehouse full of meat because he cured hogs, and as a young boy, I could never understand. Now, I do. How could salt preserve meat? I would watch him put this meat in these boxes of salt and it would be there till next year or the next year because the salt preserved it. That’s where they get those hams from -- that salted ham -- because they pack it in salt ; they cure it. They learned this up here, not after, because they know all this stuff. Daddy didn’t go to school, but he could raise more food than we could eat for agriculture. He gave away his beans, his peas and stuff. The crop was so big, he would tell us, “Go put this bag of beans on the porch and just walk off. Just leave them,” because the neighbors got tired of him giving them that stuff. They couldn’t eat it ; we couldn’t eat it. Mama and them canned it as much as they could. That’s how we was brought up. Daddy provided that way. Money, we didn’t have -- very little -- but he made sure we ate. We had plenty to eat. We wasn’t hungry ; we wasn’t that hungry. I used to go out to the hen house when I was a little boy, and I would get eggs out of the hen house out the nest. And I would hold them in my hand and go straight to the kitchen, which was a wood stove that you already had prepared to cook on. And I would crack that egg in my hand in the pan. You don’t get no fresher egg than that from the hen house to the pan. That’s the way I was brought up. We had, in that smokehouse, Daddy would make sausage. Can’t get sausage like that today with the sage and all the hot peppers and stuff the way they made it. (laughter) And I can remember all I could do was reach that pot, what it was in. And as a little boy, I would stand on my toes and put my hands in there and just reach down like a dip and just get as much sausage as my hand could hold. And I would go to the store and put it in the pan. And that was the best sausage. Can’t find it like that no more. Every now and then, you’ll take one of them hot sage, that hot pepper and that sausage. It was good. We had homemade syrup. Homemade butter we bought from a man in Orchard Hill ; he made butter. We got our butter from him. Everything was homemade. We bought very little. That’s why I don’t care for syrup today, and butter today because I was brought up, as I said, on the real stuff. This stuff don’t taste the same. If you ever had a biscuit with some homemade butter on it, you could understand why we come up just eating butter bread. Our kids tell her, “How you snack on that all day?” I tell them, “All day, all we ate was butter bread, and sometimes just syrup and bread.” But they didn’t understand. It wasn’t this quality bread and butter that they have in the store today. It tasted better. WALKER-HARPS: Did you make the butter? Did y’all make the butter? CALDWELL: The guy in Orchard Hill made it. We would buy butter from different people. Different farmers (inaudible) different stuff they would make for his food. This one man, he made syrup. We would go by his house and buy the syrup. This one man, he made buttermilk. We would go by his house and buy buttermilk by the gallon. And that’s the way it was. If you didn’t have the money, you could pay him a dozen eggs, and he’d give you so much buttermilk. I mean you’d trade it out. You got any eggs? Yeah, I got a dozen eggs. Well, I’ll give you a gallon of buttermilk. That’s the way it was back then. CUNNINGHAM: Sounds like a cooperative, yes. CALDWELL: That’s the way it was, yes. And if you needed -- like, for let’s say at the store. Even at the stores back then, they would allow people so much credit. If you didn’t have the money to pay the guy that owned the store, and let’s say at the end of the year you owed him maybe, say like, “Well, we got a grocery bill from this year.” “Well, I got stuff on credit.” My daddy was sent 200-some dollar bill. If he didn’t have 200 dollars, he’d go out there and get him a hog. Daddy had a yard full of hogs. He’d give him a hog. Let’s sit on a deal. See what I’m saying? But everybody paid their way, and they cared. They traded it out like that, and they call that a shake-of-a-hand deal. Wasn’t no paper signed ; wasn’t no agreement, no contract, just your word of mouth and a shake of a hand. He said, “By the end of the season.” I didn’t know what that mean when I was a young boy. He was talking about when the crop got ready, when the hogs was full grown. At the end of the season, we’re going to square off, whether it be money, meat, or whatever, vegetables. We’re going to square off at the end of the season. A lot of times, that’s what they’d done. That’s what -- I don’t know what they got charged to plow those fields up, but he would go from house to house if you want it plowed up. And that’s the way I was brought up as a young boy. And we used to caddy on the golf course. We would put clothes on layaway to go to school. And all summer, we would caddy on the golf course to pay for them because Daddy had nine children. If you got nine kids working at the mill, and when you go to school today, in my day and time, we was wearing Levi’s and Converse All Stars, which they called Chuck Taylors. That’s what the young guys was wearing, and that’s what I wanted to wear -- the Levi pants and the Converse All Stars. I had to buy them, though, because Daddy couldn’t afford to do that with nine kids, so I would caddy and put my clothes on layaway. That’s how I got clothes to wear to school when we was coming up. CUNNINGHAM: Well, tell me about your experience as a caddy. I mean during that timeframe, was that a positive experience? CALDWELL: It was in a way, it was. In a way, it wasn’t because Daddy told us to work for a living, and we carried the golfer’s bag. And they had a wage decided what they paid the caddies, and the guys would pay it, and it was like two dollars and a half for 18 holes. The guys out in Atlanta always paid more. They would give you four to five dollars, sometimes even ten dollars, to carry their bag. I don’t know why the guys out in Atlanta paid more. The Griffin guys only paid 2.50. They wouldn’t pay any more. But the guys out in Atlanta, they always paid more. I had a friend -- y’all might know him -- Jim Sersa. I’m sure y’all know Jim Sersa, real estate fellow. Been in real estate forever. Jim was my friend at that time of segregation. The Griffin Drive-In is still there. Caught up below the library here by the cemetery, but that’s all. Right below Mount Zion Church. CUNNINGHAM: Memorial Drive? CALDWELL: Memorial Drive. Griffin Drive-In, still now, they sell the best chili dogs, best chili burgers in town. As a young boy, blacks weren’t allowed to go in there, but when I was a little boy, I ate in there because I was with Jim Sersa. He would take me in there with him and wasn’t a word said because I was with him. And he would buy me hamburgers and hot dogs and he would set them in front of me as a little boy, knowing I couldn’t eat them. He would buy me four hamburgers and two Coca-Colas. It just tickled Jim to watch me try to eat them because I did work for him around the house. And he was just good to me like that. He was my friend. Jim’s my friend today. He is today. Things like that I remember coming up as a little boy, people like Jim Sersa that really weren’t racist. He took me aside this restaurant where blacks weren’t allowed. But with him, because he was a big man at that time -- the Sersa family -- nobody said a word, because I was with him. But this is what bothered me caddying on the golf course coming up as a little boy, a young man. In school, they taught us the history of this country. And I always have been military minded ; that’s why I joined the military. I always have liked the military. I always wanted to be a soldier, and I would read a lot of stuff about the war and stuff like that. And I read about Japan, the war we had against Japan, how they bombed Pearl Harbor and so many Americans was killed at Pearl Harbor that awful day. And them two nuclear bombs they dropped on Japan because we would never beat them in that war. We had to do something to stop them, so our leaders decided to drop two bombs on them. It took two nuclear bombs to stop Japan. We heard about this in schools. But as a young boy, I’m at the golf course caddying. I’m not allowed to play golf on the city golf course. I wasn’t allowed to go inside the clubhouse as a black boy in the city golf course. But Japanese could play golf ; the Japanese could go inside the clubhouse. And you look at that with a bitter taste in your mouth. You’d be thinking, “What’s wrong this picture?” My brothers ain’t -- they wasn’t military like me. I was just -- even as a younger boy, I read about the military. I would just read military history. And I would tell them, “Do they realize how many Americans,” -- these guys playing golf didn’t, but the country as a whole -- “probably killed?” The Japanese? “And they have better rights than we do. They have better privileges than we do.” That’s what I looked at coming up as a young man. When I got of age in school, I realized school’s not working out for me. Wasn’t making good grades. If I ever finished school, I never would have went to college even with a -- all I would ever got was a high school diploma. I said, “I got to do something to make a positive move in my life. Always had loved the military. I want to join.” They drafted me in the Army ; that’s what they did. After they drafted me, I realized I was going in the Army anyway, but I always wanted to be a Marine because it was a lot of black guys back then, which was very rare having been in the Marine Corps. And Sam Bass was one of them. And Sam Bass’s sister, her name Deborah Bass, she was my friend -- not good friend, just a friend. And in ninth grade, by me having a job, I had my own car. Boy, that was something popular back then, to have your own car. That car got me in more trouble (laughter) just being in the ninth grade. God, that’s trouble for a ninth-grader to have his own car. And I would pick the girls up because they rode with me, because I had a car, on the weekend. I had a car. All of those were my friends. Mr. Oliver Hewitt’s wife -- I’m trying to remember her name now. Oliver Hewitt’s wife. I was schooling with his boys ; all of us went to school together, and she would come over there every evening and pick her boys up. And I would leave the house going in that car. I had on blast (inaudible), tires spinning, burning rubber. And she’d call Mama every day and tell on me. “Larry left school acting crazy in that car, just showing off.” And every time I’d get home, Mama would be waiting on me. Boy, that car got me in a lot of trouble. But her brother was the reason I joined the Marine Corps. I joined the Marine Corps because I told my mama -- I said, “If I’m going to Vietnam, I want to be trained by the best,” and I did. I spent a year in Vietnam during my service of time, and during that year, which was in 1969, was also during the Civil Rights movement. That was going on before I went in service, and even after I got out, it was really hard to deal with. I have spent a year in Vietnam for this country. The last thing the government told me to do. Watched a lot of my friends die, black and white, in this war zone, in a war we shouldn’t have never been there. But we went because the government said we should go. That’s like the worst scenario as a black boy. When you come home from Vietnam, a war like that, and your people are still fighting dogs and hoses and polices for their civil rights, and you asked yourself, “Where do I go from here? Should I be mean and angry? Should I fight? Should I kill somebody? What should I do with this now? I gave all I got. I have nothing else for this country to give. But now I got to come here and fight the dogs and the hoses, pipes, and the polices just because I want to come to a place like the University of Georgia,” where we are now. This place was here then. I wasn’t allowed on this campus. It was here then. The University of Georgia was there then. We wasn’t allowed on the campus. But I could go to Vietnam and fight for this, and that was really marvelous for I was only 20 years old. God almighty. I talked to Mr. Kendall, which was a teacher at that time, Mike Kendall’s daddy. Some of y’all might know him. And he was telling us -- he said, “Caldwell, you can come out here and go to Vocational Tech. You’re a veteran, and they have benefits for you, and the government will pay you.” I said, “Pay me to go to school?” He said, “Yeah, they would pay you to go back to school.” I got a second chance. I went back to school at Griffin Tech. It took me three years to finish a two-year course. For one reason, I broke my leg riding horses during that time I was in school. Plus, I wasn’t the smartest kid in school. I had a learning disability which, back in the ’60s, they didn’t see that like they see it now. It was a struggle for me. When some kids studied a couple of hours, I would be up all night just trying to grasp the basics of this project. That’s what I went through through high school. Guys like Freddy Champion and Larry Ferguson and different friends I had like that, all of us were real close, and we went to class together. And they would tell me, “Caldwell, we’re going to help you through this. We’re going to work together on this.” Anything I didn’t understand, they were like my tutors. They helped me anything I was -- they worked with me. They was my friends. That’s how I finished those two courses at that Griffin Tech -- welding and auto body repair. During the auto body repair, Mr. Walt Pitts with old Pitts and Carter’s grocery store. We had to have projects to work on at the school. He wrecked his truck ; I was at his store one day, and I asked him could I take his truck to school and fix it. It’d give me a project to work on. He said, “How much it going to cost me?” I said, “Very little to nothing because the school just wants you to pay for the material.” When I repaired his truck, he paid the school, and gave me some extra money too, and I realized I could make a living at this. It’s some money in this for me. For years, in that little alley right downtown Griffin, I had me a little body shop back there, me and Reverend Frank Wright. He has his own church now ; we were young boys back then. For years, I had my own body shop back there making pretty good, honest money ; I really was. I made good money, and that’s how my career started as making a living. I stayed there in that body shop. I would work in the body shop during the day. I would work at the mill at night. I was constantly putting in applications at General Motors, and that’s where I ended up at, at General Motors. After three years at Vocational school, with body and fender training with welding, I had landed, through the grace of God -- I had a job working in the largest body shop in the world, which was G.M Assembly Plant. And I stayed there 31 years. After 31 years, because of my vocational training, I landed the highest paying job on the assembly line in the whole body shop, which was head of repair. And I didn’t work on that line. I had a job off the line. They send the cars to me. I fixed them ; I repaired them, and I sent them back to the line because of the training I had at Vocational Tech School. That’s how I struggled to really make my way through life, is making a living. But I tell the guys all the time, a lot of young boys. They used to tell me, “When is General Motors hiring?” They always want to work with General Motors. And I’d tell them, “I was working at the mill when General Motors called me. What are you doing now?” A little work is better than no work. A low paying job is better than no job. They want to have no job and think they can step off the corner inside of a big company like General Motors, and they have nothing to offer. And I tell them how I did it. They don’t want to go to school ; they don’t want to be trained. They just think they can just walk in there and say, “Hire me.” I tried to explain to them, “We have to have something to offer.” I went through that a lot when I was coming up because I was a young man when G.M. hired me, and that’s how I made my living for 31 years, at General Motors. And I took applications in forever trying to get young guys jobs when I worked there. CUNNINGHAM: Well, it sounds like you’ve been trying to influence the next generation, and it sounds like Mr. Kendall played a big part in influencing you to go to Griffin Tech. CALDWELL: Mr. Kendall did. CUNNINGHAM: Mr. Kendall ; that’s what I meant ; I’m sorry. So were there other people that influenced your life as a young man growing up here in Griffin? CALDWELL: Yes. When I was in junior high school, Miss Harps was one of my teachers. She was always very nice. She always had patience. I remember her having patience with me because I wasn’t the smarter person. I wasn’t the one that sat right in front of her desk. I wasn’t an A student ; you hear me? I got back as far as I could because I was a slow learner, but she always had patience with me ; I remember that. Her -- Mr. William Walker were the principals and they sit up on top of the hill at junior high school. He was a kind and gentle man when we was in school, and he treated us with fairness and kindness. Although he was the principal -- he was the principal -- he wasn’t a mean man. All the way through elementary school and stuff, most all the principals were real mean. If you go up to the principal’s office, it ain’t like the school that it is now. As a young boy, they beat the socks off you. Any little thing you done, you got a whooping. Amen. Mr. Walker wasn’t like that. He didn’t believe in the belt. He’d talk to you ; he’d lecture to you. “Young man, come here. Young man, just, young man, let me tell you something. Young man, this is what you’re going to do. You’re going to come up fine.” You know, he just -- Mr. Walker broke you down and made you feel conscious about what you did because he let you know there was a better way. He wasn’t a disciplinarian ; he was a teacher. He made you see your faults. He made you think about it. He made you want to be better. He embarrassed you for getting in trouble. That’s the way Mr. Walker were. He was that kind of man. He made you feel ashamed for getting in trouble, and you didn’t want to go there no more because you wanted him to respect you and look up to you. I don’t want to go to Mr. Walker’s office no more because he don’t like that. He don’t like that trouble. CRUICKSHANK: Now, this was at Fairmont High? CALDWELL: Mr. Walker was up there on the hill at junior high school. That was junior high. WALKER-HARPS: Kelsey. CALDWELL: Kelsey, yeah. People like him, Sam Bass, a lot of military guys went in. One of my church member’s sons got killed in Vietnam. Joe Baker, a friend of mine, he was in the Navy. He came home from Vietnam. It shows you how the war can mess a man up so bad. He killed himself, Joe Baker. Me and him were going to Griffin Tech together. And almost killed his wife -- he tried to kill his wife and himself. Hey, Miss Walker, you remember Mrs. Dobbs? WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm. I remember. CALDWELL: She lived and he died. That’s how the military was sending guys home back then, Vietnam. From the first ten years I came home from Vietnam, all I did was drink alcohol and head around to clubs for the first ten years, not knowing I was suffering from post-traumatic stress, war fatigue because my medicine was alcohol. That’s the way I came home from Vietnam. I didn’t know this until I talked to the psychiatrist. I was telling her I had been out of service ten years before I started having nightmares about Vietnam. And she asked me, “Well, what happened between the one and ten when you came home?” I told her, “I stopped drinking.” As I grew up and got older, I put all that foolishness behind me. I stopped drinking, stopped hanging around the clubs every weekend, stuff like that. I saw this young girl I wanted to marry, which went to their church I had invested in. I had turned my whole life around, and I started having nightmares because I wasn’t drunk. WALKER-HARPS: Did the church play an important role with you at that time or not? CALDWELL: Yes, yes. WALKER-HARPS: That was Reverend Harris? CALDWELL: Reverend Harris was my pastor. Reverend James was my friend. My wife went to Eighth Street where Reverend James was preaching. Pastor Harris was my preacher, my pastor on Boyds Row. I spent about as much time at Eighth Street than I did Boyds Row because I really loved this young girl. Well, she’s my wife today. (knocks on wood) Jesus Christ, we’ve been together for 40-some years, been married 30 of them. And I got to be good friends with Reverend James and the deacons because I spent so much time over there chasing my wife. Reverend James would tell me when he was out of town, “Larry, bring me the choir to me,” because at that time, the church didn’t have a van. I had a van because I working at General Motors. I was using the van and partying to chase girls. (laughter) I would bring the choir to him. Every weekend, he out of town, I’d load the choir up in my van. I’d been saying, “Get all the beer cans and all that stuff out of my van,” before I took the choir, still chasing behind my wife. A lot of them beer cans were hers too. (laughter) As time went on for years, that went by. One week, Reverend James was on revival. And you know, when you’re a friend of a preacher, it’s like, “He ain’t talking to me ; he’s talking to y’all. I’m his friend. He ain’t preaching to me. Me and his buddies ; I know his little secrets and he knows my little secrets.” You know what I mean? I listened to him one week. I actually listened to that man preach. It changed my whole life ; it changed my whole life. And that’s when me and my wife both -- I told her, “We got to get saved. We got to turn our lives around. What we’re doing ain’t going to work.” We were partying so hard at that time, I was afraid to go to her with that because I knew what we had to give up. And he said, “Seeing is fun. When you feeding the flesh, that’s fun.” She said, “I’m tired too.” She said, “Let’s go to church and get it right.” Up under Reverend James and Pastor Harris, we both got saved. Reverend James married us, and we’re still together today. They was going to make me a deacon at Eighth Street ; all I had to do was join the church. And my pastor found out about that, Reverend Harris. He heard ; he got wind of it, and he (inaudible). Yeah, he got me out of that claw before they got me, and I’ve been there ever since. And as time went by, my wife did join my church, and we’re still together now serving under Pastor Sewell. Pastor Harris, he passed away. Reverend James done passed away too. They both dead and gone, but we’re still in church. As did the lady sang the song, “You Yet Holding On,” we yet holding on. And that was -- that played a big part in my life as people in the neighborhood. It was teachers like Mr. Tucker in high school. He was concerned about us. Mr. Tucker would fuss and raise sand about stuff, you know, trying to keep us in straight. Mr. Tucker would like this here. At Fairmont High School, we would sneak off campus, as they say cutting class. We would sneak off campus, and Mr. Tucker saw you, because he was a tall man, he would run you down. He’d come get you. If he caught you, he’d come get you. Mr. Tucker wasn’t afraid of you, brung you right back to school. I look back at that and I realize he was concerned. Because he could have just looked at us and said, “Let them go off,” but he brought us back, made us come back to school. Teachers like that, they was really concerned as we was coming up, really cared about us. I think about Mr. Tucker a lot. I remember Miss Harps as a -- back then she was Miss Walker, Miss Jewel Walker. All the boys in the room had a little crush on her -- my middle school teacher. (laughter) And she was good to us. You know what I mean? And we liked her. (laughs) And the boys said, “I like her.” (laughs) That’s the way it was when you was coming up. You had crushes on your school teachers. I mean you didn’t know no better. You know what I mean? This lady ain’t staring at you. You’re just a child ; you can’t even feed yourself. (laughter) But we did as young boys, and I remember her and teachers like Mr. Walker like that when we was coming up. They played a big part of, you know, in school influencing us. They kept us going, and we wouldn’t give up because of their kindness. And Miss Harps now, that’s why she’s the head of NAACP. She care about people -- still care about people. See what I’m saying? She’s still stressed. She don’t have to do what she’s doing. She care about people. It’s just the way she is. Some people -- WALKER-HARPS: Now, you’ve raised some children. How many children do you have? CALDWELL: I have two: one boy and one girl. My daughter, Ophelia, she graduated from Savannah -- CUNNINGHAM: Savannah State. CALDWELL: Savannah State, yeah, and she’s living in Atlanta. She’s a psychiatrist ; she finished school. I made sure she went to college because I didn’t want her to struggle the way I did, and I realized she was real smart. She finished college in three years, 4.0 average. She called me that third year, and she said, “I finished all of my courses.” She said, “They’re going to make me come to school one more year to take one class,” because they wouldn’t give it to her. They made her come one year to take one class. I said, “Since you ain’t got but one class for that whole year, you got my permission to take that one class and have you some fun because you’ve done everything that I asked you to do.” She did that. She was Who’s Who. She was on the Dean’s List Cum Laude. She did everything she could do. And I can’t remember how many ropes that child had around her neck when they called her name on that stage to get her degree. That was one of the proudest days of my life. And my son -- you ever ate at the chicken at this business downtown, Just Wings? That’s his business. He owns that chicken place, Just Wings, and he did all right. He come up crazy. It took a long time, a lot of praying for that boy to get him out of the streets dealing with the drug dealers and dealing with drugs and stuff like that. But by and by, he realized going to jail ain’t what it look like. It’s best to work for a living. Couple times going to jail, he straightened up then. Now, he got two businesses. A lot of prayer and love for that boy, that boy of mine, that Demarcus Allen. He own Just Wings and he got a trucking company. They just bought a house in Heron Bay, and he won’t pay for the golf privileges because he don’t play golf and I play golf. And I said, “What good’s going to do you living in Heron Bay if you ain’t going to let me come up there and play golf?” (laughter) You moved up on the hill but you ain’t taking me up on the hill with you. You know I want to go with you. They don’t think about that, little kids. WALKER-HARPS: Now, you’ve got some grandchildren I admire. There’s somebody in that you raise or help raise I see you with all the time, some grandchildren. CALDWELL: Joshua, my little grandboy Joshua. He live with me. We practically adopted him because I saw him as me as a little boy coming up. His situation wasn’t the best. It wasn’t the best. Family, poor income, living in the worst scenario a child could live in at his age. That was my son’s boy by another girl. And we just practically took him in our home and raised him because I could look at him coming up and the situation he was in. I could only see myself. I said, “Somebody’s got to save this child. Somebody’s got to do something for him.” And me and my wife, we took it on myself to keep him. He live with us right now today. He’s in middle school now. And I have three more grandkids by my daughter Ophelia. Ophelia’s oldest boy, the one that goes to Mount Zion, the psychiatrist, apparently they call it a profession. What they call that when somebody want everything perfect? CUNNINGHAM: Oh, perfectionist? CALDWELL: Yes, perfectionist. He can’t stand it. It’s got be lined up. It’s really got them two lined up. (laughter) It ain’t right. That’s the way he is. He’s that way about his homework. He’ll come home crying because he made a B. He thinks you’re supposed to get an A in everything. I tell him, “Boy, you ain’t Einstein. You’re not going to get all A’s all the time, but you’re passing.” Right now at the school, they are testing him because they literally don’t know exactly what is IQ is because he’s so beyond the grade level that he’s in. In the summertime when school closed -- I forgot which (inaudible) Atlanta. One little college that my daughter was telling me, that’s where he goes to school during the summertime. He goes to some school with the college kids. What they be testing him on, I don’t know how they do that, but just how they -- because he’s so smart. And my one daughter by my son, Shebria, she done finished college. When she was in high school, they would pay her to let them test her. She was getting paid to take tests. And I asked her, “Don’t you get,” -- she’d spend all her salaries up and down taking tests. And at the end of the section, then they’d go and write her a check. And I said, “Bri Bri, don’t you get caught up here, Bri.” Shebria was her name. “Don’t you get tired of that anxiety?” She said, “They give me these tests, just which is so easy, and they’re paying me.” She said, “I don’t mind doing it.” And I asked the lady one time, I said, “Why do y’all test? Why you want her? Why you choose her to be tested?” She said, “Because we look at her grades and how she do on these tests and we use that to test other kids. It’s because she’s extraordinary smart.” And I didn’t understand the strategies behind that, but they would look at her grades and how she made on the test, and somehow they used that to test other kids with. And they paid her for that. I was proud of her. That’s what she did every Saturday. She would go there and took little tests. Little grandkids -- I’m proud of all my grandkids, and I love them, and I don’t have to tell them. I don’t have to tell them. I was sitting on my deck and I was playing ; Ophelia got two twins. I was just playing with them. And he asked me -- he said, “Granddaddy, why do you love us so much?” Them children, that’s one time I was speechless. I looked at that boy and I said, “How can I explain to you how much I love you when there’s no limit to it?” That’s what he didn’t understand. It’s no limit to how much I love you. I can’t -- and they said, “This much?” I don’t know. How can I count it? (inaudible) is east from the south and the south is from the north. The kids wouldn’t understand that. I will love you as long as I got breath in my body. He asked me, “Why do you love us so much?” And I do ; I love them. I love them so much, my daughter, my kids, my family. WALKER-HARPS: You, you had a rough life, rough childhood sort of, but you came out to make a success out of it, and you’ve got a testimony. So I have to say that that is what happened to your children. There must have been something in your home or in the environment surrounding them for them to turn out. They didn’t automatically turn out to be a success. Even the young man Joshua came to realize what he needed to be. CALDWELL: Yeah. WALKER-HARPS: So would you -- am I right? Would you think that you experiences led you to be the kind of man that could direct them to the point that they would be the kind of children that they are today? CALDWELL: Yes. WALKER-HARPS: Had you been different, perhaps they would have been different. CALDWELL: Yes. WALKER-HARPS: But you have lived, as my mama would say, through all of it, and you’ve sowed all your seeds so you were ready to be a father and a grandfather. CALDWELL: My mother -- I think I got it from my mama. When I was just a young boy, when I first started working at General Motors, I lived with my mother before -- excuse me -- before I got married. Living with Mama, working for a company like General Motors, I had no bills, no debt, making more money than I needed, just having a good time with it. My sister had three kids, and they was in the worst scenario that a child could be in. And that really bothered my mama a whole lot. It really did. And I told her to go get them. I said, “Go get them, Mama, if that bothers you. You take them from her, and I dare tell you, what you eat, they going to eat. I will make sure it’s a plenty there for all of you.” And it was no problem for me because I was single with a good job. I bought -- at that time, I was paying two car notes: one for me, and one for my mama. No problem. I had nothing else to do with my money ; I was living with Mama. I made sure she had everything she wanted, and when I saw her concerned about those kids, I told her to go get them. And I took care of those kids and my mama. I think I got that spirit from her, to always reach back for your family members that you can take care or help. Do what you can to help your loved ones through their struggle. Just because you’ve made it through the gap, you always have to help others get there. You just can’t think about self all the time, and that’s the way I was brought up. I took care of Mama and my sister’s kids. WALKER-HARPS: Okay. I hope Doctor Sewell is using what you have to offer there with those children who are still coming from Spring Hill and Edgewood and whatever. I’ve not been -- I’ve not talked to him lately. I know him and I will be talking to her, but what I’m saying to you, you have a testimony, and I’d like to think that you are using it to help. You’ve helped your children, your grandchildren, but I’d like to think that somebody is using you and allowing you to have that kind of influence on some of these other children out there. CALDWELL: Okay. I have three little boys that belong to the younger church members in my church. They’re young boys that can still have babies -- not my age. They got three little boys, and every day, every Sunday after church, they’re looking for me. They want to come up there with me because the deacons have to sit where the pastors can see us. If something’s going wrong or whatever, we’re right there and it’s a small church. They don’t know they can’t come up there during church services, but they want to. As soon as church service is over, here they come, all three of them. Bam, they’re all over me because I spend a lot of time with them and I play with them and I talk to them. As kids, if you can get on their level, they’ll listen to you. You can’t go up to a child all the time being an adult. Sometimes you got to think on their level. And everybody ask me at church, “Why those boys crawling up your leg every Sunday and you can’t move from them?” Because I get on their level and talk to them, and I play with them. And I understand as a little boy that kind of attention because I had a strong, big daddy, and he was a big man, and he wore overall pants. And he would get off work when I was a little boy at the mill, and he would buy raisin cakes for me on the way home. But I had to find it. He had so many pockets in them overalls. I had to climb all over to find that pile. It would just tickle him to death for me to look for it, you know, because he was such a big man. And I treat the kids like that today, you know. Even at my church, I would ask their parents, “Is it all right if I give them 20 dollars or whatever?” Because I know they’re in school and stuff, and I’d give them money and stuff like that and tell them, “You know you have to work, you know, to earn your money.” I said, “I’m going to help you, but you got to go to school and work, you know?” And I try to be as good as helper for them. And I teach them ; I catch them cutting up in church. I stop them, talk to them about it, but they love me, and my grandboy gets a little jealous of that sometimes because he don’t want to share me like that. But those little boys, they are -- I tried to (inaudible). But I told one young lady. She fussed at her son all the time because he wanted to sit up front. I said, “Leave him alone.” I said, “If he wants to come up here, just leave him alone.” I said, “You never know ; he might be a preacher. He might be a deacon. You don’t know what reason it is he’s got this burning desire to come up here. He wants to be up here.” I said, “Let it run its course. We’ll see what will come from it.” Said, “Let it run it ; let him come. We’ll see where he goes with it.” Might be a preacher ; you never know. Might be a preacher. CAIN: So since this is going to be around 100 years from now, would you want to say a little bit about your grandparents or great-grandparents if you know them? CALDWELL: My grandparents? CAIN: Yeah. CALDWELL: My grandparents -- my grandfather -- I didn’t know about grandmother ; she died when my mother was a little girl. And I did see my grandfather. His name was George Washington Vandergriff, and him and Mr. AC Testone, which I know some of y’all probably remember him ; he’s passed now. Him and Mr. Testone was good friend as young mans. And Mr. Testone told me one night, because I had got in some trouble, and Mama sent Mr. Testone to get me out of jail because she knew him. I was just young and wild. He said, “Man, I knew your grandfather.” I said, “Papa?” He said, “Yeah, I knew your granddaddy.” I go, “Tell me something about him.” He said, “When we was young men,” he said, “your grandfather would not farm. He would not sharecrop because he knew there wasn’t no fairness in sharecropping. They weren’t going to treat him fair.” I said, “Well, how did he make a living?” He said, “Your granddaddy made syrup and he made bootleg whiskey. That’s how he made his money.” He said, “George Washington Vandergriff had so much money because he didn’t farm. He didn’t work on the farm. He made syrup.” Back then, not just making syrup for himself, he would go around to every farm and make everybody syrup because he knew how to cook it. That was a gift he had. On every plantation otherwise, he would cook the syrup for them. And he sold white whiskey. He said my granddaddy had a wagon, which they called a surrey. Was sharper than any car that you could have bought at that day and time because he had the money. He said he had a motorcycle. Back then, didn’t too many guys ride a motorcycle. The plower was (inaudible) hit in your head hard. It had to be. He was telling me some things back then about my granddaddy, and I was telling him, “I wish Papa had bought land with all that money he was carrying back then because if he had bought the land, we’d have been like Mr. Testone into the land.” He bought land. That’s why he got his wealth ; he bought land. And our stepmother wouldn’t let him buy land. I learned that through him because his children wasn’t her children. She carried the money on her on a money belt under her dress -- his money. She wouldn’t let him buy land, but he owned everything else: cars and motorcycles and... He said a surrey is a wagon you see on TV. You see the little balls hanging around it and stuff like that. The seat real decorated. It’s just not an ordinary wagon. It’s a sharp wagon. And he said my daddy had one that looked better than any car that was on the road. That much I learned about my granddaddy when he was coming up. He was a little-bitty man, but he was a tough little man, you know. He wore overalls and he carried a big old pistol. And Mama noticed him. He had a pistol so big it would just pull his pants down from behind. And he would leave the house walking back to Orchard Hill the way he had been drinking. He’d gotten back drunk, and my daddy told him, “George, you got to straighten up going through town like that. You can’t go through town drunk like that. The police is going to stop you.” He told him, “I’m going straight through town, and I ain’t going to walk no better,” because he didn’t care. That’s the way my granddaddy was. He didn’t care. Said he’s going straight through town. A little bitty proud man, but he made his own money. We didn’t farm ; he didn’t sharecrop ; he didn’t crop ; he didn’t pick the cotton and all stuff like that. He made syrup and made white liquor, and he had plenty of money. I learned that about my granddaddy and I always wondered when we were little boys, he always would buy Mama cars. Papa had money. He always would buy Mama a car, make sure we had something to ride in. We would go see him in Orchard Hill. He always kept her a car. That’s what I remember about my granddaddy. And I was just a young boy standing beside his bed when he took his last breath. That was the first time I ever seen a person actually die. You can hear him breathing all over the house. I knew something was wrong because Mama and everybody was there, and I knew it had something to do with Papa. But I didn’t know he was going to die that night. I knew he had been sick, but I was standing by the bed just looking at him. And I’m like, “Why Papa be in such a quiet mood?” And he was breathing so hard. And I just got to the point where I was just staring at him. I never took my eyes off him. And then just out of nowhere, he just took his last breath. CRUICKSHANK: What year was that? CALDWELL: I can’t remember. I was so young ; I was just a boy, just a little boy. I was probably about 11, 12 years old, if I was that old. I’m 69 now. That was about, oh, 60 years ago, yeah. I was only about eight, nine years old when that happened. WALKER-HARPS: You’ve talked about syrup a lot. What was it used for other than the biscuits? CADWELL: Syrup? WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm, and did they use it to make bootleg whiskey? Or what was it? What was the main... I grew up with syrup too, but we just used it for cooking. CALDWELL: Most of the syrup was for cooking, and different types of syrup, they was using for sweetener. And this -- I’ll think of it in a minute. It’s an old fashioned syrup they used for cooking, but the regular syrup, it was just for consuming, like bread or eating it for breakfast on your pancakes and stuff like that now. And they got this syrup ; they use it now when they make baked beans. It’s -- I don’t like to use it, but it’s a black syrup. WALKER-HARPS: Cane patch? CALDWELL: Yeah, one of them like that they used. They put it in baked beans and stuff like that. Now, depending on what you were cooking, they would pour that syrup in it. But to tell you the truth, there wasn’t no syrup companies really, back in the early days. Most all the syrup was made at some farm somewhere because you couldn’t afford to buy cane patch out of the store, different brands like that. You couldn’t afford to buy that syrup. They sold their homemade syrup, which was better. It tasted better. CUNNINGHAM: I’m going to backtrack a little bit to talk a little bit about the Civil Rights Movement. Were you a participant or how did you participate in the Civil Rights Movement? CALDWELL: I remember when Dr. King was assassinated, and as a young boy, that night, all over Griffin, the skyline was lit up. Everything made out of wood was burning. If it was made out of wood, it was burning. They was -- the black was so mad when Dr. King was assassinated. They began looting ; there were riots and burning. It was a few black businesses in the black neighborhoods, but the only one they didn’t burn down, because you needed that store -- that’s where you’d buy your groceries. (inaudible) was the one that survived that night. That went on for several weeks before they got law and order. Every night, it was burning. I remember that as a little boy. Every night, it was burning. I remember when Jesse Jackson came to Griffin. I remember when Hosea Williams came to Griffin. They came down here on a march. Remember that wagon and mule? Hosea Williams, you know, we was just young boys that year. And they had a movement where all the blacks left the school and they marched over to Griffin High School because of integration and segregation. At that time, I was in Vietnam. I was about 19 years old when all that was going on. I was in Vietnam then. I didn’t see all that. I heard about it when I come home. Stuff like that was going on, and they would tell us to march. They would tell us to go march this store, like Woodward, downtown Griffin. Woodward had a water fountain in the back of the store, had the back of it clear as day. White and black: white only water fountain, but you could buy their product out of the store. I remember stuff like that coming up during the Civil Rights Movement. And they would put the kids out there because if we went to jail, we were just somebody they had to feed. But if they locked my daddy up, he couldn’t go to work, the bills couldn’t run, you know, stuff like that. So they just didn’t picket ; they used different strategies on them. We’ll put the kids out there. (inaudible) have something with no kids. All you got is a mouth to feed. They ain’t got to go to work Monday morning. You know what I mean? You ain’t hurting nobody. You just got to bust your kids free. And they stopped locking them up because of that because they realized, “This? We can’t win like this. Locking the kids up don’t work.” That’s what we was going through during the Civil Rights Movement. We would get out front because our parents couldn’t afford to go to jail. They couldn’t be locked up and stuff like that. When I -- where I grew up there on the south side, what they called Spring Hill, it’s right next to the golf course and the city park. They had a pool down there, an Olympic-size pool. We used to be canning and watch those kids go swimming in that pool, but we could not get in that pool. There were three black guys that went down there one day. One of them was named Ben. Ben was rough cut, didn’t back off from death for nobody. I can’t remember who were the guys with him. They walked into that pool and got into that water with nobody’s permission. When they saw that happen in Griffin, they knew then the blacks were going to follow suit. They’re coming ; they’re coming just like these two, three guys boasted their way into here. They’re coming. The city commissioners and all of them in Griffin began to meet. They buried that pool. It’s a football field down there now where they practice football. Up under that ground is an Olympic-size pool. They filled it with dirt ; they filled it with dirt before they let us swim in it. And I’m going to share something that a lot of people in Griffin probably don’t know about the city of Griffin’s swimming pool. The pool we have today, me, Willie Lewis, John Arthur with the police department -- he was a police officer. He was our supervisor at the pool. We were the first lifeguards to work at that pool. I think one guy they called him Muletrain ; worked for the fire department. He done passed now. WALKER-HARPS: He’s dead. CALDWELL: Y’all might know Muletrain. All of us was fighting ; all of us was lifeguards, young boys working at the pool. And I could never understand ; in front of the pool, it didn’t have Griffin Pool. It was Greek letters hanging over the door like a sorority. I’m saying like, “What this got to do with the city pool?” And every year, when we’d open the pool up, this well dressed gentleman -- you know how some people just look like when they got money? Driving this black Buick, big deuce and a quarter Buick. He would come in there and he would ask us, “How you like your job down here? How do you like working down here? How the conditions are?” I said, “Oh, man, we love it. It’s easy money. It’s no problem. Being a lifeguard is easy.” He said, “What you like about it the best working for the city as a lifeguard?” I said, “It’s a good job and you’re real popular with the girls when you’re a lifeguard.” (laughter) And he just laughed. He said, “I bet y’all are,” just like that. “I bet y’all are.” And that guy, when he left, I noticed the front of his tag had those same Greek letters that’s hanging over the pool. They done moved those Greek letters now. They’re not there now. So we start asking questions about it. What connection this guy got with the pool? We found out the city of Griffin did not build that pool. Technically, that pool is not in the park. Think about it. You know where the pool is in Griffin? It’s at the entrance of the park ; it’s not in the park. It’s at the entrance when you enter the park. They never did build it back in the park because the city did not pay for it. That young gentleman that came down there from that little Greek that was on his car -- I can’t remember what sorority it was -- they paid for that pool. The city financed the land, and the city did want us to manage it. The city paid us to lifeguard, but that Greek organization that he was in actually built that pool and put it there for the blacks to have somewhere to swim. That’s why those Greek letters were hanging over that door. We couldn’t understand what these Greek letters got to do with the city pool. They done moved them now, though. They grown. They not there anymore. WALKER-HARPS: So you have no idea who the man was? CALDWELL: We never -- all I knew the white gentleman come in, dressed real nice, and he always questioned about how we liked working, how we was being treated. And he would ask those questions every year. He’d done that several years. He stopped showing up, and we found out that they were the ones that built the pool, that sorority he was in. They built that pool there, not the city. They’d done that so the blacks would have a swimming pool. WALKER-HARPS: Hmm. Never heard that before. CAIN: Was this a black person who -- was this the person black or white? CALDWELL: The guy was a white gentleman, but he built the pool for everybody. But they wouldn’t let him put it in the park because they didn’t want the blacks then swimming in the pool in the park. So right there where it sat down, that’s the closest he could get it -- the entrance of the park. It’s really not in the park. It’s right there next to it. It used to be the old health department. And we found that out and we worked there as lifeguards. They sent us out to the S club to get certified because they had guys out there that could certify lifeguards. We went out to the S club to get certified as lifeguards. But the pool was there for blacks and whites really. But [01:07:00] it was a Greek organization, this Greek club. These boys with them Greek letters, this sorority, they were the one built that pool, not the city of Griffin. All the city of Griffin did was they overseed it. They paid us to lifeguard, stuff like that, but the city of Griffin didn’t do that. Sure didn’t. They didn’t do it. How they come about doing it, I don’t know, but they had to have a lot of money. It took a lot of money to build that pool. It’s a big, nice pool. WALKER-HARPS: Was that the same time that they filled the one on over at Fairmont? CALDWELL: Yeah. Yeah, they filled both of them up. They covered them both up, sure did. They covered the one we did have up and the one in the park because they said, “They can’t swim in the one in the park.” They was going to cover them. You can’t cover up one ; cover up both of them, and that’s what they’d done to keep us from swimming together. They keep us from swimming together. Just like, when we was in school, Griffin High School football team was never really heard of or known. They were the Griffin Eagles, and we used to talk about them all the time. They just wouldn’t win. They just wouldn’t beat nobody. They were just the Griffin Eagles. We were playing schools like Atto -- (inaudible). Atto was a farm school. All them guys were old enough to be in college, but they were just for farm school because they was in trouble. Might well had to sit in jail, but they had a football team. Forget about playing teams like that ; them boys didn’t take no prisoner. We were playing different schools from different places all over town ; it was tough. Griffin High didn’t have that kind of competition because just back then, all those schools was all black, and they were playing schools that was all white. They integrated Griffin High School. Y’all won’t believe this, son. The guy’s alive right now today. He was the first black guy to put on Griffin High’s uniform. His name is Marvin Martin. I could go put my hands on him right now. Marvin Martin, he was the first black guy to play for Griffin High. We used to go up to the game just to see Marvin play because he was the first black to be an Eagle that played after they integrated schools, after the Eagles. They would set down and Griffin High were losing. I mean just flat out losing, and he was on the bench. We sat there and we would chant, “Marco, Marco, Marco,” because his name was Marvin Martin. The coach would put him in. Marco outran them. Down the field he would go. (laughter) They’d catch him on the ten, five-yard line, (inaudible). Coach put him out. Put him out because none of those boys in the backfield get that ball in across that goal line. They’d take him out the game. Wouldn’t even score. Wouldn’t let him score. Take him out the game, and Griffin High were losing. We watched that week after week after week. They would give that boy that ball, and this is the sad part about it. They did not block for him. They did not block for him on purpose. He was just that fast. When he got that ball, he was on his own, and he made it work. Down the field he would go. Get in his scoring position. Instead of them giving the ball to him and letting him score, coach would take him out the game, and we would sit there and boo and raise all kind of sand ; it didn’t make no difference. Griffin High were losing. Had one of the best running backs to this day, Marvin Martin, and we’re losing. Wouldn’t let him play ; wouldn’t let him play. They came up out of the recreational department, a young boy named -- they called him Q Ball. They discovered this boy in the recreational department playing rec ball. He could throw the football from one end of the field to the other with no effort at all. Couldn’t nobody run that distance and catch it, but he could throw it. Got to Griffin High ; wouldn’t let him play. Wouldn’t let him play. If they let that boy play, with his ability, he would have graduated All-American. They’re losing ; Q Ball’s sitting on the bench. WALKER-HARPS: Q Ball. CALDWELL: You know him ; you remember Q Ball. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah, I remember. Yeah, he’s (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible). CALDWELL: He’s sitting on the bench ; they’re losing. One of the best quarterbacks in high school ; wouldn’t let him play. They didn’t want him to graduate All-American. That’s what would have happened because he had that kind of a talent. He could flat out throw that ball. They would not let him play. We sniffed that stuff like that coming up. It was after the school was even integrated, the athletes that were there, they wouldn’t let him play. The coaches wouldn’t do it because just like now, if you’re an All-American athlete in high school today, you get a full ride to college. The scholarships, the money was there, even back then. If you graduated All-American, you were black. The colleges then was integrated, trying to be. A few of them was. Colleges were looking at black ball players. They didn’t want that to happen because he’d have been All-American. Somebody would have picked him up. If not white colleges, one of the blacks was. Sure would. I remember watching a movie about Bear Bryant when they -- first time they played as a college that had black ball players. And Bear Bryant told them -- this was a true story of Bear Bryant -- and we saw this. I witnessed this as young boys coming up. I can’t remember the name of the school. They beat the socks off Alabama. Them boys in the locker room called the n-word this and the n-word that because they was all white, Alabama. Bear Bryant stand back and just looking at them in the locker room. And he told them -- they had this in his movie -- he said, “Y’all are sitting there with your head down complaining, how they’re n-word this and their n-word down.” He said, “Next year, half of y’all jobs going to be replaced by some black ball players.” He said, “I got to win.” He said, “I’m going to replace y’all. Half of y’all going to be gone next year.” He said, “I got to get them black boys if I’m going to keep winning.” And that’s what Alabama done, and they never looked back. Even he saw it -- Bear Bryant saw it -- the athletes that the black guys were. He said, “We can’t beat them, not with an all white team. We can’t beat them boys like that.” They was black and white. There was too much gifts out there ; too much talent. Beat the socks off Alabama. Bear Bryant saw it too. He said, “I can’t go out there like this. I’m going to lose my job.” And we saw all of that coming up, integration and how the blacks had to struggle to try to make it, how they really had to struggle. I was reading about Mahalia Jackson, one of the greatest spiritual singers ever lived. Everybody knew Mahalia. Her husband had a college degree. Back in that day and time, the only job he could get with a college degree was a bill carrier for the post office carrying bills. That’s the only job he could get that paid pretty fair wages, a bill carrier. You don’t need a college degree to deliver mail. If you can read and count one through ten -- that’s somebody’s address -- you can deliver mail. See what I’m saying? That’s the only job he could get with a college degree. Blacks have struggled, even the ones in higher positions. You’d think that they would have it pretty good until you read the history and what they went through and how things were. But the most baffling thing to me was Pearl Harbor. And we sat there and watched those Japanese play golf, go in the clubhouse, buy them a cold soda, drink out the water fountain. These people have killed Americans. These people have brought tears to this country, and they have better rights and privileges than we have. All that coming up as a young boy, it was pretty rough. Even in the Marine Corps, we were called names and all kind of vulgar names. And during training, the training was hard enough as it was, but being verbally abused and physically abused, about as bad as one about as bad as the other one. They wouldn’t put their hands on us, but the thing they would say to you was worse than a whip because they wanted you to quit. The Marine Corps was like this ; they felt like wasn’t nobody good enough to be a Marine, black or white. You had to earn your way in there. You had to fight your way to be a Marine. You had to show them that you were qualified to be a Marine. And if you was black, you had to show them two times that you could be a Marine because you caught twice as much hell being black -- twice as much hell. But black guys made it ; they made it. I’ll never forget ; one day I was coming from the PX and I saw this one black guy. He was an officer, black Marine. He had one star. He was a one-star general. I looked at that boy till he got out of sight. I couldn’t believe it. I said, “It’s hope for us. It is hope for us out there somewhere.” He had one star, but he did have a star. He was a general, and I just couldn’t believe it. It was just amazing. I’d look at that young man and realized he was hope for me. I said, “It’s hope for us out there.” He was a one-star general. Sure was. I’d never saluted a man with so much pride in my life when I walked by that boy. Sure did. Things like that -- now we got guys in the military, black guys with all kind of ranking, all kind of officers. They take it for granted, but they don’t know the struggle, even in the military, to get where they are today, what the guy that was there first, what they went through -- what they went through. CRUICKSHANK: Where does all the hate come from? CALDWELL: Huh? CRUICKSHANK: Where does all the hate come from? CALDWELL: The hate? CRUICKSHANK: Yeah. CALDWELL: What we could see when we was coming up, it didn’t make no sense. Like, you don’t really know me, but you hate me because I’m black. I couldn’t explain that, just because we were different colors back in the ’60s. We didn’t do nothing that no other, young teenagers do. All my daddy did was work like any other man worked, but we was just black. How could you hate a person because they’re black and you’re white? That we didn’t understand. The hate, where it came from, I don’t understand it because it has to be taught, in a way. You have to be taught because... I saw a commercial one time on TV, and they was trying to sell this product. And their floor was full of babies -- black babies, white babies, Mexican babies, all kind of babies. And they were selling this product they were trying to sell. All these babies was playing and hugging and kissing on each other because they knew no hate. They were innocent at that time. But somewhere in their life, somebody got to tell them, had to teach them this hatred. When I was a young man at the store, at the Kroger’s -- old, old Kroger’s store before they moved -- this young lady was in line with me and had a baby in her arms that was old enough to talk but it was just a baby. And I’m in line standing behind this white lady and her baby over her shoulder looking right in my face. You know how babies stare at you anyway ; they’re going to do that. And I’m saying to myself, “I hope I ain’t the first black man that she’s going to see.” She was just staring at me, and she let me knew she wasn’t the first black baby. That baby raised her head up off her mama’s shoulder and looked right at in her mama’s face because that’s what her mama taught her. She said, “Mama, it’s a (language) back here.” Everybody in the store heard it. I said, “Oh my God.” She was telling the baby, “Hush. You hush your mouth. You hush your mouth.” I told her just like this, “You taught her that. Now, you telling her to hush.” I said, “She don’t know what she’s saying because she’s just a baby.” You see what I’m saying here? I said, “You taught her that, ma’am. Now you want to make her hush.” It embarrassed her more than it did me. Everybody in the store heard it. That little baby said, “Mama, there’s a (language) back here.” I said, “Good God.” She taught her that. Sure did. When you -- that’s why Mama would tell us, “Don’t curse around kids. Don’t curse ; them children hear you cursing and staying stuff because they pick it up then learn it from you.” If you curse, your children are going to curse. If your drink, your kids are going to drink. They’re going to have your habits. A baby can drink more beer right now than you can. I don’t know why babies love beer. Babies love beer. If they see you drinking it, they can pick it up easy. They like it anyway for some reason. But God almighty, you know, that hatred thing is being taught just because. I don’t know what it is. Back in the ’50s and the ’60s, the days, the times I remember, it was so much hatred because you was black. What was so wrong about being black? It makes no sense. I bleed like you bleed ; I hurt like you hurt ; I love like you love. I get hungry just like you do. I get sleepy just like you do. I love my family and my kids and I work for them just like you do. I wouldn’t harm your baby because I got babies. I’m not going to harm your wife because I have a wife. But by me being black, we was feared. Just being black, that made you dangerous. We couldn’t understand that. We got locked up as young boys because the city park, going to the other side of town, we would walk through it because it was quicker to walk through the park than to go all the way around this big old place. And the police is out there security guard. Kids playing all over the park just like me. I was just a child, and they would stop me. Said, “Where you going, boy?” Just like that. I said, “I’m just cutting through to go to my friend’s house.” He said, “You better walk a little faster.” And then we began to run because the police said, “You better walk a little faster,” just because we were black. WALKER-HARPS: Were there many incidents at that time in Griffin with the police? Were there many racial incidents with the police? CALDWELL: Just like that, yeah. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. CALDWELL: Yeah, yeah. We didn’t have nowhere to go for us, the park and [01:25:00] going to the pool and places the white kids had to go for recreation and stuff like that. We couldn’t go the gym and play ball, down to the park. They wouldn’t allow us at the gym, so we would stay in the cold under the streetlights. And we would sing and play ball or whatever right up under the cold because we wasn’t allowed to go nowhere. And the police would ride through the neighborhood and lock us up because we were standing on the corner. We would go to jail for that. We saw the police coming before they got there. We would have to run, go hide till they go by. We wasn’t allowed to even stand on the corner, but we had nowhere else to go -- nowhere else to go. WALKER-HARPS: Now Samuel, your friend Samuel was one of the first black policeman’s hired, right? Sam Bass? CALDWELL: Sam Bass? WALKER-HARPS: Uh-huh. CALDWELL: Sam Bass and Love... Love. WALKER-HARPS: Love Maddox. CALDWELL: Love Maddox, Sam Bass, and Marvin Barrett, Pop Ellis, and Harry Mullett. They were the first black police officers that worked for the police department, and they were not allowed to lock up white people. That was the rule. They could not lock up white people. They had to call a white officer. But one day, in the alley -- they call it downtown Griffin -- the alley was all black businesses in the alley, and Sam Bass was walking his route as a police officer. He was coming through the alley. Everybody knew Sam. Like I said, he was an ex-Marine, big as a bus, strong as a bull. White guy coming down through the alley drunk -- I don’t know who told that man to hit Sam Bass, but he hit him because he was a black police officer. He had a bad day that day. He had a real bad day when he hit Sam Bass. When they got there to lock him up -- the white officers -- it wasn’t much for him to say because he was knocked out. He hit the wrong police that day. I don’t know why he hit that boy, big as he was, and he was a police officer. Sam put a whooping on that man in one way. He had a bad day. But he couldn’t lock him up. Had to call the white officers to come and get him. It was like that a long time. As integration and segregation got better and better by the laws being passed, see that was not really right to hire a police officer but he can’t lock a white man up. That didn’t last long. That didn’t last long because it really wasn’t right. They did it for a while ; said, “Well, we’ll hire him, but he can’t lock up white people.” That’s what they’d done. That’s what they’d done. But they took the jobs under that situation and those conditions because somebody had to be first, and they were the first ones. They tried to get me to join the police department when I came home from Vietnam. And I told them, “I didn’t... I got by one shooting, and I don’t want to get killed over having a metal, toting a gun.” I said, “I don’t want to be no police officer, man. I would lock up -- who I’m going to lock up? My friends? Everybody that’s around here I know. I don’t want to be no police.” I could only lock up my friends ; I couldn’t do it. I turned it down. But that word hate, I can’t explain it when there was no reason for it, only because I was black. I was black. I was -- my daddy used to cut grass in Experiment when he got off work for this white guy up there. He had a little bitty bulldog. And we used to go up there early in the morning, and I would watch this man cook hamburgers. And he just didn’t make the meat and threw it to the dog. He would fix a complete hamburger with all the trimmings, and his dog was black, and he would feed it to that dog. But me, as a little black boy out there cutting his grass, he’d never offer me a hamburger. Never asked me, “Are you hungry? Do you want a hamburger? Do you want anything to eat?” All of them wasn’t like that because I would tell you about in Experiment about my first banana sandwich. My daddy was cutting grass in a house that lived down below that one because he had seven yards up there he cut grass on. This Saturday morning, this white lady was bringing in her groceries, and she asked me to help her. And Daddy told me, “Go ahead ; help her take her groceries in the house,” and I did. When I got in the house, she had a son in there, a little boy -- me and him about the same age. He watching cartoons on the TV, and I’m still unloading her groceries back and forth from the car. Every time I would walk by that room, I would glimpse at the TV. And I’d go back and get some more groceries. When I’d come by that door, I’m glimpsing at the cartoon. I think she saw me because she told me, “Go in there with my son and watch the TV.” I said, “I got to go out here and work. I got to go help my daddy.” She said, “Don’t worry about it.” She said, “Go in there with him and watch the cartoons.” I ain’t got no problem with that ; it’s hot out there. (laughter) I’m sitting there with the little boy watching cartoons and Daddy’s out there cutting grass. Every now and then, I’d see his head go around the window with that lawn mower ; I’m sitting there watching cartoons. This white lady was nice, you know. Everybody wasn’t mean. And she had brought me a banana sandwich. I never had a banana sandwich. I’ll just have a sandwich. I don’t want bananas in it. I said, “Bananas and bread?” She said, “Taste it.” Had mayonnaise and everything on it. I said, “Ma’am, I don’t think it’s going to come out right.” She said, “Taste it.” And her little son was sitting there eating his sandwich ; me and him both had a banana sandwich. I bit that banana sandwich. Oh, man, I was introduced to a whole new world. I’d been eating them ever since. (laughter) Banana sandwich. But what was so funny, I’m sitting there with the little boy eating that banana sandwich, mayonnaise everywhere, and every now and then I’d see Daddy’s head come by that lawn pushing that lawn mower. That was too funny. He said, “Boy, where you been?” I said, “You told me to help her.” I said, “When I got in there, she told me to sit down and eat.” (laughter) That was funny. Things like that I remember as a little boy. I laugh about it today. Like I watched them cartoons, eating that banana sandwich, watching Daddy’s head go by that window cutting that grass. Boy, that was funny. Stuff like that I remember coming up as a young boy. CRUICKSHANK: But doesn’t that make you wonder, you know, why the difference, you know? CALDWELL: Some people were just nice, and some people were just mean. CRUICKSHANK: But why is that? CALDWELL: I don’t understand why that. She invited me in her house to sit down with her little boy and eat, and she didn’t have no problem with that. And she knew, as a little boy, she didn’t want me out there with Daddy cutting grass. That’s why she did that, so I could get out that heat out there. And she let me sit there with her boy and eat and watch the cartoons. She was a nice lady. Everybody white back during the Civil Rights Movement were not mean or we would not have our rights today. Look at the movies. Look at the tapes. When Dr. King was marching, when they was picketing, there was the whites out there too getting the hose and dogs put on them. Now, the whites was marching with Dr. King and they were throwing them bricks at him. It just wasn’t everybody white hated everybody black. It was a lot of white people who marched with Dr. King -- a lot of them. And let the truth be told. I look at today where we have come from. We have a black president in the White House. Believe me ; the white folks helped us got that black president in that House. Give credit where it’s due. Amen. We didn’t do it by himself, but we were so proud of him. Let you know all white people are not mean ; all of them are not evil and racist. Some of them just want to live right and do the right thing because let the truth be told that we’re all going to meet the maker one day. We all got to meet him, and they say he’s in heaven. If you’re not living right, if you’re not a born again Christian, you’re going to go before him. And you’re going to see heaven, and you’re going to have to leave. Some people know that, and they try to -- can you imagine seeing heaven, something that great, and have to leave? You cannot stay. That’s enough right there to make you want to live right. But that’s what’s going to happen, and some people realize that. We have to live right regardless of what color you are. We have to love one another. We have to treat one another right. I got a phone call this morning. It ain’t like I’m rich. One of my church members been real sick, and one of the deacons said they’re trying to get 500 dollars for him, to give him. They’re trying to raise 500 dollars. He asked me would I help, and I told him, “I will give him 100 dollars.” Behind me is a refrigerator that’s not working. Our refrigerator been out for a whole two months because Lowe’s -- the warranty they gave us -- they wouldn’t fix it. I don’t have any food that I can eat in my house as you would go in your refrigerator. I don’t have a refrigerator, but I gave this boy 100 dollars. My stove that I cook on, that hole is empty because it’s so burnt out. I’m replacing it with another stove, trying to get it hooked up. I didn’t have 100 to give, but sometimes you have to do to help others when you’re really not able. I’m eating and living out of a cooler on my back deck. All my water, sodas, milk and all that stuff -- perishable stuff -- is in the ice cooler. Been that way for two months, but I still gave him 100 dollars. See what I’m saying? You have to do things when you’re really not able regardless of the situation you’re in. You still have to help people because it’s always somebody in a worse shape than you are. This man’s been real sick a long time, real sick. WALKER-HARPS: Well, that’s just a testimony to everything else you have said today about yourself when you were growing up. Uh-huh, that really is. It didn’t just happen. We’ve got to close up now. It’s late. CUNNINGHAM: Well, do you have anything else you want to share with us before we close out today? WALKER-HARPS: You may go. CALDWELL: If y’all need any more questions, like I said, my childhood and my coming up was a long story. I tried to tell it short and brief as I could. And I just want to put on -- CAIN: It was a pleasure to meet you. CALDWELL: I just want y’all to know, even when I was coming up, I had some young boys that was white and they would take me to their house. And their parents were working, and we would eat up everything in the house. God, we were friends. They didn’t see me as black or white. We were just friends, and I met a lot of young guys like that. We got together. We were young boys ; we hung out together. And that’s just the way it was coming up. Because their parents might have been racist ; they wasn’t racist. God, we played together. We had fun together and everything back there on that golf course. We’d get butt naked and swim in the creek together. We did all that together because I couldn’t go to the pool ; he could, but he would swim with us in the creek and stuff like that. We was friends. And I’d tell you about Jim Sersa, still here today. Jim was my friend, was. He never treated me like I was black or white. I was just his friend. I had a lot of white friends coming up in Griffin, a lot of them. Stewart, the sheriff, he was my friend. I used to tease him about it all the time. When Stewart first came to Griffin, he was a police officer. He wasn’t the sheriff. I said, “Stewart, you never caught me,” because we used to shoot dice under the streetlights. And they would pull up in their car and we’d run. And we found out if we leave the money, they wouldn’t chase us. Wasn’t about three or four dollars, no way. If you’d pick the money up, they would run us all the way through the woods, come and pick the money up. If we leave the money, they wouldn’t chase us. They’d pick the money up. “Oh, we’re going to get y’all next time.” They’d pick that money up and get back in the car. I told Stewart, “Stewart, you never caught me.” I said, “I was one of them black boys you was running on Spring Hill every weekend.” He said, “What?” I said, “I was one of them.” I said, “Boy, I got to play rough with you. You never caught me, Stewart. I was too fast for you.” I was working for the Sheriff’s department then when I told him that. We would laugh and tease about it all the time. I ended up there working for him at the Sheriff’s department. I said, “Stewart, you never caught me.” I said, “You couldn’t catch me.” He would laugh about that. He said, “I caught half of you though.” I said, “But you never caught me.” We would laugh about that tonight. When he died, I cried. I liked that Stewart. He was just an everyday guy. Grew up to be a sheriff, just like me trying to struggle and make it. He was the sheriff, but he still was the same old Stewart. I hate the way he -- I understood he got killed. But I had a lot of white friends like that, lot of them. WALKER-HARPS: I hated that too. He knew I always thought he was a racist, but a couple of weeks before he died, he sent me a message. “Tell Miss Harps. I’m not a racist ; I like her. I’m not a racist ; you make sure you tell her.” And I said, “I wonder why.” I took it as a repentance. I took it as yeah, you know, sometimes things happen to people just before they die -- CALDWELL: Yeah, I grew up with him, yeah. WALKER-HARPS: -- and they want to make things right. And when I heard about, that’s what entered my mind. He knew that I felt that way about him. I knew. I always thought he wanted to make it right. CALDWELL: He wanted to make it right, yeah. CUNNINGHAM: Well, Mr. Caldwell -- no, you go ahead. WALKER-HARPS: We enjoyed your very, very wonderful interview from the heart. I got a real good view of the inside of you today. CALDWELL: Okay. WALKER-HARPS: Yes, and you’ve got a testimony to give, and hopefully I’ll be calling on you at other times when -- particularly with the young people -- CALDWELL: Okay. WALKER-HARPS: -- because what you were saying is of value to them. CALDWELL: Okay. WALKER-HARPS: Thank you so much for giving your time and your effort to come and share with us today. CUNNINGHAM: Thank you so much. CALDWELL: I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I’ve been looking forward to this because I have so much respect for Miss Harps, you know? Anything she ask me to do, I try to do it. She called me, fussing me off, talking, “Have you paid your membership due?” WALKER-HARPS: I do fuss at you. CALDWELL: I already paid my membership through the year, but she makes us pay our membership due. WALKER-HARPS: That’s right. (laughter) That’s right. CALDWELL: Don’t forget our membership due. And it ain’t that I don’t want to ; I just have to remind me. WALKER-HARPS: I’m coming over there. CUNNINGHAM: Right. WALKER-HARPS: I’m coming over to clean to house and you’ll -- CALDWELL: Yeah, come over and clean the house with me and Shirley. She’s in a meeting now. She’s a commissioner. You see all these new high apartments you been around here in Griffin, the housing authority? WALKER-HARPS: She’s on the board. CALDWELL: My wife is on the board. They’re the one doing all that, tearing this old stuff down, building these new houses. The housing authority’s doing that. She’s a commissioner. She’s Miss That and (inaudible). She stay busy all the time. Miss Harps. We got to call her Miss Walker when I was a young boy because she was Miss Walker ; she was our schoolteacher. WALKER-HARPS: I know. CALDWELL: She was my undercover girlfriend. She knew that I liked her so much. END OF AUDIO FILE Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. audio 0 purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL418GAA/findingaid
Location
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Griffin, Georgia
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102 minutes
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https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL418GAA-021/ohms
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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Interview with Larry Caldwell, August 30, 2019
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RBRL418GAA-021
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Larry Caldwell
Art Cain
John Cruickshank
Be-Atrice Cunningham
Rich Braman
Jewel Walker-Harps
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audio
oral histories
Subject
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African American veterans
Discrimination
Civil rights
United States--Veterans
United States--Civil rights
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Larry Caldwell grew up in Springhill, Georgia during the era of segregation. He served in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War and when he returned, attended Griffin Technical Institute before he attained employment at General Motors. In this interview, Caldwell talks about growing up in Springhill, his experiences after the Vietnam War, discrimination, and the Civil Rights Movement of Griffin, Georgia.
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2019-08-30
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
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sound
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Griffin, Georgia
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-
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Griffin African American Oral History Project
Subject
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Georgia--History, Local
African Americans--History
Georgia--Communities
Description
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The Griffin African American Oral History Project is a collaboration between the Griffin Branch NAACP, the Griffin Campus Library of the University of Georgia, and the Richard B. Russell Library. The seed was planted in the meetings of the Educational Prosperity Initiative which is also chaired by the president of the Griffin Branch NAACP, Jewel Walker-Harps. Collaborators on the project include: Griffin Housing Authority; Spalding County Collaborative; Fairmont Alumni Association; University of Georgia—Athens and Griffin campuses; and the Educational Prosperity Initiative, which is an affiliate of the Spalding County Collaborative and others. Interviewers on the project include: John Cruickshank, librarian at UGA-Griffin Campus Library; Jewel Walker-Harps, President of the Griffin, GA Branch of the NAACP; Art Cain, coordinator of Continuing Education for UGA-Griffin; Be-Atrice Cunningham, project manager for College of Agricultural and Environmental Science for Griffin; and Ellen Bauske, senior public service associate at the Georgia Center for Urban Agriculture in Griffin. Rich Braman was the sound engineer for this project. <br />The Griffin African American Oral History Project intends to document the experiences of people who lived in Fairmont Community in Griffin, Georgia during the civil rights era and through its transformation to the present day.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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2015-2018
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Oral histories
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RBRL418GAA
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Griffin, Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
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5.4 2019-03-26 Interview with Howard Wallace, March 26, 2019 RBRL418GAA-022 67 minutes RBRL418GAA Griffin African American Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Howard Wallace Jewel Walker-Harps Art Cain John Cruickshank Rich Braman 0 Kaltura audio < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_jecii9vf& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; amp ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; amp ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; amp ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[Kaltura.addCrossoriginToIframe]=true& ; amp ; & ; wid=1_hy66gv6z" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; sandbox=" ; allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; 96 Growing up in the 1930's I'm Howard Wallace and I'm a native... Howard talks about his upbringing as he was born in the 1930's, during the time of segregation. Howard explains that he had little contact with African Americans growing up. Howard explains how gerrymandering was used to increase the power of white populations after mandatory integration. mandatory integration ; West Griffin 523 The Biracial Committee How do you account for that, peaceful? Wallace talks about the ways in which a pastor in the community helped integration efforts in the city of Griffin, Georgia. Wallace recalls how the Biracial Committee was created in Griffin to spur integration efforts across the institutions of the town. Biracial Committee ; Griffin, Georgia ; integration ; St. John Episcopal Church 885 Cross burning / Joining the Army I'd be curious to know... Wallace talks about cross burnings targeted at members of the Biracial Committee of Griffin. Wallace relates stories about his time in the army during segregation. Wallace talks about further interactions he had with African Americans during his time in university Biracial Committee ; cross burning ; Ku Klux Klan (KKK) 1276 Benefits concerning Biracial Committee You think they were taught, or were .. Wallace talks about how his work in the Biracial Committee has created connections throughout the community of Griffin, Georgia. Wallace relates how African American lived in poor conditions when he was growing up in Griffin. Wallace talks about how the economic situation of African Americans has improved greatly throughout the years. Biracial Committee ; economic growth ; Griffin, Georgia 1677 Breaking racial barriers I ran into a lady the day... Wallace shares how racial barriers were slowly broken in Griffin. Wallace talks about the segregated services that were implemented while he was growing up including segregated facilities and unequal education among Blacks. education ; Horace Ward ; integration 2062 Racial aspects of education, church, and politics Can I ask a couple of questions... Wallace talks about how racist ideologies were promoted through the use of religion and in the creation of multiple private schools in Griffin. Wallace and the interviewers discuss the racial aspect of recent politics. politics ; private school ; race ; religion 2512 Political control in GA To elect a senator, you had ... Wallace talks about the unconstitutional methods of senatorial elections that were carried out in Georgia, which ultimately prevented African Americans from getting office in sections of the south. Wallace shares how gerrymandering is currently effecting the representation of political opinions throughout Georgia. Wallace shares his optimism towards the future of Griffin, Georgia. Biracial Committee ; districts ; political power ; Senator elections 2896 Works by the Biracial Committee Did you all collectively say... Wallace talks about the work done by the Biracial Committee to dispel both minor and major acts of discrimination within the African American community of Griffin. Wallace explains how being a member of the Biracial Committee effected his political career. Wallace relates how he kept his racial beliefs in respect to his parents' stance on integration. Biracial Committee ; discrimination ; Walter Jones 3425 Court Cases / Concluding thoughts Who was our track star... Wallace talks about the conduct he upholds to dispel racial inequalities. Wallace relates a mistake he made during a case he worked which had an unexpected result. attorney ; Barnesville, Georgia ; court cases ; Wyoming Tyus Oral history RBRL418GAA-022-Wallace JEWEL WALKER-HARPS: You ready? M: Mm. WALKER-HARPS: Today, March the 26th, 2019. We’re at the University of Georgia, Griffin campus, with African American Oral History Project. We have as our guest today Attorney Howard Wallace. We have interviewing him today Art Cain, John Cruickshank, Richard Braman, and myself, Jewel Walker-Harps. Now, we’re going to be doing this a little different from what we normally do in terms of allowing Howard to, what, tell us who he is, what he does, or who he has been in Griffin and to kind of tell us his story. And we [00:01:00] know that he’s not African American but we know that he had a prominent life here in Griffin. And he would have knowledge of the impact of other aspects of a community that would have had a very positive or negative impact on the life of African Americans. So, we’re just going to let him tell us what he’d like to share with us and then we will ask him questions so that he can fill in the gaps. So, now, just tell us a little bit about yourself and go right into your story, Attorney Wallace. HOWARD WALLACE: Okay, I’m Howard Wallace. I’m a native of Griffin. My father was a native of Griffin and his father was a native. We go back a long way. The old family home where my father was raised still stands precariously on Wallace Road in east Spalding County, west Butts County, right there on the line [00:02:00] and -- I-75 goes. So, we’ve been here a long time. I grew up -- I was born September the 10th, 1930, right in the heart of the Depression. My father was the probate judge. They called it then ordinary, which was -- dealt with -- it had some judicial functions but mostly it was clerical. It was for marriage licenses, things like that that -- a probate of wills, that sort of thing, was his job. And when I grew up, and I grew up sort of in the courthouse, in the public life, I was born in the house on -- am I getting too far or going too far? WALKER-HARPS: No, you’re doing -- M: (Right?), excellent. WALKER-HARPS: -- no, you’re doing -- it’s (inaudible) WALLACE: I was born in a house that still stands on Taylor Street. I don’t know (that I’d?) -- [00:03:00] 794, I think, on Taylor Street. It’s between the chicken place, Chik-fil-A and Bonanza, in that block right there. The house, you’ll notice it still stands. I was born in that house in 1930 and went -- my first school was Fourth Ward, which was virtually right around the corner. Fourth Ward then was where the police precinct is now. That was the early grammar school. In those days, the -- well, still is, I guess. This school board is a separate political entity from the city or the country. And the school board, somebody asked why did they name ’em wards. I really had no answer to that except that that was what the school board did and they just had four sections of the city and they had -- and there [00:04:00] were four wards in there: second, third, fourth, and first, I guess. And Fourth Ward was this side. What was down here, Jewel, that -- WALKER-HARPS: West Griffin? WALLACE: West Griffin, and I don’t know what ward it was in. And they always called it West Griffin. WALKER-HARPS: Yes, yes, yeah. WALLACE: It was Fourth Ward, Third Ward, West Griffin, and Northside. Those were the four grammar schools. Then, in 1937, my family moved to Maple Drive, which was an extension of 6th Street. It was a new subdivision that was being promoted by Mr. Nat Bailey and his brother and brother-in-law called Forest Hills. So, my folks moved out there and I then went to Third Ward from the second on through. There was a [00:05:00] complete segregation of schools at that time. Growing up, there were maids that came into your life in some sort of function or another but I didn’t have much contact with Afro-American people as a child. We had a maid that came. She lived on Boyds Road, (Mattie May Lemmons?). Her husband was Robert Lemmons. They later -- during the Depression, even moved to Cincinnati to find a better life up there. They had no children and so they picked up and left, which was heartbreaking to me. I was a child and Mattie May, who was a comforting, nurturing friend, that was my contact with Afro-Americans. And when she left, we -- my mother never could be satisfied with anybody [00:06:00] else. And so, thereafter, I had no contact with the relationships that we have now until I went in the Army in 1952. At that point, everything was still, of course, separated, segregated. There hadn’t been any Oklahoma School (take?) -- there hadn’t been any court case, hadn’t been anything about that. When I was -- I guess when I came back was in law school. The Oklahoma case requiring integration of the schools with all deliberate speed was enacted by the Supreme Court and immediately, the law professors -- and this has always been a problem with me, that these people were learned [00:07:00] and good people. They immediately -- was figuring out ways to circumvent the enforcement of that by -- they say, “Well, we can always draw district lines and we can” -- a few years back. And some of you might be old enough to remember the flap about the flag. There was a flag that had the Confederate -- WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. WALLACE: -- cross, what was on it. And to his credit, the governor, then, I think could agree to get rid of the flag if he could get the lottery -- I think there was a lot of politics but it went and it should have gone. But they said it was designed to honor the deeds of the Confederate -- brave people. It wasn’t at all. I was there when the guy scratched it out in the law school basement of the law school in Athens. Scratched it out. “We’ll put this bar on this flag as a -- act of defiance forever.” Had nothing to do [00:08:00] with this -- and when they came back, of course, it was all for this -- oh, bull. Just wasn’t. There was immediate attempt to circumvent this, which -- and they did, pretty well, Jewel -- and you probably can answer this. When it -- I remember when Crescent Road School was integrated. My Steve was in school then. I think my daughter, Elizabeth had probably finished before there was an actual integration. But this is some 10 years after I left law school and that thing had happened. But there was. It was a peaceful integration here in Griffin. WALKER-HARPS: How do you account for that, peaceful? WALLACE: Well, I was -- I think one thing that helped, and it might have been essential and it might have been the linchpin that made the climate that made it peaceful: at the time, [00:09:00] I was a member of St. George’s Episcopal Church and we had a rector named Ray Averett. He was an army veteran and a paratrooper and he was -- tough old bird and had a heart as big as this building. And he was concerned with what was happening. There was problems, there was the Alabama problems, there was Albany, there was all kind of terrible problems, just terrible treatment of our fellow human beings. And he could not, in good conscience, live in this community and not do something about it. So, he formed, within the church, what is called a birac-- he called it the first and only biracial committee in the city of Griffin. And we met in the Parish Hall down at the basement of St. George on Sunday afternoon. That was very controversial. But I want to tell you, I’ll [00:10:00] make an aside: from my own experience, it was an epiphany for me. It helped me -- rid of all the racial injustice that was piled into my life, just like a fish swimming in a stream. It just was the way it was when I came along. And by being a part of this and meeting on a sunny afternoon basis and sharing the anxieties, fears, ambitions that Afro-Americans had that -- it was a wonderful experience, it really was. That group met and there were others. My mother was very -- she was a very fair person but she just couldn’t fathom integration. And she said, “Well, you can go down there and you can meet with them but you don’t have to have coffee and cookies [00:11:00] with ’em!” That was the barrier that she and her whole South Carolina heritage couldn’t cope with. But we did and that spread through -- and our city manager at the time, he would send the police to take the tag numbers of the cars that were parked behind the Episcopal Church. I don’t know what -- WALKER-HARPS: I remember. WALLACE: -- he was going to do with ’em. But at any rate, Mary Fitzhugh, who was also a member, she was not on the venture but she was a member of the committee. Ginger Shappard was. Ginger met with -- there was no -- Afro-Americans could not serve on jur-- or did not. They could but they did not serve on juries at the time. There’d never been one picked for a jury. And Ginger had to go see Judge McGee and he could -- though she had some prominence in the community, her husband was a wealthy mill owner, Judge McGee didn’t give her time [00:12:00] of day and made it almost impossible to meet with them. We got nowhere with that. As an aside, there was a court order requiring everybody’s names that were eligible, of both races, all races to be placed in the jury box. What they did, and I don’t know whether you know this, Jewel, or not: they put the white people’s names on firm cardboard and the black people’s names were on paper. So, when they reached in the box -- WALKER-HARPS: Yeah, no, I didn’t know that. WALLACE: -- they’d reach in the box to pull ’em out, then they could say -- WALKER-HARPS: (inaudible) WALLACE: -- if they were examining court, well, that name’s in the -- well, yeah, the name’s in the box. But they had -- that was the -- right in Mr. (Lindsey’s?) office, that’s the way they pulled the jurors. The heavy ones got picked and so that whenever any Afro-American jurors -- for many, many years. WALKER-HARPS: (And who was?) -- WALLACE: That committee did a lot to quell -- because it was peopled by people that didn’t have [00:13:00] any real axe to grind, like me, Walter Jones, Jimmy (Mankin?), others. WALKER-HARPS: (Miss Crossfield?). WALLACE: Who? WALKER-HARPS: (Was -- Miss -- was Crossfield over here?)? WALLACE: Miss Crossfield was on that -- WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. WALLACE: (inaudible) her husband was on -- Bob Crossfield was on it. Bob Smalley was very -- WALKER-HARPS: Yes. WALLACE: -- instrumental -- WALKER-HARPS: He was -- WALLACE: -- in it. WALKER-HARPS: -- helpful throughout. WALLACE: And it was -- (there?) -- I say that. I was very low person in -- far as prominence in that committee. But the committee kept things down. And when there was -- when the lunch counter at Woolworths was integrated, Mary was right there with them, you know? And nothing happened. There was never any violence, overt, for that reason. There was violence, of course. Like, we just had a conviction last year of the -- WALKER-HARPS: Yes, yes. WALLACE: -- two that -- the Klansmen that murdered the young man and [00:14:00] (everybody said) -- WALKER-HARPS: Coggins. WALLACE: What was his name? WALKER-HARPS: Timothy Coggins. WALLACE: (inaudible) WALKER-HARPS: Coggins. WALLACE: -- horrible, horrible crime, which was -- it really was -- when I say that it was lucky you didn’t -- now, that was the way it was in the South in those days. It was just -- WALKER-HARPS: I know, yeah. WALLACE: It just was. WALKER-HARPS: Who had crosses burned -- or the (Heads?) had crosses burned (in their?) (inaudible) WALLACE: I had a cross burned! WALKER-HARPS: -- (burden to us?). WALLACE: You knew that. (laughs) WALKER-HARPS: Well, we give praise to that committee. We give credit (to this, well?) -- WALLACE: Do you? WALKER-HARPS: -- yes, we do -- WALLACE: Do you? I -- WALKER-HARPS: -- for the stability in this community. The credit goes to that interracial community and the people who were committed to the work of that -- what they did. RICHARD BRAMAN: I’d be curious to know: you had a cross burned on your lawn. WALLACE: I did. BRAMAN: And it was a direct result of being a part of the committee, is that right? Or -- WALLACE: Well, it was a result of my law practice. I just happened to represent this man. [00:15:00] He was Mr. Copeland. He was a concrete finisher and he was going home, he had his trailer with his -- all of, you know, you see those things with the concrete tools in the back. And hard-working man and they stopped him on the way home and said he was driving under the influence. And we tried it and the sheriff , it was the witnesses against him and the jury found him not guilty. I don’t know (inaudible) BRAMAN: Was this a -- African American guy? WALLACE: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So, they felt like it was an affront to the sheriff’s department that the jury found him not guilty when they had testified that he was driving under the influence. I don’t know whether it was or not but he got a cross burned and I did, too. (laughter) BRAMAN: So, follow up on that, was the jury that found him not guilty comprised of all white jurors or were there some African American jurors (inaudible) WALLACE: Yeah, I think they were all white then. [00:16:00] That’s my recollection. I can’t remember picking Afro-American jurors until I was maybe in Clayton County, trying some combination cases up there. It was more fully integrated in Clayton. I don’t remember that specifically. It was -- (laughs) I laugh about the experience because it was funny: I was certainly disappointed in the size of the cross that they gave me. (laughter) It was about like this. (laughter) And I’m not kidding! It was no taller than this and it was made out of cross -- two by fours crossed like this, covered in burlap and then doused in gasoline or something. They were -- it was burning pretty -- but it was no bigger than this and I just -- and somebody came to the door and said, “Do you know there’s a cross burning in your yard?” I think this is Professor Hendricks across the street. I said, “No,” and I went out and picked [00:17:00] it up and threw it in the road. And they came back, (laughs) the Klan came back by sometime later and found it burning in the road and set it back up. (laughter) So, I was never frightened about anything. I saw one of the guys that did it. I saw him when he was -- his car out on Crescent Road. I’d worked with Thomas Patkin one summer. I knew him, Johnny Knowles. WALKER-HARPS: Yes. WALLACE: And he -- WALKER-HARPS: Everybody knew Johnny Knowles was Klan. WALLACE: (laughs) And he was one of ’em -- WALKER-HARPS: Yes. WALLACE: -- and he was in the car that came back, said -- and he knew me! He didn’t see me but he knew the house it was. But that was such a minor incident in the whole picture of how we were getting along. I don’t think that rippled anybody’s community about that. But in the Army, I was in -- my first assignment was in the 509 Tank Battalion and [00:18:00] it was the last un-integrated unit in the United States Army. It was composed of draftees from Upstate New York that had formed this battalion and their enlistment time was up shortly after I got to that battalion and it virtually disappeared. But that was a segregated unit. All of the noncoms and the troops were Afro-American ; the officers were all white. That’s the way it was in the Army. This was up until 1952, ’53 when Truman ordered that there be no segregation in the services. But that was another -- see, that was an experience. I had none growing up in high school. Grammar school, high school, or college. The college experience was what -- we had a cook at the fraternity house. We loved her. [00:19:00] (Eldora?) was a good cook, a faithful cook. We had -- she had some help in the kitchen and we had two houseboys that picked up your clothes and made your beds and made us live like gentlemen at the university. That was -- WALKER-HARPS: You were out -- were you ahead or behind (Hamilton Holmes?) and (Charlie Hunter?)? WALLACE: Oh, I was -- they were way back. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. WALLACE: I mean, way after me. There was nothing like that over there then. It was just -- it was the same old de facto we’re up here, you’re down there. You can wait on us and we’ll love you for it and hope that you will reciprocate. But it was -- there was no classes together or anything like that. In Athens. Now, I did go to school for a year for my graduate work at Indiana University and there was -- WALKER-HARPS: Oh, yeah. WALLACE: -- some integration there. Not a whole lot, not as much as you would think [00:20:00] in Indiana but some. And one of the restaurants there, in Bloomington, maintained a segregated posture, even in -- that must have been 1955, was still -- so, yeah, it’s like now, Jewel, the pockets of these things all over the country that we need to get rid of. We need to -- WALKER-HARPS: Well, that’s -- WALLACE: -- get rid of it rather than fostering like we’re doing now the attitude of we want to go back to those days, when we want to go back to where it’s master and servant and that sort of thing. And it’s wrong. WALKER-HARPS: But it’s the equivalent. We -- I run into it with many cases, particularly with county government. WALLACE: Yeah, I mean, yeah -- WALKER-HARPS: (inaudible) much with city but with the county government, there’s still (inaudible) WALLACE: Still that old line -- WALKER-HARPS: -- the line, right. WALLACE: -- old line and that’s the way it -- and it’s [00:21:00] -- I don’t know whether it’s going to take generations to do it. I mean, you’d think -- I mean, I’m 88 and -- but there’s people that have been born since me that still harbor this same attitude toward it that -- it’s just -- WALKER-HARPS: You’d think they were taught or they’re being taught because the people who were actually a witness would’ve died -- WALLACE: I know that! WALKER-HARPS: (inaudible) yeah, but that -- WALLACE: That’s what I don’t -- WALKER-HARPS: -- we still see it coming out and (inaudible) WALLACE: It’s still out. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. WALLACE: I still see it in -- among my -- I wish they could have -- that I’m saying the experience that I had on that biracial committee, just -- it made me personally -- and my rector, I -- he came by to see me one day at home and I’m out working in the yard and he said, “You just feel so smug that you’re doing this.” And I said, “Yeah, I guess I do.” He said, “You’re just doing what you ought to be doing! You’re not doing anything heroic! You’re just doing what you ought to be doing.” And that sort of cut me down [00:22:00] but it didn’t take away the experience. And from that day, Jewel, I’ve been a -- I think I’m known as a friend in -- WALKER-HARPS: You are. WALLACE: -- both communities. WALKER-HARPS: You are. You are. WALLACE: And I’ve got friends in all of ’em and I had a problem with, a couple years ago, with probating my brother’s will in Clayton County. He’d done 1,000 wills, I guess, and in this occasion, he didn’t get it witnessed properly. And so, it was -- and we couldn’t probate the will. (laughs) And the witness that should have, that was typed in to be signed was an Afro-American that -- he just bought his business in Jonesboro, his law office. So, like, we’re doing all of this, I could see how it happened. But later on, she balked at signing it ex post facto. She said I didn’t sign it at the time and [00:23:00] my niece said, “Well, you saw it. You witnessed it.” So, she was having trouble. I said, “Let me talk to her.” So, I talked to her on the phone and she was adamant about not signing it. So, I called up Gwen Reed. I said -- WALKER-HARPS: Right. WALLACE: -- “Gwen,” (laughs) Gwen (inaudible) , I said, “Gwen, I need some help from the brotherhood.” (laughter) I said, “I don’t want this woman up there to think I’m a white honky -- I want you to help me establish some bona fides. Will you ride up to Jonesboro with me and let’s talk to this lady?” And she -- “I’d be glad to.” We had a good time. She went up there and we came in and we talked. And I don’t -- and my niece doesn’t think we’d ever gotten anything out of if Gwen hadn’t been there and I kind of feel the same way. WALKER-HARPS: So, Gwen is one of the -- person who recommended your -- WALLACE: What? WALKER-HARPS: Gwen is one of the persons who suggested -- WALLACE: Oh, did -- WALKER-HARPS: -- I talk to you, yeah. WALLACE: Oh, did she? WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. WALLACE: Well, [00:24:00] she’s always been a good friend. But that was a great experience. WALKER-HARPS: But you were a friend to her uncle, then her dad and whatever. So, you go way back -- WALLACE: Oh, yeah. WALKER-HARPS: -- to the -- WALLACE: I do, I do. WALKER-HARPS: -- twins, yeah. WALLACE: And I represented ’em. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah, yes. WALLACE: I have -- my father represented Afro-Americans. There was -- WALKER-HARPS: (Really?)? WALLACE: -- never any reason not to. WALKER-HARPS: Bob Smalley. (Yeah?), Bob Smalley was a jewel. He was (inaudible) WALLACE: Oh, yeah. Bob was. He was not only -- he was fearless but he was intellectual and a tremendous mind. And, yeah, he did a lot in this community. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah, he really did. WALLACE: And he had a lot of respect from everybody. WALKER-HARPS: We loved him. WALLACE: Would listen to Bob and it’s been a gradual thing but it’s been a -- we have -- we benefited by a lot of the things that have gone on. When I came along, the Afro-Americans lived in just terrible living conditions. They didn’t have [00:25:00] -- the maid that we had that I loved dearly that helped raise my children, she lived on the corner of 9th and is it Oak Alley through there, where the -- WALKER-HARPS: Yeah, there is an Oak Street that goes through there -- WALLACE: Oak Street -- WALKER-HARPS: -- down (inaudible) WALLACE: -- right there. Mr. McWilliams, the former sheriff, had some -- WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. WALLACE: -- slum properties -- WALKER-HARPS: Yes, yes. WALLACE: -- right there. And she lived there and she didn’t have hot water. WALKER-HARPS: Yes. WALLACE: She had running water but she didn’t have any hot water and was raising her family there. And we were right -- not hardly a mile away with all of the comforts of home, really. But we loved her and we took her on trips with us and -- but then, things started getting better. I think there was some economic breakthrough for the Afro-Americans that they could get, finally, some paying jobs that they could afford to have better housing and she and her [00:26:00] husband, he drove a cab, they moved out onto 2nd Street and had a nice house out there. And they -- you began to see improvement in the neighborhoods and these -- so, these -- you would not -- I don’t know how long you’ve lived in Griffin but you would not believe how just terrible -- Jewel, you know! WALKER-HARPS: I know. Edgewood and Boyd Row and -- WALLACE: Boyds Row was where -- WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. WALLACE: -- Mattie May lived -- WALKER-HARPS: Yes, yes. WALLACE: -- right off the street. That was bad. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. WALLACE: And -- but -- WALKER-HARPS: Once jobs opened up at the telephone company -- opened up for those kids who were graduating from high school, that period, got a chance to work at the telephone company. So, they had an outlet over there and they were always -- I just happen to remember the telephone company -- those who were coming out of school. WALLACE: Well, and maybe there was more integration within the textile community. I don’t know that but they were always seeking employment and, you know, and maybe there was a little bit of integration there. [00:27:00] WALKER-HARPS: When they got to do something other than just (inaudible) WALLACE: Yes. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah, they (inaudible) WALLACE: Yeah, I mean, that were paying something. WALKER-HARPS: -- that did happen, yes. WALLACE: Anyway, there were -- WALKER-HARPS: On the line. WALLACE: -- it’s like a slow tide rising but I have seen it rise for the benefit of my friends that now have really decent housing at -- for the most part. And they know -- I don’t think there’s any racial difference in what’s available now in this community. There might be. Jewel might speak to that better than I can but it seems to me that anybody that wants to have a nice house and they’ve got an opportunity to work, they’re going to have a nice house. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah, not based on race. Housing is trouble but it’s not based on race forever about -- WALLACE: Yeah, that’s what I mean. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. WALLACE: That’s what I feel. I mean, I -- WALKER-HARPS: Yes, yeah. WALLACE: -- don’t know, I -- that’s why I ask if you felt the same way. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. WALLACE: There’s a -- the courts have been integrated. I ran into a lady, day before yesterday, [00:28:00] I feel bad about this, at the grocery store and she said, “Mr. Wallace,” said, “you know who I am.” I didn’t. She said -- I should have. She said, “Who was your favorite black policeman?” Well, I said, “I guess it would be the first one.” And she said, “Well, that’s right, Marvin.” I said -- and then I knew who it was. WALKER-HARPS: Yes, okay. WALLACE: It’s Miss Barrow. It’s Marvin Barrow’s -- WALKER-HARPS: Oh, his wife, Annette -- WALLACE: -- his wife. WALKER-HARPS: Okay. WALLACE: Annette, yeah, I should’ve known her name. Anyway, had a nice (inaudible) but I did come up -- I called her Miss Barrow when we left. I didn’t -- but I could not remember Marvin to save my life to begin with. But that -- he was the first one in the police force, in -- and these barriers that -- it took a lot of courage for the people that crossed the barriers and burst the ceilings -- WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. WALLACE: -- to do it. [00:29:00] And I recommend this book to y’all if you haven’t read it. Judge Tuttle, who was a federal judge during the integration. It’s an excellent book and dissects the mind of the South. And it was about the Holmes -- Charlayne Hunter -- WALKER-HARPS: And Hamilton Holmes. M: Hamilton Holmes. WALLACE: And Hamilton Holmes. It’s virtually the story of how they got admitted to the University of Georgia against all odds. And this judge, it is a -- it’s just one of the most exciting books to read. Of course, maybe more from a lawyer standpoint to see how they were maneuvering and the writs that were being filed -- and between Macon and Athens and Atlanta and all of the maneuvering -- and this judge was standing so firm. Other judges, even on the federal bench in the South, they weren’t doing anything about it. “Can’t go to school? Oh, that’s all [00:30:00] right.” This one said, “I’m going to enforce this.” WALKER-HARPS: Horace Ward and Donna (Halliwell?) worked awfully hard. WALLACE: Oh, I know! WALKER-HARPS: Yes. WALLACE: Well, Horace Ward, I tried cases with him later on in Athens for the city of Atlanta when they were expanding the airport. I remember it was devoted -- he was really nice guy. But he tried to get in law school right at -- while I was in the Army, I guess. WALKER-HARPS: Yes. WALLACE: And they -- this is the story and I don’t know whether it’s true or not but they said, “Well, why aren’t you in the Army? Aren’t you subject to the draft at your age?” And he said, “Well, yeah,” but said, “I’ve got a hernia.” And they said, “Well, we’ll fix that.” (laughter) And they fixed that and he was drafted, went off to the Army. So, he -- Horace never got to the University of Georgia. But what -- he was a fine, fine lawyer and fine man. But these were -- facing those things at every level. And [00:31:00] this country now, many people want to turn back to that. They want to have that power to say no and it’s bad. It’s bad. They have little things coming along that were observable. And the book, The Help, the story really turns around bathroom facilities -- WALKER-HARPS: Yeah, yes. WALLACE: -- for the maids. And we faced that in my house when we lived on Taylor Street. There’s one bathroom ; everybody used it. When we moved out to Maple Drive, there were three bathrooms: two upstairs and the maid’s bathroom downstairs in the basement. It was -- brand new bathroom but it was strictly a commode and strictly a lavatory. No refinement, no tile walls, anything like that. It was pure basic and you had to go down the steps [00:32:00] to get there. And so, one of the maids did not, after Mattie May left, that was, like -- my mother came home and she heard a toilet flush. That maid was out of there. WALKER-HARPS: Yes. WALLACE: That’s, you know, that’s the way it was. Something that they did not mention in the book where we’re talking about the help that the maids had to have to plan the meals and things like that -- and in those days, there were a lot of ’em that could not read and write and they had what is called a pictogram board. Now, you probably don’t know what I’m talking about but it was a board that had pictures of coffee -- WALKER-HARPS: Yes. WALLACE: -- tea and sugar and little pigs. And so, if you couldn’t read or write and you were in the kitchen, you could peg in the picture of what was needed and that was what the board said, “What We Need,” and you pegged in like that. ’Cause education was frowned on. [00:33:00] And now, I think it’s -- we try to promote it for everybody. I certainly think it’s the good thing to do. WALKER-HARPS: Well, yes, but you can see traces of it when we -- right now, we’re getting this battle again about vouchers and (inaudible) WALLACE: Vouchers, oh, yeah, that’s a whole -- WALKER-HARPS: And that’s a, yeah, that’s a -- WALLACE: -- ’nother thing to -- WALKER-HARPS: Yeah, yeah. WALLACE: -- restore segregated school systems. WALKER-HARPS: Yes, yes. WALLACE: And it has been, which was -- I think it’s terrible. I’m a public school supporter and I always have been. But I can just see the drift apart, yeah. Went down to St. George’s school. I’m proud of it that they’re doing it but it was started, I think, to preserve a -- all-white sort of attitude. It’s not as bad as Barnesville Academy, I -- that was purely thrown up in the face of -- to avoid [00:34:00] integration and have the place for these people who go to school. Now, that had no pretense at academics at all (laughs) and thankfully, it closed. I’m trying to think of some other things I wanted to mention in my ramble about growing up here. BRAMAN: Well, can I -- WALLACE: Yeah. BRAMAN: -- ask a couple question, just -- __: (inaudible) BRAMAN: -- while you were on the whole public school, private school thing, there does seem to be an inordinate amount of private schools in the area. And did that happen in that period where you had Brown v Topeka, Kansas Board -- WALLACE: Yeah, that was the inception. BRAMAN: That was the inception. WALLACE: Yeah, that was the impetus for these things. And then, of course, it got an evangelical -- there’s a segment of the politicians in this country that knew how to capture the hearts is go to the cross, get ’em that way. And I don’t [00:35:00] want to make a political speech but I’m just saying that’s how -- they were smart enough to know what to do. We’re not going to do it just on our own but if we can get the churches and if we can get the churches to then elect the school boards and elect the county commissions and that sort of thing, then we’ve got the power and that’s what’s happened. And these churches -- and a lot of ’em have good schools. Now, I don’t -- I can’t speak to St. George’s Episcopal Church. I don’t think it was it’s -- that church is not evangelical by any means. So, I think they just wanted a private school. I mean, they had some in Atlanta that they wanted to emulate. But some of ’em, like Brookstone and some of these others, they’re still outgrowths of the desire to be segregated. And if you see a graduation picture of some of these several schools around here, you won’t see but one or [00:36:00] two token Afro-Americans in it. BRAMAN: Right, right. WALLACE: And it -- that’s, you know, Brown v Topeka, it started it all. BRAMAN: Right. WALLACE: And they’d rather give up -- they’d rather pay that extra -- they don’t -- it’s not so much -- it’s they don’t want other people to have it. They don’t want to give to somebody that they feel like they don’t deserve it or they’re not worthy or why not be -- do it -- “Why are they calling on me?” -- that it’s a desire to deny rather than establish something. BRAMAN: So, is it -- same kind of zero sum game? If one area benefits then the other one has to lose? They (inaudible) -- WALLACE: Yeah. Well, in -- that’s a principle of physics. For every action, there’s an equal reaction, isn’t that? -- I feel like that’s what happened with Obama’s election. There was a reaction to that. [00:37:00] I don’t think people saw it coming. (laughs) BRAMAN: Right. WALLACE: Just like we couldn’t see Trump coming. BRAMAN: Right. WALLACE: But then, there’s -- I think that was the reaction to -- WALKER-HARPS: But there’s more often -- and we accept being more anti out there than we want to accept being out there, otherwise Trump wouldn’t have gotten elected. But -- WALLACE: Yeah. WALKER-HARPS: -- it’s, yeah, there’s still -- whole lot in the closet that -- WALLACE: A lot. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. WALLACE: A whole lot. WALKER-HARPS: A lot in the closet. WALLACE: And I have a group that I have breakfast every Tuesday morning. And this morning, I -- 12 of us. I would say that only two of us voted for Hillary Clinton. The other 10 voted for Trump, though they have admitted they find him a despicable person and they will admit that. I don’t know what y’all feel but (inaudible) -- WALKER-HARPS: Well, they will probably do it again (inaudible) WALLACE: And they’ll vote again -- WALKER-HARPS: -- they’ll vote the same way. WALLACE: -- you’re exactly right. WALKER-HARPS: They will vote again the same way. WALLACE: That’s what’s so [00:38:00] sad! WALKER-HARPS: Yes. WALLACE: That’s what makes you feel like what has it all been worth? We tried to have a Democratic Party here. WALKER-HARPS: I remember, yes. WALLACE: We did and we asked some -- we just -- WALKER-HARPS: And your wife was an avid supporter. WALLACE: Hmm? WALKER-HARPS: Mickie was an active part. WALLACE: Yeah, she was. She kept the books for a while and she was on the voting committee. WALKER-HARPS: Yes. WALLACE: She was the Democratic appointee of the voting committee and -- whatever that is. WALKER-HARPS: That’s just a good example that you should mention that, what is actually the feelings or -- when we look at what’s happening with the voter registrar today, it is an outgrowth of just what we’re talking about because there is no reason for the lack of acceptance by your other -- Marcel DeKirk, registrar. When you look at what has happened in the past -- and she came in, [00:39:00] The only thing that could be a negative for her is the color of her skin. WALLACE: Yeah. WALKER-HARPS: It is not that she has not done the job. And when you find situations where -- and I don’t (inaudible) a situation where people actually refused to work for her for no reason at all but wanting to do a good job. And we accept that and support it, then there is no other reason but racism. WALLACE: Well, but those that -- opposing her will come up with these stories -- WALKER-HARPS: Yes. WALLACE: -- like they’re just pure out of fiction and tell (on her?). WALKER-HARPS: Yes! WALLACE: I mean, and they -- and I don’t know because I’m not down there and I don’t know what’s going on but I know that they do -- her name is disparaged a lot. WALKER-HARPS: A lot! A lot! And there’s been no basis for it. Now, I could accept -- you tell me why and I can accept that. WALLACE: I know, you -- WALKER-HARPS: But there’s no -- WALLACE: -- know why. WALKER-HARPS: Why is it okay for me not to want [00:40:00] to accept an order from a black woman? Why would I imply that you lack common sense just because you’re a black woman? So, there is evidence. And let me get back to your story not my story. But that’s just an example of how, even today -- WALLACE: Sure! WALKER-HARPS: -- they’re still alive and well. And I don’t know that we want to accept that. Your friends don’t want to be called racist -- WALLACE: But they are. WALKER-HARPS: -- but they are. (laughter) But they’ll stand for -- they are! WALLACE: They are! I tell ’em that! WALKER-HARPS: They are! And I’m not even sure that they believe that they are. WALLACE: They don’t believe it -- WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. WALLACE: -- but they don’t want -- WALKER-HARPS: They don’t want -- WALLACE: -- they don’t want to put their arms around you and hug and say it’s all right, dear, we’re okay. Everything’s going to be all right. They don’t -- they can’t reach that point. WALKER-HARPS: No, they can’t do that. WALLACE: Yeah, yeah. WALKER-HARPS: Oh, boy. Now, tell us a little bit about the political [00:41:00] side. How did we get to the point where we have –- or, as much diversity and what was it like prior to where we are now? I know I was a part -- well, I was in leadership at the time that we had that court case, Gary Reed and a few others actually signed. I did not sign but I was there. I was a part of it, the ruling where challenged, that large vote-in. And we went to second member districts and that really changed the complexion of the political system here. WALLACE: Well, y’all might remember that the senate, this was a senate, state senate bill, somebody versus Sanders. I think he was the governor. To elect a senator, you had three counties and a district and you just rotated ’em. Fayette would elect [00:42:00] one every two years and Spalding one every two years. And I think Ensenada? I don’t remember the three counties but when you were not in that area, you didn’t have any vote for the person that was elected. So, they brought this lawsuit and Bob Smalley was running then. He was a state senator and he was faced with that, losing his position because he didn’t live in Fayette County. And Mr. Cooke sent me down to the federal court to pick up the decision, the tissue paper decision we call ’em of that ruling that said that was unconstitutional. You had to have one vote, one -- to elect whoever it was, that you can’t diminish the votes by parceling ’em out to various candidates. That was big. But the big thing that realigned everything, Jewel, was the Civil Rights Act, the Johnson, under the Johnson era. WALKER-HARPS: Nineteen sixty-four, yeah. WALLACE: And he knew. He knew. [00:43:00] They said, “You’ve lost the South,” and we did, and everything almost immediately switched. The Democrats that -- heretofore, it had been a Democratic primary was tantamount to election. That word was used over and over and over again. If you won the primary, you won. The Republican Party was, well, who? Was Mister -- who am I trying to say, Jewel? Was head of the little, what little bit of the Republican Party we had here. Touchstone! (inaudible) Mr. Touchstone. WALKER-HARPS: Lon Touchstone. WALLACE: Lon Touchstone. He had a few -- handful of largely Afro-American -- maybe Leila Fortune, Leila Bell and them -- WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. WALLACE: -- mixed up in it as the Republican Party, but not (wanting?) anything. And then, the Civil Rights Act came in and everybody could see that it was changing times. So, all of the Republicans just [00:44:00] (sucking sound) sucked up all of the strength of the races. And then somehow, I’m not so much about the local politics, but it’s just still based on where you live now, isn’t it, Jewel? WALKER-HARPS: Yes, where you live now, really. Yes, where you live now because of the districts. Heretofore, it was you lived anywhere in the county and the county was racially divided by -- geographically. Not politically but geographically and that’s why Judge -- I believe Judge Whalen was the judge that said you can’t do any more annexation on the south side of town until you annex on the north side of town. WALLACE: To keep a balance. WALKER-HARPS: To keep a balance because the affluent people lived on the south side of town and they were, of course, all white. [00:45:00] And as you annexed them, then you had -- you were not balanced in terms of political power. WALLACE: Well, that’s the problem and it’s -- the same is true nationally, in gerrymandering, which I’m firmly opposed to. WALKER-HARPS: Yes. WALLACE: Then they’ll draw these little districts and they come out with results that just -- WALKER-HARPS: Yeah, yeah. WALLACE: -- are unheard of that -- when they redistrict these ways, but for the very reason to keep this political party -- this is a Republican stronghold here and this is a Democratic strong-- doesn’t matter whether they fluctuate back and forth actually. And that’s the way it is. WALKER-HARPS: That’s the way it is. WALLACE: Now, I think there’s some cracks in this -- the court system’s observance of the validity of that. I’m hoping so, that that’s a management of -- WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. WALLACE: -- election -- WALKER-HARPS: Well, we’ll see. WALLACE: -- outside the ballot box that shouldn’t be done. [00:46:00] WALKER-HARPS: We’ll see in a few weeks, a few months, rather, ’cause we’re back at that process again. WALLACE: I know. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. So, what, presently, looking at it and knowing where we came from, and what is your assessment today? Well, what do we need to do? Is there anything in your mind that we can do to -- WALLACE: Well, I’m hopeful. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah, we are hopeful. WALLACE: I’m optimistic. I believe that the more we stress that -- the Christian principle of love your neighbor as yourself, at every moment that you can, that you got to do that, that there’s going to be some progress made. I’m worried about the fact that it’s, you know, it’s up and pushback and then up and pushback -- WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. WALLACE: -- and up and pushback and we’re in the pushback mode right now because we’ve got leadership that believes in it. [00:47:00] WALKER-HARPS: Yes. WALLACE: And so, we’ve got to overcome that but down in the districts, down here, I have -- I’m optimistic about the future. I wish I could think during my lifetime we would get to the point where you would not have to say, “I went to the doctor. It was a black doctor.” Why do we have to WALKER-HARPS: Yes, yeah, yes. WALLACE: -- identify that? And we all do it! WALKER-HARPS: Yes, yes. WALLACE: We all do it! WALKER-HARPS: We do it. WALLACE: I went, you know, I went -- I had a high school teacher, she was black, too. You know, just add that, and like you need that reference. And we don’t need that reference. We shouldn’t need it, at any rate. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah, we shouldn’t. WALLACE: I don’t know. I’ve talked too much, I’m -- (laughter) (I have?) -- WALKER-HARPS: No, you’ve been good. Got a question -- CAIN: Well, I’ll still always have questions. WALKER-HARPS: I know Art has questions. ART CAIN: Just to -- for the record, you mentioned the biracial committee and that was hugely a reason why you didn’t have any kind of violence [00:48:00] during the -- WALLACE: Well, I claim so and Jewel agrees with me. She says that she thinks that it was -- WALKER-HARPS: Totally. WALLACE: -- instrumental in keeping peace here in the community. CAIN: How many people were on the committee? WALLACE: Oh, I guess at times there was maybe 30, oh -- CAIN: Did you all collectively say, as a leadership group we’re going to go out and advocate for the kind of integration where you wouldn’t have problems? WALLACE: Oh, yeah! CAIN: How did that happen, I mean (inaudible) WALLACE: Oh, yeah, yeah, that’s what I’m saying. We had committees to go see the judge about being -- put black people on the jury list and we had committees to go to the -- WALKER-HARPS: They really facilitated -- WALLACE: -- one of the things -- and this is the thing that my wife just -- she was from Indiana, so she didn’t know how to -- she wasn’t raised right, (laughter). She, at the committee meeting, when we were discussing the grievances, mostly -- and that’s what it was, ’cause white people, we didn’t have any grievances, you know? We wanted to keep the peace but we had [00:49:00] everything the way we wanted it but the others didn’t. And that’s what the committee was about, was to open up the lines of communication. And one of the things was at the hospital, the white people could have Mr. Wallace or Wallace on their nametag. Jewel would have Jewel, first name only. And they -- and that was offensive to ’em and that was one of (inaudible) they brought that up at one of the meetings, that we need to fix that. Well, that was easily fixed. (laughs) That could be done. WALKER-HARPS: That was -- well, we just finalized a lady last week, who was (inaudible) story to tell, least they told about she was the head nurse but she was a head nurse for black folk. They only allowed her upstairs when they ran into trouble -- WALLACE: Yeah. WALKER-HARPS: -- and they needed -- (inaudible) WALLACE: Yeah! WALKER-HARPS: Yeah, I’m -- WALLACE: I mean, I saw that. WALKER-HARPS: -- yes. [00:50:00] WALLACE: Yeah. WALKER-HARPS: And, no -- WALLACE: Portia’s? -- WALKER-HARPS: -- they could not -- WALLACE: -- Portia -- WALKER-HARPS: -- yeah. WALLACE: -- had a daughter that was a good friend of my daughter, Elizabeth. WALKER-HARPS: Yes. Louise -- probably Portia Louise or might have been Marcia, I don’t know what -- WALLACE: I don’t know which one it was but I -- remember that was -- WALKER-HARPS: But -- WALLACE: At any rate, I saw that -- WALKER-HARPS: -- yes. WALLACE: She was 94 years old. WALKER-HARPS: Yes. WALLACE: Very -- WALKER-HARPS: But she will -- WALLACE: -- well respected. But no -- WALKER-HARPS: (inaudible) WALLACE: -- she couldn’t come -- WALKER-HARPS: No. WALLACE: -- she couldn’t do that. WALKER-HARPS: She couldn’t eat with them. She could do whatever but when it was time to eat, then they had to go to the place that -- WALLACE: But these things that some people look as so minor, well, they were not minor to a lot of people on either side. They were major. And a lot of it has been overcome and I don’t see any way that’s ever going to be pushed back in the bottle. WALKER-HARPS: Oh, no, no. WALLACE: And I don’t think it will be, but -- WALKER-HARPS: No, no, that’s -- WALLACE: -- and it can go forward from that. And once there is this experience, that’s what I’m saying, just contact and understanding the platform that other people have, [00:51:00] their agenda that we didn’t know about. I thought it helped a lot that we could do that. I don’t know whether -- and I think it helped them, too. I do. But it’s still always them and us and it shouldn’t be. WALKER-HARPS: Who is currently living who was on that committee? Do you remember? Do you remember what -- do you know when it’s -- WALLACE: God, I guess Walter Jones and I. I hadn’t thought about that. WALKER-HARPS: Oh, yes, I hadn’t thought about Walter Jones because I’ve been trying to find somebody and all of the ones that I knew -- I knew Miss Fitzhugh and (inaudible) WALLACE: All of ’em dead. WALKER-HARPS: -- (dead?) (inaudible) WALLACE: Bob Crossfield, Bob Smalley. WALKER-HARPS: They’re all dead. WALLACE: All -- the Reeds, all of them. My pastor, he’s gone. I guess Jane, Bob’s wife is dead. Mary Fitzhugh’s husband, Fitzy, was a [00:52:00] pediatrician. He’s dead. He was on the comm-- I mean, I guess -- WALKER-HARPS: They all -- I can’t think of anybody who’s still alive. WALLACE: I wish I had somebody that was more -- could represent the ambitions and the accomplishments of that committee that I can remember. But I do know it was important. To me, it was important -- WALKER-HARPS: (inaudible) WALLACE: -- personally and I think it was important. WALKER-HARPS: And even today, if you ask somebody in the black community how do you account for the smoothness or the lack of total chaos, you might say, they would point back to that biracial committee and the willingness to step out and not be hidden but to step out on -- some stage at that time. WALLACE: I think it cost me something in my career, and -- political career. I think -- WALKER-HARPS: Probably so. WALLACE: -- there was some resentment -- WALKER-HARPS: Yes. WALLACE: -- among my peer group. But you got to put [00:53:00] that aside. WALKER-HARPS: Yes, yes. WALLACE: You do the right thing or try to do the right thing. I’ve never regretted, certainly. It was -- WALKER-HARPS: Well -- WALLACE: -- a great benefit to me. WALKER-HARPS: -- that worked with you and it worked with your children. You passed that on to your children, whereas we had others, like your friends, and probably did not. So, this is one reason why we still have these little pockets. WALLACE: You’re right. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. WALLACE: You’re exactly right. WALKER-HARPS: See, you’re -- I was well received (inaudible) all the others that I knew, by your children, when they came to school we were well received by them. But then, there were others who came out of a household of hatred and you didn’t get that same (inaudible) WALLACE: Yeah, and there was more of them than us. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah! WALLACE: Certainly (inaudible) (laughs) WALKER-HARPS: Right. WALLACE: -- that’s the problem. WALKER-HARPS: And very definitely. WALLACE: Yeah, oh, and that’s what I’m saying. I think it’s gradually, maybe, the balance is swinging. I hope so. WALKER-HARPS: Are there other questions? JOHN CRUICKSHANK: It seems like [00:54:00] that idea of doing the right thing runs in the family. (laughter) Is that the key? I mean -- WALLACE: I don’t -- CRUICKSHANK: -- were you always like that as a child? Your mother had, apparently, had resentment toward African Americans. Did she, or -- WALLACE: Not resentment. It was not that. It was just this is the way it is. CRUICKSHANK: Yeah. WALLACE: It’s just, as I say, it’s like a fish swimming in the water. They don’t know they’re in water and that’s (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) WALKER-HARPS: Well, it’s just -- CRUICKSHANK: -- it’s just the contact, the individuals that you happen to cross? That’s where you got your values as a child -- WALLACE: Well, I would say -- CRUICKSHANK: -- to get that idea (inaudible) WALLACE: -- a lot of us was from trying to understand yourself as far as a Christiana and it just -- it should work in every religion, really. Love people! CRUICKSHANK: So, there’s a certain amount of personality involved, I suppose, is there? Just be willing to ask those -- to do that, the [00:55:00] self-exploration, would you say, or? -- WALLACE: Well, you -- or, if you’re like me -- absolute superficial person. So, (laughter) you’re not introspective at all but there’s a certain feeling that you got, what’s right and what’s wrong. And sometimes, your religious teaching has a great deal of bearing on it. Sometimes, the (inaudible) CRUICKSHANK: I’m just trying to understand what it is that set you apart from all the others who were racist and -- WALLACE: I wish I could have an answer to that. Probably a combination of things. WALKER-HARPS: (inaudible) were different and Jill Rapperly were different. You found pockets in rural areas, some rural areas where they were a lot different from the resentment and that line was not as rigid as it would be in -- [00:56:00] for an example, I came from the country and it was a whole lot different for me when I got to Griffin. I guess you play with whoever lived -- WALLACE: Yeah! WALKER-HARPS: -- in the -- yeah, you played with whoever you had around you. You ate and you shared with the people who were around you. You couldn’t share with somebody who didn’t, so you either were going to stand out there all by yourself or you had to become a part of your environment. And that’s one of the things that happened, you -- that kind of put you on the same level and you did the same kind of work if you were earning a living. And that’s just my situation but -- and even here, there were families like (inaudible) and like the Cummings and this smaller family who had a person that’s working for them that they treated as parts of their family. And I happen to know that ’cause I lived with a lady [00:57:00] who worked for the Cummings and (inaudible) WALLACE: Who was the track star, Wyoming Tyus?. WALKER-HARPS: Tyus, yes. WALLACE: (inaudible) worked for the Smalleys for many years, you know? His -- WALKER-HARPS: Okay, yes. WALLACE: -- this -- my mother, she had a yardman, Jeness Sparks that lived on Solomon Street that -- she would have sacrificed us before she would have sacrificed Jen as the yard man, ’cause -- WALKER-HARPS: There were good? -- WALLACE: But she still -- Jeness wouldn’t come in and sit down at the table with us and eat a meal. That’s -- and that -- WALKER-HARPS: ’Cause that’s the difference. WALLACE: -- was just the -- she was not taught that way. It was just the way it was. WALKER-HARPS: Submissive. WALLACE: And you had to sort of break away from that. You’re asking me that question and I don’t know. I don’t think I’m unique but I do know that I have tried since I was an adult by, you know, being 25 or [00:58:00] 26, try to walk in the shoes of people that would -- that I would find the other people’s conduct offensive and if I would, Jewel would. I have -- it took me a long time before I could correct my friends telling stories or making -- WALKER-HARPS: Yes. WALLACE: -- references and using the N-word and I finally, within the last, really, 10 years, say, “Don’t do that again (laughter) or I’m going to get up and walk out, man!” We went in -- my wife and I were with a friend, prominent Atlanta man, in Scotland. And he was just telling these jokes. I said, “Don’t use that word again (laughs) or we’re going to pick up and fly home.” He said, “You’re serious, aren’t you?” And I said, “I am serious.” WALKER-HARPS: Just wouldn’t let him push you out? of the group. WALLACE: Yeah. (laughter) That’s right. WALKER-HARPS: Are there other questions? CRUICKSHANK: Just one other thing I’m curious about, going back to the [00:59:00] beginning of the interview. You’re talking about getting an African American from drunk driving charges, I think. You’re the one who got him off. How did you do that? (laughs) WALLACE: Well, I don’t know. I mean, it’s -- (laughter) if I could have an answer to how -- why a jury does anything -- CRUICKSHANK: Oh. WALLACE: -- after 80 years of -- 55 years of practice -- CRUICKSHANK: How did you build your case? I mean -- WALLACE: Well, it’s -- CRUICKSHANK: -- against anyone? WALLACE: Well, the question is -- remember this: the presumption is that you’re not guilty and they had to -- and you cross-examine and you try to find holes in their testimony. And I did pride myself on that ability, to cross-examine, that you could just keep digging at ’em and hope that they’ll trip up on something. And you don’t know, some little thing will come back. I tried a case in Barnseville. This was during the height of the kindergarten [01:00:00] molesting cases. This was about 15, 20 years ago. You remember that out in California, they had people convicted of saying that they were abusing these children, they were doing all these things to ’em? Well, it popped -- it was, like, hysteria. It popped up in Barnseville and this guy was charged. He had 16 counts. His daughter ran a daycare center and I was hired to go down there and represent him. And I did and I did the best I could and I made one mistake, I thought. Can I tell this story? (laughs) WALKER-HARPS: You can tell whatever you want to tell. (laughter) You can tell -- WALLACE: This -- WALKER-HARPS: -- whatever you want to tell. WALLACE: (laughs) -- this little girl, she was just as cute as she could be, about five. And she was [01:01:00] testifying against my client, Paw-Paw. And she said, “Well, he would -- he’d put me in his lap and he’d love me and put me in his lap.” And I said, well, I -- take care of this. So, I got on the stand and I put her in my lap and I said, “Just like this? Is this what Paw-Paw did?” “Yeah, but he had something hard between his legs.” I said, God, that was the worst -- you know, you’re supposed to not ever get into that thing. Well, I came back and sat with my client. I said, “I’m sorry, I just blew the case.” So, the -- we went on, tried the whole thing. The jury went out. They came back in and they said, “We have reached a verdict on one of the counts but we’re hopelessly deadlocked on all the others.” [01:02:00] And I said, well, I knew what it was. Well, they found him not guilty on some other count. (laughs) Didn’t pay any attention to that or didn’t hear what was said or didn’t know what I thought and mistried the rest of it. And he walked out of the courtroom. He said, “What do I do now?” I said, “Walk fast! (laughter) Get out of” -- and two weeks later, he was found -- the fatal victim of an accident in his barn where he had fallen on the combine and a stake had gotten driven somehow through his head. That ended that. Yeah, but you don’t? (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) I wish I could answer your question. I wish I’d know why you got him off and why you didn’t or why they get -- WALKER-HARPS: You had an actual case of -- a replica of To Kill a Mockingbird. [01:03:00] CRUICKSHANK: Really? WALLACE: Mm-hmm. WALKER-HARPS: With the Copland case, would be a good parallel to what they did with the book and with the movie, To Kill a Mockingbird.” WALLACE: Well, again, I’ve got -- that’s a project that I’ve got on my mind right now, Jewel, is Addison Finch might be lauded as a hero but he actually was a rather poor lawyer. WALKER-HARPS: Yeah. WALLACE: He did not attack -- he did not present the case the way I would have done it. I mean, it was a lead pipe, he was going to lose it anyway. But he attacked on this rather awkward thing about being left-handed and right-handed. You remember the play? WALKER-HARPS: Yes, I remember. WALLACE: Well, what he should have done was attack the girl about her staging this thing by collecting the money, by sending her children off to the store downtown. See, never touched on that but just briefly but hammer on that. You made [01:04:00] this whole thing possible by planning, by saving your money, by sending the children, and he could have verified that ’cause the children were not there, remember? They were down getting their ice cream cone. He could’ve verified that by the white proprietor of the ice cream store that the children were down there. They were never down there any other time. But see, he didn’t go into all that. He went (inaudible) WALKER-HARPS: Write that book. (laughter) (inaudible) WALLACE: Y’all understand what I’m saying? There’s a -- WALKER-HARPS: I have to say -- WALLACE: -- he didn’t -- WALKER-HARPS: -- yes. WALLACE: -- that is a -- WALKER-HARPS: It’s probably (inaudible) WALLACE: -- that -- he was going to lose it but at least he would show her -- I mean, she deserved to have some punishment, too, (laughs) for lying about -- WALKER-HARPS: Sign of the times, probably. He was afraid to do that. WALLACE: Well, might have been. It might have been that but -- WALKER-HARPS: Or -- WALLACE: -- I had to -- when I was in the play and had the opportunity -- and I ask Norma, who runs that little theater -- you ought to go down there, Jewel, it’s good. WALKER-HARPS: I have been. WALLACE: Have you been? WALKER-HARPS: Mm-hmm, and I have been -- WALLACE: She runs -- [01:05:00] I advise all of y’all to go see what she does down there. WALKER-HARPS: I have been. And I’ve been trying to get in touch with her. WALLACE: Yeah, she would be a good -- WALKER-HARPS: (inaudible) WALLACE: -- one, too. WALKER-HARPS: -- because she was referred to me but I have not been to -- she hasn’t returned my call. I guess maybe I should call again. But I’m trying to reach her through somebody else. WALLACE: Yeah, she’s -- WALKER-HARPS: But yes, I’ve been. WALLACE: Anyway, I had the -- I said, I ask her, I said, “Can I do a little informal” -- and I’ve had the girl down and I did cross-examine her, just playing when we were there at practice one day, and doing that. And I enjoyed it and the girl, she didn’t know what we were doing?. (laughter) And I said, “This is what Atticus should have been doing rather than this other defense.” WALKER-HARPS: Yes. Well, what an interesting interview. Wonderful. Any more questions? If not, we’re going to (inaudible) WALLACE: Are you from Virginia or Charleston? CRUICKSHANK: I’m from Canada. WALLACE: Oh! (laughter) Well, you can’t understand any of this, now. [01:06:00] (laughter) CRUICKSHANK: I saw To Kill A Mockingbird when I was about three years old, I think. (laughter) WALLACE: That’s a great story but it -- CRUICKSHANK: Yeah. WALLACE: -- re-read it sometime. They’ve got somebody in Broad-- they’ve got a new production in Broadway -- WALKER-HARPS: Yes, WALLACE: -- that I would really love to see. WALKER-HARPS: I would love to see that, too, yes, great. WALLACE: Am I excused? (laughter) WALKER-HARPS: We want to express our appreciation to you. We thoroughly enjoyed -- we’ve not had that -- you filled a gap that we had not had, right, guys? BRAMAN: Absolutely. WALKER-HARPS: Yes. And we just appreciate you taking the time and your willingness to talk -- WALLACE: Oh, it’s my pleasure! Really was, Jewel. I’ve done so much that’s hurt my feelings with the other race in my lifetime. I feel like I’m -- every minute I can atone for some of it, I’m better off (inaudible) WALKER-HARPS: Well, you did. Thank you so much, (laughter) thank you. WALLACE: Oh, I enjoyed it. WALKER-HARPS: Thank you, guys, everybody. WALLACE: I’m glad this is once in a lifetime experience. (laughter) WALKER-HARPS: Ah, well -- [01:07:00] Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. audio 0 purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL418GAA/findingaid
Location
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Griffin, Georgia
Duration
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67 minutes
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https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL418GAA-022/ohms
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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Interview with Howard Wallace, March 26, 2019
Identifier
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RBRL418GAA-022
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Howard Wallace
Jewel Walker-Harps
Art Cain
John Cruickshank
Rich Braman
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audio
oral histories
Subject
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Religion
Race relations
Discrimination
Description
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Howard Wallace grew up in the 1930s in Griffin, Georgia. As a young adult, Wallace joined the Biracial Committee where he worked on the integration process of Griffin. In this interview, Wallace talks about his upbringing, the racial aspects of religion and politics, his work as a lawyer, and interactions with the Ku Klux Klan.
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2019-03-26
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
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sound
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Griffin, Georgia
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Title
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Griffin African American Oral History Project
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Georgia--History, Local
African Americans--History
Georgia--Communities
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The Griffin African American Oral History Project is a collaboration between the Griffin Branch NAACP, the Griffin Campus Library of the University of Georgia, and the Richard B. Russell Library. The seed was planted in the meetings of the Educational Prosperity Initiative which is also chaired by the president of the Griffin Branch NAACP, Jewel Walker-Harps. Collaborators on the project include: Griffin Housing Authority; Spalding County Collaborative; Fairmont Alumni Association; University of Georgia—Athens and Griffin campuses; and the Educational Prosperity Initiative, which is an affiliate of the Spalding County Collaborative and others. Interviewers on the project include: John Cruickshank, librarian at UGA-Griffin Campus Library; Jewel Walker-Harps, President of the Griffin, GA Branch of the NAACP; Art Cain, coordinator of Continuing Education for UGA-Griffin; Be-Atrice Cunningham, project manager for College of Agricultural and Environmental Science for Griffin; and Ellen Bauske, senior public service associate at the Georgia Center for Urban Agriculture in Griffin. Rich Braman was the sound engineer for this project. <br />The Griffin African American Oral History Project intends to document the experiences of people who lived in Fairmont Community in Griffin, Georgia during the civil rights era and through its transformation to the present day.<br /><br />All interviews in this collection have been indexed in OHMS.
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Date
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2015-2018
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http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
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Oral histories
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RBRL418GAA
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Griffin, Georgia
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
OHMS Object Text
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5.4 2019-09-26 Interview with Wyomia Tyus, September 26, 2019 RBRL418GAA-024 104 minutes RBRL418GAA Griffin African American Oral History Project Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Wyomia Tyus Jewel Walker-Harps Art Cain Ellen Bauske Rich Braman 1:|24(10)|33(17)|44(11)|58(10)|70(10)|84(4)|97(6)|109(7)|126(12)|139(17)|157(10)|179(4)|213(6)|231(11)|245(15)|270(5)|297(13)|313(16)|327(13)|339(15)|353(5)|364(18)|379(17)|393(4)|417(7)|433(2)|444(8)|460(9)|496(11)|512(7)|526(3)|540(11)|552(4)|563(11)|576(2)|591(9)|603(8)|617(10)|631(6)|648(10)|671(11)|683(7)|713(12)|725(11)|749(9)|763(12)|774(7)|785(14)|805(8)|818(9)|834(5)|846(11)|863(3)|875(2)|890(8)|903(3)|920(4)|941(15)|957(2)|971(3)|984(7)|1004(2)|1016(11)|1027(15)|1040(12)|1061(12)|1079(12)|1105(10)|1118(9)|1127(16)|1140(7)|1154(5)|1163(12)|1175(7)|1185(9)|1206(5)|1224(4)|1238(9)|1249(8)|1269(5)|1281(11)|1302(7)|1315(4)|1332(7)|1345(11)|1359(8)|1373(9)|1384(13)|1402(11)|1425(13)|1437(15)|1457(6)|1468(17)|1481(9)|1500(4)|1547(12)|1561(9)|1582(10)|1622(3)|1634(10)|1660(6)|1702(12)|1735(16) 0 Kaltura audio < ; iframe id=" ; kaltura_player" ; src=" ; https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1727411/sp/172741100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/26879422/partner_id/1727411?iframeembed=true& ; playerId=kaltura_player& ; entry_id=1_yi6ma5o0& ; flashvars[localizationCode]=en& ; amp ; flashvars[leadWithHTML5]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.position]=left& ; amp ; flashvars[sideBarContainer.clickToClose]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.layout]=vertical& ; amp ; flashvars[chapters.thumbnailRotator]=false& ; amp ; flashvars[streamSelector.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[EmbedPlayer.SpinnerTarget]=videoHolder& ; amp ; flashvars[dualScreen.plugin]=true& ; amp ; flashvars[Kaltura.addCrossoriginToIframe]=true& ; amp ; & ; wid=1_m6jvivrr" ; width=" ; 400" ; height=" ; 285" ; allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozAllowFullScreen allow=" ; autoplay * ; fullscreen * ; encrypted-media *" ; sandbox=" ; allow-forms allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-modals allow-orientation-lock allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-presentation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; title=" ; Kaltura Player" ; > ; < ; /iframe> ; 49 Growing up in Griffin-Spalding, Georgia I'm Karen Wyomia Tyus, and I was... Tyus talks about her family, as her mother and father were a dry cleaner and tenant farmer, respectively. Tyus describes growing up in a farming housing establishment. Tyus explains how, as a child, she often played with white boys, as the girls were not allowed to play outside. Tyus talks about how her father taught her about nature, and encouraged her to stay active. Tyus recalls how her father encouraged equality among their siblings. Ben Brown ; Griffin-Spalding County, Georgia ; Jim Crow ; nature 428 Dealing with discrimination And for that to happen... Tyus shares how her community was more integrated than the surrounding area, which she sees as a result of growing up in the country. Tyus explains how her father taught the kids to deserve and give respect to others. Tyus recalls how the farm housing burned down, and she describes the conditions under which her family lived on the farm. Ben Brown ; community ; segregation 873 Education and father's work We still to the day don't know... Tyus shares how her father emphasized the need for an education among his children, as much of the family worked as farmers. Tyus describes the bus route and members of the community, as she attended the all black Anne-Shockley Elementary School. Anne-Shockley Elementary School ; farming 1270 Hunting / Experiences in primary school I learned at a very early age... Tyus talks about hunting as a child, and the ways she was taught about gun safety. Tyus recalls how it was difficult to play at school since she was a tom-boy. Tyus explains how her father encouraged her to express herself, regardless of gender stereotypes. Anne-Shockley Elementary School ; Fairmount High School ; hunting 1706 School sports Now when did you meet... Tyus talks about joining the track team at Fairmount High School, and her P.E. teacher, Mrs. Kimbro. Tyus recalls how the girls team for Track and Field operated at her Fairmount High School. Tyus explains her experience at a track summit at Tennesee State University. Tyus talks about how her father's death spurred her interest in sports. Annie Shockley Elementary School ; Fairmount High School ; Fort Valley ; Francis Dallas ; Tennessee State University 2072 Summit at Tennessee State When you graduate from high school... Tyus talks about how she was invited to join a summit for track and field at Tennessee State University. Tyus explains how the staff from Fairmount High School raised enough money for her to attend the summit. Tyus describes her experience at the summit. Fairmount High School ; Tennessee State University ; track and field 2487 Opportunities in sports So that was it, I mean that was... Tyus recalls how the teaching community of Fairmount High School was incredibly supportive in students' endeavors. Tyus explains how track and field opened opportunities for her outside of Griffin, Georgia. Tyus talks about all the contributions Ed Temple bought to female black athletics. Ed Temple ; Fairmount High School ; teaching ; Tennessee State University 2897 Parental influence Excuse me, I'm curious about the young lady ... Tyus talks about her opposition in track and field at the Tennessee State University track summit. Tyus talks about the social pressures put on women in the African American community. Tyus describes her parent's influence on her desire to attain excellence in everything she did. gender stereotypes ; parents ; Tennessee State University ; Track and Field 3325 Parental influences (cont.) I mean, I was always strong willed... Tyus continues to describe the way in which her father made sure that his children were raised without having to do the typical manual labor of African Americans at the time. Tyus talks about her decision to move to Los Angeles, California, where she worked as a teacher. Tyus continues to describe her time as a student at Tennessee State University. dairy farming ; Los Angeles, California ; Tennessee State University 3730 Attending University / Civil Rights Movement I did remember Mr. Temple ... Tyus talks about her first semester at Tennessee State University, and the difficulties she faced as a student, especially after the death of her father. Tyus recalls how her travels helped her in understanding herself and her surroundings. Tyus talks about the black power movement and how it tied into her experience in track and field. black power movement ; Civil Rights Movement ; Ed Temple ; Olympics ; Tennessee State University ; track and field 4162 Discrimination in the Olympics And that was experienced by us... Tyus talks about the discrimination she faced as an Olympic runner during the Tokyo Olympics. Tyus explains the methods of subtle protest against both sexual and race discrimination utilized by athletes around the world. discrimination ; Ed Temple ; Tokyo Olympics 4596 Black athletes and public reactions They were called the Texas ... Tyus talks about how American black runners in the Olympics were for the most part ignored in the eyes of the public despite highly outperforming their white counterparts. Tyus recalls the ways in which Ed Temple helped the African American community. discrimination ; Ed Temple ; racism ; Texas Bouffants 5013 Coming home from the Olympics I don't really truly remember... Tyus describes the reaction of the Griffin, Georgia community to her success in the Olympics. Tyus shares her advise to younger generation, as she stresses the importance of an education and respect for others. Tyus talks about the rest of her family and their work to obtain an education. 1964 Olympics ; 1968 Olympics ; Ed Temple ; education ; Fairmount High School ; Griffin, Georgia 5417 Reflections And the stuff he said to me... Tyus reflects on the coaching methods of coach Ed Temples. Tyus talks about the ways in which Griffin has changed throughout the years. Tyus describes the way in which politics is present in the sports realm. Ed Temple ; Griffin, Georgia ; Tennessee State University ; Wyomia Tyus Park 5821 Speaking around Georgia Well, you know, I ... Tyus talks about her wish for her story to inspire others, despite the fact that some Universities withheld her the opportunity to speak about her story. Tyus relates some of the other places she has spoken. community ; Georgia Technical University ; Griffin, Georgia Oral history RBRL418GAA-024_Tyus RICH BRAMAN:We can start any time. JEWEL WALKER-HARPS:Ready? Today is September the 26th. We are on the campus of the University of Georgia in Griffin, Georgia. This is the -- our oral history project, and we have -- our guest today is Wyomia Tyus. I' ; m Jewel Walker-Harps of the Griffin Branch, NAACP. ART CAIN:I' ; m Art Cain, director of continuing education program here on the University of Georgia Griffin Campus. ELLEN BAUSKE:I' ; m Ellen Bauske, program coordinator for the Center for Urban Ag. BRAMAN:I' ; m Rich Braman with the Center for Urban Ag. I' ; m the developer. WALKER-HARPS:And -- WYOMIA TYUS:And I' ; m Wy-- WALKER-HARPS:-- and now our special guest, Wyomia Tyus. TYUS:Okay, I' ; m Wyomia Tyus, and I was born and raised in Griffin, Spalding County, Georgia. I was born on a dairy -- well, born on a dair-- raised on a dairy farm right outside of the little Griffin airport. My dad was a tenant farmer ; my mom worked the dry cleaners, so they both worked the whole -- well for years. (laughs) They... I have three older brothers, Jackie, Jimmy Lee, and Willie. Jackie and Jimmy Lee have passed on, so have my parents, Willie and Marie Tyus, they have gone, and it' ; s just my brother Willie. We called him Junior, so I will probably be referring to him as Junior sometimes in the report, so... So it' ; s just the two of us that are remaining. We -- in the community or the area in which we grew up, the farm was owned by Ben Brown. He had a big farmhouse at the top of the hill, we always said, and we lived in the -- yeah, we lived down in the -- where the dairy was. And it was a big, huge house, like -- I' ; m trying to think, one, two, three -- three large bedrooms, a long hallway, kitchen, living room, and all of us lived there. We were the only black family that was living right in that area, so throughout my life, like, up until I was 14, we played with white kids. We played with white boys. We could not play with white girls because they were not allowed to play with us, so we played with white boys. So all my life, I have played with boys. I started out playing with my brothers and then when I was playing with them, it was always trying to keep up with them and also trying to run away from the fights. (laughs) And we -- I enjoyed, well, my childhood mostly. I remember from my childhood, that' ; s always stuck with me, is that my father and my brother Junior and I, we used to go for walks every Saturday or either be on a Sunday because the woods... Ben Brown had a huge, huge farm, and we could -- you could walk it. He sold all that later on, but we used to walk the woods and just go... And as we' ; ll walk in the woods, right, you know, just being with family. And my dad not so much teaching us anything or saying you need to know these things, but in his talks, it was like we would go pick -- like I said, it was in the summer, we would pick berries or something like that. He would always say, " ; You need to be mindful of just sticking your hands in there not just for the little stickers you can get in your finger but snakes live in there. They love to be around those berries, so you should not be there, also wasp nests and all those things," ; you know just teaching us the little things about nature. And that you just don' ; t -- when you' ; re a child, you' ; re not thinking about that. You' ; re out there in the woods playing, throwing dirt, throwing rocks. And I remember my brother and I used to just throw rocks and pine cones to see who could do that, climb trees, you know just being free. And my fath--you know, at the time I was growing up, young girls were not supposed to be that active. They were not supposed to be playing sports with boys at all. Girls did girly things, and boys did whatever boys -- boy things. And I was truly not interested in the girly things, although my mom wanted me to be. She always -- I always got a doll. (laughs) I always had a doll not that I played with it that much but -- because I was always out playing ba-- some type of sports with my brothers and all of that. But the walks (inaudible) my brother and I would have at knife, and we would whittle, and we could do all those -- and we would do all of that and just talk about living in this community, playing with the white girl out there. I can remember my -- that they didn' ; t want... We shouldn' ; t play with the girls. We can' ; t -- with a girl, I don' ; t want a girl on my team. And my dad used -- my brothers weren' ; t saying that, but the other people. The other -- the white kids we were playing with, they would say -- they started out saying it, let me say it that way. And then my dad would tell my brothers, " ; Look, she' ; s just as good as you guys if not better. I don' ; t know why you don' ; t let her play. You know she has to play. If she doesn' ; t play with you guys, who is she going to play with?" ; So he made it very clear very early that I always had to be a part of whatever was going on when it came to playing outside or inside or whatever. And I can remember like one of the first times we went out playing because we played right where our farm -- with the house that we live in. We' ; d had all the acreage where the cows roam and all that and then they had -- like from our front yard, which was very large, to the side, there was a big field, and that was our football field, and that was our basketball field -- court, so we played right there. And the people there are whites that lived across the street, and they had kids that were, oh, the same age of my older brothers. And then Ben Brown had children, all the ages. He had -- well, his youngest child, the -- well, not his youngest, his youngest boy I think -- yes Lewis, that' ; s the one we played with. He -- you know, we pu-- he would always come down, and we would come to the dairy, and we all played. And we just played ball, and once they were at -- all the kids would come play, they didn' ; t want me to play. So my brothers would say, " ; Oh, just take her, you know just let her play." ; " ; No, no, we don' ; t want her on our team," ; so I would have to -- I would always be on my brothers' ; team. And after that, they -- I think the first game we played, they realized in the first five minutes or so, they had made a bad mistake (laughs) because they realized I should -- they should have picked me. Then, it was like the next time we go to play, " ; We want her on the team, we want her," ; " ; No, you can' ; t have her, no," ; or I would say, " ; Nope, you didn' ; t choose me the first time ; I won' ; t play the second time." ; Now, you have to remember, we were growing up in the Jim Crow South. And for that to happen, for white kids and black kids to play together, that was not pretty -- I don' ; t know. I just think it was not that much heard of and especially where they could come in our house, but we couldn' ; t go in theirs. They could if we allowed, you know, but they could only be there if our parents were there. They couldn' ; t just come in and sit around and all that. We -- but they -- we never did. I think my older brother -- oh, no, my younger brother may-- no, my older brother got an opportunity maybe to go in the house. If they went in the house, it' ; s for cleaning or work in the house, so... To be in a situation like that, you didn' ; t think about it, right? When I look at it, I didn' ; t... You know, I knew that -- ah, I knew how -- there was ru-- there were so much rules, so to speak, but that' ; s how the times were. Blacks could do this, blacks... And we lived in the country, so I was not really exposed to what was going on in the city. CAIN:So you had a peer-to-peer relationship with the kids? WALKER-HARPS:Yes. CAIN:But then you had these institutional issues out here. TYUS:We surely did, exactly. But for us, our parents, I felt, always wanted to make a safe haven for us. They wanted us to be safe, and they taught us, first of all, you had to respect yourself, and you don' ; t let anybody disrespect you. That was the key, and that was how we related to the white kids in the neighborhood. Now, we never really had any trouble with Ben Brown' ; s children or the people that lived across the street from us. But Ben Brown also had houses on his farm, and he would have -- they would be vacant, and he would rent them out, and it' ; s usually to whites. And when -- I can remember very vividly that there was a family that moved in, and they definitely didn' ; t want to play with -- well, play with us. And they wanted to call us all kinds of names, the N-word especially. And that was not going to be heard because my dad said, " ; You' ; re not going to -- they can' ; t play with you, you can' ; t play with them if they going to -- they' ; re going to call out your name. You have a name, they have a name, they need to use it." ; And that' ; s how it was. And they came around to play, but they started saying words, the N-word, calling us the N-word, so I can remember my -- we used to do this. We used to draw a line in the sand or in the dirt and say, " ; Okay, that' ; s your property ; this is our property. You step across on our property and call us those names ; you' ; re going to have to pay for it." ; And so that' ; s... I can remember one of the kids, one of the brothers that came across, and he' ; s saying these words, and then he steps across the line and calls us the N-word. And then my brother says to me -- says to them, " ; Well, I' ; m not going to beat you up ; I' ; m going to let my sister beat you up." ; (laughter) BAUSKE:Did you? TYUS:Yes. (laughter) BAUSKE:I -- TYUS:It didn' ; t -- it was more like he said it, and as soon as he said it, I hit him in his stomach, and he went over and then I hit him again and then -- you know? And I think that was it. That was the only incident we' ; ve ever had. Because everybody knew that we were -- we as kids know all the other stuff that was going on, but we were respect -- we expect -- we respected each other. We talked to each other, we didn' ; t call each other names, we might -- we got in fights, but that didn' ; t last. It' ; s like you' ; re on the playground, you get in a fight, oh, you' ; re going to forget it. And that' ; s how it was with us. And -- but mainly from what I can remember and I can recall, that was about the only incident we had. My parents still would say to my brothers, " ; Especially when you go over to work in one of these white people' ; s homes or do something in their yard, you go up on the porch and ring the doorbell and knock on the door, whatever you had to do and then you step off the porch. And if the husband or the man of the house is not there, you do not go in their house, and you do not stand there and stare this person in the face." ; Those were the kinds of things that -- CAIN:So that was -- TYUS:-- they felt -- CAIN:-- the protection? TYUS:-- to protect you. Yes. It was not -- you know, it was more like I said. They wanted you to be safe and they -- and these are the things that they taught us. Now, for me, I didn' ; t do any work. (laughs) I didn' ; t have to. My dad didn' ; t really want us doing any... He never allowed us to pick cotton ; he never allowed us to work on the dairy. He said that he has worked and he will work hard enough, so we would never have to do that because he wants his kids to have better, yes. CAIN:Okay, so what was the agreement that your family had with the Browns that allowed you to stay there, and how far back did that go in your family? BAUSKE:And a kind of related question, is your house, childhood home still standing? TYUS:Okay. The house that -- in which we lived in burned down in ' ; 59. Was it ' ; 59? I think it was, yeah, in 1959, so it was no longer there. And the property in which we lived on, there' ; s subdivision -- they have a big house and subdivision out there past the airport. BAUSKE:Yeah, it' ; s not Lake Louise. I know where there' ; s a street called (Brown' ; s) Acres. TYUS:Yeah, that' ; s also all his farm, all that land -- BAUSKE:Okay, that' ; s his farm, okay. TYUS:-- all that -- all those homes, all those homes, all -- BAUSKE:Yes, off Maddox -- TYUS:-- as far as you can see -- BAUSKE:Yes, up Maddox -- TYUS:-- that' ; s all his property. BAUSKE:-- Avenue. TYUS:He sold all of that, yes, so those are -- that' ; s all his property. BAUSKE:And those homes were probably built in the ' ; 60s I think, maybe? TYUS:I don' ; t know. Because when I left in ' ; 63 -- because when our house burned down, my -- it was very traumatic for my father and all of us. But we -- he never really went back to the dairy to work every day. And he had some -- also some health issues, so he never did because within a year, my father died after the house burned down, so... So that and you asked another question? CAIN:Yeah. WALKER-HARPS:I' ; m sorry. CAIN:The agreement that your parents had with the Browns that allowed you-all to live on the property. And was it something that had been intergenerational or is that something that -- where you-all the first of your family to live on that property? Just how did that work? TYUS:I don' ; t know if we were the first. I mean I just know that when I was born, that' ; s where we -- and -- because my parents lived in Pomona, Georgia. I know my mom, and they lived there and then when I was born, it was at the -- you know, I was taken right to the dairy area. I know the agreement was the fact that my father worked the farm, and I -- that' ; s all we know. And you had to also remember they didn' ; t tell us very much. (laughter) And during that time, they didn' ; t tell kids. That was not your -- that was not for you to worry about, it was for them to worry about, and it goes back to what my father would always say, " ; It' ; s for you." ; He would always tell us, " ; I have to do the work, you go guys go -- your work is you need to go to school and get your lesson," ; which means you need to go to school and get an education. He didn' ; t want us picking anybody' ; s cotton or working in anybody' ; s dairy or work -- doing really hard work. He wanted us to be able to go to school and get an education and get further than he did in school. And we still to the day -- my brother and I laugh about it. We still to the day don' ; t know how far he got in school because he would always tell us, " ; I went to school one day, and the teacher wasn' ; t there." ; So we don' ; t know what type of education he had. And my mom, I know she went to eighth grade, so, but they wanted us to have a lot more, and they worked hard for us to do it like a lot of families did. They worked hard, they wanted their children to do, but there were a lot of families that they -- everybody in the family had to work the farm or pick cotton and all that. My grandmother, my dad' ; s mom, that' ; s what was happening. That' ; s -- that -- they were sharecroppers, and they worked the farm, and they did that. But I know my dad took care of the dairy and not only with -- just him, Ben Brown also. The two of them worked the dairy. CAIN:Was that here in Griffin where your grandparents were? TYUS:No, my dad' ; s family is from Jackson -- CAIN:Jackson. WALKER-HARPS:-- Georgia, mm-hmm. So my dad every morning at 5:00 in the morning, he had to get up and go milk the cows and all that. And I can remember being the -- before I went into elementary school, first grade or anything, I could be with my brothers. And we had to ride the bus. We rode a bus to school. The bus would pick -- we were the first to be picked up, and we were the last to be dropped off, so we had an hour ride every morning every day -- ah, two hours -- CAIN:So -- TYUS:-- hours, two hours going and two -- an hou-- one hour going, I' ; m sorry, and one hour coming back. CAIN:So you were by that day' ; s standards, sorry, not really in the city of Griffin. You were -- TYUS:I was not. CAIN:-- in the country. And then they had you catch a bus to get to -- was it Fairmont? TYUS:Annie Shockley Elementary School. (laughs) Yeah. WALKER-HARPS:In a bus with only black children? TYUS:Yes. It wasn' ; t -- the school' ; s not integrated at the time. So where we had to go was Annie Shockley Elementary, but there were other elementary schools in the city of Griffin. But this was like... And I don' ; t know if Annie Shockley is still around, but it' ; s over there near -- what was that street? I don' ; t know if you guys know Griffin, but by Boyd Road and all those places. I don' ; t know what that -- WALKER-HARPS:Annie Shockley is -- or -- CAIN:What, Anne Street? WALKER-HARPS:Anne Street I believe now, Anne Street School. TYUS:But, yeah, we would -- that -- so that' ; s where we went to school, so the bus would come pick us up. Now, we -- there was a white school near us that we could' ; ve walked, but that wasn' ; t happening. (laughs) And we went to -- you know, my brother Junior and I would get on the bus and.... Because we' ; re the first, we had to -- we would always sit behind the bus driver. We knew him and uh, so we would... And it got to where we -- that was our seat there no matter what. Even at the school, we get on the bus -- if we weren' ; t the first to get on the bus, nobody could sit there because the bus driver was always letting us sit there. So (laughs) we were going to be the first one on, and we had to ride and go pick up other students and go. And it took us an hour to pick up -- by the time we picked up everybody and got to school, it was about an hour. And then when we come home, the same thing, so we' ; ll be the last to be dropped off. Sometimes, he might' ; ve -- a couple of times, I can remember that the bus driver dropped us off first, but usually, that was just his route, so... I don' ; t know where (inaudible) that -- CAIN:And that started when you were in the first grade? TYUS:First grade, yeah. And my brothers had gone before that because they were older. Well, my two older brothers and then -- because I know with my brother Jackie and Jimmy -- Jimmy Lee, they may have started school at -- up in Pomona. They had that one-room school near at the church. There' ; s a church, Macedonia Church, that' ; s the church we belong to. And they had a little schoolhouse, a brick... Well, let' ; s see. What do you call those? Cinder block schoolhouse where you had just one room, and you were in grades by the seats you sat in, so... But I didn' ; t have that ; my older brothers did. CAIN:While you' ; re talking about the Browns and while we' ; re still there, have you maintained any kind of relationship with any other descendants? Do you know anything about whatever happened to them or...? TYUS:No, because once we -- I -- my mom, when my mom was living and my mom used to come to California on -- every year, right? And I know one -- the Lewis, the one that we always played with had moved to Santa Barbara, California. And I know my mom had stayed in contact with -- I don' ; t know which Browns. And she had gotten that information, but we never got a chance to see each other because she will always say, " ; I' ; m going to get that information, and we' ; re going." ; " ; Yeah," ; and I said, " ; Yeah, get it because Santa Barbara, a couple of hours from Los Angeles," ; and I said, " ; We could go and find him," ; and all of that. And I don' ; t know if they' ; re still living. I don' ; t know because it was four boys and two girls. So I don' ; t know what' ; s going -- or what happened when that -- all that took place, all right, because I was not around. That was just not... I was -- I went Tennessee State I think when most of all that happened. Because I left Griffin in ' ; 63 to go off to college, and that' ; s -- you know, I will come back, but there' ; s no reconnection. I know my brother Jimmy Lee, he had a big connection with the people that -- the white boys that lived across the street down the road and all of that because he -- even as an adult. Because he used to go hunting with them and all of that and they keep in contact and all that. And even like when my mom was pretty sick and she was in the hospice, I was out there, and this one guy came up to me, and he says... Like I guess he -- somebody had told him my mom was there, but he had a family member that was also there. And he came up to me, and he goes, " ; Sister," ; because that' ; s what they called me and although -- you know they all called me sister. And he said, " ; I' ; m --" ; and I can' ; t -- God, which one was it? I can' ; t think of his name, but he told me who it was, and I knew that my brother Junior was there. And he said, " ; Oh, yeah, you know, we..." ; And my brother Junior sees him now even. Yeah, I don' ; t -- but I don' ; t see them. But they do. You know it was alwa-- it' ; s always been a good friendship. I know when my brother Jimmy Lee died, it was like I -- I mean the church was packed half-and-half pretty much because Jimmy Lee always kept in contact with them. And they had -- Jimmy Lee had trucks, and they' ; d go hunting and all that stuff because we grew up hunting too. That was the other thing we had. My -- I mean I learned at a very early age, maybe be seven or so about gu-- well, we... There was always a gun in the house. We had a sh-- my dad always had a shotgun in the house, but we never and ever, ever, ever touched it. We were too scared. (laughter) We were too scared about -- even we would go in the room where my dad -- in their bedroom, and if we would jump on the bed, which young kids do, and play around, we never touched the gun. It never fell or anything, but we were taught the safety of guns. We were taught the fact that the gun is only used for hunting and we did. You know we had rabbits, squirrels, and all those things, so, and that' ; s how we used the gun. And my father taught us the safety of how to use it, when to use it, and never pull a gun on anybody unless -- you know that' ; s something. Once you pull the gun, that' ; s your issue there. You' ; re going to have to use it, or they' ; re going to use it on you, so, but we never did. And we never had trouble with white kids doing the same thing because their guns were the same. The way every-- everyone was just -- that was just how life was there. It' ; s not like that now, but that' ; s how it was then. CAIN:Talk a little bit about your elementary school experience, and you went to Fairmont? TYUS:Mm-hmm, I did. I went -- (laughter) I went to Annie Shockley Elementary, and school was something for me. Growing up with my brothers, I was al-- they always called me a tomboy, and I don' ; t -- and all I felt, that I was just a person that enjoyed being outside. I enjoyed competing and then -- I mean just trying to -- not always being the best, just the fact that I could go out there and do those things, and I wanted to do it. I wanted to be the best person to -- I want to be the person that could climb the tree the fastest or ride my bike the fastest. I always want to do that. And when I went to -- I think going to elementary school and all that, they didn' ; t have any -- there was no sports for girls, yeah, nothing. The biggest thing we had was May Day, which you don' ; t do anything but sack races, (laughs) and that was it. And then like at lunchtime and stuff like that, boys could play football, and they could do all that, and I would always just be sitting and wanting to jump out there, run out and then do -- and be a part, but girls can' ; t do that. I can remember trying to play that, and I wa-- the teachers say, " ; Girls play over here, the boys play there," ; hmm, okay. And I was a kid that wore pants to school all the time. And I can remember teachers telling my mom, " ; Does she have a dress?" ; asking her, " ; Does she have a dress?" ; And she says, " ; Yes," ; and " ; Well, she needs to wear dresses sometime," ; and I' ; m like, " ; I can' ; t wear a dress. Well, how am I going to play and jump around and like..." ; (laughs) BAUSKE:Can I ask? TYUS:Sure. BAUSKE:What sports were you playing? TYUS:What sports? BAUSKE:Yeah. TYUS:Well, I played -- like with my brothers, I played the football and basketball with them and so-- and baseball. So that' ; s that -- that' ; s on the farm, but they let the boys play football and all that stuff and run and jump, and we did a lot of running, did a lot of bike racing in our bikes, and all those kind of things. So those are the things that I did as a child on the dairy farm. But when you went -- and then we went to elementary school and we started in school, girls have certain roles they wanted you to (play?). And I didn' ; t want that role, jump rope and London Bridge is falling down, boring. (laughter) BAUSKE:Jump rope is better than it used to be. (laughter) TYUS:Yes, but I still can' ; t jump, so I don' ; t know. (laughter) So that... So I can just remember the teacher saying to my mom I should wear dresses, and I' ; m -- " ; I don' ; t want a dress, I don' ; t want to wear a dress." ; I can remember and remember kind of to revert -- to go back. When I was six maybe or I guess when I turned six or so, it was Christmastime, and my brother Junior wanted a cowboy outfit, and I wanted a cowboy outfit, and my mother says, " ; No, we' ; ll get you a cowgirl outfit." ; I said, " ; No, I want a cowboy outfit." ; " ; No, you get -- you can have a cowgirl outfit," ; and I' ; m -- " ; I' ; m not going to wear that, I don' ; t (inaudible) want a cowgirl outfit, I want a cowboy outfit." ; And my dad said to her, " ; You know she' ; s so -- she' ; s not going to wear it if you buy it, she' ; s not going to wear it. You know how she is ; she' ; s not going to wear it." ; And that morning at Christmas morning, we got up, and I had a cowboy outfit. (laughs) CAIN:Wow. TYUS:And so I always said -- and both of my brother and I had the same outfit and we... People used to thought -- think we were twins, but we weren' ; t. So my mom went and get our pictures taken in the cowboy outfit, and the guy says, " ; Oh, what a -- two cute little boys," ; and I went, " ; I' ; m not a boy." ; And my mom said, " ; See, this is why you need that cowgirl outfit." ; (laughter) So she pulled my braids out so that he could see. (laughs) But I did all -- it was... You know my -- I just admire my parents for them letting me be who I wanted to be and not put the restrictions that girls have to do that. And I think more -- my father really was the one that was behind that, and my mom was more, " ; Well, you need to learn how to do these things," ; and it... To get back to wearing a dress at the school and all that, and my mom said, " ; Well, she wears a dress to church," ; and I did. And so they kept say-- my mom kept saying, " ; You' ; ve got to wear a dress to school," ; so my dad came up with, " ; Well, this is how we' ; ll just get around this. You wear your pants and put your dress over it." ; I was okay with that and that' ; s -- but -- and then now, that' ; s what they do all the time, and so... (laughs) So but -- CAIN:(You were twins?). TYUS:So that' ; s what -- you know? So Annie Shockley, well that was my memories. Annie Shockley, it was -- I mean I enjoy school there. And I think about the teachers that we had, they were -- they reminded me a lot of my parents in the sense that they really were so encouraging, and they wanted you to do more and wanted you to definitely get your lessons so to speak. And they wanted you to just really be proud of who you were. And, yeah, well, at -- again talking about the times, that was... I guess that was the time when a lot -- the teachers there, they were not all -- they weren' ; t from Griffin. They came from different parts of different little counties or -- and not all of them but most of them came from different counties around. And they were always saying, " ; Well, there' ; s so much out there for you to learn," ; and they were so encouraging trying to get us there. And at the time when I was in school, they were also -- when they could swat you, they could give you, but my dad said, " ; No, that' ; s not going to happen. I don' ; t whip my kids, so nobody else can, so..." ; But they could do that when we were in school, so... WALKER-HARPS:Your teachers were mostly from someplace else over at -- TYUS:I' ; m sorry? WALKER-HARPS:Your teachers were mostly from someplace else over at Griffin? TYUS:Mm-hmm. Yup, they were. WALKER-HARPS:Now, when did you meet (Ernestine?) Kimbrough? Was that high school or --? TYUS:That' ; s high school. WALKER-HARPS:That' ; s high school. TYUS:Yeah. So that' ; s Annie Shockley. After Annie Shockley, we went to Kelsey elementary? I mean Kelsey Middle -- BRAMAN:Middle -- TYUS:-- School. It was middle school, junior high then, that' ; s what they called it. But, yeah, I went there, and that was... That' ; s -- what year was that? I don' ; t even know what year was it. You have to -- you guys do the math. (laughs) WALKER-HARPS:Probably about ' ; 62 -- TYUS:Yeah. So I went there. WALKER-HARPS:-- on Kelsey -- TYUS:Yeah, I went there, and I think they had -- I' ; m trying to think, they had basketball for girls. Did they have track? I think they had basketball for girls and track. And that' ; s the first time like I really came into the city, living in the city because -- or not living in the city, just coming to the city, going to school. And then once our house burned down, I think that' ; s when I was in eighth grade and then that was Fairmont, I ended up at Fairmont. I was at Fairmont High School, and... Wow, so, what can I tell you about Fairmont? That' ; s where I met Ms. Kimbrough who was my track coach and basketball coach, and she was the PE teacher, and all of those then, you know? Because I used to think all the time, God, that' ; s such a tall woman. WALKER-HARPS:Mm-hmm, she was. TYUS:(laughs) You know and then also my other thought was, gosh, she was really bowlegged. And I would always say, " ; God, if you straighten her legs out, she could be pretty tall, much taller than what she is." ; But (laughter) she was a woman that... I mean she had a lot of girls that were on the -- that played basketball and ran track. I mean that -- because that was the only two sports for wom-- or for girls in high school. I don' ; t know what was going on in white schools. I don' ; t know if they had a track program or not because none of us was ever -- we were still segregated, we were not integrated at the time, so I don' ; t know if white kids had -- what kind of sports they had. CAIN:How did she identify you as somebody who would be interested in track, good in track, and at what level? You know maybe ninth grade or so on. And tell us a little bit about some of the competitions that got you noticed. TYUS:I really don' ; t know if she really identified me. There was -- you know, it was more that if you wanted to be involved in sports when you were a young girl, you could be involved, and you had to try out. And then if you could beat someone if -- yeah, or you... Depending on how many people they' ; re going to have on their team, like with the basketball team that, you know, you go out there and you play hard. You practice hard and you do -- they have tryouts, so you get -- you either make it or you don' ; t and those that make it... I can' ; t remember them saying, " ; God, you' ; ve got great potential." ; I think that happened after I went to that first summer at Tennessee State, which I was 15 or 6-- yeah, 15. BAUSKE:Tell us about that. That' ; s kind of young to be off in a college environment. TYUS:(laughs) I -- yeah, it was. I was... After, like once I was at Fairmont, they -- then I made the basketball team and I made the track team along with several other women. And there was one woman especially on the track team, Frances Dallas, and she -- she was much better than I was. She whupped me all the time, and I got beat all the time. She could really run, and so... But it didn' ; t bother me that much. I mean I was still enjoying. I was still at the state ; I just enjoy this. This is really something I like to do, and my father had passed away. Our house burned down and then my father passed away, and I was just devastated by both things, more so by my father' ; s death. And I became a person -- not that I talked a lot in the beginning, but I became a person that would -- like one-word answers, and we would not be having this interview if I had not come. (laughs) It will be yes, no, if you think so. You have to continue to ask but... You know, so at his death, I just really didn' ; t do that. My mom kept saying, " ; You know you need to do something, you need to..." ; And I think that' ; s the reason I really got started running and playing basketball and doing a lot, you know just really putting my heart into it. Not so -- I mean, I guess it' ; s my aggression, just being angry and disappointed and depressed and all those kinds of things, I just -- that was my outlet. And I think Ms. Kimbrough saw that and all of that, so... But it just -- we would have track meets arou-- in around. It' ; s like in Newnan and places like that and then the big thing, you had to -- we go to Fort Valley. At Fort Valley State College, we would go there, and they would have meets there. And it will be not just surrounding Griffin, but you had people from Atlanta, all the big -- and they would be there, but you were... Depending on how large your school is with classes, they had A, B, A, and all up there, so... Mr. Temple was there, yes, and I didn' ; t know anything about that, Mr. Temple, who he was. And he -- after the meet, he came up to me and said -- he introduced himself as the coa-- " ; I' ; m Temple, the coach at Tennessee State University." ; And he always called everybody by their last names. He said, " ; You' ; re Tyus, right?" ; I said, " ; Yes," ; and he said, " ; Well, I was looking at you, and you look like you got some potential there. And I would like to invite you to come for summer at a track camp. I put on a track camp every year, and I invite high school and schoolgirls up, and we train for a month. And if you do well and continue to do well in your books, and you do well on the track, you know when you graduate from high school, you could probably get a scholarship." ; And I was like, " ; Oh." ; He asked, " ; Would you be interested?" ; At 15, " ; Yeah." ; (laughs) That' ; s about -- that was -- now, that was my answer because I was not talking very much, " ; Yeah, I would." ; And he said, " ; Well, you' ; re going to be hearing from me. I talked to your coach, Ms. Kimbrough and --" ; I think it was Kimbrough there. Was it Kimbrough or was it Bonner? See, they crossed it in between with Susan Bonner and Ernestine Kimbrough. They crossed one because they did and I don' ; t know -- I' ; m kind of foggy on that a little bit. I probably have to think about it some more, or you guys can research it for me. WALKER-HARPS:(overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) talking about Susan. TYUS:Yeah, mm-hmm, so... So it must have been Susan Bonner I think it was because I think Ms. Kimbrough left somewhere in the begi-- in the middle of that. I don' ; t know. But anyway, Mr. Temple said that, and he said, " ; Well, you' ; ll be hearing from me," ; and I said, " ; Okay." ; And the next -- I didn' ; t think too much about that. I just went, " ; Yeah, all right." ; And I think a week or so later, my mom got a letter from him saying that he was going to come to Georgia, and he wanted to meet with her, and he' ; s (good?). And that' ; s something he did. He met with everybody' ; s -- every one, young lady that came to Tennessee State in the summer, he went and met with their parents or parent and told -- and laid out his program and said, " ; These are the -- this is what I expect of these -- my young ladies that come here." ; And he came, and he was like so strict I thought, but no more strict than what my parents were. " ; These are the things," ; he said, " ; there' ; s a right way, the wrong way, and then there' ; s my way, and if you don' ; t do it my way, you' ; re going to get sent -- I send them home." ; He said, " ; I make sure I will take care of your daughters. Yes, they will be on a college campus, but they' ; ll be well protected" ; and all of that. And you think about it, I mean, and it was... And he was like, " ; So if you allow her to come, these are the things that you would need," ; and all that, and it was like, okay. So, yeah, he says to me, " ; Well, what do you think, Tyus? You think you want to come?" ; I said, " ; I think so." ; I was just the timid type person, you know I' ; m saying? And he said, " ; Okay," ; and he says to my mom, " ; Ms. Tyus, are you willing to let her come?" ; and she said, " ; Yes." ; And when he left, then I was busy thinking, and how am I going to go? We don' ; t have any money because it was just my mom and my brothers and I, and it was like she don' ; t have any money to send me anywhere. And I can remember -- so it was like I really wanted to go. I started thinking, I' ; ll be -- okay, I' ; ll -- I' ; m going to be out of Griffin for a summer, I' ; m going to be out of the state of Georgia, (laughs) I' ; m going to be going someplace so that became very interesting to me. And after that, the school Fairmont, believe it or not, raised some money for me to go to Tennessee State the first summer. They raised $23 and some-odd cents, which was a lot of money in that day and time because now it' ; s worth -- how much is it worth now (Dave?)? DAVE:It' ; s about $190. TYUS:But in this day and time that would' ; ve been $190 there. So that paid for my bus, my train ticket to and from Griffin to Nashville. It gave me a few dollars to have in my pocket. CAIN:And you went by yourself. TYUS:I did. That was the -- I think about that to this day that here it is that they drove -- my Uncle John Henry and my mom and I think my brother Junior, we drove up to Atlanta to the train station because the train wasn' ; t here in Griffin and you didn' ; t -- they weren' ; t -- so we drove up there. They put me on the train with my little bag of food (laughs) and waved goodbye. And I rode eight hours or more to Nashville and go into the mountains, and it was like, oh my (God?), you know? And I can remember one of my mom' ; s friends telling me, " ; Now, you get on that train, and you sit there, and you sit there with pride and dignity." ; " ; Okay." ; " ; And don' ; t you talk to anybody." ; (laughter) They didn' ; t have to worry about me talking to anyone, I didn' ; t, so I didn' ; t. And I get there, and he said -- and Mr. Temple had said to my mom, " ; Well, I' ; ll be right there when she gets there," ; and he was right there. And he comes and meets me at the train station, and he has another one of the young women that' ; s on the track team there with him, and he said -- he says, " ; Ah, Tyus?" ; I said, " ; Yes, Mr. Temple?" ; because we all called him Mr. Temple. We didn' ; t call him Coach Temple because that' ; s a Southern thing. You-all respect your elders by saying mister, and that' ; s what we did. We didn' ; t call him coach. So he says, " ; Meet Rudolph," ; and that was Wilma Rudolph. Of course, I didn' ; t know that at the time because I didn' ; t know anything about track and that thing. All I knew, I just ran and he saw something. And so we go into the dormitory, and we got to meet all the other women -- young girls that were my age that were coming out for the summer and then also the young -- the women that were on the team that was in college and all of that. CAIN:How many young girls came into the camp? TYUS:That first summer, I think it was about 20 of us, but all of us didn' ; t last. (laughs) A lot of people wanted -- they went home. The practices were really hard. I always used to practice then maybe once or twice a week, and I could still win or I' ; ll get second (inaudible) defeating Frances at the meet. When Frances was at the meet, I could get second, and if she wasn' ; t at the meet, I' ; ll get first but... (laughs) But we would get there, and we had practice like 5:00 in the morning, 9:00 in the morning, and 1:00 in the afternoon. That -- it was very hard practice and now -- CAIN:At the summer camp? CAIN:In the summer camp. And you' ; re in Tennessee, you practice at 1:00 in the afternoon -- BAUSKE:It' ; s hot. Yeah, it' ; s hot. TYUS:So very hot. BAUSKE:Where was your mother, brothers, and you living in Griffin after the farmhouse burned down? TYUS:Once the farmhouse burned down, we moved to a little one-bedroom place. And my dad was -- because my dad lived about 9 months or 10 months, a year. But we all lived in a one-bedroom place over on Washington and Fourth? Was it Washington and Third? I can' ; t remember. On Washington Street. It was on Washington and -- I think it was Washington and Fourth Street, yeah. And then my -- years later, my mom -- we live now on Hill Street because my mom and brothers bought a house there. Yeah. But... So what else was -- need to say? Oh, so that was it. I mean that was going just at Fairmont and then people at Fairmont to be so generous (inaudible), you know? They raised money. It wasn' ; t you would think, oh, that' ; s not enough money, but they raised that money for me to go and -- I thought. And they evidently saw something that I didn' ; t see in myself, and they probably saw the same thing Mr. Temple saw, I don' ; t know. Or it goes back to what I had stated earlier that the teachers and the people, they really wanted you to do better. They wanted you to be more than what people thought you would -- or what they thought of blacks at the time. And they wanted you to get an education because they knew education would definitely do it for you. It will help you anyway. It will be like what Mr. Temple will always say, you know, " ; Sports will open the door, education will keep the door open," ; so... And they -- and I always was very and will always be very grateful for the fact that -- I always felt I had great teachers, and they always wanted the best for you and it' ; s -- WALKER-HARPS:Who was the principal at Fairmont when you were there? TYUS:Um, I don' ; t know. (laughs) Was it Mr. -- WALKER-HARPS:C. W. Daniels? TYUS:-- Daniels, Mr. Daniels? WALKER-HARPS:Or Mr. Tate. BAUSKE:He started but somebody else -- Mr. Tate was there. WALKER-HARPS:It' ; s probably Tate, Horace Tate. TYUS:Yeah, between the -- yeah, because it was him and then Mr. Daniels, right. BAUSKE:Mm-hmm. CAIN:Well, they must have -- since they kind of got together and raised money, and you probably were the only student who had that opportunity, you must have stuck out. TYUS:I -- when you look at it like that, yes, I did. I mean I would -- I think the stuck out came when Mr. Temple made that offer, you know, and I think once he... And then the school knew that. Ms. Bonner -- actually, I don' ; t know which one it was. I think it was Ms. Bonner that she let the school know that, hey -- Ms. Kimbrough I think it was. She let the school know that Mr. Temple was looking in here. And they knew more about the Olympics and all of that, so they knew the opportunity. And to go to a -- to go to college, I was never going to go to college. How was I going to go to college? And for him to say in his letter -- I have the letter that says that here, if you do these things and you -- eventually, you may get a scholarship. He never said you were definitely going to get it but -- you know? And then when you... After you get there and you see all the -- a lot of things that you could see, and for me, it was just so eye-opening in that, yeah, you meet these young women that were doing a whole lot of things not just running track. They were going... They had been overseas, that' ; s all you can -- like they' ; d been overseas, they had been to Germany, they had been to Russia, they had been to Italy, you know, they' ; d had gone to all these different places, and they got a totally different education here. You had book education and you -- then you' ; re able to travel around the world. I think you could -- I feel that you get a different kind of education. You learn about people, you learn about different cultures and how -- you know, and you learn to appreciate not only just yourself but also your culture, the other people' ; s cultures. And I just was amazed by what was going on with that just -- CAIN:Yeah, Tennessee State was nationally and internationally known at that time. TYUS:Right. CAIN:Wilma Rudolph was -- TYUS:And they put them on the map. CAIN:Put them on the map. TYUS:Well, you know even before her, although they didn' ; t get the credit. And still to this day, they -- I don' ; t feel that the Tigerbelles get the credit. That' ; s why I wrote a book about it. But that they went on. You know you had -- in 1956 and they had women on the Olympic team. And if they weren' ; t winning -- if they didn' ; t win, the US women didn' ; t win anything. CAIN:Yeah, and let me just -- in terms of Coach Temple being ahead of his times and being progressive, he was offering scholarships to young ladies in the ' ; 50s and ' ; 60s in athletics prior to Title - TYUS:-- IX. CAIN:-- IX, which... (laughter) You know that' ; s pretty incredible. TYUS:Yeah, well, it was. You think about that Tuskegee started out doing that for women and then that program folded and Mr. Temple' ; s program started to grow. But Tennessee State at the time I was in school is the only school in America giving any type of athletic scholarship to go to school for women -- not just black women, any woman. And at the time I was in school, it was only about -- it was only eight percent of women in the whole USA that was in college. So I' ; m like one of that eight percent, and Tennessee State, the women that were on the team, it was -- is anywhere from 10 to 15 women that were on the team. Now, you think about this as a historical black college doing this. I mean when I was in school with maybe 1300 students there, all black, and this little school did this, and he did this for women, which was not -- I mean in this day and time, women can go to any school they want and -- because -- if they' ; re in sports, have some type of athletic scholarship. Our scholarship was really work aid. It wasn' ; t really so an ath-- right out of an athletic scholarship. But it was a way to go to school and have a way to get an education. and I just would never -- I just don' ; t think we can give enough to Mr. Temple or say enough about him and for the world to know. And the world do, they know what he has done in track and field. But also they don' ; t -- the other part is what he has done for black women and black -- and not only black women but women of all color where he would always say, " ; I was Title I, I wasn' ; t Title IX, I mean I started --" ; he started the whole thing. You know he did for women that nobody else ever dreamed or thought of wanting to do, and he stuck with it, and he put like over 40 women on the Olympic -- on different Olympic teams. And out of the 40, he won 23 medals, 13 of them gold and -- you know? And he graduated all of his girls. He has a 97 percent graduation rate. And if they didn' ; t graduate from Tennessee State, they went on to graduate from another school, which is saying a lot. Because he believed in all, that we all had to have the education because that' ; s the only way you' ; re going to make it. CAIN:I' ; m curious -- (coughs) excuse me. I' ; m curious about the young lady you said who beat you. TYUS:Mm-hmm. BAUSKE:Yes, I was wondering, what happened to Frances? CAIN:Yeah, because he -- she should' ; ve been identified too maybe as somebody who had a lot of potential as -- TYUS:Yeah, but may-- I' ; m trying to think if she ran the day that Mr. Temple was at Fort Valley if she was -- if she even went to the meet because it' ; s not like practices now where you have to go to all these meets. But when we -- like surrounding meets around here, and we had time trials and stuff like that, Frances always beating me and -- yeah, so you know... I -- you also have -- the person I think has to want to do it and want to be. And I wouldn' ; t have ever continued to do it if Mr. Temple had not seen me and said, " ; Hey, you have the potential." ; Because to this day, I just don' ; t understand how he could see me and say it was me. How could it be me? It could' ; ve been Frances. It could' ; ve been someone else, but he chose me. I don' ; t know how that happened, but it was -- and then -- and not only that, there were a lot of other young women from Atlanta that went to that same program that I went to. So he was looking at a lot of people not -- I don' ; t know. And I -- and when I think about it at this point in time, I can' ; t remember her being there. She may have been there, but she may not. I just can' ; t remember that. But she could have, but he didn' ; t see that. WALKER-HARPS:At that time at Fairmont, the focus was on boys and gir-- boys and baseball and basketball if I remember correctly. I' ; m trying to think of others, and maybe you can, who were competitors with you in -- on the sports. We have beaucoups of trophies from that period of time at Fairmont going to early ' ; 60s. I don' ; t remember who they were by name, but there were a lot of them. We were -- we produced a whole bunch of athletes from Fairmont during the early -- well, from the beginning of the school up until the early ' ; 60s. TYUS:Yeah, well -- WALKER-HARPS:But I' ; m not sure. I don' ; t remember... Well, this was Rayfield Wright' ; s period of time or -- I don' ; t remember who. At my age, I don' ; t remember who those were who were competing with the... But I do remember that we received a lot of trophies. TYUS:Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, the -- I mean Fairmont was known for their -- with like the men' ; s basketball team and then the men' ; s football team. But they had a good women' ; s basketball team, but you never heard about it. Like I stated earlier, women were never encouraged to do that. Women were never encouraged to go out and be good. I think about relatives and friends saying that, you know, " ; You can go out and play but don' ; t sweat, horses and cows sweat, things like that. Girls, you' ; re just not supposed to do all these things, and you' ; re not supposed to be good. You' ; re supposed to -- well, girls and women are supposed to be good cooking, good cleaning the house, good --" ; you know? None of the things that I wanted to do, but I know how to do them because I was taught that. That was something we were all taught and not just me. My brothers could clean house better than I can, so... (laughs) So in my family, that' ; s what we -- it was all equal in that sense. It was not what society was saying because my parents wanted us to all -- we all needed to know. These are key things for all of -- for you to survive, you know? You need to know how to cook because you may not find someone that' ; s going to cook for you. You may not want -- you may not get married, so what are you going to do? (Usually, it' ; s...?) You know it was not so much at the time we were growing up ; you weren' ; t going to no restaurants and eating. WALKER-HARPS:Right. TYUS:And so there was not that. I mean there was -- unless you were in a black community, in our black community. I don' ; t -- like I said, I don' ; t know very much about the inner city of Griffin because we lived on a dairy farm. We raised our own food. We had corn, and there were pear trees, there were fig trees, there were all kind of -- we had all kinds of vegetable. Ben Brown had a pond, he had dug a pond, we had fish, we go fishing all the time, and we also raised hogs. So it' ; s like we were pretty much self-sufficient when -- and we didn' ; t really have to come into the city to buy things. My mom worked here in the inner city. CAIN:Something had to be infused in you because you went from being on a dairy farm, okay, to come into Griffin had to be a little bit of a culture shock, to go into Tennessee State had to be a little bit of a culture shock to doing things internationally. And you had to have something in you, something that people put in you or that was just in you innately to allow you to function and survive and say, " ; I' ; m not going to give up those kinds of things." ; Can you talk about that? TYUS:Well, I think the -- what was in me is what my parents raised me, how they raised me and raised me and my brothers. I mean they raised us about -- taught us values and what was valuable to you and what was valuable to me and to them. And as I see, it was family and also not only being just family but being -- treating people right, treating people fairly, you know? That was always -- you know, they didn' ; t sit there and talk about it like that. It' ; s like if you were in an argument or I was fighting with my brothers, which we did a lot, you know, " ; What? Why? You-all can talk that out." ; Well, sometimes you could, and you just had to fight, but still, after the fight was over, you' ; re still brothers and sisters, and you don' ; t treat people mean. You don' ; t be mean to people in that. And it was more -- there' ; s enough of that in the world. Yeah, and it to me, it was just more common sense kind of things, and that' ; s the common sense in my family, not to say that was with everybody' ; s family. WALKER-HARPS:And it sounds like there was inner strength in your parents and perhaps in their parents. Because even living in the -- under the conditions, which they lived, they were never submissive. They were always strong and strong-willed, and that transferred to you-all. And that' ; s not an -- (in here?), that' ; s not an everyday thing especially during that period of time. TYUS:No, it' ; s not, and I think that, you know, still going back to the fact that they always wanted better. They wanted more for their children, and in order and do that, they felt they could sacrifice. And if they did all the hard work and we went to school and got an education, then we could do it for our kids, and you just keep passing it on. It' ; s like you' ; re going to call to it a tradition or whatever and just... I mean I was always strong-willed. It goes back to the whole cowboy outfit. You know I would -- (laughs) and I don' ; t know, I can' ; t -- I think both of my parents were strong-willed. My mom was a person that talked a lot more than the -- and my dad was not. He was a very quiet man and would say very few words but the words he did speak -- but he talked a lot to his kids. He didn' ; t talk a lot to other people, yeah, but -- you know? And he -- and the whole fact of going out and walking in the woods, and he saying to us, " ; This is what we call -- this is being free," ; and those kinds of things. And then the fact that we would go and stay with his pa-- his grand-- my grandmother, my dad' ; s mom. In the summer, we would stay a whole week, my brother and I because my dad -- we would stay a week, but my dad came every day to see us because he didn' ; t like us to be away from home. (laughs) He didn' ; t want us out of his eyesight and stuff like that but -- and in Jackson, Georgia. And my -- they picked cotton, but we weren' ; t allowed to pick cotton. So we were there, but we couldn' ; t pick cotton, so we had to do our -- we had to do all the preparation before everybody that went to pick cotton, so we had to get up and cook -- help cook breakfast. We had to do all the chores, we had to cook -- have lunch ready when they came back from the field, we had to have dinner ready. We had to do all of that, but we could never work the fields. Yeah. WALKER-HARPS:Which means that there had to have been an understanding between the Browns and your family for you-all to have been the allowed that freedom, that choice. TYUS:Yeah, oh, that they -- oh, the Browns knew that we weren' ; t -- we' ; re never allowed to milk cows and things like that. We were taught ; my dad taught us how to milk a cow and all of that. I always tell people that when I was five years old and going to the dairy in the morning once my brothers got on the bus and go to... Because the dairy was all -- a hundred yards away, (laughs) so I would go to the dairy when my dad is finished up milking the cows and stuff and the best thing. And I always wanted to help him and do all that. He goes, " ; No, this is not your job, this is my job." ; And I -- and he would always let me hose down the cow poop. I always, " ; Oh, this is --" ; because you could play in the water, you' ; re doing all that, and that was so much fun, but -- you know? But that' ; s about as much as we could do. We didn' ; t have to do anything else. (laughs) BAUSKE:When you went to college -- the first Olympic was what year of your college? TYUS:Nineteen sixty-four. I entered college in ' ; 63. BAUSKE:And so you were a sophomore TYUS:Yes. BAUSKE:And then the second Olympics was when you had graduated, the year? TYUS:Yeah. I went and graduated -- it took me five... I went to -- I graduated in ' ; 68, August of ' ; 68. BAUSKE:So you were -- and then after you graduated, what' ; d you do? TYUS:I came to Griffin and said goodbye and went to Los Angeles, California. (laughter) BAUSKE:The great diaspora. TYUS:I moved to LA when I -- I think I was 15, maybe 16, I can' ; t remember. We had outdoor championships for track and field in Los Angeles. And that' ; s the first time I' ; ve been on a plane, the first time, and seeing big California and, oh, gosh, and I just thought it was so beautiful and so big and it' ; s so clean. The streets are so wide and the palm trees. I just -- I -- " ; This is where I want to live." ; I said it then, and that' ; s what happened. I moved to California and lived there and worked -- started out working as a teacher in -- a PE teacher in middle school, in junior high, whew. I did that for a year, and that was, right, the end of that. (laughter) And, yeah, I' ; ve been there ever since, and I' ; ve had several different jobs. You know although I won three gold medals and been in the Olympics and set world records, there was no -- nobody giving me -- BAUSKE:Sponsorships -- TYUS:-- endorsements. That was not happening for black people and black women especially. They -- black women wouldn' ; t -- that was not going to be so that -- so that I never got any of those kinds of thing. But it was -- you know, I still had to live. I had to work, so I -- and so I had a lot of different kinds of job. I know I worked with ABC, I mean, in -- for the Olympics in Montreal. I did... Oh, my gosh, I can' ; t think of all those, but I' ; ve had several different jobs, and I retired about nine years ago. And before that, I worked in outdoor education with the LA school district. And what that was about is that they would bring fourth graders and fifth graders to a camp, and they would stay for a week. And we taught them the natural sciences, and we did it through -- everything was outdoors except sleeping. (laughs) And we hiked and we had... It was in the mountains. It was not that far from LA. It was only about a 40-minute drive to get to the mountains and where it was but... And we had creeks and streams, and they had different things, animals and frogs and things you could catch. Well, you catch them but it was more we taught them that they' ; re here, but we don' ; t kill them, we don' ; t ta-- you know we are looking to observe. So you -- this is nature, this is how nature is supposed to be, and we need to learn to take care of this planet or the planet is not going to take care of us. Yeah. So that -- I did that for 17 years. CAIN:Can I back to TSU? TYUS:Sure. CAIN:Talk about that college experience with Mr. Temple and the other ladies that you had around you. As Ellen indicated, during that period of time, you went to two Olympics. TYUS:Mm-hmm. CAIN:And I' ; m sure within that period of time, there were other meets and other activities going on. Just -- if you could just give us a brief -- an overview of that experience. TYUS:Well, my first -- my freshman year at Tennessee State was not the best year. My first quarter there, it was not. I was -- it was just mind-blowing for me, I mean, just and I -- going to practice and going to school and going... I made one -- the biggest mistake is taking a class after practice, which is at six o' ; clock in the evening, and you practiced. And it was literature, and I knew very little. And it' ; s very difficult to stay awake or to be concentra-- to be really focused on talking about Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales and all. Okay, so... (laughter) So I mean, and so I can remember Mr. Temple when he got my grades, he called me in, and he said, " ; Uh, you' ; re not going to be able to stay here with these grades. This is not acceptable." ; And he said, " ; You' ; re going to--" ; his favorite thing that I (remember?), " ; I' ; ll send you home, I' ; m going to send you home with that comic book and apple." ; And people are, " ; Oh, what that was all about with the comic book and apple?" ; Well, the apple was so you have something to eat, so you wouldn' ; t be hungry on your way home. And the comic book was so you have something to read, so your education can continue. (laughter) So he, " ; This is just not going to work. I just don' ; t --" ; I said, " ; I went to class, I' ; d go to cla-- I don' ; t know." ; " ; You can' ; t just go to class. You need to talk in class. I know you' ; re sitting there not --" ; because I was still in that non-- you know, those very few words. " ; And you have to talk in class, you need to do all that." ; I said, " ; Oh," ; and I said, " ; Well, you know, I got that, I can do better, I know I can do better," ; and he says, " ; Well, you' ; re going to have one more chance to do it better, you will have to make some real good grades." ; I said, " ; Okay," ; and I did. I mean that kind of broke the ice, and I realized, okay. And learned how -- now with the help also of the Tigerbelles there, the older women and how to set goals and how to reach them, how to study and how to go to the library and how to ask questions and when you don' ; t know the answer, you know? And you know I would -- I never felt like -- I always felt I could ask the question ; I just never wanted to. I just didn' ; t -- I mean I don' ; t know. I was -- like I said, I was -- even at that time, I was still suffering, I think, when I look back at it from my father' ; s death. I just -- it would -- it really took a toll on me, and I didn' ; t talk to anybody about it because then there was no going to no psychiatrist or anything. You' ; ve got to work that on out of your -- you know? Because we dint have the money so... And even if we did, I don' ; t know if I would' ; ve gone because I don' ; t talk anyway, so... But I think through the whole running and just being around other women, young ladies like myself that had had things happened to them, and they' ; ve gone. And the fact that, hey, here you are, you have an opportunity to get an education, and all you had to do is run and study, you should be able to do this, and that was it. And I still do it now. I' ; m a person that a lot stuff goes on in my head. I talk to myself in my head and say, you know, you should be able to do this. I said, " ; How could you not do this? You could do -- if you can go out there and run and practice and do all these things, you should be able to do these things." ; That' ; s going on. And with the help of that and Mr. Temple and also being exposed to so much more, being exposed to the world when there was travel, being able to be on a plane, being able to go to another country to hear another language and try to pick up words from that, those kinds of -- you know that -- BRAMAN:When was your first international trip? TYUS:My first trip was to Russia, yeah. My first trip was to, oh -- was it Moscow? F:Yeah. TYUS:Yeah, Moscow. BRAMAN:And how old were you? TYUS:I was 18. Mm-hmm, yeah. So that was my first trip. And so it was just called a growth period, I mean, right? And I still say I' ; m still growing. I mean I learned -- I -- that' ; s -- if nothing else, I say to young people, " ; That' ; s something you have to do. You have to go through -- you need to learn from our own experience, you know just... And try to figure out what it -- not so much what it is you want to do but to understand your surroundings, understand what' ; s going on in the world." ; And Mr. Temple would always say to us that " ; It doesn' ; t -- you go out there and you win all these medals and -- or you get all these accolades and all that, but you still need to be able to communicate with people because you never know who you' ; re going to be sitting next to. And you need to have a conversation other than sports. You need to be able to be aware of where -- what things are, what' ; s happening in the world, what' ; s happening in your country, what' ; s happening at your school, what happ-- be able to talk, be able to converse." ; And he said, " ; And, Tyus, you need to be able to do that with more than four or five words," ; so... (laughter) So I had to learn to do those things, and I think it started my freshman -- after my first quarter at Tennessee State, I started, but it was a slow process. I' ; m just getting to where I am now. (laughs) CAIN:During that period of time, it was a period of unrest in the country. TYUS:Mm-hmm. CAIN:You have mentioned earlier about civil rights here in Griffin, but it was happening all over the country. You went to ' ; 68, and that was a big -- that was probably the best Olympic team in history, okay, in my opinion. That -- it was an awesome Olympic team. But it also had people like John Carlos and Tommie Jones -- BAUSKE:Tommie Smith. CAIN:Tommie Smith, excuse me, Tommie Smith who gave the Black Power' ; s fist, and there were a lot of stuff going on probably behind the scenes at that time. Talk about that, talk about your -- if you were involved in any kind of way, talk about any involvement in local civil rights politics. TYUS:Yeah. Well, I was down there and involved (inaudible) any local in Griffin or anything like that. I know my mom was part of the -- WALKER-HARPS:Yeah. She was a strong supporter. TYUS:Yeah, so -- WALKER-HARPS:I think Marie -- TYUS:-- (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) WALKER-HARPS:-- Marie Tyus well -- did well as she could. TYUS:See, I just know that she was relating with the NAACP and worked really hard with that, I know, but I was away at school, so... And I was at Tennessee State, and I -- you know Mr. Temple would always -- he was always trying to prepare us and have us know what was going on. He said, " ; Now, you' ; re going to go -- you go to the Olympics or you go, what, out of the country, and you will see that people in other countries definitely appreciate you more than you' ; ll be appreciated when you go back home. And you go to the Olympics, you' ; re winning medals or whatever, you come back, and then you' ; re still going to be a second-class citizen. But that' ; s something that should never let you down. You also, so, have to fight for your rights still, have to know what -- you need to be aware. That' ; s where the education come in, so when you get out to talk about it, you could talk on it intelligently and express your way -- express how you feel and what' ; s going on." ; So it was a lot of -- you know? And you also had the older Tigerbelles who had experienced a lot of that and had gone to a lot of things. And there' ; s nothing like being on a trip going South, further South in -- from Nashville and having to go to the bathroom, and you can' ; t. So we had to pull alongside the road and run into the bushes. And so we... And then that was experienced by us and it -- that was a sign of the -- that' ; s what was going on at the time. It doesn' ; t mean that that should have been, but that' ; s what was going on. Sixty-- in ' ; 64 in the Olympics, going to Tokyo, the USA team were there, and when you go, they send your equipment like starting blocks for us. We had starting blocks, so they sent -- the USA team sent us, and they sent starting blocks for the team. We get to Tokyo and the male coach -- oh, the ' ; 64 team, Mr. Temple was our coach for the women -- would not let us use -- the women use the starting blocks. And Mr. Temple is like, " ; What are you talking about, we can' ; t use the start--? These blocks are for us. They' ; re for Americans. We are Americans, what do you mean?" ; " ; Nope, you can' ; t use them. Your girls can' ; t use the starting block." ; Now, what kind of craziness is that? Here it is, the USA team, we' ; re all -- USA is on your chest and everything, and we' ; re running for the USA. When they start counting the medals, the me-- our medals going to really co-- you know, they' ; re going to count our medals as part of U-- But he said we couldn' ; t use the blocks. And then, we go to practice one morning, and he' ; s arguing with this coach. Look at me, he' ; s like he didn' ; t -- couldn' ; t understand. We had to, " ; Well, you can use the Japanese starting blocks." ; And Bob Hayes was there, and he saw Mr. Temple and he then went up and asked him, " ; Well, what' ; s going on?" ; And he told him, and he said, " ; Oh, crazy man, they can use my blocks any time. They' ; re not my blocks ; they could -- they should just use them. What kind of craziness is this?" ; So that was the kind of stuff we had. And you say was there racism, was there sexism? I say both -- (laughs) BAUSKE:Yeah, both. TYUS:-- intertwined, you know? So those are the kind of -- those -- that was one experience and then you -- that was like ' ; 64. Sixty-eight, there was a whole lot of unrest going on in the world. It was not just in the US, you know? And then -- but when I was talking about going to the Olympic games and all on this -- the whole thing about South Africa, so athletes were... Well, it started out in San Jose with Tommie and Carlos with the whole not going to the games and protests for unfair -- on the unfair treatment of humans all over the world not just black people. It was all, you know it was human rights, it was the human rights project and... But we decided to go to the games and then when we get to the games, no one could decide on what, if anything, we were going to do as far as the protest is concerned. And after having meeting after meeting, it got to, okay, we don' ; t know and then you can do whatever you want to do. That' ; s what it came down to. I chose to wear black shorts and then Carlos and Tommie did their -- because I ran the hundred before they ran that 200 in that. So that was my protest to, what, all the -- what was going on in not just America but all over. And also, when we went to Mexico City, the slaughter of the students there, so... And then, when Tommie and Carlos did their big fist raising, what they did, it was so powerful, there was really not too much for anybody else to do. It said a lot, it said a lot to what was going on, and it did. And even to this day, here we are over 50 years later, and it' ; s more powerful now than it was then because... And they are looked upon now as legends and all those things and then they were kicking them out the village, trying to kick them out of the -- out of Mexico, which they couldn' ; t, you know, want to take their medals, which they couldn' ; t. (laughs) But these -- this is all the propaganda that was going on at the time saying -- to try to tell people, " ; Oh, they -- you can' ; t do this, you can' ; t, this is not the place to do it. You could --" ; you know? It is the place to do it. It was something that the world could hear and see. And now, so the Mexico Olympics was the first time it was ever televised live, so it was -- everybody got to see what was going on. It was not like we can chop this up and present it the way we want it. So I have always been an advocate for human rights, and I really have been for the -- with women' ; s rights. I mean I grew up with not having any, being told that muscles are ugly on women and no man is going to want you because who wants someone with muscle or who wants a woman that can beat them at something? (laughter) I would say that and -- but because of my parents and my brothers is that that never fazed me. I still want to be the best. I still wanted to do whatever I needed to do. And I just think that you think about what Mr. Temple has done with the Tigerbelles and if we weren' ; t black women, how well would that be celebrated now? What would come -- you know everybody would know about it. I mentioned very briefly that I wrote a book, and it' ; s called Tigerbelle: The Wyomia Tyus Story, and it' ; s talking about what the Tigerbelles had done, what those women had done and how they changed the world, but nobody has gotten credit. And Mr. Temple -- and what Mr. Temple has done and not truly gotten the credit that he deserved -- he' ; s dead and gone. He used to say all the time, " ; I want my roses while I' ; m alive," ; and that was one reason I started writing my book, but he died before I could even finish because I told him I was going to write a book. He would say, " ; Oh, Tyus, I can' ; t believe you are going to write a book. You don' ; t say no more than five words." ; (laughter) But I did that, so I wrote the book to get that publicized. CAIN:You know, that ought... And I guess -- TYUS:Did you want -- did you want to say something? BRAMAN:Well, could I have a (inaudible)? CAIN:Yeah, sure. BRAMAN:You had been (inaudible). But what I wanted to do -- did you tell me about the girls from Texas? TYUS:Oh, no, I need to tell them that too. BRAMAN:That' ; s only -- that' ; s fine. I just wanted to talk about the girls from Texas. Go ahead, (inaudible). TYUS:Okay. The gi-- well, in nine-- what was it -- ' ; 60-- BRAMAN:Sixty-four? TYUS:Sixty-four, yeah, thank you. (laughs) In 1964, going to the Olympics, but there was a track team out of Texas, all white girls and the coach was... She had coached the Russian team when I went the first time in ' ; 63. Now, they were called the Texas Bouffants. And they had all -- (laughs) they had all this big hair and all of this and -- oh, and they just said, oh, they were going to go to the Olympics, and they were going to win. Now, we have ran -- we ran against -- we ran against them in meets, and they never broke a tape. They only felt the tape once we broke it, and they were so far back, they cut them or whatever. But they got put on Sports Illustrated cover. They have never put -- yeah -- BAUSKE:The Bouffants. TYUS:But they' ; ve never put a black woman on Sports Illustrated at that time on that cover. And we -- and this is -- Wilma Rudolph had won three gold medals, the first person to ever do that, and she had never been put on the cover of Sports Illustrated. But here' ; s a man that put over 40 women on the team -- on different Olympic teams and won 23 medals, more than a lot of countries, you know, and never been put on it. And -- but they were talking about -- and in the interview, in the, oh, article, they are saying, " ; Well, Wyomia Tyus ran a -- say, 11.5 seconds in a hundred meters and such and such has run a 11.4." ; (Was she saying?) race with her? (laughs) But it was all the play -- but they never talked to us. They -- all the article was about them. And so that' ; s another sign of -- what -- how racist and didn' ; t care so much about what we as bla-- all they want to do count our medals and did that very proudly. But when we come back home, there was nothing like that. Same thing in -- another example was the fact that we were in it and we came back from the Olympics in ' ; 64 and then we came back, and Edith my best friend, she -- well, they had to... Edith went to Tennessee State, and she is from, what, Atlanta, and she went to Archer High School. And they picked her to win three gold medals like Wilma had done in ' ; 60-- in 1960, but I beat Edith in the hundred meters. I never beat Edith before, but I did that day in the hundred meters. And we come back to Georgia, they give us a parade in Atlanta, and it' ; s only in the black section the day we went to Atlanta. It' ; s only in the black section. CAIN:So it was a parade through black Atlanta? TYUS:Mm-hmm, like Auburn and down -- CAIN:(Auburn Street)? TYUS:Mm-hmm, right down the street, but they didn' ; t take us nowhere else. They took us, and that was it. It was like... It' ; s over. But they had all -- my mom and Edith' ; s mom was there, we had our family there. But we only went into the black neighborhood, within the black (inaudible). WALKER-HARPS:What about when you had the parade here, was that a regular parade or route? I don' ; t remember. TYUS:Yeah, yeah, the parade here? Oh, yeah. There were not too many places you' ; d go in Griffin. (laughter) But, yeah, the parade was downtown and all that, yes. But, yeah, so it was... But, again, it comes from like what Mr. Temple and what he was saying, you know, that, " ; You are doing this, so you want to get an education and you..." ; And he had then taught us well, you know that no matter how well you do it (inaudible), and that' ; s not what you -- you know you are doing it because you like it, you' ; re doing it because you get -- you want the education. That -- you know? CAIN:The fact is the Tigerbelles and Coach Temple and TSU and that program at the time were no less than the kinds of -- did no less than the kind of things that Jackie Robinson did. Because it was -- they were doing it for women, and they were doing it for African American women, and it was a forefront kind of program. TYUS:Yes. You would think that even in this day and time still, and you know like there' ; s so many... I mean I don' ; t really talk about it because there' ; s so many things I just think that they should' ; ve done or could' ; ve done or could' ; ve honored in the way of honoring Mr. Temple, but it did not happen. Because you think about -- you could not name, what, football coach, basketball coach, baseball coach, any coach that has done and accomplished as much as he has and in the graduation rate and in -- CAIN:Forty Olympians you said. TYUS:Yes, 40 Olympians, any -- any -- well since but as in -- you know? And I will always believe this because we were women and black because those two are together -- BAUSKE:Deadly combination, yeah. TYUS:Yeah. And you say, well, which is which? Well, it depends on who' ; s looking at you. They look at you because you' ; re black or they look at you because you' ; re a woman, right? But they both... You' ; re looking at it at the same -- that' ; s the same, and so... If -- BAUSKE:The Bouffants are killing me. (laughter) I mean if it' ; s any comfort, I' ; ve heard of you many times, I' ; d never heard of the Bouffants before. (laughter) Just -- TYUS:Well, you better not let that be the end. (laughs) No, but I just could not... Mr. Temple couldn' ; t believe it, we couldn' ; t believe it, but here it is. It was Olympic year is ' ; 64. Those gi-- I don' ; t even know if they came to the trial, the Olympic Trials because in the Olympic Trials, you have to place one, two, or three to get on the Olympic team. And not only that, you have to hit a certain standard. Say like for the (inaudible), they -- you have to run a certain time in order to be in it, you know be there. Because there sometimes, like they take the last -- I think what they -- I don' ; t know if they still do it -- whatever, the eighth place person in the hundred in the last Olympics, whatever their time was, you have to meet that time before you go to the Olympic Trials. Anyhow, so I don' ; t even -- I can' ; t... When I think of the Olympic Trials in ' ; 64, I don' ; t remember ever -- I didn' ; t remember seeing a white person, a white girl in that race. There could' ; ve been but I don' ; t see behind me so... (laughter) WALKER-HARPS:At the time, you won the your medals, how were you received in Griffin as your home particularly by -- I know we were receptive, but were you received totally by the white community? TYUS:Well -- WALKER-HARPS:Do you remember? TYUS:-- I don' ; t really truly remember but I... When I think about ' ; 64 and I came back to Griffin, they did give me a parade and all of that, the city of Griffin or the county, what, or both did that. And I think after the parade, I went to Fairmont, and they had a banquet -- a little get-together there at Fairmont. That was in ' ; 64. Sixty-eight, I -- they -- there was a parade and all of that too, but it' ; s -- they were... You know so -- been so long ago. I always felt very welcomed by the people, said people here in Griffin and in Spalding County. They always -- I mean for them to build a park for -- and name it in my honor, I -- that to me is welcoming. I mean I can remember when they... That was ' ; 96 so that' ; s 1996 that they -- that... And then I can' ; t say who it was, because I don' ; t remember, saying to me, " ; We didn' ; t do really great by you after the ' ; 64, ' ; 68 Olympics, but we all hope that this really makes up for what --" ; and then to me, that' ; s something to be said, and that wasn' ; t a black person speaking, so... And it' ; s like -- F:That' ; s -- TYUS:-- that' ; s more than -- you know that' ; s something to be said. And just the fact that they would name a park after me, 168 acres, and I' ; m still living, so... I mean I -- you know? And it was great because Mr. Temple was still alive, and he came here for the dedication and so it' ; s -- it was like... I mean to me, the people in Griffin have already -- they di-- it was the times and stuff, but as time went on, for them to say, " ; Hey, look, this is what we think of you." ; WALKER-HARPS:And is there a message that you' ; d like to leave for young people today? Is there anything special you would like to say to the youngsters coming up today that might make an impact that you would hope would make an impact on them? TYUS:Well, the message would be education, number one. And I don' ; t think everybody has to go to school. I don' ; t believe everybody have to go to a college or a university. Education, just make sure you' ; re educating yourself in about what' ; s going on in the world and where -- what are the issues are in the world, and that you could be able to speak on anything that you would like to speak on. And that -- just the fact that there' ; s -- people have -- we stand on so many shoulders. WALKER-HARPS:Shoulders. TYUS:And that' ; s how I look when I think of the Tigerbelle. I stand on so many shoulders. They' ; ve done so many things, and they made a lot more sacrifices. And I look at my parents, and I would always want to be standing so strong for them because I know how much they sacrificed for me. And then for young people in this day and time, you -- there are always going to be obstacles in life, and there' ; s no way of getting around it and there' ; s always... And you just have to be able to be strong and be positive. And sometimes when you work as hard as you work, it doesn' ; t come out the way you want it to come out, but that doesn' ; t mean you stop, and that doesn' ; t mean you give up. That just means you just continue and you continue, and hopefully, you could... It' ; s like, I guess, a tumbleweed or something growing bigger and get people more involved. And just being more expressive and learn ways to talk to each other and talk to people. And I think that' ; s the most key, that we need to know how to talk to each other. Just because we' ; re of a different race or a different view, a different ethnicity, a different culture, that doesn' ; t have to be put down. We need to be -- and when I say we, I' ; m talking about the world. I' ; m not just only talking about here in Griffin and... Because we all -- in order for this world to continue to grow and be a better place, because it' ; s definitely -- my dad said it was going to change, and I see a lot of change from what he said to now, but we still need a lot more. And that we -- yeah, the fight, you can' ; t give up the fight. You always have to stay in the fight, right? I mean that' ; s the big thing, you know? You always have to stay in the fight. WALKER-HARPS:Okay. Anything else ladies, gentlemen? BAUSKE:A quick question, your brothers, did they get to college? TYUS:No. Just me, I' ; m the only one to go, yes. Mm-hmm. BAUSKE:But your nieces and nephews have gone, right? TYUS:Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean like I said, things change. I was the only one to go from my family and then my -- and my kids had gone. My grandkids, I' ; ve got two grandkids in school -- going to schools I would have never... I mean I have a grandson that' ; s at UCLA, and I have a daughter at Cal State Seaside and they... And you know what you have -- you know? I just see the changes. And I was the first to go and then it' ; s just been going from then on. WALKER-HARPS:And your niece (Terry?) is an anchor lady at WS -- is it (WSV?) in Savannah? And that' ; s South Georgia, and that would not have been when I came in ' ; 61. Nineteen sixty-one, it would not have been anything dreamed about, and to think that she is one of those black women who graces the evening news -- TYUS:Yeah, she' ; s the anchor -- WALKER-HARPS:-- and the radio station. TYUS:-- for them, mm-hmm. And Tina went to Tennessee State. She went out -- she tried out for the track team. I kept telling her don' ; t, but she did. (laughs) WALKER-HARPS:Okay. TYUS:Because I mean it' ; s -- to me and Coach Temple, it is a -- that was -- it' ; s hard because he was in there and -- M:He was a (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) TYUS:-- a no-nonsense and is like it' ; s my way, highway, if you don' ; t come my way, you have to be at the highway type thing. And to me, it was kind of like my parents in a sense, but he was -- but he always wanted the best. And you have to have a certain temperament to be -- you had to have one to be under him. And for me, it worked perfect because I will not say anything to him anyway, and he was not -- and the stuff he said to me, it was kind of like if I didn' ; t want to hear, it' ; s like -- it was like the duck with the wet deal, would just roll right off my back, so to speak. But I always felt that he has some of those strict rules and he has some things that he could' ; ve changed, but it wouldn' ; t have been him, and he didn' ; t, and that' ; s not -- you know? Like, you know, you -- he made you... I' ; d like to say he made you tough. He made you know that, hey, this world is not going to be kind and all to you. You need to be prepared for everything, mentally, physically, all of that, education. And for us, the education was it. That' ; s what it was. And still it is, but I think with all the new things that young people can get involved in, and they can learn trades and they could -- and with technology, with technology, you don' ; t always have to go to school. Some people just have that techie mind and -- (laughs) but you have to stick with it. It' ; s not -- you know? You would like for it to be real easy, but it' ; s not. Sometimes when things come easy for you, you don' ; t -- it doesn' ; t work out. CAIN:One last -- WALKER-HARPS:And I know -- CAIN:-- question I have -- WALKER-HARPS:-- we have kept you longer than I said. Do we have enough time, do you have enough time to (inaudible)? No, okay, all right, your last question. CAIN:I was just... You left in ' ; 63 to go to TSU. You come back today, it' ; s -- to Griffin, what do you think about the change in Griffin from then into now? TYUS:Well, you know, my... It' ; s a big change because it' ; s -- I look at Griffin, and I come back, and I mean I' ; m in a store and people say, " ; Oh, you Wyomia Tyus? You' ; re the one at the park over there? Is that their park, they named a park?" ; And then to think that when I was six years old, I couldn' ; t go in -- couldn' ; t even go into a white school, I couldn' ; t go. I had to be on a bus for an hour to go to my -- to go to an all-black school, and just that it' ; s a growth. I see a lot of growth here and I -- you know? And the fact that... I mean I' ; m just a lot of times still shocked and surprised by the fact that -- not just in Griffin but all over that they think I have something. You know what I have to say or what I have been through could help someone or encourage other people to do it. I mean to me that' ; s just -- it' ; s mind-blowing a lot of times that... I mean I was just do-- I just did what I liked doing, and I was one of the few that got chosen. I mean, all of us have those talents. Like I tell young kids all the time, everybody got a gold medal in them. You may not get to go to the Olympics, or the national anthem maybe not be played for you, but you have a gold medal inside of you, and you could make that gold medal work the way you want it to work. And just that Griffin has grown tremendously. And if you live here -- I don' ; t know if (inaudible) people lived, but you live here, you see the growth. And I know people say, " ; It could grow more." ; Of course, so can the world, so... But as I' ; ve said before, Griffin, a double honor naming the Wyomia Tyus Park is just I' ; m -- it' ; s -- I' ; m always speechless, so... How do you -- I had to say thank you, appreciate it, and this is great, and it gives other young kids an opportunity to see what could happen to them. CAIN:Knowing Griffin, there probably was some politics that went on to make that happen. And so I don' ; t know what that was. Jewel might know but -- BAUSKE:She knows, look at her face. (laughter) WALKER-HARPS:Oh. Right -- CAIN:To get that through, well deserved not saying that -- but somebody had to initiate it some place, and it had to get voted on some place I would guess. TYUS:It did, that' ; s true. And then I don' ; t know all the politics, but anything we do, anything that' ; s -- well there' ; s going to be a park after me -- named after me or anything, (look at the?) -- oh well, we won' ; t go to that -- what' ; s going on. But just look at what' ; s going on in the world, you know? Politics is -- there' ; s like a good example like when they were talking about not going to the Olympics, and they said, " ; Well, you shouldn' ; t bring politics into like -- in something -- into the Olympics. The Olympics is for this--" ; well, politics is they always count medals. The US is the first one when if you don' ; t have a medal, you -- and if they' ; re getting beat and stuff like that. Look at what happened in -- what year was it that the USA team, basketball team lost the gold medal? BRAMAN:It was in Munich. CAIN:Was it John Thompson. BRAMAN:No, it was in Munich -- CAIN:Oh -- TYUS:Munich. CAIN:-- you know in ' ; 72. TYUS:Yeah, they lost -- BRAMAN:So ' ; 72? CAIN:Mm-hmm -- TYUS:Mm-hmm. Se-- CAIN:-- seventy-two. TYUS:No, se-- okay. They lost the gold medal in the basketball team. And guess what, they came back here and they (started letting?) pros play basketball. So politics is everywhere, and it' ; s not going to go anywhere. I mean from this -- yeah, this country, world was built on politics and all of that, you know? And there are good people in politics somewhere, you know? WALKER-HARPS:Mm-hmm. TYUS:You know and then -- WALKER-HARPS:I have not -- BRAMAN:You have your own Jimmy Carter that canceled the whole ' ; 80 game. CAIN:Yeah -- BRAMAN:Yeah, the ' ; 80 game. BAUSKE:-- in Mar-- yeah, look at that. TYUS:Mm-hmm. Sure. And so there' ; s always going to be politics and the cold war and all, you name it, there' ; s going to be stuff going on. And as long as there' ; s somebody out there who knows that there are some rights that we can do. And I' ; m just -- like I said, I' ; ve been grateful that that fact that they did the whole park and named it after me. And it gives the people of Griffin, people of color to look at this in Griffin and say, " ; Wow, see that can happen to her, certain things can happen for me." ; WALKER-HARPS:I hope that that was stressed -- that' ; s -- was stressed by in the schools. We did not have an opportunity -- you did not have an opportunity to get into our schools as we would like to have had. However, I' ; m hoping that and I had thought about it until we started talking about it a minute ago. But to get the message out particularly to the schools who are in the Fairmont -- that are in the Fairmont area that they make their children aware of the connection between the Tyus Park and you even if they have to use the Griffin Daily newspaper to deal with all or whatever. They need to make sure that they make that connection, and I will pursue that. TYUS:Yeah. Well, I wanted to go to the schools when I first was asked to come here. That was one of my first things is that in order to come, I would go... This -- I wrote a book, I feel like my book talk about struggles and obstacles and friendship and hard work and all of those kinds of things. And I feel that I would like for it to be in every school library. I like to be -- and that' ; s what I said, " ; I' ; d like for it be in every school library, I would like for it to be in the library here in Griffin, and I would like to have an opportunity to also share my book with the public in Griffin." ; And these -- my -- and I will be willing to go to the schools, but the schools never got back to me. When they got back to me, it was a day before I was getting on a place to come here. WALKER-HARPS:That was this -- by this trip? TYUS:Mm-hmm. WALKER-HARPS:Oh, really? TYUS:Mm-hmm. WALKER-HARPS:Do you have any idea who you corresponded with? TYUS:Well, everything was sent out -- (laughter) well, you know Peter Phelps? WALKER-HARPS:Yes, I know. TYUS:Well, Peter sent it to everybody. He sent it to the school system. He sent it to -- who' ; s the superintendent. WALKER-HARPS:Okay, that' ; s important -- TYUS:He sent -- WALKER-HARPS:-- it is important at this time because I just finished listening to -- spent my morning listening to the school system talk about that greatness and I just finished telling them. But a segment of your (inaudible) has been left out. TYUS:Yeah, but they -- WALKER-HARPS:-- and, oh -- and he was fine. He came up to me afterwards and said, " ; Well, you make it very difficult to -- for me to get always a favorable reception when I come to EPI next week." ; And I said, " ; Well I --" ; he said, " ; But I know you do what you do." ; I said that " ; You' ; re right. I' ; m Jewel, and I do what I do." ; So that' ; s another issue because we were really, really wanting -- matter of fact, we thought it was going to happen. TYUS:No, it wasn' ; t -- WALKER-HARPS:But that was -- TYUS:They put it in the paper there as if I agreed -- WALKER-HARPS:And they -- TYUS:-- but it was ne-- WALKER-HARPS:-- really tried to that, yes. TYUS:-- that was not. But I talked to... I met the superintendent, and I just expressed to him and said, " ; Look, I won' ; t do a little 15 minute here, 15 minute there. I think that is wrong. I think you' ; re cheating the students. If I' ; m going to talk to students, then I would like to have a platform where I go to school. Now, I' ; m not there for 15 minutes, got to run over here for 15 minutes, what if somebody want to ask a question? I don' ; t have the time for that. But I am willing to come back and we -- well, we would have to talk about how we' ; re going to do all of it. I' ; m willing to come back and spend a few days here in Griffin and going to the schools, and it' ; s all for the school. But I am, but you know, I can' ; t do -- you can' ; t just... This has been set up, and it' ; s been set up for two months before I got here and you knew because they were -- those were the first. This was, what, first on my list of things to do." ; And I have all my emails from Peter saying who he has contacted and the letters he had sent too, but it never came to fruition. WALKER-HARPS:You just set my agenda for -- to me -- to all these issues that I' ; ve had to deal with, thank you. But this is the kind of thing that I' ; ll represent to them this morning. You want, you claim, and you say the fact that you want total community support and whatever is being done is being done for the entire community. Yet in the same voice, you backtrack and you are -- you make two lanes. But anyway, that' ; s a story for another day -- TYUS:But, yeah, but that' ; s -- WALKER-HARPS:-- but I' ; ll -- TYUS:-- it could be happening any time because I was at Georgia Tech for like, what, last year, I was there. WALKER-HARPS:Yes, I remember. TYUS:I was up there, and I did a whole thing for them. And they did -- it was A Conversation with Wyomia Tyus, and they had it open to the public -- oh well, I don' ; t know, but -- you know? WALKER-HARPS:One of our main problems here is motivation. There' ; s a lack of -- TYUS:Well, we got the University of Georgia, I can do some. (laughter) BRAMAN:Absolutely, and I' ; ll just say that that we are open here to bring you here to have a conversation with you if it' ; s with schoolkids, if it was -- is it -- if it' ; s with adults, if it' ; s with both. TYUS:Yeah, we could do both. BRAMAN:We -- TYUS:Yeah, one at one time you know to -- BAUSKE:He' ; s the guy who can say yes and can set it up because he' ; s continuing education on the Griffin Campus. TYUS:With that -- BAUSKE:-- Campus. TYUS:-- I know. BRAMAN:Yes. TYUS:Well, I' ; m available. I' ; m going to give you my card. BRAMAN:Okay, absolutely. BAUSKE:He can make that happen. (laughter) WALKER-HARPS:Yeah, we can do that, and he can do that, and we can help you do that. BRAMAN:Okay. WALKER-HARPS:I can help you in many ways. And then I can get sororities (in return to do this?), to chip in if you have to have something else, but we could make it happen. TYUS:Yeah. BRAMAN:We' ; ll make it happen. TYUS:Okay. I haven' ; t signed these papers yet. No, (laughs) I' ; m sorry. (laughs) But I' ; m just saying -- but -- you know? Because like when the University of Georgia -- or not University of Georgia -- Georgia Tech contacted me, it was like, " ; Oh well, sure I could do that." ; (laughter) " ; I' ; m okay with that." ; But the -- but it was really a nice, quiet -- they did it -- where are my glasses -- on a Sunday? Was it Sun-- a Saturday? I can' ; t remember. But you can choose when you want to. (laughs) WALKER-HARPS:You want to -- TYUS:And, yes, we can stay in contact, okay, so -- WALKER-HARPS:Okay -- BRAMAN:That' ; s cool -- WALKER-HARPS:-- let' ; s -- BRAMAN:I' ; ll go ahead and close this. WALKER-HARPS:Let' ; s close out, and we' ; ll take care of that. TYUS:Okay. WALKER-HARPS:We are so indebted and grateful to have you come, Wyomia, to -- or share with us and to share your life story for the African American Oral History Project, which will be in the Richard B. Russell Library on the campus of Athens, University of Georgia. You did not have to share, you did not -- you could come to Griffin and not share with us, and we recognize that, and we are grateful for you. Any other comments ladies, gentlemen? F:Thank you so much for your time. I really hate that I missed listening to you, but I will listen back to hear your story. TYUS:Got it. F:So thank you so much for coming and for your time. We appreciate it. TYUS:Well, thanks for asking me and thanks for letting me be a part of this. And I am -- you know, just to be a native of Griffin and have my family and my grandkids and my distant relatives when I' ; m done could -- be able to see it and hear about it, great. Thank you. BRAMAN:Thank you -- WALKER-HARPS:Thank you -- BRAMAN:-- very much. WALKER-HARPS:-- very much. (It was just real?) -- BRAMAN:What' ; s with this -- BAUSKE:Did you close it, Richie? BRAMAN:Oh, possibly. WALKER-HARPS:Oh -- END OF AUDIO FILE Resources may be used under the guidelines described by the U.S. Copyright Office in Section 107, Title 17, United States Code (Fair use). Parties interested in production or commercial use of the resources should contact the Russell Library for a fee schedule. audio 0 purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL418GAA/findingaid
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Griffin, Georgia
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103 minutes
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https://purl.libs.uga.edu/russell/RBRL418GAA-024/ohms
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Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
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Interview with Wyomia Tyus, September 26, 2019
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RBRL418GAA-024
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Wyomia Tyus
Jewel Walker-Harps
Art Cain
Ellen Bauske
Rich Braman
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audio
oral histories
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African American women
Women athletes
Discrimination
Civil rights
United States--Civil rights
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Wyomia Tyus grew up in Griffin, Georgia where she attended Anne-Shockley Elementary School and Fairmont High School. She later attended Tennessee State University where she ran, and competed in the 1964 and 1968 Olympics. In this interview Tyus talks about discrimination, attending University, her time in the Olympics, and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1970s.
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2019-09-26
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sound
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Griffin, Georgia
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