Interviews with African Americans in Utah, Alberta Henry, Interview 2

Transcript (252 pages) of an interview by Leslie Kelen with Alberta Henry on September 6, 1983. From Interviews with African Americans in Utah

Mrs. Henry recalls her childhood in Louisiana and Kansas, her move to Salt Lake City in 1949, the NAACP, the Utah and Idaho Baptist Association, and Model Cities.

--··· -- - ·· ""-·· - - · · · •• , •• , ,,.,..,._ -1- •• •·--· --·~ .,.--,,. .. .- _ . ·---v-~ .. -- •-'4•·--···- -· . ..L.. . - ·"--..._ __ .._..,, _..._, •• ----• .i., ~·- ~~ ... -.-- ... . ...... .. - - •• .._ ... - - --~-- ·---' --'·•· ~ --~- ... -- v, • -- - ---~----- -· __,,_,.._,, .., _ _.. · ·-····""··----~~- - ---- SIDE 1 9-6-83 L: I'm going to ask you, placing you on the map of your life. Put me back. Into where, into a time that you can begin talking from. About when you began to think about largely going outside of domestic work and seriously thinking about a different kind of career. A: I don't think I really did. 'Cause I didn't go into the domestic work. It was just all that they could have. That they would let you do here. You couldn't do any­thing else. Thby wouldn't hire me for my professional­ism. So doing domestic work was an honest work where you get paid. And the whole time I was there from the time I got to Sandack's, he kept saying _why did you come? And I kept saying, the Lord sent me. Well, what did he want you to do? I don't know. Well, why don't you find out? It was one of those things. The whole time I was there. Why aren't you busy doing it? And so when I joined Pilgrim Church and found out kids weren't going to school and then when they made me in 1960, I guess it was. Before then I started to work with the Civil Rights group. And then in '60 they made me the President of the Utah and Idaho Women Missionary Society. Then that's when I could see the needs of the black. You know you can hear about there's not many blacks here. Well, what are they doing? Nobody knew. You never see them. They couldn't have professional jobs 'cause you never seen them in it. 138 -·-·-- ·• - -·- ---·---- M-·-- ---• ___________ ......_. _ .... ....... ,.,.._ . .....,._,, _______ _._ ..... ._.........,_,.. ____ _._ __ . _____ 0....__ ..... _...-.. ~ .. ,.--,~_....._ ___ ..._. -~ - ••- - --N-- ~ __ 1 Then you actually get to go out and get to travel to Pocatello and talk with blacks in churches. Helper, Utah. Ogden all the time. I was on the move. Every Sunday and during the week when I had a day off I was going around and I got to find out and talk with the people about the kids not being able to get to college because they didn't give them scholarships. See, I didn't have that knowledge. And I had to gain that knowledge but the only way you could really gain it was to go out because the people youwork with and the people that came to parties. They didn't know anything about blacks. They only knew, Minyon Richmond and Albert Fritz and Buss Jack up at the hotel, who was the maitre d' up at the hotel and that's the only .•• when you ask them, the only people that they would tell you about. So you didn't get to know blacks and you didn't get to see them so you couldn't very well know what they needed. And I wasn't good at it and when I started learning about the plight of the black. They couldn't go and what they couldn't do and what they were allowed not to do. Then I got to understand them. L: It's interesting what you're saying but you're saying you lived in Salt Lake all that time and you were sheltered. A: I didn't l~ve here very long. L: Were you living up in Ogden? A: No, I came here in '49 and in '49 I went to work for the Sandack's and in '51 I joined Pilgrim Baptist Church while 139 · - .., .~- -- - -- _...._. .. _ _ _ f ,_ _____ _ __ _ __ ..... __ __ ..... - . ---- --- - - - ~._ ... _ . . . .... - -------· -~ - -- -- . - - -· ~ - ,.. - - _..__._..__ • • --- --~----- - --·· ------ --- . - · · ---""' ~ ' - -· - - --1-- -- - --=··--- .,. _ ___ _ I was still living in service. Oh, -if you take this time I wasn't here very long. L: It sounds like you were kind of sheltered too. From the reality of what was here. A: Oh, I didn't know what was here because you never, you didn't know the black people that were here. You never seen them. You'd go stand on the treet and try to count them as they went by. You know, window shopping downtown and everybody that was here at that time and if you saw one black you were just happy. 'Cause mostly you never seen a black pass you if you went downtown and you try to figure out what stores you could go in 'cause you heard some of them wouldn't let you try on clothes. You didn't know all of these things but most of the time you just window shopped. You know. You never seen a black. You'd never seen them. You didn't see them working like you walk down there and now seeing them all the time but then you never seen them. It was real spooky feeling to come here and you were isolated from blacks 'cause there wasn't that many blacks and if you didn't know them they weren't friendly. They didn't stop and say hello, I'm so and so. The only ones you knew was the ones that I met were the ones Blanche had introduced me to. L: Why do you say it was a spooky feeling? A: Well, it is because when you're looking for them and you don't see them, you wonder if they're really here. You know, how you're always wondering in your mind were 140 ·- -- ~-~-·~ .... ·-· --· ·~·-·· -~ - • ....___ ____ ---.. --- - --- -- ·· --- . _.., -·-- -· _,_ _ ~ ___ ., __ :;. ------ ----··-- -- ··---;-- . - .. -~ . ..-. -- ---- -·- ..... _. - - -· _._. ·-- -· -___ .._ ____ _... _____ .. __.. _____ _____ - - ~ ..... ~- . . .:,.~ there really any blacks 'cause you always heard, when you don't live in Utah, you hear that there are no blacks there. 'Cause they never print anything. You never read any paper where it was printed in the paper. You know. Anything that was going on. Like it is now. You can pick it up. You picked your paper up and you saw where NAACP is having the placque day. You pick your paper up and you could read the paper all the day long and you never found, you never saw anything in there, anything to do with blacks. All you saw if you went to the housing section, where there were houses for sale or rent. Now, no colored. No coloreds. You know, you couldn't sell it to colored then. No negroes allowed. Or something. That was in the papers. That's the only time that you even hardly seen it mentioned. so see, I wasn't here very long because I think I was here in '49 and '49 in November of '49. I went to work for the Sandacks and in '51 I belonged to Pilgrim so I got to meet some people at the church. See? And that's where you really get to hear all the information and you hear the minister preach and then you joined one of the usher board which I did and so you met with them and they got to know them and you got to know them. Then we'd go back for B.Y.U. or Baptist training or learning the Bible. Or studying and I went to all of the things at night. Most of the time take a cab. Down and somebody would carry me back. Mostly Lois and Connor who were 141 - -~-- - - •4 -- - --- ··-4·-··-----....--- - _ ..i... _____ .. ~-- --- - ··- ..... - - - ---- --- - ._ , .... , . ~ --- -- - ··· -_,,..,_ __ J ~~ • • • -.... . ...... ~ -- - ._. __.. ___ ._. _ . _ ___ _ ,. _ . ._,. friends of Harold's. My husband. And they would take me, always take me home. And then that's when you really got to talk with people because they knew somebody. They lived here and they knew them so then they would intro­duce you to them and so your wide range of friends came around. L: What was it like for you to get that information? A: Oh, that was just wonderful but I didn't know why I was getting it for. All that time, as I said, I didn't know wh3t I was supposed to do. All I knew, the Lord said he sent me here to work. But I told Mr. Sandack, I don't know what the work was supposed to be. So you never put it in perspective. And then I remember hearing my grand­father say, all you gotta do is believe in the Lord will lead you. You don't really have to worry about what you have to say because the Lord will put words in your mouth. At the .right time and the right place, Alberta, you know, he will let you know what you're supposed to do. L: So you were getting this information, so so speak. A: Yes. Learning the place, but you gotta realize that I didn't like the place. I wanted to go home and you couple that with having to stay here when I wanted to go home. There was always going to be a little resistance about learning about the place or really wanting to like the place. And people say, oh, how do you like Utah? I don't. I bet you for twenty some years I said that. I don't. Because I really didn't really want to. I wanted to go home because Mother and everything was back in Topeka. 142 L: So this place really was foreign. A: Yes, it was. And more foreign than usual. Once I be­come the President in 1960 of the Association, then dif­ferent groups, white groups would need speakers. And they had never had people come out to speak and they used to meet in their homes. And I was the one. So they would call and I would go out and speak. L: Where had they gotten the idea that you could speak or would speak? A: Well, they had heard me because I belonged to the Church Women United since 1959 or '58 or something like that. And I'd held an office in there. And Minyon was the only that had been in there before I wwent in and so they had heard me before because everytime they assign you to something to do I just did it. If I thought they couldn't do it I'd just take it over and just go ahead and do it. And then as the President, each Sunday or at least twice a month you were speaking. You were bringing the missionary message in one of the church from He~per to Pocatello. Idaho, or they'd have a women's day. Or they'd invite the President down and that whole afternoon was devoted to the President and I would bring a lot of women with me to show them how to, they could sew things. And hdw a missionary should work and study and Bible things. I would bring all of the women down to do dif­ferent parts of the program. L: So, this early world, if we could call it that, and this 143 early interest and all that was going on, with blacks here, was completely church connected. In terms of .•• A: Yes. L: ••. in terms of the context of it. A: Yes. L: Did that give it a special flavor or a special perspec­tive. That it wouldn't have had outside the church? A: Oh, I know it would because if you're brought up in the church and you go away from the church and then when you come back to the church, everything is centered around the church and you always wanted to be right there. Be­cause it looked like the Lord blessed your endeavors. If you had the flavor. You didn't worry about whether it was going to work or not because the Lord says you just believe. And right now when I do something, I just believe and it happens. L: Let me ask you something. Did you ever question your mission? You said the Lord sent you. Did you ever sit down ••. A: When I first came here and wanted to go home, yes. L: Did you say, well, what is this all about? What am I believing in? A: No, I didn't question that but my question was what does the Lord want me to do. I said I'd come. I'm here. Now, what do you want me to do? You know. I don't know. And it was like frustration. That you didn't really know. And it looked like no answer was forthcoming and you 144 . - .,, - ~ - ·-----. _ , -·-··- _.. __ -- ~- - ... --- -· _---. ...... __.. _ .. _ .• . --~ .... -~ - ___, .. :.-~.....::..----·- said well, if I could see him. You know, I could have a concert and raise money and give it to the poor folks. Right? I could play some instrument, you could join and you'd do a concert. But I didn't have any of those skills. If I could sew blankets and beautiful things, crotchet and knit, you could do that, sell it and make money to give to the church or to give to organizations. But I didn't have that kind of skills. L: What kind of skills did you think you had? A: I didn't think I had any. And I still say I don't have any skills. L: What kind of feeling or work did you wish to do? What did you feel for them? A: Nothing. L: I mean, you're describing what you would have done if you had had a concert, you're going to give it to poor people. Why would you have given it to poor people? A: Because that was what you're supposed to do. That's all the Bible ever talked about and that's what my grand­father always did. He worked and he gave all his money to the poor people that were poor. That's all my grand­mother ever did. All the money she ever got. And she died and she didn't have a penny. Grandfather didn't have a penny. I buried him and that day they said that that's whcrt. the Lord--and I still believe that's all the good that you're going to get out of this world is what you give to others. And you can't always take, be the 145 taker. You must give. Because those are God's people out there and somebody got to be concerned about them. And I just didn't think I had skills but w~atever it was me he wanted/to do, I had hands. And I had a good mind. That I could use that for the glory of God. And I could talk. I wasn't scared to talk. And I'm scared to ask people so that--! didn't consider that a skill but I call th,t a blessing from the Lord. And so when I'd go out and speak I didn't have to worry. I never had to write. I never wrote down anything at all. I just got up and they--and I would say, interrupt me. I still do it. Interrupt me at any time and any place. If you've got any questions, what was the thing that you would like to know. And then I would answer their questions and then get in a big argument about it but whatever came out that's what you get. That's what they got and that's what you get today. Whatever come out, that's what you'll get. Whether it's good or whether it's bad. The bad part was that I was hard headed. That's not a very good word. Let me think what's a better word for me. My husband say, oh, she's so hard headed, so stubborn. As a mule. I . get an idea in my mind in my mind and no matter what anybody else will say, I press toward just that. Instead of stopping and saying, you know, Alberta, some-body else could have just as good a idea and if you take th~t it might work twice as good. Right? But I didn't do that. I got it here like the Lord was directing me 146 somewhere, I'm never veered from that path. I would go right straight down it. Feel good about doing it but then as I got older and worked longer then I got to thinking about it, you know. You're kind of selfish, Alberta. Because there might have been some others but the ones that I did meet and I'd say, okay, we'll work together if you want to do it and you get all the credit for it. I'll help you. What do you want to do? And they never done anything and nothing would get done. So that justified my existence. That was the bad part. Because now .•• L: You decided you could do the things, you could get things accomplished. A: Yes. But then you see what you did. You robbed others. And what I'm doing now is stopping, listening, who would like to do this? Who has these skills? Would you want to take this? You don't have to but I'm listening now. You gotta listen sometime but before I didn't listen. Well, let's . get it done. You don't want to go, don't want to go? Don't matter and I never slept and if you see the older pictures of me I looked real old and real tired all th~ time 'cause I never slept. Now, Mr. Henry makes me take rest so I don't look as tired as I used to all the time because I used to go maybe twenty-two or twenty-three hours. Sometimes three and four days without sleep 'cause people needed help. We would do missionary work. Go in and clean people's house up and cook the 147 --- -- -----'--'--- ~ --~~--........- - --~-- - -- ·--·~ --·-··.. - ·-· _..__ --------- ---- -- --- -~- --· - ~ ... -- - · - ---- ··- --- -- . --- . --~ - ---- - -- _... . ~-- --·-···~ .... ~ ..... -~- · --- - food and we'd take it over there and pick them up and carry them somewhere. To me those were the joys of the early days. At the beginning of the movement like you'd say. People in the church, that's wru t we do. Get in someone's car and always go to the hospital or nurse's home and we'd sing and we'd bring them things. And we'd write letters. To me that was what I thought my calling was going to be. Because see, everybody can't visit sick people. They either don't h,ve the skills. They'd make them worse, you know. You got to know what to say to sick people and I said this must be what the Lord want me to do. And I was happy. Just as happy doing that. But all of a sudden I kept getting moved and pulled to something else. L: What was the next thing you got moved to? A: Well, in '66 I resigned from the Association. L: Of waht? A: huh? L: w~ t Association? A: The Utah and Idaho Baptist Women's Missionary Association, which I had started. Putting kids in school. Because I had found out that they couldn't get scholarships and that's when I was badgering the University about giving scholarships. And that was all between 1960 and 1966 while I was President of the Association. L: So that's when the Alberta Henry Foundation was formed? A: No. I started putting three kids in school under the 148 _.., ... _ __ ----~ -- . --- _______ _._ _... _____ .,,_ ·--- Association. The last year I was there and I went out and Mr. Sandack and Allen Frank and some of his kinfolks and thh Jewish people gave me the money to put those three in school. And then when the Ministers, because the next year of '66 I put a budget down like $1,500. Something. Used it to budget one or two or three hun­dred dollars. No more than that and I said we have got to raise this money. We can't keep going to these good friends of mine to get the money from them. But we must have fund raisers so we can be responsible for putting our kids in school. And when I did that and we started going out collecting the money they didn't go out. I got all the money the Rolsons and the Weinstocks and 11 of these were Jewish people that I knew because I worked for Sandack and Mr. Sandack was pushing everything I was doing. And the Ministers would call theirselves the parent body. One day I wasn't thbre decided that they would let the Women Association raise the money but they put it in their account and they would give the scholar­ships out. They would select the students and they would have a oratorical contest or something and they would get the best students. But you see my idea and here's where I say I'm hard headed. My idea was the best student wasn't always the ones that had the highest grades. They may have been the ones that knew how to manipulate the system and get through. They knew how to work with teachers in order to get that but I wanted kids that had a desire and 149 really wanted to go to school. 'Cause they make the best students and they didn't have to be an A student and they didn't have to be a B student. They could be a C student and once they did that and they hadn't put any of the money to it and I just almost blew it and one of the Ministers came by with and talked to my hus­band and they called Dr. Ershler and he came over to the house and said I had stirred .•. L: Dr. Ershler? A: Ershler. E-r-s-h-1-e-r. Irvin Ershler. He's a Jewish doctor that I had for thirty-three years. L: I remember you mentioning him now, yes. A: Yeah, that kept me alive and worried about me and worried about the peritonitis. Always had his help. He said I could always go as long as and then I'd go to him and who do you think you are? You're not my daddy. I know you don't have a degree and you will do this. And this is what I want you to do and when he saw me so upset, he put me in the house and took me to the hospi­tal for three days in '66 and they took all kinds of tests but the only way they could find out what had hap­pened to the peritonitis was to do an exploratory oper­ation and Dr. Ershler would not let them do that. He said she's had three majors and that's enough. And wherever it's gone I'll treat it and so one of the things he said it would be would be tuberculosi of the bones or something else. So he started treating me. And 150 _ ...,.._ ... .. _ . • ___ _ ___ _,, _ __ _ •• • ..... . -, . --..... - ............ --.. ~--- - ~- -- - ·--- ---· ... · · - - > ......... --- ~- --- .. _ __. _ _ .. - _ ___ __ ___ ... __ _ _ -· _ __,_ - --.:.... -------a·~~........__;. twenty pills a day and I had to stay in. But I had gotten very angry with the Ministers because we were raising the money and what we do with the money would help some church buy--in Pocatello we helped them, I mean, in Pocatello we had paid off all their back bills. So that they could catch up and down in Helper we bought them a stove 'cause they had a little old place for a church and it was cold when we would go down there. And all they needed was a good stove. They had a pot bellied one over in the corner but if they had a good one, bigger one, it would have heated the place so we were doing those kind of things and if they were going to take our money, you know, so I got angry. And then I felt like that I had sinned because Dr. Ershler put me in and I didn't have to stay in bed but I couldn't go outside. And then I knew I had sinned against the Lord. And everytime I'd open my Bible up you'd always get that passage in the Book of Acts where it says when it talked about the ministry, if they be a God, leave them alone. Lest you sin against God and God called them. He will take care of them. So you see there was no point for me to get angry with the Ministers 'cause they were God's annointed people. And then I'd open the Bible up and we'd . get where Moses would strike the rock. Remember when the people wanted food and water and he struck a rock and called them rebels and God told them he couldn't go to the Promised Land and he said they were his people. And 151 I always knew they'renot my people. They're God's people. All these had a real heavy effect but while I was at home meditating I done sinned against God, now I can't work here because I've sinned. I've got to ask for forgiveness. Now, I've got to do all these penance. I got to do all these things. The kids came, the three of them and they had three others with them and said, they had been to the church and asked the Association and about continuing on the three to school and they had brought three more with them that wanted to go to school and the Association didn't have any money and I wasn't going to carry it on anymore. The scholar­ships anymore. And I said, oh, they got to carry on. You know, we just got these kids started. We got them ready and they want to go and it just seemed right. The Lord just said like, this is the time. If you start now then you can hove a whole lot of them going. And I said, well, I can't help you. Well, Mrs. Henry, you're the only one that can. And they kept coming back and finally I said, okay. I can't go out but I can use my phone and I can think and we can plan but you all will have to do all the leg work and whatever we come up with together selling, we won't mind when we graduate we will come back and we'll help the others. You know. All these things. So, we started fund raising and I would do the calling and I'd call the University and get them in without even going outside. And we put five of them in the first year. 152 ···- ·- -· ··-- - ----·---·--·~ - ... _, ___ , - -~-=-·- - ----··- __..__.._. .. ~ .... -- -- ---·-··-··--·- --------..- - ___ _ __ ...,. ____ __ ... ...........__ _... ......,._.,_._._.~---- ~ ·-···--~---------·"- - ~·-- -··-"'-· .... --- ---•. .... __ - - -~ ........ ____ ·- The first quarter and then when they come back it was two more. Then it _was seven of them and they kept growing and every quarter we'd have--I would go and borrow the money from Mrs. Sweet, you know, Corinne Sweet. Jack Sweet on the candy company or some of the rest of them and they'd say we'll give it to you and I said no. Proud. You don't want you to give it to us. Because we've got to earn this here education and we'll pay you back. Well, by the time I paid it back another quarter was coming. You know, like sell­ing iron board covers and having chicken dinners and selling cupcakes. Well, you know, you couldn't raise enough money from that. Then we'd have a fashion show. L: Where would you hold these? A: At the Ramada Inn. One time. I still got the books at home. They had brochure books with the name of the people that gave us money. I called them Associates. They were sponsors and Associate sponsors according to what they would give, you know. And all the money we raised would be to pay the hotel for the food and stuff. But the money that the sponsors and Associate sponsors gave us, was enough to pay the kid's tuition. And who the kids are. Yeah, I still got the brochures at home. And the funniest thing was that--that was in February or March, February of '66 and about, I knew that I had to ask the Lord for a sign and when winter came, when the winter months came we had a little peach tree in the 153 ,_,..., ~ - --'"- ·~~··-· ~-- v- •• --,_.._.~.,. ... .. ..,.......-._. ---""'-•·•-• -- -·- - ~ , ·~ .. ..... '"°'• ---- ~ - __ ._ .._ - _,........._ _ __., -'--• - --· ~• - "' __ .__...-.......,,__.,.._. _ - __ ..._..__ . .. ...-- ... ~ -- yard and I said, and everybody was talking about how bad and severe the winter was and if anybody in our area, if they had little tress, they said, oh, it's going to freeze them. You're going to have replant against next year 'cause they're not going to do any­thing. And I would go to the back door and I'd look out there and I'd say, oh, I guess I could ask of the Lord, if peaches grow on that tree this year, then I'll be forgiven and I can go back out and work again. You know. Every morning I'd get up, you know, and you'd pray and look at the mountains and I'd run and look at that tree. Do you know when the fall came,,every tree that was down in that area had frozen 'cause it was a real cold winter and you heard me say in '66. That tree started blooming and do you know that tree, well, now, when I say a peach tree, you remember how just backyard peach trees are. The peaches are no bigger, little old dinky peaches, kind of shriveled up. They weren't big peaches. That year those peaches got this big and I've got proof. They got this big and it wasn't very many. I think there was thirty-five. I doubt if it was that many on that tree. And we'd go out and we'd get one and eat them and they were so sweet and we tried to take most of them in because everybody wanted them but it wasn't that many on there. But that was the only year and no more did that peach not ever did that peach tree bear again. Honest to goodness. So I knew that that was the 154 time the Lord said it was time to go. And I was in a little more eight months, taking twenty pills a day. And my husband's going around trying to find a water­melon 'cause we found out that right after I took the twenty pills, if I took the watermelon it would settle those pills, the water would rinse those twenty pills somewhere, whatever it was, that I wouldn't have heart­burns or anything. But then that's when we started thinking about the Foundation because the kids just kept coming. And then Mrs. Hiatt came over from the Church Women United. L: Please spell her name. A: Hiatt, Virginia Hiatt. And said I want to help you and I've come from Church Women United and am interested in the cause and what we do and maybe we can talk to Wally and so we went back and Wally said, well, you and Mrs. Hiatt need to do a need assessment. So that's when we looked all around to see if there was any other founda­tion or anybody else doing those kind of things that would put minorities in school and we didn't find any. And so we wrote all that up for him and he said, after the needs assessment, then maybe we ought to go into it and we did. L: So up until the time you'd had an Association and then you formed a Foundation, after the need assessment? A: Well, we called them a student group. The students doing all the work. L: Right. What made the difference between the time after 155 the needs assessment and before ••• A: It was still, the money was in a bank account and I gave the student group names. Once I called it Alpha Omega. Because that was the name of the fashion show. The next time we gave a banquet, the students named it the scholarship equal high foundation. That meant that the students were in charge of helping raise their funds and there was not a board or anything. After we did the need assessment and we done all the things Mr. Sandack, we had a meeting and it was voted that we would go into a foundation and we met with adult and students and Mr. Sandack said the students should be the ones who give the name to the foundation and I wanted them to name it Scholarship Equal Higher Education because you could put she and a dash and then at. That makes she and he. Both of them. Equal Higher Education but they named it the Alberta Henry and I said you can't 'cause I'm not dead yet. I thought you had to be dead to get something named after you but they named the Foundation and Mr. Sandack started doing all the charter papers, getting them ready. L: That was in what? A: 1966 when we started, the latter part of '66. With the student group and we did the need assessment up until the first part of '67 and in'67 they voted to go into the foundation and in December of 1967 we got our papers. Yep. 156 L: Did you ever find it unusual, unexpected. Did you ever turn around one day in the morning and look at yourself and say, I can't believe what's happened? A: No. Because I never felt like I was doing any of it. And I still don't. There ain't no way in the world that you could convince me and nobody else that I do the things. At th,t time I'm telling you I belonged to thirty some committees and when you put me in for six months. I mean for the eight months I had to drop every one of them and it took me another year and a half. I mean, I belonged to forty-four different com­mittees and organizations and I was some officer in them or I belonged to them. And you say, what in the world would anybody working full time, having children at home, how could they have belonged to that many com­mittees. L: That's a good question. A: It was like simple. It was that the reason why we weren't getting anywhers black people in Salt Lake just because we didn't know where the power was. We didn't know where to go. We didn't know where the resources were. Somebody h n to get in there and find out and then let somebody else know. Because they didn't come out and publish it and let me tell you. They only told you what they wanted you to know so I would get in there and I would stay on them four and five and six years until I got to be on the executive board and officer and 157 even on the board you don't get to know very much but once, once you got on the executive board and you went to the execuive meeting, that's where all the formula­tion and all the money and when they're going to write grants to get something. That's where, you were there. And you say, well, hey, you been doing th~~ for years. Where does minority, how does monorities get in on that? How does a Hispanic and black and native Ameri­can. Hey, I don't see any in that place over there at the church. Now if you're going to put all the money over there I think you ought to put some. See you had a voice in your affair and that's why I licked them and they'd call and ask and I'd say yes. L: This is when they would ask you to speak, you mean? A: Yes, but serve on the board. L: Serve on the board. A: And that's where people got to know who I was because I have it and I think one of the reasons they gave me the doctorate. I can sit back and I can listen and to the right minute and then I here I ease out real quick. You won't think I'm even there and all of a sudden the Lord say, now. Like something would say, okay, Alberta, and if they'd start arguing about something I'd sit and then I would say but don't you think so and so and so. You know, I got a brilliant idea and everybody would stop and I would ease in. I don't know what I was going to say but that meant that I really wasn't doing that. 158 Okay? I wasn't really having all this energy because as sick as I was where did the energy come from that I could go three or four days without sleeping. Stay up nights doing research, go to the library, to write the papers out when they were great big things like speaking to the Board of Education or speaking to the principals groups. And I didn't have no degree. I just had graduated from high school. So it had to be the Lord. Yeah. It got to be. Sure and I'm certain. I wanted to do at that time to do a certain thing and when the Lord's ready I'll be gone. It's just not my time. When it's the Lord's time. When he thinks I'm ready, not whether I think I'm ready or not I'll just be gone. 'Cause Mother said I was eight months old when I started walking and talking and have known where I was going ever since. And I said I wouldn't say that but I've always been on the go ever since. L: Doesn't necessarily know where you're heading but you're heading. A: Just heading. And right now, like my husband never know where I'm at. When you call he don't. He doesn't know where I'm at even though I went to work this morn­ing 'cause he woke me up and he goes to work and then he'll call me to make sure I'm still awake. Okay? And get to work. That's it. But it's exciting. It's an exciting life 'cause you say, I wonder what the Lord want me to do in certain circumstances. Well, I'm not 159 going to worry about them. I'm going to bed and in the middle of the night you wake up and you know exactly what you're going to do and how you're going to do it. L: For instance. When did that happen? A: Oh, so many times. I'm trying to think of some of the times. When you don't even know that something's going to happen. My daughter says I'm psychic but my grand­mother was a spiritualist. Remember this. And it was always decided that either one of Mother's kids would have it and they'd say that I'm probably the one that would probably get it. I don't know how to ••. I'm come into work never knowing what's going to hit me when I come in the day. I'm trying to think of one of the things that was exciting. Very exciting. I can't think. It's too late in the evening to think. You're kidding me. Let's go past then and when I ••. L: Yeah. If it comes up, it comes up. Okay. So after the Foundation, did the Foundation pretty much, after awhwle were you able to pull back from the Foundation and concentrate on different things? A: Not till after thirteen years. Thirteen years I was the chairman. L: From '67 to '80? 1980? You were the Chairman? A: Thirteen years. Uh huh. The Chairman of the Founda­tion. And that meant every year having an annual meet­ing, . getting the board members, having the nomination committee. Meeting of getting the group that was going 160 ___._ ___ ..U.-·--·--·""' - - ~·--- .. ·-· ---· -··- --- .. -· .. ,,.. _ ..,~ .... . •h ---~~- ' --- ""' ~-- - . ·-· ... ~ .....- --- - · - ' ··--· .. ·- - --· . ·-· --- ~ . ··----·· _....,__.._ .. _ ............. _. ... -·· ..... ~-- ---·-- · ·· ·'--·-.1..--~-- -·-- -~-· .... »~ -·~--~~ to screen the students and get in the group and they used to love to do it. After every quarter we'd bring them in to interview them and see how they were doing or what their grades were and everything and and Dr. Roth and Dr. Gordon Jarvis. These are people work on the board. Gordon Jarvis was the Assistant Chairman and Dr. Roth was the, he still is the financial secre­tary and he would call the Universities and the money that we'd pay the Universities, he would dicker with them and make it, negotiate 'cause see, the money from the Foundation was donations, not federal dollars. And see you could match them with federal dollars with the B.E.O.G. and with the loans and the grants and the dif­ferent things we have. You match it. In other words, if a student had a ned, the Foundation didn't have to give them all of thit. With money that wasn't federal dollars, you matched them with, you say that you'd give this student a grant, then you took the Foundation money you matched it with the federal dollars and that would triple our money and make us have more to support more students. L: At least double it. A: Oh, much more than doubled it because, well, I meant, in essence, if the Foundation had $15,000 for that year and that's what we spent. In essence we would actually . give the money that we would generate by matching it with federal grants and things would run up somewhere 161 L: A: <, L: A: L: like $80,000 or $90,000. Wow. Very high. --~- ·--.. '-·---- ..__ ·-'-·- ' -~---·- -~-- ---- -~·---~--- -· . --~--... --·---·~-- Does that mean writing grants too? No, not writing grants. Grants that they didn't have to pay back. Or, either, most that they could work and then get this extra money by working. I see. A: Orget a loan. Not the kind 0£ loan that you get from the University. Another kind. L: A three percaent loan or five percent. A: Uh huh. A cheaper kind of a loan. L: Right. During the time that you were doing that, the Civil Rights Movement was, of course, getting more and more intense. Not only here but all around the country. A: It didn't ever get really tense here. I don't know. The reason I say I don't know for really because you never seen the people and you never seen them getting all upset about anything and they never did any marches or, you know. At first. The first time I seen them do any­thing and that was when they marched over there. Now, that was oh, and that wasn't the NAACP. That was Dr. Chuck Nabors and some of the Alberta Henry Foundation. Chuck Nabors was on the Foundation. Bernice Benns and some community people. They marched and picketed bowl­ing alley, Rancho Bowling Alley. L: Rancho Lane. 162 - ··- · -·- -- -~ ., ______ ....._ _ ___ .... _...&,,-_.,.__..,.,,..~--~ .--·-, ;.- .. --· .~ _ .. ~ -....-:---_._ .... _._.~. . ... .._,, .......... _ .._._._., _._..,... _ .... . ._ _. ___ _ .,._ · - - · _.,. __.. ~--···--·---· ~·~--. ... ----··- - --·--· __ ... _,._,__. ___ -_:.____..,_~-- -..-.. A: Rancho Lane Bowling Alley. L: Yeah. What year was that? A: In the early sixties. L: What about the silent march. Do you remember that? A: We did that after Martin Luther King got. When he was assassinated. They marched. L: They had the march for AME up to the rotunda. A: For what purposes was that? L: I can't remember. A: Albert Fritz may know of some others that they did but if they did it was a one time thing. You know. Or something and you didn't see a big writeup in the paper. It wasn't on the television or anything. L: Was it a frustration for you that things didn't get too intense here? A: No, because see, when I was working out in service, I didn't even know. I would come in on my day off and go to the church to do things and on Sundays I always used to go to church. Then you'd go back up on the hill there. L: What hill? A: Oh, Sandack's lived above the University on Wolcott. L: Oh, right. But when did you start doing the day care? What year did that come about? A: '67. Yeah, '67. And I was at home playing with the kids and my kids were getting older, eight and ten I think. L: You mean the Sandack kids are getting older? 163 A: No, I had moved in '53 and I used to go up and work for them. But in '53 my husband said that job is going to kill me because every so often the peritonitis would flare up because I'd run up and down the stairs. I'd forget. Grab one of the kids and swing them around. And he said it was going to kill me eventually so he bought a house, October of '53 on Post Street. Three­year old home. He walked all over here and no place would sell it but over there, Florence, right kitty­corner across from Florence. L: I know Post Street. Yeah. Going South or North? A: South. L: South. On the West side of the street? On the opposite side of the street from her? A: West side. She's on the East side. On the West side. But the second house from the corner of 3rd South. She owns a little house there. Just a little one there. And now it's got awnings. It's got a porch. It's got a . garage. We put all that on there while we were living there. Just the two of us. And then we got one of the children. We adopted and then we adopted another one. And the house got too small for us. But that's where my husband walked and then Ruth Yarborough, I think, told him that that house was for sale. Because she knew some way in. He went over and looked at it. L: The house you're in presently? A: No, on Post Street and we bought that one. And that's where I was living at the time and we had the kids and I 164 used to have all the neighborhood kids, five, six, seven of them. I'd put them in the car in the good weather and we'd go to the park and the people didn't even care. Some of them even went to work. 'Cause the kids would come over to the house in the morning in their pajamas and if my kids were sleeping, they'd go to sleep with them and wake up and then I'd feed them and say, what we going to do today? And it was nothing but pure joy, joy joy. 'Cause I was in. I'd had another operation and I stayed in over a year and all I did was play with the kids. And you think that wasn't the heavenliest way to live. Just playing with kids and we'd go to the park. Then I'd stop at the hamburger joint and get them all hamburgers and cokes or whatever and we'd go back to the park. And we'd eat it. If the weather was bad we'd stay in the house and we'd play games. Oh, I did nothing for a whole year just fun, fun, fun. Then I got a letter in the mail saying that they were going to start a day care center. And they needed people with expertise. And I'd been recommended and I imagine Mrs. Bernstein and Chuck Nabors or some of them at the University had recommended me. They didn't say who recommended that they get me as an aide to come out. And I said, oh, how nice. And at the same time another letter came and said that they were starting the program of tutoring. I think it was about 13,000 a year. Now, they offered that to me and I didn't even have a degree because I had the Foundation and let's 165 - - ·-- - "-·- - --·· . ... _ _ __ _ ..... - - - · - -- ...J- ·--- -·-· •. • ......_ . - - - - - ----- ~ ---- ___ _ _. ____ - - ,._. - - - - - ~ ---- - _ ... ~ .. - - - • . . - - - - ------ ~-· ... ---·----- --- - ·--··--- - --~L-..a~'· -- remember this 'cause I had the student group and I used to have tutors come up to the library because I didn't have a place for them to meet and tutor these students before. While they were going to the University 'cause they didn't get it in the schools. And they would have got kicked out so they were in dumbbell classes until they could matriculate and go into the school, regular to be kidding school. And I looked at that. 13,000, got/and in those days, you know, come on. L: That was a lot of money. A: It was a lot of money. And I said, I went to Dr. Ershler, and he says, you'd have to travel all over the state and down into little country towns and he said, you would not get proper rest and you'd have to sleep in strange hotels and they're not very nice to black folks or negros, he said. At that time down there. And you would always be in a turmoil and I would not like for you to take that. So I turned it down. I said, well, what about this other? He said that's an eight to five and then you can come home. You can go in the morning and you could come home. And so I'd let you take that one. L: Why were you even looking for work though? A: I wasn't? L: You weren't? A: You heard me say I was sitting at home, playing with all these kids, climbing the trees, sliding down the slippery slides and swings and doing flip flops and all these 166 . - ·-·- ---- ~---... ·-~ ... - .. ---· -·-··-'----~·--- . - ·-·--- - ~- :. ..... ,, .... - - -·-- --·-·--··--'---- ~-- --- ···- · ··- · - --- __, ,_, __ _. ___., . __ ----· _,. __ -- ___ . _ __. ___ -·~ ·-··- . . ..... - - - ..• crazy things that old folks didn't do but we were kids. And · those kids and my kids were together. I wasn't looking. Two letters came in the mail. I know I've got them there. Out in the garage somewhere. I didn't ask for them and I didn't even know who sent them or who had recommended them but all these people that I used to go out and speak to and I still belong to all of these boards and things, you know. All of them, they got to know me. And they just felt that I could do the job. Or eitherthe Lord wanted me to move that way. Now, you take which ever version you want. But I like to think tnat the Lord said, this is time now. You've rested. You've had over a year and now it's time for you to get to moving. Now, I didn't have no vision of that. The only time I had the revelation was in Kansas whbn I was lying there half dead and the Lord said, I got some work for you to do and I said, okay. You know, no argument to that part. But all I know is that I said to Mr. Henry, and he said, well, you won't work hard and I said, no, but there's going to be a lot of kids and I can bring them home and I can still play. And I went to work for the day care as an aide. An aide means an aide in the classroom to a teacher. I was there only a few days and they made me a head teacher. Without any degrees. Now, come on. Think about this. They hired a teacher to train me. And she worked three weeks and said, I can't train her 'cause she knows everything. But I like her so 167 I'd like to have a room across from her so we can work togethbr. Now, where did I get the knowledge at? I could lay lesson plans. I could do all of these things and I had never been to college. L: Well, something must have come to you naturally about working with children. About planning to work with chil­dren. Educating them. A: I don't know. I used to read everything. You can look around here. As you know, I read everything that I come across--! love to read. I simply adore reading 'cause that's where you learn and everything I don't know I think I think I ought to join it. L: Well, let me ask you. When you look at, uh, you know, working with children, uh, where did you learn it? SIDE 2 A: I never learned about kids at babysitting 'cause I never was very tall. I was always small and had to play with young kids. Kids are the neatest things. But to play with them is one thing, but to develop lesson plans for a week and to lay them out, that comes from a formal edu­cation. I could do that without having gone to school. L: Well, it comes from being able to plan. Doesn't it? It comes from being able to think ahead. To be able to organize. To be able to think of ... A: Apparently so because as I said, if they're going to 168 .... -- - -"-·· - -----· --- - ---~- -·- - ---- ------ - ·· -·-·..___:...:..., __ . ________ , ____ -- - ·- _ __ ...._ _____ ·-· -··------·- - ~ ......... .._ __ ·-- - -·- __,._ ____ , _.._ __. __,_ ____~~~~~ learn this, how will they learn it? Will they go on a field trip, then where we have a bulleting board, we'd go to the library and we'll get books and we'll plan and they'll learn about air or they'll learn about the animals or they'll learn about the farm and everything that we could be centered around that. That wasn't no big deal to me. I didru't know that those were lesson plans. I just thought that that's the way it ought to go. L: Right. A: And they thought, oh, where did she learn it at? How did she get that? And I said, I don't know. The Lord said to do this. You know. I just knew how to do it. And then I started taking classes. The classes were helpful because a lot of things I didn't know I learned within the context of things that I already knew. How to formalize things and that's why Dr. Thomas wanted me to finish the degree because a lot of other things, you know, when they called me to come here as an administra­tor. I didn't have the something but I knew what I was going to do and I done it. L: Let me ask you something. Do you think,this is a hypo­thetical kind of thing, but do you think that had you been a white person you would have less shocked at being given these things? A: How do you think white? L: Let me ask it to you this way. Do you think because you were a black person at that time, that perhaps you 169 ·-· ··---· ·- --·--·-·- ·___;; .. ____; ___ ._ .. _ --··- ·--- -----··----'- --~- ·--' ····--- ·- ·--·..- ---~_...._~---- ·- · -----·-·--.d.-·--~ ...o-- expected less of yourself and when people told you you couldn't do these things and they gave it names like lesson plans, like administration, did these things seem outside your world? A: No, I did not think it was strange. I just thought it was another thing the Lord was moving me to. And I never did think I couldn't do anything. I always thought I could do it. But how, when they asked me how, like you are right now. How do you know how to do them? I can't define it. And then I might get frustrated and say, you know, all I do know is that I did them and I can do them. L: Let me ask the question different. That's not what I was asking. I was asking you, a lot of times people speak about people being determined. You know, who they are is determined by what environment they live in. Do you think, having lived in a segregated environment most of your growing up years, that the kinds of things you were confronted with here in Utah seem strange and outside your world. Because of what you were kept away from all those years. Do you know what I mean? A: I can't follow you 'cause see, in Kansas we lived in a black neighborhood and we went to black schools and we didn't have to read too much about white folks 'cause it was all black but then when I got grown and I went to work for the theater. Then I went to California and we traveled with the band. We were with white and black so I've had the best of two or three different worlds. I 170 I can name all the Count Basie, Jim Lunceford, Earl Hymes and all of those we went to dinner with because of Dorothy and I. We just knew them all. We traveled from Washington, D.C. to oh, Boston, to all of Chicago. L: Were you afraid to believe that you were smart without an education, is what I'm asking. A: Yes, because we came up in a time that you had to have a degree and that's what the black teachers that taught us. The early teachers. I'm sorry. There's nothing that you get when you're older or teenager. It's always elementary. You know, from a certain grade there, what they tell you have a big effect upon you and all of the black teachers, men and women, the black principal. They pounded it in your head. You got to go to college, 'cause they had and those were the ones you looked up to. Those were the ones you had to mind in my school. I don't care whether you were right or wrong and they whipped you and you got another whipping at home because you were going to mind them. So what they told you had a deeper effect upon you than what you learned after you got grown. Be-cause you learned it when you were young. And they pounded it in your head and you say yes ma'am and no ma'am and I say yes, sir now. Why do I say yes, sir now as old as I am? Because that was what you taught you to say. You best be respectful or you must do this. You must do that. I mean, all these things were just a must not and then you got it at home. It's/like nowadays and 171 ___ .. ..... _ .• ,..,..L~- ~ ""- - - . .L ... , __ - - - • _,_._. • .... ~ - .• · ..l..· ... .... ~ .! .... .... _ ..,. ___ _. • r "'->- - ·- -· - - - ·· - - "'-"'- ·- - ._..._ - ·.. • • "'· • __ _. -'· ·- -· ..... _ • .,.. ......... ,- -· - •• --·-· ----· _ ....._ ___ ,_ -.-....- - - .... -.,. ~ ____ ... ___ ·----· ·-·- . ·----'------··---·----·- ~ ~ ........ ~ that's why you can't explain it. How you were brought up and your environment has a lot to do with your whole life and follows you from cradle to the grave. And if I had had to just live there all the time I might say yes to what you are saying. I might not believe that I could do all these things but then the minute I got grown, that was 21, not 18, not 19, not 20. 21 and I traveled down South and I traveled all--I was away from home. I was traveling. How did I get there. All those places unless somebody was taking me. But it wasn't with the church 'cause I was without the church. I wanted to go find out what sin was about and all that other good stuff. I mustn't say that. But this, that was another life. L: I don't believe that too much. A: It's the truth and when I came here and became a mission­ary president. You just got to know this story. It's priceless and we had to go to Denver, Colorado, to the . great big Colorado convention. I had this new white dress on and big white hat on and we were going to go to lunch so we went down on the point, five points and we walkedinto a Chinese place. Everybody wanted Chinese. I didn't but I didn't care about eating and there we were with the Bibles and all this lovely white just glow­ing, you know, and somebody said, I don't believe it. And I'd always been afraid that your past, you know, your past is going to catch up with you and I said, I 172 ain't going to turn around. It's got to be Bert. Don't nobody else walk like that. Ain't nobody else got pretty legs like . that. Oh, my gosh, I said. All the mission­ary ladies looked at me like that and I felt like, you know, that you could go down through a hole, just take me down there now. And I said, the best defense is an offense. Hit it, face it, like point blank. I said, Now, who is this that think they know me? It couldn't be Lester and once you looked at the fellow's face, now don't ask me how I could pull his name out but somehow I did. I said, you must be drunk again. You mean, you ain't playing in town? I said, does it look like it? You a missionary then? He just hollered, oh, oh, ha, ha. I meant, I got through that and they teased me about it. But you could always assured that if you did something in your past it's going to catch up with you, you know. 'Cause I used to play tonk. We'd play two and three nights. L: Play what? A: Tonk. It's a card game. It's low card. You deal everybody five hand, the lower hand and then you draw from the deck and if you think your hand's lowest, you drop it down and if it's the lowest one, you win all the money in the pot. L: You play with suits? A: You play with a deck of cards. L: Is it a sort, kind of like gin rummy? 173 A: Well, you can have a suit if you got a straight, ace deuce, trey, four, five, six low in your hand. Thirteen is double tonk and if you get all face cards that's big tonk. That's thb big tonk. You got fifty but you try to get the lowest game you want. I don't even know how to play it now but oh, anytime anybody said, tonk, if it was three o'clock in the morning and going through town, they'd call my house. I said, let's get it on. That's all I knew. Let's get it on. Tonk was the best. All during the-war, that was tonk. Two or three of us would sit up and play for pennies. You know, or dimes. Just be doing something. L: Doesn't sound that sinful. To play tonk. A: Well, when we played it you played for a dollar and then you played for corners oryou played it the same way you do the other game. Three in a row. You couldn't, you know, you could make it worth as much as you wanted to pay. For five dollars, it goes high. But the idea was that once I jo1ned the church when I came here and gave up, I never did drink but I used to travel. L: Did you really think it was that sinful? A: WEll, it was because it took away money and was doing time. You were wasting the time that could best used doing the Lord's work. And you have to give up something. When you're going to ·go and do missionary work, you give up something and I never did drink. But I tried to. I would drink a little wine or if you got scotch and I'd 174 -~--- .......... ~. . -... ____..,. ,. ____ _ .._ --· ·- --~- --·--- -~ ·- -- ~--·-· -~-- .. -~ -- ... -. _ .......... __ .· -··- - ~- -·--·-·~--... ·--- ·-----·-----·-'--. -- -· --- ·---·--- ·-·'" -· ~-........_ __ _____ - ... --·- ---·-·-•- - "-··-- - · -- ··----... - ._. . _____ __.,. __ . - ·- L: A: put a whole lot of milk in it so people could smell it and they could tell I was drinking so they wouldn't call me a square 'cause that's what they used to call me. Kansas square. But I'd have a little bit of scotch and a whole lot of milk and you smell it. You know, scotch smells strong so I could sit there and hold it all week and I really felt like I was with thb group. Well, I gave up drinking and I h3ven't, I never had drink any­thing since then. And haven't played tonk since then. But you have to give up something in order to •.. To do missionary work? To do the Lord's work. You should do it more, probably more than I supposed to. The next thing I'm trying to give up but if I give up that then what do I have. You know, I don't have a whole bunch of things to give up after that. But I will. L: You're looking at the cigarette. A: I will give them up. I will give them up because well, you ought to give up everything. Everybody ought to give up something. Something that you really like to do. You ought to give that up. L: Why? A: So that you can spend more time doing other kind of things that would be of service to the Lord. And it make you feel just as good. L: Isn't it possible to do something for the Lord that you also like to do? 175 - ____ ..., _ ______ -.. ___.._ ...... ··--·- ·--- --·-·---'-- --' .. ,._ __. _., __- ·_._ .,.._ _. .. •. :. . ,...,._ ___ . - --~ .. .. ... _-____ _____ -~ - .. --- _____ ., ---- - - ·-·- -·--_.. ______ ·--·--. --- ',_____ .... _.. . _ ~ ... - --- - - - -- - ...... ·-·--- - --- -- ~~-... _._ _,_ ·~ · A: True. But it probably wouldn't be--how much do these cigarettes cost me? The money that I spend upon the cigarettes ... L: I see wha~ you're saying. Then you could spend the money in a different way. A: Yeah. L: That's possible. A: Sure it is. Think about it. L: That's possible. Well, I gave up smoking but I gave it up for my own purposes. A: Oh, that makes a difference. L: I couldn't breathe as well. Couldn't run. A: 'Cause it's like smoking nothing. L: Yeah. I think my big thing, big deal would be giving up drinking coffee or wine or eating food; certain foods. I don't eat anymore. Well, okay. Let me get back to day care. This day care you were at, was that at the University? A: Ugh uh. It was downtown. First one, when they started setting up, the people, the governor's wife, Mrs. Ramp­ton and Esther Lohnegren went back to Washington and they. got the charter and they got all of the things to have it. But this headstart was a day care center. L: Oh, you're talking about headstart now. A: Oh, no. That's Matheson. That's under the district. That's the school one. I've never been with that. L: You're talking about the first headstart program that 176 .... - ....:.. ___ ..., ______ - --- -..l-, -·- ~•--- - - .-. . . ... ., , _._,._ • .., __..,.. ~ ' __ .,, _ _ _ .._l_. __ •• _ __,_ .,. •. _ - ----• . -·-- -- ------- J--· -- -- -•·-- . . - ---· ---~- - -· ----··- --··----- ..._.._ -'"·--·--~-..--~A-. -1- ~ was, the one that Esther and Corrinne were on. A: ~hat was the day care center. Thb other one was already here. Headstart. School age. Was already in the dis­trict at that time. It came in first. That headstart was here before the day care center. Headstart day care. L: So what did you participate in? A: It was headstart day care, preschool, three and four years old. When they graduated, then they went into headstart. Into the school system. L: Into the rest of the school system _ A: And it was in different schools at that time. It's house, it's still within the district and it's house of Matheson. Right now. Right today, that same head start. L: Where was the day care center? A: The day care center, when we first started putting to­gether and laying plans and they brought all the help, we were about on five or six months before any kids ever came. That was to train us and get the building ready to match the code. Get small toilets put in. X so many kids, cut the rooms off. We had to do the painting of the rooms. The nailing, the buying of the curtains 'cause they didn't have a lot of money so they needed people that could do all that work. And we did all th~ cleaning of the floors, getting down, taking the old paint off of it and we was out at the county complex. 177 '"' - - - - · ·-.. - -- - ·- - ... ---...-. .,........,.__. ...._ _ ~ ~- - - - .. ~----- ... . . ..._ _,,_...__._._ . _ _ ~ - . · -.4_ _. . ___ __ .,. _,.._, _ , _ .... __ , _ ·~ . ...· ---· · · - - · - ... ····· - - · - -- --- .. -~-- . - · - ·----:~ -···'"'· .. ---- • - ~ - - - ~-- It was about the third building in the middle. You know, on the corner of 2nd East, there is a geriatrics, or whatever it is and then there's another one and we were, that's where we were located at. And then the back part you .know, we had the playgrounds. We had all kind of day care toys and things for kids to play with and that's where the kids went playing. That's when we put that fence around there, to keep our kids in. L: Was it free for children? Was it free? A: Thb day care center was for, yes. L: What kind of kids signed up for it? A: Nobody could come in unless they were poverty. They had to be on the welfare. That was what the day care center was for. To get them used to because they found out getting in headstart here. They didn't know anything. And the parents wouldn't participate so in the day care center, we were to get, prepare the kids and get the par­ents and things involved in it. And there was eight of us. L: Well, tell me, I mean, you know, when you remember working in there, what experiences stand out about that? A: Oh, a whole of them. There were a lot of the teachers that they brought in that couldn't stay because they had to work with blacks and Hispanics. They had blacks, Hispanics and native American aides, bus drivers and these here head teachers had never, in their whole lives, ever lived or been around any blacks or minorities. And they freaked out. I don't know whether>they felt they were going to eat them or the color was going to rub off 178 on 'em or something. And they would go and so they had to select them real carefully and not hire them. They had to come in there and we had to volunteer some time to work and see if they could along or how they acted amongst them because the kids were, a third of them were black and a th~rd of '3m were white and a rhird of 'em were Hispanic and then there might have been a little less on one side and you'd have a few native American. We also m d a few Asians but that would be one or two. There wouldn't be very many but they were almost to a tea broken down on those lines. Almost that even. And they had to learn to deal with them but they didn't get it in schools. Schools didn't teach them. They went to B.Y.U. and they had the same people there and then they wanted to come to work in the day care as as teachers. They couldn't handle it. And that always stuck out in my mind. Isn't a shame that we were the ones that were called depressed or what's that word? L: Underprivileged? A: Underprivileged. But we really weren't. They were the really, the ones that were underprivileged. Right? 'Cause they had had no experience outside their own little groups. Don't that sound like a shame to you? L: Uh -huh. It does sound like a shame. A: I felt sorry for a lot of them. And I knew--we would sit there and I would say, well, you can tell, a little devil would come out in me and they would bring them in and I'd say, now, Alberta, which ones going to stay? 179 ·--·------- - ---··--- - ~ .. ~ .... _ _ _, _ __ ... ·__.,_ ____ -. _ _ . ______ ".__, __________ ___ -.1..,_..;._ ..- . -·-·,. ______ ............ - --~--- ---~--- ... --· ·· · '-·- - -- ..._ ___ -· -- - ... --- ---------~ -~ ~~ Which ones going to go? And I'd say, wait a minute, I'll tell you in a minute. That one is not going to last over half an hour ." This one's not going to last even five minutes. L: What did you judge by? A: Ah, the body language. Body language, not one word, I didn't want to hear them talk 'cause you know, when you get grown, you can use your voice to mean a lot of things. But your eyes and your movements, the little kids would come up there. Hi, you going to be my teach­er. Three-year old and four-year olds. The little kid. Like your son. Now, you think about kids like thc(t. My were three-year old in my class. Beautiful kids. Oh, grabbed you, hug you, put the kiss on you. Throw their arms around you, you know. They just knew you loved 'em. And thot was all that they required. They didn't require anymore than that you loved them. You know. And it got so everybody wanted their kids, the parents, wanted their kids in my class. No, I don't know. 'Cause I could say, I won't be able to get back. I don't know what I'm going to do. Oh, I'll stay. And I'd have more time with them. They thought I was doing them a service. I just going to have more time with their kids. supposed to pick them up at five thirty . Yet, they were If they didn't . get there at six thirty, well, that did not matter. We would always be playing and I think th3t's the kid in me. I don't think I've growed up. But the teacher would 180 •-"'" __ ,. ____ _ ·. ·- ··"- -·· •-"' - -',. _.. . . .,. .. · --··-- - -- . .J. ~-- - --··"" ~ . .__,__. ___ - - · r ... _.__= __ .,,...,__ _ ,_ . .. ..... ~ -- .- ----- - ··-- - --···.,,_. ...__ • ""-·•• • ·--- - .... --~ -·-- ·- -·-· · -· ·---·.,.··- · ·· .., - -- •· • __,_ ... ~ ~ -•.'.~· -~ learn that, not the hands might not have been clean or, you know, and they'd run and put their hand on her and that teacher would react. Well, that's all she had to do, was just react. Not say a word. Their eyes. You knew that she wasn't going to stand that because some­thing about it. She's going to take that dress home and burn it, I would say to myself. I didn't know that. But just the way she, they would act, let you know that they were not comfortable in that situation. They were going to be frightened to death and they couldn't work in that situation. Kids, you gotta be open. And even, to your son, you cannot come home mad at one night and expect him to run up and love you as you do when you say, come on, over and put both hands on him. I'm sorry, kids, no. You can't jive kids. L: Sure you can't. A: 'Cause they're smart, you know. Those are some of the things that stood out. Oh, it was the best job. Did you know, that I wasn't sick, not ever, one day the whole time I was in the classroom. And after, let's see, I was sixty-seven, I guess, around September, and in '70 the federal government came out. They were doing a lot of stories on our day care 'cause I could go out. All of the people that I had met, doing on all these here boards, and things, the ones that I met at Sandack's. All the contacts I'd met on all these different other boards, 40 odd board I'd serve on. I could go to one of their 181 - ~ _ ... -··- ----· .. ----~ ... _..., ~ -- --.....-.. ....... --·-- , _.. --~-- ------·-----· -- __________ ...__ _ ____ ____._ __ - --- ·--- -- ··- .. ----- ---·---· ~- --- - meetings and I'd start talking about thdse kids and I'd get them to come down and volunteer. I'd get them to donate. For Christmas they would donate a whole bunch of things or give us the money. Or give us a television to raffle it off. To have off or to play bingo with or something to raise money for the day care. We never were wanting for those kids. Those kids could get any­thing from volunteers on down to whatever they need. Because I had a whole lot of people I knew. Those are better than money. See, that's better than money. L: To get those people involved. A: Right. And to know them. Most everything I've done, the people that I've known, it's been the ones, or have met, hlve been the ones that have supported all of these crazy ideas I come up with. That come out of nowhere. L: Those were tough years, '67, '68. Those are the years of the Black Panthers. They were beginning to come about in this country. A: Yes. L: Those were angry years. Where blacks were getting angry. A: Right. And you only read about them in the paper as far this here was concerned. Until about '69. Then they really were moving. Really moving. And we moved to the day care center right down in Central City where it's at today. L: Near the Central City? A: Right now, that same head start day care is right in that 182 . _ _._,... ____ ___ ....,_..:....1.o. __ .. ___ ...... _ _______ . __ ...._.._ ... _ ---·- · - -- ... ~ ....... --~- -- -- - ·-- --- - ··- ~---- -··· -~ -- __ ..,.,. ___ ... _ • - ------ - - . . • ----· building. And then that's where the black, thb black brothers group came. Victor Gordon and his group came and then it touched you. Then it touched you, you know. What was going on outside, started touching you. A little bit. L: Did it touch you? A: Oh, yeah, because see, I'd read all about it when I'd go back home. If I took a vacation. They were all into the movement and they'd be telling me everything they were doing. You come back out here but you didn't see it out here. Because you didn't have that many blacks. In one part of my town we got as many blacks in kansas as they got in their whole state. Honest, the whole state. I think we had something like 5,000 or some blacks in the whole state. So the census said back then. L: About 8,000 now? Is that what the census is now? A: Oh, they say 8,000 and something but you know and I know, it's over 12,000 blacks here. They just never take 'em all. We know that. It doesn't bother us any at all though. Because they never count all of us. And black people don't and aren't going to tell them. They're not going to fill out those things. And they're not going to answer their door if they come by there. They aren't going to tell them their business. They hurt us but they don't, they don't realize it. But we're always way undercounted here. L: So, would Victor Gordon ·~:a:nd those guys, how did it 183 --·----- ~ --··---- J-~---...,.·--- --~·--·-"' ·····- ______ .,,_... ............. ~~ ... - ----... -...__ ·.-1 ,. ~_ .. _ ~ -·· - - - ·-· ....... ·.~ ... .. . ..... . ·-··- - - · .. · - -· _ _ ... ..,..__ __ . ·-- .. - •• - ~ • "' ·- ---··--- -· - ... _,_ -· - ---· · .•••.•• , _ _. ___ ,.. ___ ______ _ _ _ « ~-- touch you? A: Well, they liked me. They would come and they would talk with me in the day care center. Somebody would steal r my purse. They would make 'em bring it back. You know. And everything. But I knew them all. I knew all of them. Almost ever since they'd been born, almost. L: What did it mean to you though? Wh3t they were saying? A: Well, I could agree with them. Most of the people in the community that didn't agree with them. They're going to start a race riot here and we have never had nothing. We're going to lose everything. Why are they stirring all this up. I said, because they have rights. They want you to see that you're being discriminated against. So that didn't make me very popular with the masses. But I wasn't trying to be popular. I was try­ing to explain Victor and them and they would write them poems and some of them would be dirty. You know, that would have dirty words in them. But you had to take the dirty words in the context of what they were writing about. It was a feeling that they were having but you couldn't show them to all these good church people that I knew. L: What would they have thought of the poems? A: Oh, what they said, they don't believe in that trash. That's a grunch group that don't go to church. You know what they were saying. You know how old folks are. And I'd say, they don't literally mean that. 184 -·- -·- ·.--- - .. , - .... - • • - .------ ~-- ~ - _..,_,_ -· .. . - - - - - .. ·-'--·--- .. - - J, •• --- _-.:::, •• _ ............ .......:.--..: ·-- -- ___ ,.. ___ ~ ·-- ---·- -'-· - ' - --~.-.....-- . L: You mean old fashioned. In that sense. A: Uh huh. I tried to lay the thing down. In Utah they were contented with a lot because they didn't have lynching. Oh, they did have one or two in Utah, but as a per se, they didn't have the race riots. They didn't have those other things like when Watts burned, they didn't have all of that contention to deal with. Be­cause the people lived peaceable and they were, most of them worked for white folks. Here in the valley. And they would give them things and they didn't beat them. They didn't mistreat them. They didn't take the kids away. As Harold would tell you. If he had it down there. If you read his story, they were good children. They never got in any trouble. His mother never had to worry about him. When he was going to grade school over there in Ogden. They didn't ever know what it was to run afoul of the law. Do you understand? They knew that they couldn't swim in the swimming pool. They knew that they couldn't do all of these things but they knew where thhi a place was and the:y stayed within their palces. L: So they accepted the ••. A: Their lot. L: ••. their discrimination. A: And I was doing more--the reason I identified more with Victor and their group is because I was a rebel in this town also. And they didn't approve of me shaking the boat either. But they never told me to my face that they 185 -- --·-'--· • - - - ·· - - "--· - - - ' -- ··- .... - ~ - _, -- ' - -----·. ··--··· -·-----. - - - ·-- =--- - ·-'·- - • • -- ...... ___ - ~ • -·-'-<- -·- - ------~ ~ . didn't approve of me shaking the boat. But you could always hear the rumbling. And then you would smile and you'd say, well, the Lord sent me to do the work. I will do it. They don't have to help me. And maybe that's where I got that idea. You don't have to heip me. L: Maybe you didn't expect the help. A: No, but I had help. If the Lord be for you. My grand­father said, then if the whole world's against you, all odds, you can take them all in. Daniel was throwed in the lion's den, laid down and went to sleep, with he and the lion. The Lord come down and closed the lion's mouth. They didn't even bother him. So, you don't have to worry. About anything. Just go ahead home. So I understood what they were trying to say. Victor suffered for it and hasn't gotten very far because they expected him to act like good little black, like good little colored children is supposed to act. L: What is Victor doing now? A: I don't know. I thought about stopping off. It was over to Ward's Market for awhile. He was doing a radio show, part time and he had two or three little jobs. L: Was that for KRCL or something? A: One of them • . I don't know which one it was. L: Where is Ward's Market? A: Ward's Market is on 21st South where actually where the day care was, it's about 3rd or 4th between 3rd and 186 ..,._., _ ._. __ . .... .._.__ __.... ._ ______ ._... ·-· ~· -·-- ---·'-- - -- ·-··--~~·- - - .. - "" __ .._ ___ ___ ~~ ,--,~ ·- . -- -------~-·.....i -- ~~. 4th East or somehwere right over there on the East side of the street. L: I'd like to talk to him. A: Oh, I would too. And see where he's at right now. Be­cause that's a brilliant young man. Brilliant young man. If he'd been anywhere but Utah he would have turned out to be something really great. L: Do you believe that? A: I know that. Because he had too many of the skills, well loved by people and he loved people and Victor would come out and help you when no one else would. I've seen Victor go way out of his way to help people that didn't even appreciate anything but that was part of Victor helping. He was concerned and more about people really than about hisself. L: What happened to Victor in Utah that wouldn't have hap­pened elsewhere? A: Victor went back to school. Went to law school and came out of law school and didn't pass the board. He only missed it by a few little points and at that year that he took, the first time he took it or the second time, someone, oh, protested that the test that they gave that it wasn't right. Do you remember that? A whoue bunch of them had failed and Victor wasn't one that protested it. And those that protested they threw that question out. And they let them pass. They passed them but Victor wasn't one of them so Victor didn't get to so he challenged 187 - -~·~'- - ·- •· -· .... __. __ -...... .. - .... ~-------·--- -, ----~ ._ .. ___ .,.. __ .. ... ~"--·-~ - ~ - _____ , _ ~ -- ~- ---- -- ... -...........ci..-.--·----- _...___ - -- "·- --- - ·- -~---· ____ ..._ .... ~- -- . ---··-'"'·--· - ·-·-·-------~- -'""" them and I wrote a letter since I've been president for NAACP and went to his hearing over there and they still would not. They still insisted that he go before the bar again. L: Take the test again? A: That's what I said. L: Has he gotten bitter from that? A: I haven't seen him since then. He came here and we went across the street over there. That's since I was presi­dent. The first year I was in as president. L: Well, now you're saying if he were elsewhere .•. A: When they threw the question out, the question out that were protested and legally they were throwed out of the test. All of them that had missed that question, they would have got, off their grades and they would have been allowed to pass the bar. L: Okay. But the original thing is that if he had been elsewh~re he would have beeri more appreciated. A: I think so. L: Why? A: Because the people would have been more responsive to him. Know what he was trying to do. He didn't have the help and the backing here of people coming out and when he would stand up and make speeches. You know. But no one come out to help him but the ones that weren't working and the rest of them say, well, you know, that's the kind. We don't want them riffraffs even though they 188 • ~· - . _ _ ..... __.__,__ _ ___ _ _ • • ---·-------- ~--- - - - ·--...... · -------- _ _ _ _ ,_,_ _____ _ # --- - ----·-·--··-- - .,.._ • • - - --- ----- .. -- ---~---..a- · --~---· - -- _ _. .., _________. .. ---· --- ____ ... _ ------~----- ·-J-- ..- were black people. They were saying that. L: They thought he was kind of a hoodlum? A: A troublemaker. That's what they call all o~ -~s~when we don't acquiese to the norms of the community. L: Were you, in those years, '67, '68, working in the headstart program, were you angry? Were you an angry person? A: Happy person. Trusted everybody. L: So here you are. Victor sounds like an angry guy. A: Wasn't a bit angry. He was a very pleasnat guy. You have got to meet him. Even if you meet him now you'll like him. You can't help but like Victor. L: I'm not saying that I don't like angry people. A: No, but I meant, he's pleasant and he doesn't have bitterness. He doesn't have as sharp a edge as I have on my pody. I have a sharp edge because people told me lies and I went out and battled for them and then they said, Oh, I forgot to tell you. After I went out and stood up for them. So now I check them over before I got out for them now. I don't go out blindly like I used to. You put a call through and I used to just run, day or night. I don't care if it's two o'clock in the morning. I'd run down to the police station and get them out. Discriminating against them. I don't do that any­more. I . got to find out what you did. L: You . got out on a limb too many times, huh? 189 A: I been out on a limb so many times, my husband, why he stayed with me, I'll never know. He figured, one day, he says, she'll learn. You know, just one day. L: He maybe figured you'd fall off and fall into his arms. A: No, no. One day I'd learn better and learn how to h1ndle it. That's all I figured. And I'd learn. But you don't like yourself as well. 'Cause if you don't like yourself, you feel like a little child, trustworthy and believing. That's not the kind of world we're living in now. Right now, I watch my back and watch my front and you have to watch what you say at certain times up here. Among certain people. You still have to do that 'cause this is a bureaucratic establishment up here. And I stayed twelve years. I used to didn't even care. Would just blast out because I really wanted them to tell what I'd said. Because the more they told the more I'd get it opened up into the air and somebody would have to de­fend the other position. And it's still like a game. L: In that sense. A: In that sense. When I wash dishes, wash clothes, every­thing is kind of a game. L: Before you go into what's happened here, let me ask just a couple of more questions. A: Yeah. L: How are we doing? A: We doing fine. L: Have we still got a little time? 190 -· -·--·- -- ··-.. ·----~-----· .. · -·~.- . - -...... -- ---·~- .---.---·~~--~-----.,.-'-·--.-.--- - -... ---~~·-·-----........__ _______ ___, _ ---· '-- --- --~-·-·----- ----- -- - ..... ____ ---·· -------------- --~-- ...... - A: Oh, yeah. L: Okay. Where did we go? Where did you go from the day care center? How did you move from there? A: Well, as I told you, I was hired as an aide and for about two weeks and they moved me to a head teacher and I stayed the head teacher until about '70 and the federal girl came down and said that they needed someone who would be a parent coordinator because there was no way, even though the teaching was good and the concepts wer were doing were . good. When the kids went home, they went back to that same environment. L: Which was what? What did they go back to? A: Oh, I was about the only one that could really go into thb homes because people trusted me. I don't know. Do I look like I'm trustworthy or my eyes or something. I don't know. They liked me and they'd let me come in. L: Maybe they thought you wouldn't judge them. A: Oh, I didn't. I'd sit down in their house 'cause, you know, that's why I don't buy new stuff in my house, where everybody's comfortable when they come in. You know, you can buy all this fancy stuff and you're scared you'll break it. You bring your kids and pizza and yousit down. You let that child alone. You bring your son, you let him alone. But I don't have a house where you break all the . good stuff 'cause I ain't got no good stuff. I brought all that stuff with me and moved from another house. I can't take it when I die so, you know, they're to use. 191 ...,.,_ .. _ ...__ ....... . __, _____ ~ .. ~ -,._,,..,_:. ... ~ ... ,· - - ~ -,----~ · ·- - ·- - __ _ ... __ ___ - - -- ... ··----- -~-'-~·-------.i.....--..-....._ - p_ ___ ~--·------- """- -· ·-··-. -- _ _..__ - ____ ,.. . , ·- That's the way I got this thing figured. Well, the homes would be, not a clean space on the floor. Every chair would be stacked with stuff and the tables, you couldn't even see the top of 'em. There'd be dogs run­ning around. I meant, that kind of environment. These people, before the federal programs come, they didn't trust people that worked in social service. They didn't trust counselors, they didn't trust all these social workers coming out. They'd lock their door from them. And they were very leery of anyone else that came out. So therefore they didn't have contact but they were on welfare. And so you had to go out and you had to get them to bring their kids. They might bring their kids but they wouldn't come back anymore. We'd bring them home. We'd pick them up and bring them home. So see, they had to have someone to talk to them. The federal government says you go out. See what those people need. See what kind of services you can give them. If you can even get them jobs. Most all of them say, well, you know, we looked for jobs. We can't have them. Can't find jobs. So you have to start looking for jobs. L: You'd help them look for work? A: Oh, would I. 'Cause I had served on some of those comm-ittees and I could hear about where they were hiring and stuff so that would be a good candidate for one. You know. Find out. I'll tell you what, I'll come back after I go back to the day care. Well, the federal government, while 192 _____ _,._ - --- - --· --·- - --· ...... - --·- ----- -·- -- - - _..._•- - •-- ~··---· - - •· _ __ _ A _ _ _ · ·- -•~•. ---- - ·- ·--~·-~- - -- - ·- - ' --· --- -- -- --- - - --- ·-·-. - -- .--..- - - - · - *-1.o:.- I was on. vacation made me a parent coordinator. And when I come back to work instead of being in thb classroom, my classroom, which I loved and never wanted to leave, I had an office, a desk. I had mileage and that was wh ~ I was supposed to do so I decided I was going .to quit. That wasn't what I came to work for. I came to work so I could be with the kids. So they made a deal for me. The last two hours of the day until the parents picked the kids up, I'd be a parent coordinator, then I'd be a head teacher and take all the kids when everyone else left and wait until the last bus or the last parent came and picked up their kid. Then I'd lock the center up. So I got to have the best of two worlds and I said, that's a deal. They said, it's more work. But that's a deal. So I'd be a parent coordinator and all day I'd go to the welfare office and find out what the guidelines was and get all that kind of material so I could find out, go find out about the WIN program. A lot of the parents, I got 'em on the WIN program so they could get a trade 'cause if just get a job, they'd get paid minimum wages at that time, which I believe was $1.00. I don't think it was even $1.10 at that time. But then how far would that . go? But if they . got them some kind of a trade, secre­tarial or whatever kind of a trade it was, that might carry them a lot longer. And insurance. If they didn't any, who could help pay for it. One of my friends I'd go and talk with him. There was just a lot of going. 193 • · - -- ·-"- __ ... -·· . " ~ .... _ ___ ·- · ··, • • <: - -·--- - ,._.__.- _ __ ., ______ __ .. _ -~ - - ·-~ -- - - _ ___ _.___ . _..__ . _ ---'-- - · - ··---'·- -~---~ -··· .... · ·------- - - ------- - - · - - - · -·-- - - -- -"··-· ---·-------- ------·---· ---.... - ---'--J _______ ......__, And a lot of talking to people and find resources. That's what most of the people needed, was resources. L: Yeah. A lot of people here on the East side, who are sitting here on the East side, don't think there's much poverty here in Salt Lake. A: There's a lot of poverty here. L: You must have seen some of it then, I assume. A: Oh, it was a lot of it. That's what they try to say but you see we had established that they were there. That's why head start came in. The day care center because people would say, well, we don't have poverty like New York. No, you don't have the population. Because you don't see a lot of black people and whole bunch of them on welfare, then you figure there's no poverty but there are more white people in the world and more white people own property than anything else. And the kids and the conditions and the house and then they would fight and they would go to jail, then I'd go to jail and get 'em out. When the kids were sick, that's when I cried. I really went home and I used to take it home to Mr. Henry would say, mumble, mumble, so I got so I wouldn't take it home to him anymore. Then you carry it with you. They would go to the hospital. Their kids had fallen down and got hurt or they had a stomach ache and they'd call me. Or something was wrong. Do you know they would go and sit in the emergency room and those nurses and doctors would pass them up. All because of the way they were 194 - - - ·- •H-- _._ - · --~· •-. -- ~ ..._ .. . !..__,. • - • ·· ----.-.- .....~ ----- --·-· ~---..-..1--. ---___ .._ -·-------··---.. --- --~ - ,..-, ~-"' ~ ~ ______ ,..,__ ""-- - ·--·- - ••·-- ....... - --- - ·- ~------------- --· --- ~ - ---- • _.I looking with their rags on or bandages or, you know, old floppy shoes. No stockings or a slip hanging. You looked the part. They were poor and they looked that poor so they'd let them sit there and the kids would be suffering. And when they didn't have no one else they'd finally get around to them. So I got so I said, don't any one go. If your child is sick, if you got to go to the dentist, you call me. I will take you or I'll meet you there. Then I got so I carried a stenographer pad and a pencil. When they took them in. I said, go on up there and register, stand up there and while you're standing up there, I'm standing beside you or sitting near. And sometimes I'd be doddlin'. I wouldn't write nothing down. They didn't know whether I came from the federal government, the same with the University, whether I was from, I couldn't have been from Utah. I had to be from somewhere else 'cause I didn't look like them but I'm writing something so I could be evaluating their business or theia hospital or their nursing thing. I could be doing it for, it wasn't Affirmative Action wasn't in then. But a discrimination. I could be doing it for a lot of reasons. They would take them people so fast. It worked every time. It was just knowing the little tricks that eventually they was going to look at you as you came by. Then you'd . get up and walk around and you'd look behind the desk a little bit and then like you was writing. I wasn't writing nothing. But I 195 -·--- - - - •"'-·- - ·4•·-·- ---- :·-· -~----~-.:.. ---··-·- ··...:__. __ -_, - ...,_ .. .....,__ ... ,;,:.. _________ _____ --~ . ..... _____ _ _ __.__ _ ____ .... _____ _____._. _ _ , ........ ____ 1_ - - . I..... ~ ... ¥- ~-- --- --- ----- ------- --4-- - -~ --- --· ..... - --~- · ~ · was letting them think that I was somebody that I really wasn't. So that they would give these people and if they went to welfare, oh, they'd treat them and tell them to go and they had to come back tomorrow and I'd say why? Here's the thing. It just says that you're open till six o'clock. Why are you telling them people. They would make them go all over town. That's why the poor folk, the system turn them off. It's not because they are poor. It's because of the treatment that they get. That's why I get tired and mad when a legislature woman talking about for a week she's going to be on wel­fare. And stay in her own home. In your own home you got soap. You got your comfortable bed. You've got de­tergents. You can wash in your own washer machine. Poor people don't have that. And they can't buy that. She didn't even use the welfare stamps so she don't know the insults that they get when they use them stamps. Oh, let's see. All of my money. They spending. People are very cruel to people. Never mind. You don't want to know all of that. L: Yes, I do. A: You do? It was heartbreaking. It's really and then all the sick kids and whenever they get sick they got to get off from the work and then they lose their job because you have to call them 'cause I can't take your child to emergency. Because the natural parents have to sign. L: What permission slip? A: You have to have that permission and I didn't have no 196 permission so the parents had to come and I could go with them but they, they just got this job. If you call up anymore, well, you can find yourself another job. There we are. Without a job. So I was put, and the reason that they had selected me and the records said I wasn't going to like it because I loved my job where I was at. I said I would never leave it. But they said, we've got to have somebody that relates, that knows where the resources are. And know how to go about getting them. But also relate to them that they'll trust. So that's why they moved me. And I was happy doing that because I had this and then I had that. The kids at night. L: But you got another look at Salt Lake, didn't you? A: A whole different look and to admit that. I always tell you good things but you gotta know that there was a bad thing. You always had to know the things that are not so nice. I would say, I don't know why them people can't get up and find a job. Jobs are easy and I don't know why they can't come and see about these pretty kids of theirs and I don't know why they can't come and help you do these things. Very critical like an established person is. Then I found out that because I had a husband who was working, who was paying all the bills and I could take my money and do whatever I wanted to do. I had a I mother and a father that raised me •. I had not had that experience. Nobody in my family ever went on welfare. What made me judge and jury. I meant, I wouldn't know and 197 after I got to seeing these people, you think about this. Here's a mother. She's got three and four and five kids. No man around. She making a little money. The best her money can do is maybe pay the rent but she can't pay the gas and water and telephone at the same time. if one of the kids and she can't keep a car at the same time. She don't make that kind of money so she got to decide which one of them bills after the rent. Which one she's going to pay. If her car broke down, there was no Mr. Henry or husband or anybody to fix that car. If the lights went out and the water heater blew and all of the things. There was only one person and here I was sitting up there juding her. I came out with a healthy respect for those single mothers that's trying to raise those children, doing the best that they can with meager re­sources. So I could always get on their side and feel . good about it because I knew what they were going through. That I didn't know before. The Lord, it looked like he just blessed me in whatever I wanted to do and I married. I had plenty of money. You know, wasn't rich but I had money to do whatever you wanted to do with it. So here I am judging people. Remember, before you judge them you ought to walk in their shoes for awhile. Or either get to know what they have to do to just survive and then when I'd get them a job or something and the welfare would say they had to cut their welfare or take it off of it. Or take their medical card away from them. Now, a job 198 that paid you minimum wages or that medical card so if your children got sick or the dentist, you know, that you could get them the kind of service, which would you take? L: The medical card. A: Amen. Then people would say they don't want to work. If they did say they'd work they would knock their wel­fare checks down, take what they had made and settle it and keep that as an incentive, they would knock the checks down and take out what they had made from that. So what was the use of working. I used to fight with a lot of them to go out. I don't want to be on welfare. I don't want you to be on welfare but you got to, not for you but for them kids. I want them kids to eat. And I want them to have all the shots and them to get their teeth fixed. We don't want tha~. Yes, we want that. I don't care about you. Don't you eat none of the food. But you go on welfare to make sure they're taken care of. How're you going to not eat some of it your­self. But they knew I was trying to make them see that they weren't the thing, that the kids were. Their kids were. L: So it opened your eyes, didn't it? A: Oh, did it? Yes, yes. And like I told somebody the other day, about the people on the street. They were talking about the prostitutes on the street there. And I said, just be careful what you say 'cause some of them 199 -··. ·-·- -· --·-· ·- - ---- - - ------·-~'-~_........ ...... are my friends. That's when I _got to meet them. They wasn't working. Some of them would get sick and they couldn't hit the street but they had these kids. Now, what happens to the kids? So the kids were eligible for day care. So therefore I got to know them. And some of them were much better than some of my highfalutin friends. They were always honest. They didn't try to hide the fact. And when I need help when I was selling tickets or something like thtt, they sold my tickets for the foundation when I needed to raise money. We was giving away a car. In fact, the man that won the car when we gave it away, came from down on 2nd South and he was one of the hustlers. On 2nd South. L: You mean one of the pimps? Or one of the what? A: The one that won, hustled on thh street. I don't think he was a pimp. He may have been trying to be one but I don't think so but he came in her club and she said I got one more ticket. Mrs. Henry gave me fifty and I got one more. Come over here and buy one. He said, I don't want to buy no ticket. She said, I didn't ask if you want to buy one. Come over here. Well, how much are they? They ain't but a dollar but you going to buy it 'cause I want to get through with them and turn the money over to Mrs. Henry. You know all the work she's doing. So he bought it and stuck it in his wallet but forgot all about it. And so when we sold the tickets we had the records, you know, of the names and we looked it up 200 and we called his house and his wife was there and she slammed the phone down on Roger Sandack. Ha, ha, ha. Thought it was a crank call. And so I called her the next day 'cause I knew here and I said he's won. I don't know nothing about it. I'll have to tell him to call you. And he called me. And do you know he'd for­got he'd bought the ticket. I said, you can't get the car unless you got the stub. Oh, no. Del said she sold that one to you. You wanted a ticket. And we checked it and it's one of them that you have. Oh, let me look in that wallet and he had it. He won that Ford car that we gave away that year. L: That's a crazy story. That's a funny story. A: That's the truth. Right down on 2nd South. She was selling them tickets and we made enough money ... SIDE 3 L: How did the Board of Education work its way into the picture? I understand, you told me a while back that at one time they went out to try to contact you. What was going on here in Utah at the time that the Board of Ed would want somebody? A: Do you remember the model city's programs? L: I remember them, yeah. A: Well, they had a model city's here and Ruth Yarborough, she always crops in and out of my life had come and said 201 ••¥ _ __ -- ~ ·-• - --·-"'· • -·- - ---.1••- •- ·-- ... • , ........ . - . ... ___ ....._. _ •·-•••••- ••• - - ... ••- ··--· - 0 - - -·--~-~ ------ · • " •• •' • • •_, __ , _______ .. ___ ......... - -•••• • - ---•-'•••• •••• __ _ ,_ _ ,. _ _ ,_ ,..__ .. __ ~.---- ---·- ---'-'- ---- you come into Model City because I need your help. I'm the only one over there and I'm going to try to get black folks to come out there because Model City's got some money. So I came out and Ruth was on one of the task forces. Housing or something but when I got there for some reason or other, 'cause I was at the day care center, they pulled me in on education. And I became the Chairman of the Education Task Force for Model City. To give out all those thousands and thousands of dollars that you were supposed to, the program. And I had one of the largest because I knew most of the people. The largest task force that they had so therefore we got the majority of the money. Right? And the volunteer program that we still had ... L: How did the program work? The Model City's program? A: They divided it up into economic development and housing, law enforcements, but when the money came in, the county would always rip off the top. They would want •.• L: Administration cuts or something? A: Well, they took that took but then they'd always want something like they wanted to have just some kind of airplanes, the helicopters that patrol. L: Oh, I see. A: And if we didn't agree to it then, you know, they'd give us a hard time so you gave them that and thbn the rest of the money you could divide up among your task forces. Or they would want, the computers one year. See I told Jake Garnthey were blackmailing us or they wanted these 202 squad. Oh, yes, I would tell them and they said, well, we're the elected officials. I said, well, I didn't know so and so. Well, you didn't have a right to know. You're not an elected official but I'd stand up and argue with them. Anyway, you know. But well, all be­cause they were wrong. Because they would do the things and they would always take off the biggest amount and Model City was in here to upgrade and help poor folks to have things in there. We don't hjve a monument left here that represents the Model City. Because of the way they took off the top of it. Well anyway. L: So the money, ideally, idealistically was geared for people that weren't involved in urban programs? A: Right. That these people would come together .•. L: That were left out. A: .•. in a certain area because it was for thh upgrading, the West side was the low area. To say what kind of things were needful in the ••. L: Needful for the WEst side to raise the ... A: Uh huh. To raise the standard of living of the people that weie there because it got the worst end of every­thing in this city here. Well, while I was in the edu­cation task force for the three years that they had the Model City's money, every year I . got to be Chairman again. The Board, naturally because it was education had a representative on my task force. And Dr. Darlene Bowe, who was at the board here, one of the assistant superintendents, she was on that task force and she got 203 . .... .... -----~ ~- .. ----·- ··- -- ·--··----.. - -.----- ---- . .. -- ·--- ----- -··-- - -··- ·-- to know me and the only reason I think because she knew me because most of the program were the education pro­grams and it's in Salt Lake City and this is Salt Lake City District. Right? But right at that time something happened at West High. In 1971. One of the teachers and is still over there, called the black kids niggers and some bad names. Teachers and them boys over there went to fight him and it was a race--we called it a little race riot at this time. L: Is that the one with Bernice Benns' kids? A: That was the one with Bernice Benns' kids. was one of them. L: What year was that? A: That was 1971. And it got hot and hbavy over thbre. And I didn't go out to it. Now, I was at the day care center and they tried to get me to go but I didn't go out there 'cause I said the parents want to do it their­selves and I'm smarter. But Jim Dooley went out. Went over there and tried to negotiate but Bernice and them said, we'd rather handle it ourselves. The parents wanted to handle it themselves. They didn't do nothing to the teacher. They had suspended him with pay. He got all of his back pay, retroactive and I said, oh, that's a crime. I didn't do anything about that. But theri th~ NAACP and Jim Dooley was the presiderit. He took a look at their Title I program, the money that come in for Title I, you had to be low income. Th~ district was taking 204 ..... ·---- ·-- -~ ..... ----·- . .__.. ..... --·· - ----- ----~ .. ... ..... ·-----·- --~ .... --·--·- ··- - - ·----"'X. _ _ .__ -- . - -· -· -· .. .,,._ ... _~ - - ....... .._..__ ~ ...._._. __________ _ the money and somehow other schools that didn't have a number of low income kids up on the East side was get­ting some of thb radios and the sets and the things and the money wasn't just spent on just in certain schools. They didn't have it. And they didn't have a parent ad­visory board so the NAACP rode in on that with the His­panics and they were after and then the Hispanics went after Darlene Bowe. But the blacks did not go after Darlene Bowe. They said it was the system. They didn't attack her. The Hispanic went on thb radio and tele­vision, we want her fired. Well, the blacks wouldn't do it. And J.B. Stewart who was the education chairman de­cided to do a survey of the blacks and what they felt about education and that's the only need study that they did for a long time until I did one about four years, three years ago. And that black study showed that blacks said that their kids were not getting an education. That the schools were discriminating. That the teachers were Mormons and racists and biased and, I mean, it showed a whole lot of things. In other words, for the board to see so the board set up a advisory board and they named a lot of us, asked us to come up to the advisory board. And we came up and I don't know who it was, it was a spokesman for the . group and says, you know, you pick us, the black community didn't pick us and you picked us just so that we could be tokens and we're not going to stand for it so we dissolved the advisory board. Then 205 -- -----~-..;... - _ ........... _ ~ -· --- - ---~--· ..... ~----~.- -•- - --- -"-~ ___ ... .....,.. . ·--- · .. --- ·-.. ----·-·----................. ...... ____ _.__........._ ...... ........ -~-- ~- ----~- -~ -· --- they hired a white man and he came to the NAACP down at Central City and said, I'm the ornbudsman for you blacks. The minorities. So what is that are your gripes about the board so I can take it back to the board. Now, he had come down to us and he was going to come back and interrupt what we said to the Board of Education and so we in the NAACP let him know we don't need no inter­preter. You can't tell them what we want to tell them. You would tell them what you to tell them. But you can't say it the way we say it so we don't want you so we just wouldn't support him. And then I was still at the day care center. I got a letter in the mail, but they had already hired me about three weeks before that. They had had a meeting like the meeting tonight I'm going to. The board meet and they say we need something 'cause the black students and these things are happening and this here sur­vey shows that they're not getting the education and the black community is going to do something bad. You know. Because we're not educating them. We need somebody that will represent them 'cause they had an Hispanic man, Joe Sandavol. He's been on the board two years. But they didn't have nobody to represent the blacks. And so Darlene Bowe told them about me and they said we should hire her. Send her a letter and they moved and seconded that they hire Alberta Henry to be the minority consultant for the blacks. And somebody was to tell me. And they called every day. They never.could get me because as a parent 206 ,\ --- •• __________ ._ ___ __ • ___ ~ --------~ ...... . _ -- _____ ..,1 __ _ ... ______ _ _ _ _ .._ __ ~-- - -----~--- - -------- ~· -~-- ------·~ - ·--- - ~------ -----· - ··-· '- - - - ---·-~--- ---·-----'- -·· -"--- ----· ~-·- ·.~: coordinator I wasn't at day care. They didn't leave a number or say call back 'cause I didn't come in until the evening when I come in. I went to the rooms with the kids. So for three weeks they tried to find me and they could never catch up with me on the phone so they sent a letter and aid the board had hired me and they would like to know if I would accept the position. Then I had to go into prayer again and say, Lord is it time? I don't want to leave the day care. That was my love. And I cried and Mr. Henry said, don't cry and storm. You know you're going to take it. I don't know about that. And then like the spirit says, yes, you'll have more kids to work with in your job. What your job is to help kids get an education. It goes along with the Foundation. That you already have. So I came up and signed the papers. I never did apply for the job. I signed the papers. I sit down and talked to Assistant Superintendent and I said, let's get this straight. You are hiring me. I'll come. I'll stay five years, but let me tell you now I smoke. Let me tell you now, I want to be able to talk to people. I want to be able to . go in the schools and talk in my language, not in yours. If you're not going to put words in my mouth. I got a chance to say how I would take this job. And they ap­proved to those methods. They didn't understand what I meant 'cause I was going to threaten every once in a while. You know. I had to but ... 207 - --- ---- ·- --~·~-·' ___ ____ .,.,. _______ , . .___ - -··- ·- .... -. ----· - --· _ .. .... .,., _..,___ -~-- - . --· .--- - ___ _,_.._ .... _. -~- - - - --~-·~- · · - _.,._ . . ......... ........ --- -- - - - · .....J·+ ~ .. - .~·.. . L~G': L: What was the meeting like with those people? What did they want from you? What did you understand they wanted? A: They said and they showed me some records and that black kids were dropping out of school. They wasn't graduat­ing. And their grade point average was poor. Only a few of them got any kind of decent grade points. You know and then they were getting so much kick about Title I. That they needed input into that and into different committees that they had here. I had a job description that was two page long. Like this and it had about forty things on it that I was supposed to do. And for three years I worked under that and done all those things that they had. Dr. Thomas come and took one look at it and said, this is asinine. You're going to kill her. But I didn't think so. I just went day and night, day and night. Any time, anything come out, I represented the black. If they had trouble in school, I was out there. L: What were the kinds of things people would call you for? When you started? A: Some of the same, not the same kind of things like nowa­days. They got sophisticated. They know the law. They did not know what the Board of Education's rules and reg­ulations was. What were the guidelines in the school. L: What would be a typical call. Somebody would make to you? A: Back in those days the kids had been suspended from 208 __ .......... _ .... _ .. __ • _ _, _ , _ ____ _____ _ ._ • •• --~ ....... - ~. - ·-., .... --· -·-· ·-- -·-.. - --~--- -·- --- ---- - --· · · --.... ·~~-- - ------ - ~-- ·- - -· - • • ·-- -· · - -. • ..... ~---·-- - · -·- - · -· • .:r......11 .......... , _~,· - · - school for a whole week and all the white kids had jumped on them and when he jumped on them or when he tried to fight and his brothers and sisters came, they kids got expelled from school but the white kids didn't. Yet all of them were fighting. And one of them was a little boy, I can remember this so good. Every day he went to school, two little Japanese kids and one little white girl would beat on him. And he would do like this and cower and all the teachers and principal saw that and he never did anything and every day he came home and his mother would say, I want to tell you, this is the last time you come home beat up today. Every time you come home beat up, you don't let nobody, whether they're girls or boys beat upon you. Do you hear me? 'Cause you going to get beat twice today. If they beat you, I'm going to beat you. Every day you come home. The next day he went back and the little girl went around until they found him and started beating up and he started hitting them back. The minute he hit them back th~n they called them in and called the mother. And said, he was suspended. I guess the kid was in about the second grade at that time. And the mother called me, Mrs. Henry, downstairs in my office and they suspended him and th:em kids been beating on him for weeks and they didn't do that. Come on. Beat the kid. Shall we call them? No. I'll meet you over there. I'll wait outside for you. I'm closer than you are. And they came and we 209 .-_ • .._. _ . ., ·- . • - ··- .• -· · ••. ··· -· .. :.: ·- -~· .... --..:...~--~-~-- -~' ~ .....;:_...;--.i--·. walked in there. Well, you know, Mrs. Henry, they · thought I was an aide here for a long time. That I wasn't supposed to come in there and challenge 'em. I would just come out and ascertain what was right, what was wrong and come back and tell somebody here and they would smooth it over. L: So you do a little whitewash they thought. Kind of. A: Well, that's what they thought but when I came out and sit down here like I owned the whole world now. Whot did you mean? Where is everybody that was fighting? Well, you know. I said, didn't you see him every day? Well, not every day. I said, didn't your teachers tell you th~ those girls were--oh, they were just playing. You know, just like--! said, didn't they tell you they was hitting on him? Didn't he come in here and tell you? Yes. And you did nothing about it? But you undersfand, Mrs. Henry, well, you know what. Gentlemen don't fight girls. I said, who in the hell said we was a gentleman. You know what gentleman is to us black folks? Gentleman is a slave driver. With a whip. We're not gentlemen. If they, them little gials, their parents ought to tell them to keep their hands to theirselves. If they don't want to be hit then don't hit him. Now, if he suspended, they better be suspended too. Otherwise, he stays right in this school. That was real bad. Well, I do the same thing now but I learned how to talk. See, I alienate them first because I talk like I knew and 210 -.,. __ -- ·- __ .. ...., ___,_ --,__._,._,__•_ ..,..__. _,._. __._ _ ,......,._ -' ·--~• . ____ --·-----·- ,.w- -------·--.:.~ --·- •., .._ ,. - -· ---- -.-.... ~ ~--- -~----- --- ,_.,.,.~_ .., ,,,__,• -~-~---- -••- • - ·. .•. . .. ___ _· . . ----- ~· -·--~~. ··this is the boom, boom, boom and they resented it. L: You laid down the law to them so to speak. A: Oh, I did. I laid the law down. Before it started. What else do you need? Got to go. Did you hear me? I heard them clapping. L: I heard them. A: They're giving somethi~g to somebody. L: Well, I remember you spoke once very briefly. And you were describing what it was like when you started work­ing here and I wonder if you could describe that again. When you first got the job here and you got into your office and you said you were running around to introduce yourself to people. A: It was like, you know, like it's something different. They've never had a black that had an office in any of education buildings in the whole state. They didn't have an administrators that were black. We should have her. You know, she's the one the University give that honorary degree to last year. Oh, she isn't. She's the one that boom, boom. She's the one, yeah. But they didn't know me so they would hymph and walk past. And I felt that if I were going to work here that I had to know people and I had to work with people who would be glad to know me. Now, how do you go about knowing people and getting them to know you. So I said, okay, if they won't come to me, then I'll go to them. And so I would go down the hall. I didn't want nothing. I'd 211 ~----·-----·_.._-. -- ---~----- ..... ~--·- .. - __ ...__ -- - ~ .... -- ·--·- ..... - . ·_. ~ . just be wandering the building and I'd . go by a door and I'd stop and stick my head in there and say; hello, how are you? Not hello. But hello, how are you? What you got to say, you have to say fine or nothing, okay, but you have to say how are you back. Right? · Because that's white people's custom. That's not black people custom. But it's white people's custom and the minute they said fine, how are you. No, scared, what else? Wonderful, beautiful and I'd be half gone down the, just gorgeous. And right today and that's twelve years ago, going on twelve years that people say, why is she so wonderful? If I was sick they would never know it because I'd go down the halls saying, good morning, Alberta. Wonderful, beautiful. God's in the heaven and all's right with the world. And then after I kept doing that and the months passed and they got to wondering why is she so wonderful. Why is she always happy? She must know some­thing. We're not happy 'cause some day we're mad, 'cause we don't feel good. But she feel good every day. So that meant that they're going to have to come to me and ask me why am I happy all the time or why do I feel good. And that's the way they would start coming and I would have to wait till they come and whatever the mood or the spirit was I would say, oh, I'm telling you honey, God's in his heaven. You know, everything's beautiful. Or something would come up and I would just say it, you know. And then they would ask me about the honorary degree and 212 '....... -·- -·· #- · -·----·---- ..- , - - - ·-- ·-- -- - - .... -. ·-- __ .., ·--·- - --- · --- --- - · •• - - - --~ -------- - -"" · "" - - · - ·--- --·- ------- - - ..._ __ _ ---- - · - --- - - --~ ..... --· .... -~-- .. - • - ·-·· -· -·· _ ______ ..._ __ .. _ _ ______ ,.. . · - - · - • ,_,. • , ·-- I would say, I don't know what it was. When they called, I was getting ready. I was mad at Jordan School and I was going over there to the kids and if they didn't act right. I was at head start now. As a parent coor­dinator but the parents had kids in all the other schools. In junior high school and elementary schools and so it was something happened to their kid at school, I got it as a parent coordinator even though I wasn't with the school district. Do you understand how it's been for us? If a parent had a child in that day care and had another kid in another school and another one in junior high school. If anything happened to them, as parent coor­dinator, they were going to tell me about it. And I'd go and see about it. So I was well known in the schools. I walk in there like I had all the authority and I didn't even work for the school district. But I was going in there as a parent coordinator and when you said federal government to these people out here, they get paranoid. You know, they get real paranoid about it. What's the federal government doing investigating. Oh, what they, you know. Like something's wrong. So, nothing would ever happen that I didn't want to know whether it was in school, wht it h,d to do with the work force or whether someone got put out of their house or culdn't get a house. A lot of times they'd tell 'em it wasn't for rent and I'd go walking in and sayd, what do you mean, it ain't for rent? It's still. Okay, I'll be back every day and I'm going 213 to look and if that there house is still renting then I'm going to have to send back to Washington. I don't know where in Washington. I really didn't have no, I didn't have no contacts in Washington but they didn't know I didn't have no contacts in Washington. But just saying the word, if you said the word, you knew they were going to get paranoid. L: Sounds like you were the new sheriff. A: No, but to me it was a game. That you played and you saw hsw people would react. L: I understand. What was it about the Board of Ed and the whites that you dealt with here. What did they know about black people here in Salt Lake? A: Nothing but that was my job, to teach them. So that's why I went about doing that. L: How did you teach them? How do you teach somebody something like that? A: It's easy over here, up here because usually the same people are here year after year after year and everything, every opportunity that came up. Like if someone was telling a dirty joke and they told it but you know that if you hadn't of been there, it would rove been a nigger. If three guys were in the pool or fishing and one was a Jew and one was an Italian and one was a Polish. You know that they had changed the names on there because, all because you were there. And I refused. I said, I don't want to hear because lo but by the grace of God 214 - • - ........_ _ ___. . • ~ - ··-- .._ . .... . .._ ..... ~ - -- · - - - - ------ ·----~ ,.-.-, · ··-----.. ~ . ........ ~-- - - , - _ # _____ .......... "'-- -~ · - ,._.._ .. · - - .... - - •• ~ >-~.... - .. ---- - - ..... - _..,...·-~ ·-- ...,. - ~- __ ....,. ____ . . ... _.._---- ·----- ---~-- --Lo-.-.... if I hadn't been standing here you would have said nigger. Oh, no, Mrs. Henry, we don't be like that. Oh; yes, you would. So I don't listen to no jokes about any ethnic . group. Lesson No. 1, you don't always do it for blacks. You do it for all of them. Whatever you do. Or if some­one will say, what do you people want? Then that would be weeks and weeks of lessons. Why, are you people. Those people, what are those people? Why aren't we just people. Why do we have to'be those people? You see. I mean, let's them. Well, we didn't mean nothing by that but if ywu keep saying it you're separating people. You didn't say it about the white. There was a group of white people. You said they were a group of white people over there and then there were some others in the meet­ing. Those people were over there. I said, just the way you say it, you know. Or some of them would get very mad but then they would start learning that we can't say that. Or if they make a woman joke. You know. This woman and you know you just love her in the morning, you know, and then the man said, you know, that's sexist. That's harder to break than the ethnics. Is the sexist because they're used to doing that. And women hiven't said anything. About it so I don't allow sexist jokes and you won't hbar them if I'm sitting in any meeting. You won't hear them say anything like th,t. That's been years. Everytime they'd say something I'd be sitting down and the fellow's telling a joke, be careful. Make sure it's not a sexist 215 ---- ._ __ ._. __.. ........ -~- ... ..... -----·- ------ - ···---.....-.L- _.- ..... ~ -.. .--- -- - -----~ ·---------·,.~----· _.... ___ ........ -.. - - -.. ·-· - - ·--·- ----- -- -- -·-· ··- -- - ·--· - --~- .... ---·-··-·· ---·-- or racist joke. Oh, no, it's not that. I better leave that alone. And I'd raise my head up. Uh huh, I guess you'd better. Then if you say it and I don't say any­thing they would say, Alberta, aren't going to get him. Do you hear, Alberta? Aren't you going to--they're ex­pecting. Do you see whit I mean? It's like a training thing and eleven years is a long time. Over and over and over again. Always, my ears are always popped up. I can look like I'm asleep and somebody will say something. And I said, I didn't hear that? I don't think you want to repeat it again, do you? And everybody will fall out laughing and they say, ha, ha, ha. Well, what I meant was. And then I'd change it. But they won't say it again. Just the little thwngs you do. I'm sorry. Didn't we get through? L: I think we got through. A: You got enough. L: One more thing though. I have to ask you to sign this to give me permission to use it. A: Oh, gosh, yeah. You don't think I went through all of this not to. L: Better read that so you'll know what .•. Have things changed? After all this time here? A: Yes, but .•. L: What do you think of it today? A: I don't even have to--pictures. You went down the hall. You saw when you come in a picture of a black woman right 216 · - H - - - -&'"'-·- ~- •.-~ . - -- -.~.. - -,-·,. ....... - • , ~ ~·"' ., ........ ._~-~- ~ ..... ~ ~~-- - .. , ________ ..__ ___ . ·---- --- ----'----~- - ·--···-- • --------- ----- - -- -- -- - '"""--~~--....... --- ... --••• .. --·- -~------ __,.- - --· ·----·--- ·- - _ .... - by the souvenir and the store. I did not serve on that committee. And I didn't put it there. The committtee that served on that was all white. That's after I had been here nine and a half years. They selected that one. Books and stuff that come out in this district. They're not going to be all white because if they come in here, they may have to take them apart. And they may lose a lot of money. So it's up to them to go through it and see that it represents an ethnic group of anything that come out of this thing here. I don't have to serve on the committee anymore. I used to serve on the committee. Every committee. I don't do that anymore. There's somebody on there that knows that they better do that. If you don't you know what Mrs. Henry said. Mrs. Henry said so and so and so and they're going to do it. That's why it's changed but if you, now that Regan's in, if you watch the conservative move coming in, all of a sudden you have to be real careful because they start regressing. L: Some of the old racist stuff coming back slowly? A: Yes, unless they bring somebody new up here, you know. Well, because people do die. People do leave. You know. Or go out of town. People get sick. People retire when they old. Then you get a new person up here that don't know all of this and they want to be jolly, jolly with him and they start back there again. Then you start all over again. The same thing. That's why I said, the job is never ending. You say you've done a good job. You've 217 • - · - · · -- --· -·· ____ ..,___ _ ___ _ _ _ _ ..... . --- ·- - ·~ -· __ ... _ , · ·-·- ____ ........... _ __ .A...-. ... -·-..... -- ----- - - - ·-- ----~ ·.._ _ _ __ •• ..... -~ ------~-- ~-~- ·-·-- ... - - --~ - ---- _____ .. _ __ _ _ ____ --- - - ----- - - ----. _ .,._ _ _ _ .___,__ _ _ done your job and you really never get through because there's always people and what made the job easy was, I came on in '72, Dr. Thomas. They hired him in '73 and he's not from the predominant culture here. You know. They hired him from out of the state and it was him that brought all these new innovative ideas and I could go to him and say, this is what I want to do. And he'd let me do them. And he worked with you and everytime I gave a workshop he'd give a--he loved them. He would be in the workshop . . He would be a participant in that workshop. A black culture workshop. L: He was great. A: Yes, and so he would put things in--right now we have a management goal that was a goal to integrate the contri­bution of minorities and women into the mainstream curric­culum. No other district has that. And from the top, the board has voted that you do that so they have to do that. That's why the calendars, that's why the books, that's why the multi-cultural programs, that's why Martin Luther King, You have to celebrate it, regardless what day it is, you got to do something to celebrate it within the school. L: Yes. So it's a mixed bag, really. This man whw first came in that helped you but you feel they're sliding back now. A: Well, I think, because the money-