Oral History Interview with Constance Ellison

BETSY BRINSON: This is an interview with Constance Ellison in her home in Benham, Kentucky, the interviewer is Betsy Brinson, and today is March 23, 1999.

BRINSON: Thank you, Miss Ellison, for talking with me today. I think we, we should best begin actually by going back and talking a little bit about your early history, your personal history, your, some of your family, your education. Uh, about when and where were you born?

CONSTANCE ELLISON: In Brunswick, Georgia.

BRINSON: In Brunswick, Georgia? And when was that? What was your birth date?

ELLISON: I can’t—I don’t care to tell you. [laughing]

BRINSON: You don’t want to tell me that?

ELLISON: No.

BRINSON: Okay. You want to give me a hint?

ELLISON: But I’m old. [laughing]

BRINSON: You’re old? [laughter] Well, you don’t look that old but uh, would that have been in the thirties?

ELLISON: No.

BRINSON: Before the thirties?

ELLISON: Twenties.

BRINSON: The twenties? Okay. Okay, that, that’s helpful.

ELLISON: Close enough.

BRINSON: Okay. Uh, tell me about your family.

ELLISON: Oh, I had a lovely family. My mother and dad were married for fifty-two years before she died and so we were very—I say normal; it was normal to me. Uh, middle class.

BRINSON: Did you have any brothers and sisters?

ELLISON: I have two sisters. That’s one of them you met. The other one lives in Chicago.

BRINSON: And did you have any brothers?

ELLISON: No.

BRINSON: So all girls in your family?

ELLISON: Just girls. I had one sister to die at twenty, thirty I think she was, so . . .

BRINSON: Um, did you grow up in Brunswick, Georgia?

ELLISON: Yes, I did. I stayed there until I graduated from high school and then my parents continued to live there so I was back and forth, back and forth during college and then during my work here.

BRINSON: How did your family make their living while you were growing up?

ELLISON: My father was a, a government worker for the U.S. Post Office. Mail carrier.

BRINSON: In Brunswick?

ELLISON: Uh-huh, in Brunswick.

BRINSON: Did your mother work outside the home?

ELLISON: My mother never worked.

BRINSON: She just worked in the home?

ELLISON: In the home, yes.

BRINSON: Okay. And when you graduated from high school, what year would that have been? You don’t want to tell me? Okay. Uh, what happened then? You went off to college . . .

ELLISON: Yes.

BRINSON: . . . but where?

ELLISON: At Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.

BRINSON: Okay.

ELLISON: And the reason I went to Tuskegee, I had an aunt who lived there and she and her husband had been, uh, pioneers in the formation of this college, Tuskegee Institute. And I stayed with her and the reason this all came about, my oldest sister, who died, was already in college at Spelman in Atlanta. And when I graduated, we were going to have a year where two people were in college which was going to be financially hard on my parents. So this aunt, who was a sister to my mother, suggested that I come to Tuskegee to stay with her and I did.

BRINSON: Um, were you and your sister the first to go to college in your family?

ELLISON: I had one sister who graduated from Talladega College in Alabama and then the second sister was at Spelman, the one who died.

BRINSON: How about either of your parents? Did they attend college at all?

ELLISON: No, no. They were high school.

BRINSON: So the girls were really the first in the family who went on to college?

ELLISON: Yes, but we knew all the while we were growing up we were to go to college when we got out of high school. It was just an understood thing.

BRINSON: Right. That’s the way it was in my family, too.

ELLISON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Were you in college before World War II or after World War II?

ELLISON: I was—during World War II.

BRINSON: During World War—okay, that just helps me kind of. . . . Uh, and what, what did you study?

ELLISON: Home economics.

BRINSON: Did you really?

ELLISON: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: So that was your major?

ELLISON: That was my major.

BRINSON: And what happened when you graduated from college?

ELLISON: When I graduated from college, I—I hate to make a long story, I mean a short story long but, uh—my mother became ill that summer and she had surgery. And at the time my job offers came through the college, I had to let them go cause I was tending to her. And they—my parents had just decided that I should stay at home and tend to my mother that year instead of working. So, uh, this job offer for the Kentucky came very late, like October, and my uncle at Tuskegee was still associated with the school. And he called and asked my parents to let me take this job because, you know, he knew that the year had started, the school year had started and I wasn’t working. So, uh, they were reluctant but I told them I wanted to go. By then my mother was better and, uh, I said, “Oh, I never have been to Kentucky. I like to go places I haven’t been.” I wanted to go so they consented and that’s how I came here.

BRINSON: How, how far is Benham, Kentucky from Brunswick, Georgia?

ELLISON: Uh . . .

BRINSON: How do you get back and forth?

ELLISON: . . . over 700 miles.

BRINSON: And so when you made that first trip, how did you come?

ELLISON: By train.

BRINSON: By train. By yourself?

ELLISON: Yes.

BRINSON: That’s pretty brave.

ELLISON: Yeah, and I was about a hundred pounds. [laughing]

BRINSON: Did you know anything about eastern Kentucky at that point?

ELLISON: Nothing. Nothing. Only thing, my parents would see this little comic strip in the paper and it had these long, lanky hillbilly people with these tall hats and one would be lounging under the tree and so on and they kidded me that, ‘Oh, now you don’t want to go there and teach because those big, old men are going to be larger than you in your class and you going. . . .’ You know, I’d be intimated, they thought. But I, we laughed and I came on.

BRINSON: Did anybody in your family or your friends try and discourage you from coming here?

ELLISON: Not really, no.

BRINSON: That’s good. Tell me about your first job here.

ELLISON: Oh, it was meant to be. I--when the train rolled in and I got off, I didn’t know what I was going to do; but the principal had sent this little class—they were small classes—and I guess it might have been about ten little girls were there. And they asked some lady first was she a teacher and she said, “No.” And then they said that Mr. Matthews, that was his name, had sent them to meet the teacher. And so I just fell in love with them immediately. These people have a charm that is, I mean, it’s really unexplainable. I, uh--these children were so sweet and they took me to the high school, which wasn’t far. You went to the museum and the railroad station used to be right down there where the park is.

BRINSON: Okay.

ELLISON: Well, from the museum and, uh . . .

BRINSON: And the school now was . . .?

ELLISON: The school was over--it’s a brick building over—you could have seen it, but you didn’t know to look.

BRINSON: Uh-huh. Is the building still there?

ELLISON: Yes.

BRINSON: Is it still . . .?

ELLISON: It wasn’t the building that I came here in. This was a smaller building but in the same spot.

BRINSON: Okay.

ELLISON: And, uh, they took me to this little building and I met the principal and he told me where I would live and--which was right down the street from the school with two other single teachers.

BRINSON: That’s nice. Like, kind of like a—they had a, a facility here for teachers already or . . .?

ELLISON: It was just a little two-room house really. But, uh, they were already there and—I guess they had gotten a cot for me, I don’t know. [laughing] That’s the way we lived.

BRINSON: And what were you teaching when you first started here?

ELLISON: I started off teaching home economics and, uh, science, general science.

BRINSON: Okay. And this was an all-black school?

ELLISON: Right.

BRINSON: Tell me about, uh, tell me about Benham at that period. Were we talking about right after World War II?

ELLISON: During. It was still during.

BRINSON: The war was going on?

ELLISON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: What was the town like at that point? Were there a lot of people here then?

ELLISON: Well, a lot compared to what’s here now.

BRINSON: Right.

ELLISON: And, uh, there were houses up the side of that hill you see up there. It’s bare now, but there were houses on each side. There were houses on up above that church up there. And there were houses over in this direction on what they call Smokey Road; it was an expression.

BRINSON: And they’ve all been torn down?

ELLISON: Oh, yes. Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: The big industry is coal mining, right?

ELLISON: Yes.

BRINSON: And I would guess during the war they were doing a lot of coal mining?

ELLISON: Right.

BRINSON: Benham, as I understand it, is sort of a unique community because of the large number of both black and white miners and their families . . .

ELLISON: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: . . . that existed here?

ELLISON: That what?

BRINSON: Was that true during the first days that you came here?

ELLISON: Yes, yes.

BRINSON: Okay. Was there any other big business in town?

ELLISON: No.

BRINSON: No? Okay.

ELLISON: No other employer, not anywhere around here except, you know, the store. What’s the museum now used to be the big general store.

BRINSON: Was that owned by the coal company?

ELLISON: Everything was owned by the coal company.

BRINSON: What was the coal company name?

ELLISON: This was, uh, International Harvester, U.S. Steel.

BRINSON: Oh, I saw a sign out there . . .

ELLISON: Not U.S. Steel, Wisconsin Steel.

BRINSON: . . . that said something about Benham, the town that was created by International Harvester.

ELLISON: International Harvester owned the houses; they owned the store; they owned everything. They were tied up in the school.

BRINSON: Did they own the black school?

ELLISON: Yes.

BRINSON: They did?

ELLISON: Yes, they built it.

BRINSON: And what was the name of the school?

ELLISON: At that time, it was just Benham High School.

BRINSON: Okay.

ELLISON: And then there was a white Benham High School where the inn is now.

BRINSON: Right.

ELLISON: But, uh, as the years went on, I guess we had to get another name so we started being called East Benham High School.

BRINSON: Okay. How—so and it was just the high school so there must have also been an elementary school somewhere.

ELLISON: Oh, all of it was there. It was all there.

BRINSON: Okay. And just approximately how many students were there?

ELLISON: Hmm. When I came, I couldn’t tell you. I really couldn’t.

BRINSON: What about--how many teachers?

ELLISON: I would say around twelve.

BRINSON: Okay. You remember how many students in your classes then?

ELLISON: Yeah. Classes ran around twelve, fifteen . . .

BRINSON: That’s a nice size.

ELLISON: Uh-hmm. Ideal.

BRINSON: Some, some schools over in this area--I know, uh, down, for example, in Harlan they were telling me—Miss, Miss Johnson was telling me at one point the few years she was teaching that she had like forty-two students in . . .

ELLISON: Yeah, well that probably was a primary grade.

BRINSON: It was.

ELLISON: Theirs ran larger numbers. Uh, in high school it would have thinned out and, uh, the classes, I would say, ran around twenty-some; but by me having just girls at that time, see that would be around, around twelve or fifteen.

BRINSON: So you were teaching home ec and general science?

ELLISON: Yes.

BRINSON: Were there boys in the general science?

ELLISON: No.

BRINSON: All girls.

ELLISON: See, the general science was supposed to be a related course to the home ec. In other words, I was teaching a science that tied in with home ec.

BRINSON: Okay.

ELLISON: And the boys had to take it somewhere else, at that time. Eventually I had all- boys classes, one or two. Before, you know--we finally educated them to the fact that home ec was necessary for boys as well as girls but it took time.

BRINSON: Yes.

ELLISON: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Tell me what race relations were like in the early years that you came, when you first came here.

ELLISON: Well, to talk about race relations I must explain to you that my family was sort of unique in the fact that . . . um, maybe we might but—we just always mixed even in the Deep South where I grew up. Uh, Brunswick is a little town that is adjacent to the Golden Isles—I don’t know whether you’ve ever heard of it or not. . . .

BRINSON: I’m not sure.

ELLISON: There’s a Sea Island, St. Simon’s, a Jekyll Island . . .

BRINSON: Right.

ELLISON: . . . that are right off from home. One of them didn’t have a road to it at that time when I grew up, so we had to go by boat. But Jekyll Island was owned by millionaires, you know. The names that you know of as the millionaires of that day owned it and the Cranes and Rockefellers and all had their homes over there and that was their island. They had people who went from my home, from Brunswick to Jekyll to work but in the, like in the summer they wouldn’t be there. Their homes stood over there and I remember one summer, one of my mother’s friends had worked over there and had relatives that lived over there that kept the island; and we’d spend the summer over there. We played on their porches some [laughing], you know, and rode bicycles, and it was just delightful. But now it’s a state-owned place and anybody can go there and enjoy it. But I’m saying all that to say we grew up in an atmosphere that was not as segregated as some of the other places because of, I guess, the islands and the people who came from the north to, to enjoy them. And the black people who worked over there generally were sort of included in their, you know, they didn’t have the hang-ups those people in the South had. So, uh, it was a little different and the whole place was a little different because—now my daddy worked at the post office but his mail routes were mainly white. I don’t ever remember him being in a black area, the places he carried his mail. So he would carry us to their house—he’d talk about his children, you know, when you carry the mail; and they’d want to see us and he’d carry us to their house. And, and my block was right--over here lived white and mother of that woman and, uh, then next house—I mean, that’s, although they’re segregated now, I mean, they were at one time—at that time, when we grew up, my block was mainly white. So that’s who I played with and that’s who—I don’t mean that’s all we visited, but, uh, we had a lot of relationships. My dad had a lot of friends and so when I came here, uh, it was just fine. I mean, we had no relationship with the whites but the men did. See, they worked together in the mine and they had to depend on each other for safety and things like that so they were always friendly. So it continued. And, uh, then I married here.

BRINSON: Hold, hold just a minute. I want to ask you that. [chuckle—Ellison] So the schools were segregated here?

ELLISON: Yes.

BRINSON: Were the neighborhoods here?

ELLISON: Yes. Segregated.

BRINSON: So there was a black neighborhood . . .

ELLISON: All this is the black section, see, you’re in now.

BRINSON: Okay.

ELLISON: Okay, when you left that bridge, everything this way is black till you get to the next line. And everything the other way is white. And it’s still that way.

BRINSON: Were there things like restaurants or soda fountains or—was there a movie?

ELLISON: Yeah.

BRINSON: And were they segregated?

ELLISON: Yes.

BRINSON: They were. So blacks were not allowed to sit down at the soda fountain?

ELLISON: No.

BRINSON: Uh, what about going to the movies?

ELLISON: Yeah, they had a roost, we called it, the upstairs where you could go—I don’t think I ever went to a movie there, but I have been in there.

BRINSON: Okay.

ELLISON: And that’s where--I knew where the children--the children would go and attend movies when it was operating.

BRINSON: That was a period when we had a, a fair amount of racial violence and what—do you ever recall any of that?

ELLISON: Uh-uh. No, we had none of that.

BRINSON: Was there ever any Klan activity in this area?

ELLISON: No. Uh-uh. What we had to compare to that was the union organizers. See, we were in the middle so to speak. This was a mine that was sort of isolated because the one up there in Lynch was U.S. Steel; this was Wisconsin Steel, I think they called what International Harvester was part of. And so this little mine belonged to the PMW, Progressive Mine Workers, and they belonged to the United Mine Workers, John L. Lewis’, the big organization. This was a little mine but they had in their contract that whatever they got, these miners would get. So when they would strike, these wouldn’t strike because they had no reason to strike. Whatever they got in wage increases, they were going to get anyway so that—it was killings over there.

BRINSON: Right.

ELLISON: They would come from all around, all the other mines—well, you haven’t—they would get this little place and they would come in; they were going to stop them from working. And I, I wasn’t here when the big bloodbath occurred, but there was one. But I was here when several other smaller ones after that and the last one ended in the death of some men right there at the hospital, what was the hospital across from the museum.

BRINSON: Okay. So . . .

ELLISON: And we’d have to move out and go to somebody’s house and stay when it got, you know, they knew they were coming. These are brothers that live in Lynch and Benham and they going to tell you, “Well, they coming to get you all. Stop you from work tomorrow.” And so my husband would have to go and help guard. They would get on top of buildings and so on, wait on them. And he would take me to somebody’s house, you know, friend’s house.

BRINSON: For your protection.

ELLISON: Yes.

BRINSON: Tell me about your husband. You got married here.

ELLISON: He was a lot older than I was but a very gentle, kind man.

BRINSON: How did you meet him?

ELLISON: I think in going to different organizations that were meeting at the time, like NAACP and Parent Teachers Organizations and he was in everything. And I think that’s where I met him.

BRINSON: And he was single. Was he single at the time?

ELLISON: He’d been married.

BRINSON: He’d been married.

ELLISON: Yeah.

BRINSON: Okay. And it just worked for the time. . . .

ELLISON: Yeah. Yeah.

BRINSON: What was his name?

ELLISON: Otis Ellison.

BRINSON: And I take it he’s not living any longer.

ELLISON: No, he died four years ago.

BRINSON: Okay. So, uh, there was an NAACP here?

ELLISON: Yes.

BRINSON: Do you know how old, how long there’s been an NAACP here, when it first started?

ELLISON: No, I wasn’t here then. It was already here when I came.

BRINSON: Okay. Can you tell me a little bit about it, the chapter? For example, in—tell me about—how many members do you think there were?

ELLISON: I have no idea because, really, I attended a few meetings; but the meetings didn’t reflect the membership because they would go out and get people who didn’t come to meetings. People don’t like to attend meetings around here.

BRINSON: Okay.

ELLISON: It’s still that way.

BRINSON: Right. In some other NAACP chapters, during the forties and the fifties they raised money to send to the national office to help pay for the lawsuits. Did—was that a project here?

ELLISON: I don’t remember. If they did, you know, it was probably donations were sought and they sent it quietly.

BRINSON: Was there a youth NAACP?

ELLISON: Not that I remember.

BRINSON: Did—were there ever educational programs?

ELLISON: Not with this one. I really don’t—I don’t really think they were that large a group.

BRINSON: In the forties, would you have any idea—and the fifties—would you have any idea how many people lived in Benham at that point in time?

ELLISON: No, I would imagine. . . .

BRINSON: Can get that.

ELLISON: At the museum, yeah. They have records of the number of workers and the number of, probably, population . . . I don’t.

BRINSON: Okay. Do you remember any of the officers of the NAACP? Were you ever an officer?

ELLISON: No, I don’t think so. I don’t remember that.

BRINSON: Here, let me rephrase my question because one of the things that I have heard now from a number of people who were active with the NAACP is that, in those cases at least, most, the majority of members were women and that the women very often were the ones who raised the money and kept the organizational records and provided the food and did things like that. In some cases, they were also the officers too but that, by and large, when there was a, a, you know, a leader to be recognized, it tended to be one of the men in chapters.

ELLISON: Well, the men were, as I remember, in majority in this chapter.

BRINSON: Were they?

ELLISON: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: Were they mostly miners?

ELLISON: Yeah, ‘cause everybody here was a miner.

BRINSON: Yeah. That’s interesting. That’s another . . .

ELLISON: As I remember now. I really didn’t attend that much and I wasn’t that much into the NAACP; but I do remember going to some of the meetings and, if I’m not mistaken, that’s where I met my husband.

BRINSON: Right. Was your husband a miner?

ELLISON: Yes.

BRINSON: He was? For how many years?

ELLISON: I think about forty-eight or something like that. Forty-six. Started working here when he was a child evidently.

BRINSON: So he was . . .

ELLISON: When they were teenagers or something, they would lie about their age to get put on. I remember when time came for him to get his birth [laughing] certificate and all this kind of thing, near retirement time, he had to get all that straightened out because--well, so many of them I’ve heard say that they lied about their age to get hired, you know; so that’s the way that was. So he, he had been working here since he was a youngster, teenager I guess.

BRINSON: Was he born here?

ELLISON: No. He was originally from Birmingham, Alabama.

BRINSON: And why did he come here?

ELLISON: His father, his family came and his mother and the girls tried to live here; but, uh, the mother didn’t like here so she moved back to Alabama. So the father would be back and forth and, of course, the son. I think his brother—yeah, his brother worked here and he had another brother who died, in the county, but not up here.

BRINSON: Why do you think his mother didn’t like it here?

ELLISON: Oh, I don’t know. I have no idea what she was used to or whatever but, uh. . . .

BRINSON: Did you ever know her?

ELLISON: Oh, yeah. Yes. I didn’t know his father. He was dead when I met him.

BRINSON: I would think if I’d lived in Birmingham and I moved to Benham that would be a real culture shock.

ELLISON: Yes.

BRINSON: Very different in terms of communities and. . . .

ELLISON: Yeah.

BRINSON: Okay. You think that was part of what was . . .?

ELLISON: I have no idea. I never discussed that with her about why, but, uh. . . .

BRINSON: So you got married.

ELLISON: Yeah.

BRINSON: Did you have any children?

ELLISON: No.

BRINSON: No. Okay. And did you keep on teaching?

ELLISON: Yes.

BRINSON: Okay. And how many years total did you teach?

ELLISON: Thirty-eight in all.

BRINSON: Okay. Did you teach, uh—let me go back—what was the name—you said the, the black school was, eventually it was called the East Benham. . . .

ELLISON: East Benham High School.

BRINSON: And where did it get its operating money?

ELLISON: Well, uh, from the state and county and, and the company. The company did its part.

BRINSON: Okay, and, uh, while it was still. . . .

END OF TAPE ONE, SIDE ONE

BEGIN TAPE ONE, SIDE TWO

BRINSON: . . . compared to the white school.

ELLISON: Uh-huh. It was, uh, quite a difference. Uh, and just like even houses were not the same, you know.

BRINSON: Was it different in terms of the physical facility?

ELLISON: Yes.

BRINSON: How, how was that?

ELLISON: Well, I really can’t tell you exactly but it was just—you know, theirs were better. And we had, uh—before this other building, the new building, we had a little fortress-looking school. I don’t have a picture of it, but you went in and it was, the bottom was concrete, I mean the floors. I had to stand on them cause my room was on the bottom. And they had primary grades upstairs and they were combined because, you know, first and second, third and fourth, like that for one teacher. And, uh, we didn’t have anyplace for the children to play ball. They practiced basketball and all like that out in the snow in the back of the building. They had a gym. Eventually, just before integration, they began to allow us to use the gym when they weren’t using it, you know, to practice. But all before that what we had as teams practiced out in the snow in the back.

BRINSON: What about the textbooks that you used there?

ELLISON: They were from them. Their old textbooks were ours. That was a practice everywhere. We were used to that from Georgia.

BRINSON: Uh, and were there any science labs in the black school?

ELLISON: I’m trying to think did they have anything like a lab. No.

BRINSON: Okay. And what about teachers’ salaries? How did they compare?

ELLISON: Well, the salaries had been equalized.

BRINSON: Do you know how that happened?

ELLISON: Through--well, no, it had happened before I came here. So it was supposed to be equal. [laughing] I won’t say it was.

BRINSON: Okay.

ELLISON: But they said it was.

BRINSON: Okay. Uh, tell me about—you mentioned the PTA during that period. Uh, tell me a little bit about the PTA.

ELLISON: PTA was very active and we had ten district and state meetings in other places. I did hold an office in PTA. I think it was secretary and, uh, so I did do some going with that. Then we hosted the state PTA meeting here, as small as we were.

BRINSON: At what period was that that you hosted it? Do you remember?

ELLISON: The year you mean?

BRINSON: Just approximately.

ELLISON: Hmm. I would say in the fifties.

BRINSON: Ok. About how many people came here for that?

ELLISON: Oh, it was quite a number and we housed them in the houses. The people took them in because, uh, we had no other place, you know.

BRINSON: Right. Was there a hotel in town at that point?

ELLISON: No. They had a place.

BRINSON: So it was a hotel for the whites?

ELLISON: Uh-huh. It was mainly for the company officials and so on. It wasn’t really just a public motel I don’t think, hotel, anything. And so, uh, they came and they were housed here and we fed them over there. We worked like dogs trying to give them these meals, you know. But by then we had the big school, the brick building that’s over there now. The company built that but when they built it they knew integration was coming. So we kept complaining we needed a new building and we did. And they built it and they, with the understanding that when they integrated, it would be their office building. And that’s exactly what happened. When we went to the white schools, uh, they used our building for an office building. And Arch is still using it . . . I think.

BRINSON: For the coal?

ELLISON: For whatever they’re doing. I don’t know what--they’re supposed to be through mining but . . .

BRINSON: Okay.

ELLISON: I think they’re still using it. I understand this.

BRINSON: When you say that you, you let them know that you wanted a better building because they knew integration was coming, uh, how did that happen? How did you let them know?

ELLISON: I don’t remember really.

BRINSON: Did a group of teachers get together and say we’re going to send a letter, we’re going to go visit?

ELLISON: No. I don’t remember that. But . . . let me think. We had, uh, pretty good representation in the city organizations. Like my husband used to work with the power board and the union and all that business, and there were one or two other black men who were in those. And, uh, I think they used to convey to the company what we needed, because we got a lot through the PTA through these men. They would, uh, go and say we needed a piano or we needed whatever. And sometime the company would just send all the money for it. You know, they were real good to us. They furnished, uh, the money for me to use for food and so on for the home ec classes. I had a certain amount, what I could use each year. And, uh, I don’t exactly remember about the school, but I do know that when they began to build it that they said this would be—they were going to build it and it would be their office building whenever we integrated.

BRINSON: The old, the old school--or the new school would be the. . . .?

ELLISON: New school.

BRINSON: Okay. And when . . .

ELLISON: I’m trying to remember . . .

BRINSON: . . . when did integration of the schools actually . . .?

ELLISON: Sixty-three.

BRINSON: Sixty-three.

ELLISON: I remember that well.

BRINSON: I want to ask you about that but I want to ask you some other things first. The, the men who served on the power board and in the city organizations, your husband and whatnot, were they elected to those positions or were they appointed?

ELLISON: Appointed. My husband was on the city council a while and, uh, the lady across the street had a husband who was on the council. And the end house over on the other side was a man—he’s dead; both of them are dead now. Mine is too, but we had colored representation on the . . .

BRINSON: But they were appointed to office?

ELLISON: No, they were elected . . .

BRINSON: They were elected?

ELLISON: . . . when it came to the council, but now the power board is appointed.

BRINSON: Okay. Were there ever any women who were elected or appointed?

ELLISON: Well, Miss Griffith across the street is on the council now cause it was all women. She’s the only black woman.

BRINSON: Okay.

ELLISON: And, uh, we have a black man, a young man, that moved to Benham in later years that’s on it.

BRINSON: The new school now, uh, do you remember, was that after the Brown decision in 1954?

ELLISON: Umm.

BRINSON: You said they sort of thought that integration was coming, and that was one reason they were willing to build the new school.

ELLISON: I don’t know that that was one reason they—but they knew that it wouldn’t last, that integration had already been legislated—I don’t know how to put it--I guess you’re saying the Brown decision?

BRINSON: Right.

ELLISON: And so they knew it was coming. They didn’t know when this particular area was going to do it.

BRINSON: Right. Okay. Did you continue to teach home ec . . .

ELLISON: Yes.

BRINSON: . . . all the time that you taught? Okay.

ELLISON: The whole time.

BRINSON: That’s a long time and lots of changes in home ec. Do you, do you remember things that you taught in the early days that you didn’t teach later on, and do you have any stories about how that changed for you? And—how did you keep up your own education and knowing the changes and whatnot?

ELLISON: Well, I—about three years, I guess, after I started teaching I decided I was going to get my masters. That was before they started requiring it. And, uh, well, one thing, I didn’t have anything to do in the summers. I’d go home and there was nothing to do so . . .

BRINSON: You’d go home to . . .

ELLISON: Georgia.

BRINSON: Georgia, okay.

ELLISON: So, uh, I decided one year I was going to go to graduate school. And then when the time came, I was ready to back out. My dad said, “Oh, you’re going. I’m going to give you the money to go.” So he sent me the first summer and then, uh . . .

BRINSON: Where did you go that summer?

ELLISON: Cornell.

BRINSON: Cornell?

ELLISON: University in New York.

BRINSON: Up in New York.

ELLISON: Yes.

BRINSON: Okay.

ELLISON: And once I got—I didn’t believe in wasting anything. When I got those hours, I said, “I can’t stop cause that’d be wasted.” So I kept going back till I got my masters there.

BRINSON: So you got your masters at Cornell too?

ELLISON: Yes. Uh-huh.

BRINSON: Why did you choose Cornell?

ELLISON: Well, I had had a few college teachers to, had attended there and they were in the field and they—I guess they had instilled in me that that was a good home ec school. And so I think that’s why I picked it. I didn’t know anybody there.

BRINSON: Okay. So, uh, the schools integrated in 1963 and how did that happen?

ELLISON: They just came over that summer--you know, home ec teachers work ten months so we were—I always had to work this extra month after the rest of the teachers were through. And, uh, they came over during the time I was working in this tenth month. I said ‘they,’ I mean the superintendent and some of the white principals and so on came over one day, and they were looking around to see what was there. And they said that we were going to integrate the next year. That was like in June. . . .

BRINSON: How did, how did, uh, the black community feel about that? The teachers, the students, the parents?

ELLISON: I think they just took it in their stride, you know. It was—I mean I don’t remember any particular talk about it. I didn’t like at all. [laughing]

BRINSON: I’m sure you’re not alone in that. That’s really why I was asking. Tell me what your concerns were.

ELLISON: Well, my concerns were that, uh--we had been like a little family over here, small classes. The children were just like our children and so on and, uh, I was having a fear of this larger student—we were going to Cumberland. And, uh, to me that was a large school at that time and so on. I really just dreaded the large atmosphere, you know, that was going to take away our little closeness. But when I got there it wasn’t like that. I tell you, uh, the first day the children there wiped that out. They were just like my children here, and I felt just as close to them and I loved them and they loved me. I had a beautiful time at Cumberland.

BRINSON: Were the children in those early classes at Cumberland for you, were they predominantly white?

ELLISON: Yes.

BRINSON: They were. And, and how did they do that in terms of mixing the students?

ELLISON: Well, you didn’t have but so many by then. See, the school had gotten down to where—they were just wasting money keeping this school up. Mr. Cawood was our superintendent then and he said, uh, when they were fixing to integrate how much they were losing to heat that building and to do this and that and the other, you know, for that building when they could be right down there. And this probably wouldn’t be over a dollar or two more, you know. It was just wasted money.

BRINSON: Was that because there were fewer students?

ELLISON: Yeah. We had gotten down to where we were not going to be able to have a high school.

BRINSON: And was that because by that time more of the black families were moving away . . .

ELLISON: Yes.

BRINSON: . . . for job reasons and . . .

ELLISON: Uh-huh. Probably so.

BRINSON: Probably some whites were moving away too, but. . . .

ELLISON: Uh-huh. Well, it was just understood when the kids got out of school, they were going to leave here cause there was nothing to do, unless they wanted to mine coal.

BRINSON: The students were going to leave but what about their parents?

ELLISON: Well, the parents were still here, you know, if they hadn’t retired. But, uh, it was just dwindling that’s all.

BRINSON: Okay. In the sixties here, uh, were there sit-ins? No?

ELLISON: No.

BRINSON: Nothing. No protests?

ELLISON: Never had anything like that and when we integrated at the school, nothing like that. It went beautifully until [laughing]. . . . Well, let’s see if I can say this right. Well, after a few years—I’ll just put it like that—there was a little racial fight or something.

BRINSON: Among the students?

ELLISON: Yeah, just a small group and that passed over. And I’m sure we had individual fights like that, but no big thing. The children in Cumberland are, or were, I’ll say, extraordinary anyway. They accepted us and they were friendly; they found out we were fair and, uh, that was the thing. That had never crossed my mind until after a few years one of the girls said to me, oh, how frightened she was that we were going to be teachers, the blacks were going to be her teachers. And she said, “’Cause I thought you all were going to be unfair.” And which never occurred to me at all and then, uh, it, you know, then it passed through my mind. I said, “Um, now I would have thought that we were the ones that would have thought we would have been treated unfairly.” But, uh, they were just beautiful.

BRINSON: Did, were all of the black teachers moved into the . . .

ELLISON: Every black teacher was given a job. Mr. Cawood was some kind of man. He was . . .

BRINSON: And he was the superintendent?

ELLISON: Superintendent.

BRINSON: What about the black principal?

ELLISON: The black principal had already left, see.

BRINSON: Okay.

ELLISON: What happened--my principal was the highest educated principal around here cause every summer he and his wife went to a different university all over the country and, uh, there’s nobody, nobody compared; but Mr. Caywood had told him a few years before integration that he would not be a principal. You know they were going to hire him, but he was going to be a teacher, I guess, as well. He wasn’t going to come down like that so he left, he and his wife, and went to Tennessee.

BRINSON: Went to Tennessee?

ELLISON: Where it was still segregated.

BRINSON: And was he a principal there?

ELLISON: Yes. Uh-huh. In Alcoa.

BRINSON: But all of the teachers were hired . . .

ELLISON: Oh, yeah.

BRINSON: . . . at the same level that basically--were they doing the same . . .?

ELLISON: Yeah.

BRINSON: Okay. So they didn’t lose anything?

ELLISON: Uh-uh. But they weren’t going to have a black principal. No. So he just frankly told him.

BRINSON: How, what, did you have anybody who, uh. . . .?

ELLISON: Lot of them left anyway.

BRINSON: Lot of the black teachers left?

ELLISON: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: Why was that?

ELLISON: I think they thought it was going to be a struggle, you know.

BRINSON: Oh, they left before they moved into the white school?

ELLISON: Yeah.

BRINSON: Okay. They had job offers if they wanted them?

ELLISON: I really don’t know that they had job offers but they had—they were from other places and I guess they thought, felt like they would, could go there and get a job.

BRINSON: Right.

ELLISON: You know, where they came from.

BRINSON: So when, when integration actually happened, how many black teachers were left to move into the new system?

ELLISON: Let me see now, I think there was only one at—well, by that time—see, the building, white school was already gone through consolidation. They had gotten so small that they took them before they integrated. You see what I’m saying? Okay. And, oh, that was a big fight cause these parents didn’t want that. Some of them were so angry with the county school system they sent their children up to Lynch which was independent.

BRINSON: The black parents were angry?

ELLISON: No, no.

BRINSON: The white parents . . .

ELLISON: This was white. This was before we integrated. This is consolidation.

BRINSON: I understand.

ELLISON: Okay. So their school was already gone and that was an elementary school. Well, when we integrated we had one black teacher that went there to teach and probably a visitor, one that went to several schools. And then at Cumberland, I would say . . . we had just two or three. It really wasn’t that many teachers.

BRINSON: Do you—at that point, approximately how many black students were there in the schools?

ELLISON: Very small percentage. Not many.

BRINSON: You think we’re talking about fifty students?

ELLISON: In the high school? I would say.

BRINSON: And in the lower school?

ELLISON: Little bit more.

BRINSON: Little bit more. Okay. What was the economy like here about that time, in the sixties? What was happening in coal mining then? Was it good? It was good.

ELLISON: Salaries have always been good in coal mining.

BRINSON: And there were jobs there.

ELLISON: Compared to what an unskilled laborer could have made somewhere else.

BRINSON: Right.

ELLISON: ‘Cause when I came here they were making more than teachers were, much more. And, uh, it made it real hard to inspire the children ‘cause they would tell you, “What am I going to college for? I can make more than you make--you know, my daddy makes more than you make.” And so we had that to overcome but we did a pretty good job. We instilled in them some very high principles. There’s some, some good people out there.

BRINSON: Course, course for the girls, I guess, that was a little bit different.

ELLISON: Oh, yeah.

BRINSON: ‘Cause they, they weren’t looking for jobs in the mine. Were they looking to marry coal miners though ‘cause they knew they would have that financial security?

ELLISON: Umm. Well, they mainly left here to go to work in the cities, you know.

BRINSON: Uh-huh. Okay. But you think a lot of the boys stayed and went into the mines?

ELLISON: Not enough, no.

BRINSON: No?

ELLISON: They went to cities and worked, too. There were a few that started off. There were a few that stuck it out.

BRINSON: So it sounds like maybe, uh, that period in the early sixties, maybe there weren’t as many jobs in the mines for young people at that point in time . . .

ELLISON: No.

BRINSON: . . . so people were leaving the area anyway for jobs or . . .?

ELLISON: Yeah, for jobs.

BRINSON: I’m just trying to get a sense of what the economy was like here. Some of the black teachers left because they took other jobs other places, but did people also leave because there just, the jobs in mining weren’t as good as they had been or . . . you know? You understand what I’m trying to get at?

ELLISON: Yeah, I see what you’re saying but that’s a different thing altogether.

BRINSON: It’s different. It’s different.

ELLISON: Uh-huh. The teachers left to go back maybe to where they came from, like we had several from Louisville and I guess—well, they liked it here alright, but they probably didn’t want to go through what they thought they might have had to go through. So they went on back to Louisville.

BRINSON: Okay. Well, I’m, I’m sure during the sixties when all of the, the civil rights activity was on television and news and whatnot, people here were aware of all of that.

ELLISON: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

BRINSON: Was there ever any discussions about ‘well this is happening out there.’ ‘Maybe we should be looking at some of those issues in our own community’?

ELLISON: Umm. Now, you mean so far as the blacks are concerned? Well, we really didn’t have that many restaurants and things to worry about, you know, and it was nothing that desirable to want to go to. [laughing] I don’t think anybody really got into the movements any more than just following it on TV.

BRINSON: Okay. Were there even a few whites maybe who were kind of supportive of integration in the area in some way that you knew?

ELLISON: No. I don’t think they really supported it and probably didn’t like it at all.

BRINSON: Okay.

ELLISON: Mr.—that’s the reason I say Mr. Cawood was a wonderful man. He was brave enough, courageous enough--and I would think he had sort of prepared the white schools for what they were going to have to do.

BRINSON: Tell me his full name if you would please.

ELLISON: James A. Cawood.

BRINSON: And would you spell his last name.

ELLISON: C-A-W-O-O-D, all in one.

BRINSON: Okay. Who were your heroes in the civil rights movement?

ELLISON: [chuckle]

BRINSON: Did you have any? [small laugh]

ELLISON: Not really. As I said, we didn’t—I didn’t—I guess my parents protected us from a lot of the segregation and it was a whole lot of teaching, you know, at home that, uh, “they may think you’re not as good as they are but you are,” you know. That’s the way my mother taught us and, uh, my father, too. My father always instilled in us to speak your mind. And if you’re the only one there that believes something, you tell them what you believe, you know. It gave you a lot of courage and he gave us security behind it because he said he’d back us up, you know.

BRINSON: How about your sisters during the sixties. Were any of them active that you know, in their communities?

ELLISON: No, not in the civil rights movement. We—that’s what I said. We just weren’t raised like some people cause we had. . . .

BRINSON: I think I’ve asked you about all I know to ask you. One thing does occur to me. Uh, I talked about television and radio and newspapers, uh, and the news about civil rights, uh, activities. What newspaper—what were you reading in the sixties that gave you information about what was going on?

ELLISON: Well, everything.

BRINSON: How did you get the news?

ELLISON: Oh, I’m one of these people that—my daddy brought us up reading the paper. And, uh, I take all the papers. I take the Courier Journal, and I take the Harlan Enterprise, I take the Tri-City News and it gets overwhelming sometimes. We used to take the Knoxville News Sentinel, and we realized that we should have our state paper. I’ve never subscribed to the Lexington paper, the Herald, but a lot of people do around here.

BRINSON: Did you ever, um, read the Louisville Defender?

ELLISON: No. I don’t think I ever read that. I used to read some black newspapers like Pittsburgh Courier and then there was a Chicago—I forget what the name of it is . . .

BRINSON: Right. I’ve heard that one . . .

ELLISON: . . . Tribune or something.

BRINSON: Yeah, I’ve heard that one mentioned before. That obviously made it into this area.

ELLISON: Yeah, well, not so much this area but this was in Georgia.

BRINSON: Oh, okay.

ELLISON: We subscribed to the Courier Journal. We kept up with the black news that way. And then Ebony and these black magazines and so on.

BRINSON: Okay.

ELLISON: Which I still take Ebony at times. Not all the time.

BRINSON: Okay. You, you were a pioneer, if you will, with integrating the system and then you taught how many years after that?

ELLISON: I think my years at Cumberland were nineteen. I spent nineteen years.

BRINSON: So, so you had an opportunity to be there at the beginning of the change and then also to sort of monitor it for a period of time. In hindsight now, do you think integration was a good thing?

ELLISON: Yeah, I do in a way. And I guess the reason I say it, it was good for the children, say it like that, because I think it gave them a feeling of worth. Our black children have a more feeling of worth since they are going to school with other people. If they can compete, they can compete, you know. I had to look for that. That was one reason I went to Cornell. See, Tuskegee was a black school.

BRINSON: Uh-huh.

ELLISON: Okay. And, uh, I had to, in my mind, prove to myself. . . .

END OF TAPE ONE, SIDE TWO

BEGIN TAPE TWO, SIDE ONE

ELLISON: . . . as much personal attention as they did at the black school, as much inspiration.

BRINSON: Right. The black children don’t get as much attention.

ELLISON: No.

BRINSON: So do you think the white children get more attention?

ELLISON: Some of them. The privileged. It’s very much a case of if you’re poor you’re just about in the class with the blacks; you’re going to get ignored. Now that’s with white teachers for the most part.

BRINSON: And what happens with black teachers? What do you think?

ELLISON: I don’t think they favor you according to class or anything like that. No. We don’t have that kind of thing.

BRINSON: Okay.

ELLISON: And I--when I say that, I’m not just talking about me. I’m talking about the black teachers I know. Now, I just don’t see as much of that and I, when I say that I’m saying it because I--there were many poor white children I fought for as hard as I did black children in the school.

BRINSON: So school integration for the children was sort of a mixed bag if you would. It was good in some ways . . .

ELLISON: Yes.

BRINSON: . . . and not so good in others.

ELLISON: I think.

BRINSON: How, how would you, how was it, how would you say it was for black teachers?

ELLISON: It was fine. It was fine. I made out fine. I’m a--I can take care of myself. Nobody can . . .

BRINSON: Right. I can see that.

ELLISON: . . . beat me down. And so I had no problem. I had one principal that tried to beat me down but I stood up to him; and I’m sure I was insubordinate in some ways, but I didn’t care. At that time I was ready--I could have retired; and I really dared him to fire me, you know, in a way. But, uh. . . .

BRINSON: You think that was an issue that happened in part because of race?

ELLISON: Not so much with me. He really got angry with me because I fought for a little black girl he put out of school, and his reason was because she had nobody paying taxes now.

BRINSON: I don’t under--what does that mean?

ELLISON: Nobody understands. This little girl was from a family of about four kids or five that this man had had and dumped on his grandmother to raise. Okay. This little girl was the youngest one of the bunch; the others had gotten out of school. And, uh, one day she was in my class, and he called for her over the speaker. She went in there and the bell rang, and when she came back after the bell rang she was crying. And she said, “I’m getting my books because I won’t be coming to school anymore.” And I said, “What’s the matter?” And so she told me he had put her out of school. And I followed her down the hall. I said, “Honey,” I said, “what for?” And so she said, “He said I don’t have anybody paying taxes now.” Her grandfather had just died. It was the last grandparent. The grandmother had died earlier that year. And he just wanted to get—pretty little girl—put her out of school.

BRINSON: How old was she?

ELLISON: She was a senior. So I followed her out the door. I said, “Are you sure you didn’t do anything?” You know. I said, “Are you sure this. . . .?” She said, “No, I didn’t do anything.” And so I questioned her some more and she finally told me, “The only thing I know is he asked me did I have, why didn’t I talk to the black boys that had this fight?” I told you about. There was a group of them. And she said she told him why didn’t he ask the black teachers to talk to the boys, you know, that she had no reason to talk to them. So she--that was the only thing she could think of that might be the reason. So I said, “Okay.” It was about like a Wednesday. I said, “Okay. You go on home.” And I said, “I’ll contact you the weekend when I have time.” I said, “I’ll see what he’s up to.” So, uh, I got on the phone that Friday night, I think it was, and I called this lady—I had been going to some KEA meetings, you know, so I, I was acquainted with some people.

BRINSON: Kentucky Education Association?

ELLISON: Yes, uh-huh. And so this lady was over human relations, something like that. And I called and I asked her about it. She said, “I never heard such a thing.” And so I said, “Well, I hadn’t either.” And so—I said, “I was wondering if your human relations committee could take this up.” So she said, “Well, we meet in the morning.” She said, “We will take it up.” So then [laughing] I, I got with a friend of mine who taught at Benham, the one black teacher that was there. We were real close, like sisters. And so I got her to go with me and we went out and found Miss Roland who was the superintendent then. She came after Mr. Cawood. And I went to her house and I carried these girls with me—this girl and her sister . . .

BRINSON: Had the sister been put out too?

ELLISON: No, the sister was already graduated and was in college up there. So this friend and I both knew Miss Roland being teachers; we both went in and talked with her about it. So she had never heard anything like this. So we explained the situation. We told her we had the girl in the car. And so we got through talking among ourselves and then, uh, she told us to go get the girl. She came in. She questioned her and so on. So anyway she said, “Well, I’m on my way to a superintendents’ meeting out of town, but when I come back I will, uh, look into it.” Said, “I’ll send one of my sisters up.” Well, uh, after she said that I, I had decided I would give her a chance because she had always been fair with me. So when I came home I tried to contact this lady I had called with the human relations group and she said, “Oh yeah, we had already discussed it and so on and I was too late to stop it.” So Miss Roland sent her lady up. And then a day or two after, the Uniserve man, I think they called it, from this area came up. I didn’t know him. He came up and talked to the principal and boy, when he came to my door; his face was maroon. He said, “Somebody in here wants to speak to you in the office.” It shocked me ‘cause I didn’t know anything. So this man took me in this room; he talked to me. He said that they had talked with the principal and, uh, she’ll back in school. Well, already Miss, the assistant had spoke to him the same thing. So they had to put the girl back but, unfortunately, shortly after that one of her sisters got killed in a car wreck and she quit anyway. But they made him put her back. So from then on he picked at me all the year, the next year, but I stood up to him.

BRINSON: Right.

ELLISON: And it worked out okay. When he called me in at the end of the year, went on to say, ‘I know you think I was picking at you.’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He went on to say, put the blame on somebody else. He never brought this incident up but that’s what brought it on. ‘Cause they bawled him out about this and, uh, from then on I was his pick-on. But that didn’t matter. I can take it.

BRINSON: Would you like to tell me his name?

ELLISON: No.

BRINSON: Okay.

ELLISON: No.

BRINSON: That’s okay. Did he ever acknowledge the reason that . . .?

ELLISON: No, never mentioned it at all—to me.

BRINSON: School’s supposed to be open to everybody regardless of how much taxes they . .

ELLISON: Oh, that was—I just don’t want to go into it anymore, about it because . . .

BRINSON: It was such a strange reason.

ELLISON: Yeah, she didn’t have anybody paying taxes anymore. See, her grandfather had died. But it all boiled down to, I think, her friendship with a white girl who was probably dating black boys.

BRINSON: And he, he didn’t like that.

ELLISON: No. And I guess he thought she was the influence so he put her out. I don’t know. I’m assuming that.

BRINSON: Yeah. You, you don’t know if he ever took any action with the white girl.

ELLISON: No. But I don’t know.

BRINSON: This would have been about when? What. . . .

ELLISON: I really don’t know and I shouldn’t have even brought it up. I shouldn’t have even brought it up. But I was saying that to say that—I was just saying that to say that that was the only problem I ever had as a teacher because I didn’t get into these things except where somebody had been treated unfairly and, and I tried to right it.

BRINSON: Okay. Is there anything else you want to add along this whole topic that I haven’t thought to ask you or. . . .?

ELLISON: No. I had a beautiful relationship with all the teachers—I eventually got left as the only black teacher there. These one or two that stayed only stayed two or three years and . . .

BRINSON: Did they leave the area, too?

ELLISON: Yes. And so I, I really had a good relationship with them and I was always treated well by them, I’ll say that, and the principals. And I got along with this principal fine. I mean, he saw he couldn’t cower me so we made it okay. He respects me.

BRINSON: Okay. [interruption] You were going to tell me about the reunion you have the black children.

ELLISON: Yes. We’re having the fourth one this year and it’s on Memorial Day weekend and it’ll be at the Benham Inn and, uh, you might want to come.

BRINSON: Well, how many—tell me about it. Have you had reunions before?

ELLISON: Yes.

BRINSON: How often do you have them?

ELLISON: We had one—the first one was in Indianapolis. We had it along with the southeast Kentucky reunion. Have you heard of that?

BRINSON: No.

ELLISON: Okay, well you hear them talk about the Grand Reunion--they just started it but that was because the black people had already had this going. Now that’s a big thing. We have reunions all over this country and, uh—I’m talking about the southeast Kentucky reunion. Thousands of people come and they meet from California to Detroit or Chicago—it’s in Chicago this year. And they’ve had it there before.

BRINSON: Do they do it every year?

ELLISON: Yeah. Every year. And theirs is on Labor Day weekend. And, uh, the black people from anywhere around here, southeast Kentucky, meet together and it’s just good times, you know.

BRINSON: And they can bring their families?

ELLISON: Oh, yeah. Uh-hmm. Yeah, we always have a great hotel like the Marriott or something, Hyatt. One of those. And it’s a big thing. Million dollar thing, you know. It’s big business.

BRINSON: Who, uh, puts all that together? Is there a staff?

ELLISON: Well, it’s here. It’s located right here in Lynch.

BRINSON: Does the whole southeast Kentucky . . .?

ELLISON: Well, it’s a club. They call it the East Kentucky, uh, Social Club, and they put it together. And the first two reunions we had as a part of it, like they meet—we had ours on Friday and they don’t really get anything started on theirs till Saturday, Sunday and so on. And then it breaks up Monday. We all come back home. But, uh . . .

BRINSON: But those events take a lot of organizing.

ELLISON: Oh, yeah. See, they have clubs and all scattered all over the country.

BRINSON: So, so it’s really the volunteers who are active in the club who organize the event?

ELLISON: Uh-huh. So we started off having ours as part of this since people would be coming there anyway. And we had one in Indianapolis and we had one in Atlanta. And then year before last, we had the first one here. See, I had quadruple bypass that year and, uh . . .

BRINSON: That’s how you remember that. [laughing]

ELLISON: Yeah, well, some of the kids got together and we had missed some years there cause my husband was ill and we had just let it go for a number of years. So two or three of the kids got together and they decided—and I say kids, I mean our students; they’re grown people—but, uh, they decided, well, they wanted to have it and they wanted to have it here after the inn was there. So, uh . . .

BRINSON: Now is the inn—that’s what used to be the old school . . .

ELLISON: School.

BRINSON: Okay. The Schoolhouse Inn, is that the name of it?

ELLISON: Yeah. That’s it. Right across from the museum. Okay. So, uh, we jumped in and helped them--by that time I was better—and we helped them, and we put on the reunion the year before last. And so we getting ready for this one now. And it’s been real nice. They’re very. . . .

BRINSON: And it’s Memorial Day weekend?

ELLISON: Yes, uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Tell me approximately how many people come.

ELLISON: Oh, it’ll be around two hundred or two hundred fifty about. I’ll show you our program. [Moving around] That’s our last program.

BRINSON: Okay. Well, and that, that leads me actually to ask you . . . [noise] You okay?

ELLISON: Uh-huh. Just hit my leg.

BRINSON: Uh, about the availability of any organizational records. Are there any records, uh, you know, like the program, this program and other programs and correspondence or minutes or anything like that of this group that you know of?

ELLISON: Now when you say this group what do you mean?

BRINSON: Well, uh, this is—well, either the local, uh, chapter . . .

ELLISON: You mean—well . . .

BRINSON: . . . or the southeast Kentucky program.

ELLISON: Well, now the southeast Kentucky program is stationed in Lynch.

BRINSON: Right.

ELLISON: Now there are people here that belong to it.

BRINSON: Okay.

ELLISON: You know, all over the South.

BRINSON: Right.

ELLISON: But, uh. . . .

BRINSON: That also leads me to ask you--when we talked about the local NAACP and the local PTA, are, are there any records or photographs or anything of those organizations?

ELLISON: I would imagine they were with the principal that left here. And he’s dead. His wife’s dead now.

BRINSON: Okay.

ELLISON: And I really don’t know where they are. I haven’t even been able to gather up any trophies or anything. ‘Cause see they took everything out of the school and what they did with it, I don’t know. It went to various schools, white schools in the county; and what they did with the trophies, I could never imagine. I tried to locate them. I’ve been asking people ever since we started this reunion.

BRINSON: Trophies, like athletic trophies?

ELLISON: Yeah, yeah. We had a case of them and when the school got gone, it got gone and, uh. . . .

BRINSON: Uh, I think it’s Middlesboro, actually, uh, had, their group—they have reunions, too. And they--a woman I talked to down there told me, uh, that they had published a book a few years ago, and I went and looked at it in the library.

ELLISON: Did you?

BRINSON: It’s sort of the history of the black school there which was the Lincoln School.

ELLISON: Yeah.

BRINSON: Uh, you all haven’t done anything like that here, have you?

ELLISON: Uh-uh. No. No, uh, it’s not too many people here that, you know, were in school at Benham. And, uh, I have a committee of four that’s left now that we work on this reunion here, and then there’s one girl in Cleveland who does some parts of it. And, uh, that’s it. I mean the rest of them just come and enjoy, you know, or take a part if I asked them. My sister taught here also.

BRINSON: Oh, she did? How did that happen?

ELLISON: She just applied and I didn’t even know she had applied.

BRINSON: She came here after you?

ELLISON: She came here, um, I don’t remember what year but she stayed here five years. And then she had married and so she moved back to Georgia.

BRINSON: Did she teach prior to integration or after?

ELLISON: Yes, prior.

BRINSON: So she taught in the black school. What did she teach?

ELLISON: Everything. She came here as a band teacher and she kept the library one year. She’s done everything. And then when she went back to Georgia, she was—she went into elementary education and then she got to be a supervisor of teachers and a curriculum director cause you can advance in the South if you’re in education. You can’t advance around here, but, uh . . .

BRINSON: And then at what point did she move back here?

ELLISON: Well, she was by herself in the family home. I wasn’t by myself but my husband was living, and, uh, we were running back and forth down there. And she would come up and she arranged her business where she could come up and stay for months, you know, with us. Then she got tired of that. And then the neighborhood was getting bad down there so she came up one day said, “I came to stay.” And she, she taught up at the college for five years.

BRINSON: Did she teach music or . . .?

ELLISON: No, no, no. She taught education. That’s been just a few years ago when she moved back up here.

BRINSON: Do you have any other family in this area?

ELLISON: No. Uh-uh. No, I was up here by myself.

BRINSON: Okay. Well, you have a lovely home.

ELLISON: Thank you.

BRINSON: All those encyclopedias--it’s part of your, your reading? I’m a big reader, too.

ELLISON: Yeah, I’m—I won’t even show you the books . . .

BRINSON: You have a lot of books?

ELLISON: . . . stacks and stacks of books and tapes and records. My nephew is a professional musician; that’s her son and he gives concerts in Louisville at times. We just came from one last month and so . . .

BRINSON: And is the piano his instrument?

ELLISON: Yeah.

BRINSON: What kind of music does he play?

ELLISON: It’s jazz but it’s easy listening.

BRINSON: And who is that woman with the infant in the photo down underneath there?

ELLISON: Oh, that’s one of my students and her child. I’ve got loads of pictures of them.

BRINSON: Right.

ELLISON: This little girls lives in—I say little girl but she’s got a little baby that’s a little over a year old now—and she lives in Lexington.

BRINSON: At, at some point would you have a photo that you could loan me for a while?

ELLISON: [laughing] Of me?

BRINSON: Yes.

ELLISON: Oh, ho. I’m the worst. Oh, I have the ugliest pictures. You don’t want any picture of me.

BRINSON: Well, think about that, okay? [laughter—Ellison] Cause if we actually get . .

END OF INTERVIEW