Oral History Interview with Jean Higgs

BRINSON: May 6, 1999. This is an unrehearsed interview with Jean Higgs at her residence in Owensboro, Kentucky. The interviewer is Betsy Brinson. Okay. Thank you, Mrs. Higgs. Shall I call you Mrs. Higgs?

JEAN HIGGS: Please call me Jean.

BRINSON: Okay. Thank you for agreeing to talk with me today. I’d like to begin by asking you a little bit about you and your background, maybe where and when you were born, a little bit about your family, your early education.

HIGGS: Okay. I was born in Little Rock, Arkansas and when I was about six months old my mother and father decided to move to California. And we went to California and I lived there, oh, I guess, I guess until I was—‘cause I did go to kindergarten there. And then my mother decided to move to Chicago. And so we went to Chicago and my parents were basically Baptist but they always had that belief that if you had a good education you had to go to a Catholic school. So I was enrolled in kindergarten at Holy Angels in Los Angeles. And then when I came to Chicago, I--my mother enrolled me at St. Malachi and I went to St. Malachi--it was from--I guess from second grade all the way up to twelfth grade. In between there I went to Wisconsin to Sacred Heart Academy for about two years, but I did graduate from St. Malachi’s.

BRINSON: Was that parochial in Chicago?

HIGGS: It was a parochial school. It was in Milwaukee.

BRINSON: Okay. Let me stop you a minute. First off did you give me your birthday?

HIGGS: Oh, no, I didn’t. Okay, I was born March 18, 1937.

BRINSON: And I’m curious about why, if your parents were Baptist what made them think that Catholic schools were better? How did they know…?

HIGGS: You know I really, I’ve always questioned that myself. My mother always said, well, my father died when I was seven. So my mother always said, “I just believe you can get a good education there.” And she took--she went--you know she had--oh, what do that call it; well, lessons, you know, to become a Catholic. And she did it every year for about four or five years, and at the end of the time she would always say, “Once a Baptist, always a Baptist.” But she made sure that I went to daily Mass, you know. That I followed all the plans but she never did become a Catholic.

BRINSON: So you really sort of grew up as a Catholic in addition to attending a Catholic school.

HIGGS: Right, right, right. And I never really, you know, it was, it was, you know it was black and white that I went to school with. And I never really, I had a real easy life, you know, as a child.

BRINSON: Did you have brothers and sisters?

HIGGS: No. I was the only child.

BRINSON: The only child.

HIGGS: The only child, yeah.

BRINSON: And how did your mother make your family living?

HIGGS: My mother was a seamstress and she worked, I guess, when I was about nine years old she got a job at Coopenheimer. They make men clothes and she worked there. And she eventually got two or three different promotions and she retired from there.

BRINSON: I’m curious. Growing up in Chicago you attended an integrated school but did you live in an integrated neighborhood?

HIGGS: At first I did. At first when we first moved there it was, and then after a while—‘cause I lived on the West Side--and after a while most of the whites, you know, moved out. And then when I left there, when I graduated, by the time I graduated it was all a black neighborhood.

BRINSON: Okay. You graduated high school in what year?

HIGGS: Let me see, `50, `54 or `55, I think. I should look that up because I can’t remember.

BRINSON: That’s all right it just helps me as an approximate time Do you remember your graduating class how big it was?

HIGGS: I think it was only forty-two, small.

BRINSON: Okay, okay. And what was it like in Chicago about the time that you graduated? Just in terms of integration, segregation, race relations.

HIGGS: As I said, I imagine it was there but I wasn’t aware of it, you know. I, my family always read, you know. We always had black history books. And even I even had black history in high school. And then my grandmother through her eyes, you know, she would tell me about like when they lived in Arkansas and how they lived and how my great grandmother lived. And I was--I always said, ‘I don’t think I could have made it back in those days.’ And she said, “Oh, yes, you could, you know you just have to trust in the Lord.” And I guess, and I never really saw segregation until I was about thirteen years old. And my mother decided to take me back to where I was born, to Little Rock. When we got to Little Rock and then we went to Biscoe where she was born. She was born in Biscoe which I guess is about thirty or forty miles from Little Rock, a little small area. And I was just amazed, you know. There were still some of the, you know, like the big plantations and there were still some huts, you know, where some of my cousins still lived. And that was the first time I saw cotton. Well, that didn’t, you know, I was amazed to see it and all that but I went to church on Sunday and it was a big Catholic Church. And one of my mother’s friends was a Catholic and so she took me and we all sat in the back, you know. And then when it came time for Holy Communion all the blacks sat down and all the whites got up. And I was looking, wondering, you know, and I said, “Nobody is going to communion?” She said, “It’s not our time.” And I couldn’t understand that, you know. Well, and then when all the blacks, when all the whites came then all, you know, all the blacks got up and they went to Holy Communion. So when I got back to Chicago we had to write about some experiences that we had, you know, and of course, I wrote an article on how I never felt segregation before but that I was in the midst of it. Also, while I was down there, my mother’s friend’s daughter was very--in fact she could pass for white--and we were going to the show. And when we got there, well, there was one place here and one place on the other side. And she was in the line, when she got up there she said, “Two tickets, please.” And this woman said, “What are you doing here with the niggers?” And she said, “I belong here.” And she said, “Oh.” And I said, “What is she talking about?” And her name was Winifred, and Winifred said, “You know, because I was so fair, she thought that I was white and I shouldn’t be going on this side.” And I said, “What do you mean?” And she says, “Well, the blacks go upstairs in the balcony and the whites are downstairs.” And so that was my first, you know, and I thought, my God, my God, we were all suppose to be created equal but there is so much difference, you know. And so, I never was one to, you know, be a trailblazer, you know. And but, like when Martin Luther King, like, you know had the marches and stuff, well, my aunt and my mother went but they wouldn’t allow me to go.

BRINSON: Well, you must have been an adult by the time the Martin Luther King marches.

HIGGS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

BRINSON: But they still.

HIGGS: But they didn’t want me to go.

BRINSON: Why do you think that was?

HIGGS: Because they said that if there was any danger, you know, that they wanted to save me, you know. So I didn’t go. I’d see it on TV and stuff. And then…

BRINSON: Your mother and your aunt, you were living in Chicago at that point.

HIGGS: Yeah, in Chicago. And then when I graduated I went to Marquette University. I had this, I was going to be a trailblazer and in high school we always looked at the different occupations, you know. And during that time there weren’t that many physical therapists, black physical therapists. So I could have went to Xavier which, you know, specialize in physical therapy and also Marquette. So Xavier was in Louisiana so my mother said, “Well, let’s go, you know, go to Wisconsin.” So that’s where I went. And then when I got there and found out that physical therapy is almost like pre-med. in a way and I just really didn’t have that stamina, you know.

BRINSON: Did you have an interest in science though while you were coming along?

HIGGS: Yeah, I did, I did but as for like the physical part of it like working with--what happened I went to--we [laughing] had a exercise where we had to go to, oh, a hospital and it was a veteran hospital. And we had learned some different types of massages. And so this particular case that I was to massage the man’s hands. All he had was, it was just like skin and you could see the bone in his hand. And you know, and when he, when I walked in, you know, I introduced myself, you know. And I said, “My name is Jean Hearcy, you know, and I’m from Marquette University.” And he was, you know, ever so nice and everything. And then he said, “Well, let’s get to work.” And he pulled back his cover and that’s the last thing I remember. I fainted. [Laughter]

BRINSON: You fainted.

HIGGS: I was so embarrassed, you know.

BRINSON: But that was a lesson to you.

HIGGS: Yeah. It was, it really was. And then I, I came home and you know, I was telling my mother and my aunt and you know, well, they never went to college. And they, they were just, they just said, “Well, you just have to push yourself. You’ve got to do this.” And I said, “I don’t want to be a physical therapist.” You know, I don’t want to be a trailblazer. I want to be something that I can--and I went back and then to make a long story short I thought I had flunked and I decided, I can’t face my mother. And I can’t face my aunt. And I had an aunt that lived in Michigan and I called her and I said, “Aunt Mary, come and get me.” And so I went to school, I went in the back door and out the back door. I went a year and a half and I just and that was just like being a quitter. And then that’s when I, I’ve stressed with my children, you know, don’t be like your mother. And I’ve pushed them and I’ve pushed them, you know. And I met my husband he was stationed at Selfridge Air Force Base in Michigan.

BRINSON: Where?

HIGGS: Selfridge Air Force Base.

BRINSON: Selfish? Spell that.

HIGGS: Selfridge, I think it’s S E L F R I D G E, I think, Air Force Base. It was right outside of Detroit. And my aunt lived in a little town called Idlewilde and Idlewilde in those days was, prominent, well, it was like a black resort but in the wintertime it was nothing, you know. And how I met my husband was, they would come. I think it was about eighty something miles, they would come down in Idlewilde because there were just a few black that lived in that area. That’s how I met him.

BRINSON: And your husband as I recall grew up in Owensboro, Kentucky.

HIGGS: Yeah, yeah, he was born here. This is his hometown. He, in fact he graduated from the, what’s the name of that school—the black school?

BRINSON: The Western High School?

HIGGS: Yeah, Western High School, he graduated from Western High School.

BRINSON: And how, how far back does his family go in Owensboro? Do you know?

HIGGS: Oooh, his mother, now his mother, she’s eighty-four, eighty-five and she was born here. So and then, her mother, you know, she talks about her mother. And so, I would say, way back.

BRINSON: Okay. So he was in the Army at that point?

HIGGS: He was in the Air Force.

BRINSON: Air Force. Before you were married did you come to visit Owensboro?

HIGGS: No, no, I never even heard of Owensboro. [Laughter] No, when we married, the year after we married we came here to meet his family.

BRINSON: And what was that like?

HIGGS: [Laughs] I thought, my Lord, [laughing], well, like Fifth Street, you Fifth Street, they didn’t have sidewalks. And I related to Biscoe, Arkansas where my mother had, that was the only other place I had been that, you know, didn’t have sidewalks and it was suppose to be main street. And I thought, oohhh. And then we were going to a restaurant, and we had to go in the backdoor and I thought, well, what is? And I said, “You mean that it still exists?” I mean I didn’t realize that, you know, that there was still, you know, black and white only, you know.

BRINSON: And this would have been about 1957?

HIGGS: Yeah, in that area.

BRINSON: When you got inside the restaurant was there separate seating sections?

HIGGS: Yeah. In fact you walked into the kitchen. That’s where the blacks ate in the kitchen. And the whites ate in the restaurant part.

BRINSON: Do you remember the name of the restaurant?

HIGGS: No I can’t think of the name of the restaurant. My mother, my mother-in-law would, but I can’t think of the name of it. However they did, you know, they had black restaurants you know, in the black area. They had, they had a drugstore, and stores you know. And then when he got out of the service, hmmm, [chuckles].

BRINSON: Did you stay here?

HIGGS: No.

BRINSON: No, okay.

HIGGS: We just came to visit. Okay, let me see it was about forty, let me see my daughter is forty-three, so it would be. Let me see. She was, okay, it was about, probably about `59. It was probably about `59 when my husband got out of the service. `59 or `60, right in that area and we came here to live. And there were, the only jobs, the only jobs were, at that particular time was just to clean people’s houses. And I thought, boy, I could just hear my mother now saying, “I worked so hard to give you an education and now you work… [chuckles]” So my mother really didn’t, she really didn’t, she thought that I, you know, she really didn’t like who I married. But after I had my first child she finally came and visited me and I was living in the projects, you know, T.G. Walker Apartments. And she was very dissatisfied, however, and my first job here was at the Cozy Bar.

BRINSON: The Cozy?

HIGGS: It was called the Cozy Bar and it was a black liquor store, well, I might as well say a black lounge. And I knew nothing about liquor or anything but that’s where I decided well maybe I can do this. And I did pretty good because I was very friendly.

BRINSON: Were you behind the bar? Were you waiting tables?

HIGGS: No, I was waiting tables, waiting tables. And then I got pregnant with my second child, and I was just thoroughly disgusted. So, let me see, that was fifty.

BRINSON: You were disgusted?

HIGGS: Disgusted with Owensboro. I hated Owensboro. I thought this is ridiculous, you know. So, I decided that I was going to leave my husband. First time I had ever been on a Greyhound bus in my life. Caught the Greyhound bus, my second daughter was three weeks old and I went back to Chicago. And when I went back to Chicago while I was in high school they had a program that you could work at the Telephone Company. And I worked there my senior year, you know. So I thought, well, maybe I could try getting on at the Telephone Company. So I went and took the test and everything. I was there about, uhmm, I guess I was there about four or five months and they called me and I started at the Telephone Company. And of course, my husband by that time, he followed me back to Chi…

BRINSON: I wanted to go back to that and your leaving on the Greyhound bus. Did your husband understand at all what was really happening there? Why you were leaving?

HIGGS: No, not really, I think he thought I was just really, I don’t think, I really don’t think he could understand how I felt. Because he hadn’t been raised that way, you know and it was like, to me it was just like a slap in the face and it seemed like everybody was satisfied with it, you know.

BRINSON: Did any of his family understand why you needed to do that?

HIGGS: I really, really to tell you the truth about it, I sort of kept it to myself because, uhmm, I wanted to be liked. You know I wanted to be liked and I didn’t want to seem like, you know, I was trying to be better than somebody, you know. So I really sort of kept it quite, you know. I was just boiling on the inside and I thought I can’t live like this.

BRINSON: Of course in the late fifties there were, there was some activity actually happening. The NAACP was doing some protesting. The schools were beginning to integrate although slowly.

HIGGS: Yeah, uh-hmm, yeah, uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Were you aware of any of that at the time when you were here?

HIGGS: Yeah, I read about it but it was like, you know, I wasn’t with the type, the people that were actually doing this, you know. And my husband he didn’t seem like, you know, he was working. Plus he couldn’t find a job that was really, you know, that was paying anything. And I thought we’re going to be in this project all my life, you know.

BRINSON: Well, let me ask you about the project because there were periods of time when the projects were nice places to live.

HIGGS: Oh, it was nice. It was really nice.

BRINSON: And then now more recently we think of projects being for low-income people.

HIGGS: No, it was nice. It was nice. In fact, like, say for instance like where my mother lived was on Maple Street and she lived in a house but they had outside toilets, you know. And, you know, why I wasn’t used to that either. So...

BRINSON: But the Projects had inside bathrooms.

HIGGS: Yeah, yeah we had inside bathrooms and it was really nice.

BRINSON: And was it an integrated neighborhood?

HIGGS: No.

BRINSON: Segregated.

HIGGS: It was segregated. Now it is, now it is; but then, not when I came here, no.

BRINSON: Was there a white housing project also like that?

HIGGS: I think so. I think so but really to tell the truth about it, I was in my own little world. And it was like, I didn’t know what was going on.

BRINSON: And you had two small children.

HIGGS: Right and I was just, well, actually, I just had one because the other one was three weeks old when I left.

BRINSON: Right.

HIGGS: And I basically did the same thing as my mother did. Well, I was a Catholic anyhow so I had, you know, my kids in Catholic school. Now that’s funny ‘cause see when I came back here and I put them in Catholic school I was dissatisfied with the Catholic school. And I took my kids out and I put them in public school and all my kids graduated from public school. It’s just a difference, you know.

BRINSON: Right, right.

HIGGS: But then there was a change, see, because then they didn’t have that many nuns and priests, you know, there was a difference. And they were, at that particular time when my kids were going to school there was one girl that had one year of college and she was teaching, you know. And I thought, now, you know.

BRINSON: When you lived here the first time did you ever attend the Catholic Church here?

HIGGS: Yeah.

BRINSON: And how was that?

HIGGS: Well, see, that was a black Catholic Church.

BRINSON: Okay.

HIGGS: See, it was, in fact, well, I think it’s the same place that I’m going now Blessed Sacrament, but at that time it was called something else. It was called, hmmm, oh, I can’t think of the name of it. We are having--this is really strange because see--I’m supposed to be going to Precious Blood that’s the area I’m in, but there’s this little small church and it’s right in the black neighborhood and it’s called Blessed Sacrament. And it’s supposed to be still the black Catholic Church. However, the blacks are a minority there. There are mostly white that go there, you know, but it’s a smaller church, you know.

BRINSON: Right.

HIGGS: And it was…

BRINSON: I believe that Brescia College.

HIGGS: Brescia.

BRINSON: Brescia College came here in like 1950 or so.

HIGGS: Yeah. Well, see, now I was--I wasn’t aware of them at that time.

BRINSON: Okay.

HIGGS: Now when I came back, see, when I came back I was right across the street from Brescia College cause I work right across the street at the …

BRINSON: Well, tell me what brought you back. You came back in 1966.

HIGGS: Sixty-six, right. What brought me back were the riots in Chicago. The Chicago riots, I was right in the midst of it. And I was on my pregnancy leave with my third child. My husband and I had gone back together.

BRINSON: He moved to Chicago.

HIGGS: Oh, yeah, he followed me back I guess about three or four months after I left, you know. But it took us about two or three years to get back together. Well, I had, I had, I had started, you know, I was working at the telephone company. My husband was an electrician. I mean he had a good job and we were fixing to buy a house on the South Side of Chicago; because I was raised on the West Side of Chicago, and West Side had gotten to be really, it used to be in different areas it used to be really nice but then it, you know, it’s just like anything else; it just got really bad. And we were going to move but I was on my pregnancy leave. And I, a girl that I worked with was also on her pregnancy leave and she lived out south, but her sister lived about three blocks from me. And it was like about five o’clock in the evening and it was a slow mist of rain and her husband said, he said, “Now you stand here and I’m going down and open the car doors, you know.” So she was standing there and he went down and opened the car doors and he was like that and a car drove by and killed her. That was, you know, and it was like--and then they were rioting all around in that area.

BRINSON: And you think the car had something to do…

END OF SIDE ONE, TAPE ONE

BEGIN SIDE TWO, TAPE ONE

BRINSON: The car hit her and killed her, or someone shot…

HIGGS: No, no, no, no, no, somebody, a car was driving by and as she was coming down the steps…

BRINSON: They shot her from the car.

HIGGS: That’s right, passing by.

BRINSON: And it killed her and the baby. How tragic.

HIGGS: It killed her and the baby. And that was just, you know, it was just, I thought, well--and then my kids were in Catholic school, and they had to walk like four blocks to school; and it just petrified me, you know. I thought, I can’t live like this either.

BRINSON: Was your mother still in Chicago then?

HIGGS: Yeah, my mother was still in Chicago.

BRINSON: How did she feel about?

HIGGS: My mother was—you know--you know, she just said, “I can’t understand.” Now she was--she worked for--you know--she was with NAACP, and then they had like they would--she was in an organization, they would make up baskets, you know, sort of like a soup kitchen--you know--that’s what they call it now like a soup kitchen. And she was, you know, very active. And I wasn’t active in any of that because I was so busy trying to make a living, you know, working and trying to raise these kids until I just really--and my husband was, you know, but I just really--that’s the reason why I’m saying I’m not really what you call a trailblazer.

BRINSON: Your husband was active?

HIGGS: Yeah.

BRINSON: How was he active?

HIGGS: He was active in, like, well, see, it was like the Holy Name Society, you know, the Catholics they had that. And it was a men’s club and they would do different things, you know, like rebuild different areas that had been burned out or something like that, you know. And I was still raising kids, going to work, you know.

BRINSON: So he was active in terms of the organization to help rebuild after the riots?

HIGGS: Right. Hum-hum.

BRINSON: Did he become a Catholic?

HIGGS: Yeah.

BRINSON: Somewhere in there.

HIGGS: Oh, well, some, when we met, okay: when we met in Michigan he became a Catholic. We were married in the Catholic Church. In fact we were married twice. We were married in a Baptist Church and we were married in a Catholic Church.

BRINSON: Well, that’s, you can’t….

HIGGS: Can’t go back, no. No, and…

BRINSON: Did your mother try and discourage you from leaving Chicago?

HIGGS: Oh, yes, oh, yes. She said, “I can’t imagine you going back there”, you know. She said, “Why don’t you just try to wait and just move out of that area?” And I said, “I don’t have time.” And I told Kenneth, I said, and he couldn’t believe it: he said, “You want to go back to Kentucky?” I said, “Yes. I think my kids will be safer there.” I said, “I think that the city is too big and I think that I need to have a…” And I said, “Plus and it’s integrated in this--you know, in Kentucky”--and I said, “Ánd I think that, I think that they will be safer there than they are here.” And so that’s what I did. So we moved back here to Owensboro.

BRINSON: In 1966.

HIGGS: It was `66, yeah, I think it was `66.

BRINSON: When you came back, Jean, could you see any difference?

HIGGS: Oh, yes. Oh, yes, it was a lot different. I mean it was altogether different.

BRINSON: Talk about that.

HIGGS: Okay. Well, first of all, when that trans… I mean I put in my transfer.

BRINSON: To the telephone company.

HIGGS: For the telephone company; and first of all, [laughing] first of all I had only talked to the chief operator. She was the one that was responsible for hiring me. I only talked to her on the telephone. And she said, “Sure. We have an opening.” And so, we got here on a Monday and I was suppose to go, I think it was on a Wednesday. And when I went in to see her everybody turned around and they looked, you know. And she was just, you know. She said, “Are you Jean Higgs?” And I said, “Yes.” And I said, “We’ve talked to each other on the telephone.” And she said, “Well, Jean,” she said, “You know, since I’ve talked to you.” She said, “There’s been a change.” And she said, “We really don’t have an opening right now.” And I said, “Oh, you don’t?” And I said—‘cause I had my chief operator, you know, call ahead of time when I decided to do this to say that I was going to have a job, you know. And so to make a long story short the next day the chief operator in Chicago called me and she said, “Jean” she said, “Do you, do you realize that they don’t have any black operators there?” And I said, “Well, no.” And she says, “Do you really want this job?” And I said, “Well, it’s like this,” I said, “I’ve got three kids to raise.” And I said, “And I already have some service and I’d hate to lose my service.” And I said, “Yes, I do.” And she said, “Okay.” Well, about two hours later I got a phone call, which her name was Helen Duncan and she says, “Jean, would you like to start Monday?” Now she never did tell me, you know, but I really think it was because, you know, I had a good record, you know, there and I had a good rapport with the chief operator in Chicago. And I think maybe that she, you know--but it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, too because I was like on display, you know. I mean, I became a group manager and a group manager, you know, they would see what the operators would do, you know; and they would observe on them. But the, one person would do this, but at times I had three people listening to me to see, you know, and it was like. And when I walked in it was like, you know, everybody turned around and they looked and I thought, “Oh, Lord, do I have snot in my nose?” You know, it was just, it was really something. But I had a determination because I had three kids and I wanted to make a life for them—so …

BRINSON: What do you think happened between your supervisor in Chicago? How did she know for example that there were no black operators here? You think there were some calls made?

HIGGS: I think, I think there were some calls made but I never, you know, she never did mention it and I didn’t mention it either because I thought, well, I’ve got a job and I’ve got to prove that I can do just as good a job as anybody here. And that’s what I’ve always tried to do and that’s what I’ve always told my kids. I said, “You can’t be belligerent and you can’t fight your way.” I said, “But you can show a person that you have the same ability and that you all were created under by the same man, and this way you can make progress better than you can by fighting.” Now that’s been my philosophy all my life, you know.

BRINSON: So you came back and you found that employment was different than in Chicago but what other ways did you see differences from say when you were here `57, `59, how had things changed?

HIGGS: Before? Okay. Well, you could go, you could go in restaurants then. You know there was a difference in the kids, there were integration in the schools, you know. And it was, it was--but there was still, there were still people complaining about jobs and stuff, you know, and saying that there was not equal opportunity for this. And maybe, you know, and it’s still that way, you know. But it has gotten better you know, and it, and it will stay that way as long as there is somebody stagnant that hates one another, you know. When we learn to love one another and see good qualities in one another, well, maybe we’ll make progress--but until then it’s going to be the same, you know.

BRINSON: So you had your children now in public schools?

HIGGS: Well, now I started when, I started them, they went two years to Blessed Sacrament, oh, not Blessed Sacrament, Precious Blood. And then that was when they started the changing of, you know, the nuns leaving and they getting lay teachers. And I probably, they probably would have still been there but what happened was, I got a letter stating that my daughter was behind in her reading and that she might be demoted. She was in, I think she was in the third or, I think she was in the third grade. And I, you know, and I knew that I had worked with her. So it really concerned me, so, working, you know, at the Telephone Company, you learn a lot of things, you know. So I learned that there was a professor at Brescia College and his wife was a teacher and that she did tutoring. And then I, and then there was a reading program at Brescia, and I enrolled her in that reading program and then I had this professor’s wife. And I can’t think of her name--but anyhow she tutored my daughter. Well, to make a long story short when we took, when she took the test her reading ability was five point five above, you know. So then I knew something was wrong, you know. And so then that’s when I went down to the school, you know, and I discovered that this girl--well, she didn’t tell me--but through working at the telephone company everybody knew people, you know, small town: and found out that she had only gone one year to UK, and she was, and she was going--and then that got me. And I thought, well, and then I started talking to other people about the other system, you know, public school system. And plus it was closer, too, so my kids went to Mary Lee Cravens which is only just two or three blocks away.

BRINSON: And you probably saved a little money, right?

HIGGS: Sure did. ‘Cause see, it was really, I mean it was expensive, you know. And then my third child, Mark was a sick child, and we had a lot of doctor bills, you know. We, we really struggled. We really struggled. And my husband was an electrician and he was, you know, he was, he was fortunate, but a lot of times he had to go out of town, you know, to work.

BRINSON: So when did you first start thinking about running for the school board?

HIGGS: I didn’t.

BRINSON: How did that come about?

HIGGS: It was a Mr. Crafton was a, I think his name was Crafton, but anyhow he had to quit the school board because of his job. And so they, you know, I guess they asked about different people--and at that time I had become a group manager at the Telephone Company, had no idea. And they called me and asked me if I would be interested in taking his place to, you know, until his term was up. And I told them yes, you know.

BRINSON: And your children at that were how old, in the school?

HIGGS: In school, yeah, they are in school.

BRINSON: And so this was about when?

HIGGS: Oh, see, this was, okay 1979 because I became, ok--in 1969 I became service assistant, and 1973 I became a group manager at the telephone company. And 1979 I think I was appointed to the school board. And let’s see.

BRINSON: But after your appointment ran out did you have to run for office then?

HIGGS: Yes. And you want to know why.

BRINSON: I just want you to talk about that.

HIGGS: Okay. What happened was, I had no earthly thought about being in public office, you know, it was just really, you know. And there was, [chuckles] there was this white girl that came to me and she said, “You know, I don’t think you should even try to run.” She says, “Because they’re not really ready to accept a black to a board.” And I said, “Well, why not?” She says, “Well, you know, actually”, she says, “Owensboro is still prejudice.” And I said, “You know there is prejudice everywhere.” And I said, and she says, “Plus” and there was another woman that was running which was a good friend of hers but see I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that, you know, this was why she was--and so, I came home and I thought, and I told my oldest daughter that and she says, “Well, Mama you always told us don’t be a quitter.” And I said, “Well, you’re right.” And so I just started talking to different people and I, I ran and I won, you know. It was just, I felt, I was really surprised, you know. And I thank God that I did. But I didn’t accomplish. You know they always say that in order to--that you need, you know, you need a black on a board and you can help your own race. This is true if there are more blacks on the board. Okay? I had nothing to be proud of when I was on the board because that was the first time that they laid off teachers, and some of them were black. I mean I fought and I fought and I fought but I was…

BRINSON: Why were they laying off of teachers?

HIGGS: Because they, you know, it was like, at that particular time I don’t know what year it was. I think it was in `80 or `81 there was a decrease in the schools.

BRINSON: The students.

HIGGS: Yeah, in students and so they needed to, you know, lay off teachers. And the ones that have tenure, see, and most of the black teachers didn’t have tenure, you know. Not most of them but some of them, you know and they had to be laid off. And to me that was the most devastating thing. And I fought and I fought and I fought. And well, Lee Dew, Aloma Dew’s husband was on the board too; and we both fought it but to no avail: I mean it just happened. To me I was, you know, they say you are supposed to be proud you were the first black vote. I wasn’t proud of that, you know, it just to me it was devastating. So.

BRINSON: Were there people in the black community that were critical of you when that decision was made to lay off?

HIGGS: You know if they were they didn’t say it to me. You know, it was really, I’ve always got along with every, most everybody here, you know. If they were, you know they didn’t say it to me.

BRINSON: How long did you serve on the school board?

HIGGS: The end of that term and then, I think it’s two years. Is it two years? I think two years. And then I didn’t, I didn’t run again; and the same woman took my place, she ran the second time and Patricia Conner, and now she’s dead now, but she ran after I.

BRINSON: Why did you decide not to run again?

HIGGS: I was disillusioned, really. I didn’t see where I was doing any good on that board. And plus it was time consuming, and my kids were getting older, and I thought that, you know, I needed to be closer to them than out in the public eye. And I never have been what you call a public person. I can talk to people, you know. But as for issues and stuff I’ve never--I mean I did this on my job because that was my job, you know. And I always got along with everybody that, you know, that were in my group, you know. But it was just, it was too much for, to work at the Telephone Company and go to the school board and come home and be a mother to these children. And I thought, you know, something is going to have to give. So--and that’s what I did.

BRINSON: Well, the fact though that you were the first black on the school board did that sort of open up the public consciousness for additional blacks to run for school board?

HIGGS: No.

BRINSON: No?

HIGGS: I, let me see, you know, to tell the truth about it I don’t know of anyone that has run for the school board since then. Now city commissioner, you know, that was Olive Burls, and she worked at the Telephone Company and she ran. And she’s ran twice for city commissioner. But really like, say for instance like on the school board, uhmm, it didn’t seem like there were many people that were interested. You know, you would talk to them and you would think that they were going to and then, you know, at the last minute they’d say, no.

BRINSON: How, how many members were on the school board approximately?

HIGGS: Umm, I think there’s five.

BRINSON And are they representative of particular districts, you run from a certain district? Or everybody…

HIGGS: No.

BRINSON: …just runs at large?

HIGGS: Yeah, see it’s a city at large is for the city, and then there’s the county.

Because basically like in the county, there’s that, there’s not that many blacks that are in the county schools, you know. Most of the, most of the blacks are in the, you know, city schools instead of the county schools. It is changing though because there’s, because the blacks are moving out, more out in the counties, now than it was before, you know, than in the inner city.

BRINSON: Umm, tell me about the telephone company. I, I sort of gathered that they were supportive of their employees…

HIGGS: Oh yes!

BRINSON: …playing a role in public life.

HIGGS: Oh yes, in fact they, they urged it especially if, you were, you know, if you had any type of title they, you know, they urged you to; but now, let’s say, when I was on the school board, okay? If I had to work like eleven to seven, okay, and say the meeting was at four o’clock, okay, I could leave but I would have to make up the two hours that, you know, later on in the week. You know, I would have to do that. Now when Olive became on the, you know, city commissioner she didn’t have to make up anything. See that was the difference, you know. But see that was like ten or fifteen years later, you know, where they were receptive to it, you know, you know. She could be off two or three weeks, you know, and they paid her still. But see with me, I had to make up the time and see that was, that was another deterrent, you know.

BRINSON: Jean, you’ve said to me several times, since we started this conversation that you didn’t see yourself as a trailblazer, but you’ve just give me multiple instances [laughter] of what I would call being a trailblazer.

HIGGS: Well.

BRINSON: Leading or opening up the way for…

HIGGS: Well, I guess, I guess it was. But you know what I mean is like what I call a trailblazer is like, you know, they get up in front of people, you know, and they say this is the way it is suppose to be. Let’s do this, and you know, join together people to do things. Now I guess I did do that but it was different with me. I didn’t get up on a platform, but what I did was wherever I went or wherever, whoever I talked to I always tried to show them, you know, I’m a Christian, you know. I’m a child of God just like you. Now why can’t you accept me just like I accept you? And I tried to do this by example, you know. And this is what I always told my kids, you know. I said, “Never say never.” I said, “I did that too much.” You know, growing up I never, you know, I never said. I didn’t want to do this and I didn’t want to do that because see nobody else do it. I said, “If this is what you want to do, don’t be a quitter, you know.” Like my son, my son was too small to play football. They said he could never make it. He has asthma but he was, you know, he was just determined, you know. My daughter was, she was one of these that she could, she could recite anything, you know, very talented. And I told her if this is what you want to do, do it. Go after it, you know. I mean they did. And now I’m raising a granddaughter which is altogether different. This is it for me and raising kids ‘cause it is a whole lot difference now.

BRINSON: And how old is she?

HIGGS: She’s sixteen. She’s a junior in high school and she’s had--it’s like they have a gymnastic team here, and she’s the only black on the gymnastic team. Last year she was, well, last year, last year she was the only black on the cheerleading squad, you know. And now, this year they did pick another black to be on the cheerleading squad.

BRINSON: Has she been growing up all her life in Owensboro? Or did she …

HIGGS: Yeah, yeah, she was born in Louisville. But, but see, it was like, I raised three girls. Well, you might as well say I raised three girls, and I had Kenneth’s son from the time he was ten until he went off to college. And none of my kids have children except my son. My son was, and see that’s what I’m telling you, see, my son was fifteen and he got this girl pregnant. And so I persuaded the girl to keep the child because she was going to give it up for adoption. [Chuckles] And I was out there shopping, and this girl that I work with came up to me, she said, “What are you buying baby clothes for?” And I was so ashamed, you know, until I lied and I said--‘cause my daughter was in college at that time--and I said, “Oh, I’m buying for Denise.” And she said, “Oh, Denise is having a baby?” And I said, “Yes.” Just like that and I came home and I thought about that and I said, “Now, you know, who do I think I am?” You know, I mean, this happens all the time, you know. But because, you know, I was Ms. Higgs, you know, I thought, I just cannot, and then I thought, well, maybe this will be an example. [laughing] You know. So I went back to the girl next day and I told her, I said, “It’s my son.”

BRINSON: And has your granddaughter, what’s her name?

HIGGS: Jeanna.

BRINSON: Jeanna, has she been with you?

HIGGS: Yeah, I adopted her. I adopted her. Her mother decided that she was not going to keep her so she went to the service. And she’s still in the service. And so I adopted her when she was three years old. So, I’ve raised her.

BRINSON: Well, that’s a wonderful story.

HIGGS: Oh, ha, [chuckles] I don’t know about that. I pat me, and as I say I’ve been a cheerleader for my children, because all my kids have been actively involved in sports. And so I’ve cheered them on. I used to have to trade, triple trade and everything to try to get off, you know, in order to go to all the different things. And …

BRINSON: So now you’re retired from the phone company.

HIGGS: Yes, yes, the reason why I retired. I probably would still be working, because I’m really not a housewife, you know, I’ve always, you know. It’s always like, I can’t clean up my house because I got to go to work. But now I don’t have that excuse, see. And so I’m saying, well. But in `89 I was at work and I couldn’t walk anymore. And I had lost feelings from the bottom of my feet all the way up to my waist. And I had Guillian-Barre have you ever heard of that?

BRINSON: Uh-hmm.

HIGGS: I had Gillian Beret and I was in the hospital for thirty something days. And I had to learn to walk again. And I went back to work, well, my hands were still numb, you know…

END OF SIDE TWO TAPE ONE

BEGIN TAPE TWO SIDE ONE”

HIGGS: And so in `91 I retired but things work. You know, I think, I think really, you know, sometimes we are not aware of the blessings that we really accomplish but you know, you just don’t see it then. My mother was eighty-nine years old, very, I mean, my mother was, you know, she was taking trips. You know she was very self-sufficient. Well, all of a sudden she got sick. So in `91 I grad…, I, graduated, I retired in `91 of March and in June of that year I went and got my mother. And she lived two years here. And see if I had had to work, see, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. But I got her here and that’s how I got into doll collecting [laughing] taking care of her. It was, you know, we’d sit here and I started looking at home shopping. Home shopping was on and now they’ve taken it off, I thank the Lord. That was another blessing they took it off, because I don’t like QVC that much. So, I took care of her and then in the last three months I had to put her in a nursing home but that was lucky too, because it was only four blocks away and I could go over there like four or five times a day. Never did know, they were, glad, they were probably glad when I left because a nursing home that’s an experience, so sad. But I was very fortunate that I, you know …

BRINSON: Have you been able with all of this though, Jean to continue any kind of civic?

HIGGS: Yeah, I tell you what I’ve done, what I did do and then I got out of it after two years. There have, they have what they call an African American Catholic Council and they meet like, oh, about five or six times a year. And then they have different conferences that, you know, I’d go to. And I was really active in that until about a year ago.

BRINSON: Tell me what the mission of the group is.

HIGGS: Okay what it is, it is like the Pope said that it seems as if the African Americans had a lot to offer but in Catholicism there is just one set way. And so he has, they have developed these councils in order to try to get the black Americans accepted in the Catholic Church in order for them to give their gifts, you know. Well, now, and like I say, [chuckles] and I went to a conference this last week. They had this nun that came from California to talk to us about the different gifts and how, you know, we could infiltrate it within, you know, our religion. And there, but see there are different sets of blacks, you know. Like say for instance with me, okay. I was raised with whites, okay? And I really read about, you know, segregation, you know. I read about the hardships but as for me having this, you know. And I read about like the seven gifts, you know, Kwanza, stuff like that, you know but as for me doing it, you know. And like say for instance like with the dances, you know, well, see I didn’t know anything about that.

BRINSON: What do you mean the dances?

HIGGS: Okay, it’s like, like African American dances, you know, like, well, they are going back like in Africa, you know. And see I had to learn all this stuff myself, you know, and going to these different conferences, you know, it was an eye opener for me, you know. And there, well, we have a lot of the priests, the bishops and well, we don’t have that many nuns but we have, you know, a lot of nuns and just different lay people. And I got involved with that, and then I got involved with this, it was a workshop up against racism and that was about, I guess about four or five years ago. And we were going to have a workshop here at Brescia College and I worked with several blacks, several of the ministers, you know, and the man on Human Relations and different and then that fell through.

BRINSON: It didn’t happen at all?

HIGGS: No, it didn’t happen.

BRINSON: Why did it fall through?

HIGGS: You know, I have yet to know. But you see when you get all these people together, okay? People have beautiful ideas but they sometimes don’t want to work together or sometime there is one that wants you to do what they say do but they don’t want to work with you. And there’s confusion. Well, see, it’s like this, I’m sixty-two years old and I feel now that if I see a confusion, I’m gone. [Laughing] Then and then two years ago, we had a like we’re in the ( ) area here and we decided to get together and have a community, you know. And we didn’t have sidewalks down here and so we worked together and we got sidewalks, you know. Now…

BRINSON: This is a lovely community by the way. Is it an integrated community?

HIGGS: It’s somewhat, somewhat, somewhat, we have just around, yeah, and even in the…

BRINSON: Is it more black than white?

HIGGS: It’s more…

BRINSON: More white than black?

HIGGS: Well, it’s in this area it’s more black than white but it’s, it’s different because see down at the end of this block it’s Pembroke Apartments and it’s not low income, but they go by your income. And it’s mixed, and it’s—but they have--really I think they’ve got more white down there and in the surrounding areas, you know, we have. And then some have bought homes in this area, you know. But anyhow we worked on that. And then we had and we worked with the mayor and the city manager and he gave us a compliment though, he said that he really admired the way we handled things. Because like I told him I said, “Look we can do things together if we work out a plan and we present it to them in a meaningful way.” And I said, “We can do more that way than we can going up there and demanding stuff.” And that’s what we did and then we had, last year there was a children’s home, now mind you it was not through the state. It was through some people that decided they were going to have this children’s home. And this black woman had said that they could have her property, you know. Well, in that area, which is, oh, it’s about two blocks from me are really elderly people, you know. They are all, you know, in their seventies and they were really concerned about it. And so we just decided that we’d just have people to sign, you know.

BRINSON: Like a petition.

HIGGS: A petition and we took the petition up there when they were trying to get the, what is it, property rezoned and we took it up there.

BRINSON: Rezoned. And did you do this under, like the community?

HIGGS: Yeah, all the people in this area.

BRINSON: Does it have a name?

HIGGS: We call it Dugan Best Community Action.

BRINSON: Action, Dugan is spelled how?

HIGGS: D U G A N B E S T.

BRINSON: Okay, all one word.

HIGGS: No.

BRINSON: Two words.

HIGGS: Yeah, because they named it after some man, I don’t know what. They named it after some man that died, the park over here. So now we’re working on, we’re trying to work on getting some equipment over there, you know, school, playground equipment.

BRINSON: So just to sort of summarize kind of what we’ve talked about here. It sounds like you’ve seen some changes in Owensboro.

BRINSON: But there’s still…

HIGGS: Uh-hmm.

HIGGS: A lot to be done.

BRINSON: A lot to do.

HIGGS: Yes, it is, it is a lot to be done but you just can’t say Owensboro. You can say the whole world, you know, it’s, the devil is always busy, you know. You’ve got to, I really believe that if people could believe in God and could trust in Him this world would be a better place. But in order to do that, you know, you’ve got to work together. You’ve got to love each other and that is, you know. And you’ve got to get past that they’re black, yellow, white, you know. But who knows? I’ll probably never live to see it but that’s something to strive for.

BRINSON: Okay. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

HIGGS: No, I think I’ve talked enough. [Laughing] Probably too much.

END OF INTERVIEW