Oral History Interview with Lois Combs Weinberg

BETSY BRINSON: This is an unrehearsed interview with Lois Combs Weinberg. It takes Place at the Marriott Hotel in , The Marriot East. The interviewer is Betsy Brinson.

BRINSON: Thank you, Lois, for, uh, agreeing to talk with me today, and I’m glad we finally got it together [laughter-Weinberg] after a number of tries here. Uh, would you begin please by talking a little bit about you, where you were born, when you were born, your family, your early education?

LOIS COMBS WEINBERG: Well, uh, I was born in 1943 during the war, and my mom was in with, uh, family while my dad was off in the war. He was in the and, uh, various places before that, uh, Officers Candidate School and so forth. But, anyway, mother was in with my aunt, I believe, and, uh-- no, I think she had an apartment. And I was born during that time and, uh, two years later my brother was born, also in . And, uh, several of my mother’s sisters and, uh, had come to from the mountains and actually had set up families and so forth. So there were good connections here for her. Then when my dad came back, uh, they moved to Prestonsburg because my dad had an opportunity to be in a law firm there. And, uh, so we tripped off there, and the first place that I really remember was called . [laughing]

BRINSON: Was that a real place?

WEINBERG: It was a real place, a series of little apartments. I guess there were about four or five in a row in the middle of town, and, uh, they were so small that mother had to keep the dining room table under the bed [laughter] because there wasn’t room to put it up anywhere. And, uh, you know, those were just—that was the place where I remember being a little kid and fighting with the little boys and, uh, running off with the little boys to the bus station and, uh, one in particular. Of course, my dad drove around the block and found us and, uh, brought us back home; but, anyway, those were good times. And, uh, later my mom and dad built a house and moved, uh—well, I guess first we moved down the street and then we built the house. But, anyway, it was just a pretty normal small town, uh a not-very-much-excitement sort of place other than family, and neighbors, and the fun you made yourself, you know.

BRINSON: Did, did Prestonsburg have a black population at all at that point?

WEINBERG: Not to my knowledge. Uh, the first person that probably ever helped my mom take care of me was a little black lady named E. That’s the only name I know for her and, uh, there are pictures of her holding me. And the story goes that she’s the one who said, “Oh, don’t worry about that baby. She’s not going to break. Here give her to me.” [laughter] And so, I’m sure I got properly broken in by E, who uh, sounds like a lot of, who sounds like she had a lot of vitality and, and that was good. My mother’s mother had died, uh, before that so, uh, she was looking for somebody to lean on. I also remember a wonderful, uh, black lady who was just—gosh--Janie Hawkins was, I guess, a lady who helped my uncle’s wife’s family. They lived here in and she was from . And Janie Hawkins was just the quintessential grandmother and, uh, I can almost still remember her laugh and her big bosoms. [laughter] And she was just sort of like one of those characters that you treasure in your history. She wasn’t there a lot and--I remember one time when my mother got sick, she came to Prestonsburg and took care of us.

BRINSON: So she was not from there but was from—was E from Prestonsburg?

WEINBERG: No, she was from , too.

BRINSON: Okay.

WEINBERG: So really in Prestonsburg there weren’t black students in our schools. Uh, in the mountains, you know, there are little, there have been little enclaves of black communities and, uh, in that school system they just—even today, I don’t think there are black students, to be honest about it. In our county, which is forty-five minutes away, there are very few, very, very few, probably one percent.

BRINSON: And as I understand the history, where there were black communities, mostly who migrated in because of opportunities in the mines, most of those individuals migrated to other places as work, uh, stopped with the mines in the twenties, thirties and whatnot. Is that your understanding?

WEINBERG: There’s no doubt, uh, a lot of truth to, to that, but there also have been these enclaves that just stayed in the mountains. In Hazard, for instance, there is a much more sizeable black population and very integrated, very integrated. And they’re, I mean, they’re just old-time community people. Uh, they have roots as deep as many other, uh, folks in that community.

BRINSON: I’ve heard also about Benham and Lynch as once having had large black populations, but, again, today just small handfuls of . . .

WEINBERG: Right.

BRINSON: . . . people still living there.

WEINBERG: In our county it’s called Red Fox. There’s a community called Red Fox and you, uh, can typically identify from just an address whether a person, uh, is an African American or not.

BRINSON: We should, uh, make sure so the reader will know—where is your town today?

WEINBERG: in .

BRINSON: Okay. What about your early education? Did you go to school in Prestonsburg?

WEINBERG: Went to school in Prestonsburg. I went to kindergarten for a few days and then the teacher got mad at me for whistling and so Mama said I didn’t have to go back. [laughter] Uh, so then I went first, second and third grades in Prestonsburg and, uh, had a wonderful first grade teacher. And, uh, the second grade teacher was sort of out of the room a lot but I got to—my job was to read to the rest of the class and show off, so that suited me fine. [laughing] So I didn’t care that she was gone.

BRINSON: Right. Right.

WEINBERG: Uh, and then third grade was good. And then we moved to because my dad was elected to be judge of the court of appeals. And so we moved, uh, for the fourth, five, and sixth, and half of the seventh grades.

BRINSON: And where did you go to school then?

WEINBERG: I went to Cassidy, uh, Elementary and then Morton Junior High for just a little while.

BRINSON: Well, moving from Prestonsburg to , which did have a black population, do you remember anything about that? Was it. . . .?

WEINBERG: I really don’t except that, that, you know, as a little kid you listen to the grown-ups. And my, and particularly my mother’s family had just always been a very tolerant bunch, and so they never paid much attention to the color of somebody’s skin. And, and I remember specifically being taught there’s no difference just because somebody has a different color of skin. And that was my message and that’s all I was supposed to know, [laughing] so. . . . BRINSON: Did, did you—at what point in your life do you think, Lois, you became aware that we had a segregated society?

WEINBERG: Probably high school.

BRINSON: Okay.

WEINBERG: When, uh, we moved back to the and moved to and I went to and there was a sizeable black student population. But I began to be, uh, aware that they didn’t go everywhere we went, and, uh, they sort of hung together more than I would have expected. I mean, it was sort of surprising to me. And I remember in high school, you know, that was when, after my dad had been elected governor, and so we moved into the mansion which was difficult, uh, just because it disrupts your family. You know, you don’t—you no longer have your mother’s cooking, [laughing] you no longer have any of those—that good stuff disappears. But one of the privileges was that, uh, I got to have a party my senior year and, uh . . .

BRINSON: And your senior year was which year now?

WEINBERG: Nineteen sixty-one.

BRINSON: Okay. That’s the year you graduated?

WEINBERG: Right, from high school. And, uh, I was really awkward socially, maybe just because I was a teenager, but also I’d moved around back and forth from the city to the country and, you know, I was still just trying to be part of the crowd. But I couldn’t figure out who to invite to the party, and so the solution to that was you just invite the whole senior class. And because we lived in a big place, that was no problem, and so I did and some of the black kids came which was really neat. It was a little awkward, I have to tell you, and I remember feeling that [laughing] but that was all right. That was the party. And, uh, the other privilege was that, uh, you could invite the band to come up from the, uh, prison; and, of course, the band was all black, and they were wonderful. [laughing]

BRINSON: These were inmates?

WEINBERG: Inmates, yes. Of course, there were trus—what they called trustees who were the staff at the mansion at that time. It was not a professional staff. It was inmates from, uh, Eddyville and LaGrange and, uh, except for the state policemen, some of whom were white, the entire staff was black.

BRINSON: At what point were the schools integrated because ’61. . . .?

WEINBERG: It was probably right before that.

BRINSON: Okay.

WEINBERG: I’m not sure of the year but I’m . . . ’59 maybe.

BRINSON: That’s, that’s earlier, uh, for most of the state schools to be integrated. Do you, do you remember anything about that? Were you . . .?

WEINBERG: I wasn’t—I mean, it had happened before I got there. But thinking back on it, I’m sure it was new. I mean, by the—in--I was there in ’59--no, the beginning of ’60, and it was no doubt a new, a new arrangement that—there were no incidents really.

BRINSON: Okay.

WEINBERG: Which I think, knowing a little bit now about the sixties, I realize was pretty unusual.

BRINSON: Okay. Did you travel at all outside of --while you were growing up anyway--uh, that you might have, that your thinking about race, about segregation might have been influenced by something you saw in another state or . . .

WEINBERG: Not really. I mean, we did take trips to and to and, you know, just family trips to, to look around--uh, and to --but I don’t remember anything that was really pivotal.

BRINSON: Or to another country?

WEINBERG: Not until college did I go to another country.

BRINSON: Okay.

WEINBERG: But I always read things and, uh, I, I sort of just thought, didn’t think that it was much of an issue. I mean, that’s how unaware and naïve I was.

BRINSON: Well, but interestingly to me as I interview, that’s what everyone says, both black and white. [laughter-Weinberg] “That’s just the way it was. We didn’t think about it, you know, any differently.” But, uh, so you graduated in 1961 from ?

WEINBERG: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: And then what?

WEINBERG: Then I went to Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in . And, uh, I’m certain that—I know that while I was there my, my ideas really were broadened, and I was aware of the, the staff at the college and most of them were black people. But I also got to know them as people because it was--we were living—I mean, I was living there and they were there all the time, in and out. People that worked in the kitchen and maintenance and so forth and, and I had . . .

BRINSON: Is there anybody in particular that really stands out for you?

WEINBERG: No, there really wasn’t but, you know, classmates, uh, were good friends, particularly those who worked in the kitchen, were good friends with that staff. And so there was an atmosphere that we, we were all, uh, sort of chums, you know, that we needed to communicate with each other and to have a relationship at some level, not a very deep level.

BRINSON: But I wouldn’t imagine Randolph-Macon at that point had any black students or faculty . . .

WEINBERG: Not faculty. Uh, students, uh--we began getting more international students and students of color. Uh, I remember there was an Indian student who came. And, uh, so that was beginning to take root.

BRINSON: Okay. So all of that, as I understand it, was sort of raising your consciousness a little bit?

WEINBERG: Sure.

BRINSON: Okay. Uh, how long were you at Randolph-Macon?

WEINBERG: I was there for four years and graduated. Uh, went to the next year and worked for the Office of Economic Opportunity. Uh, again, you know, beginning to learn a little bit more about the country and about, you know--we’d gone through the Kennedy, you know, era by that time and just learning that we did have problems in this country, and race was an important issue. So I worked there for a year and then I went back to and worked in admissions at the college, and by that time felt very strongly that Randolph-Macon needed to reach out. I’d worked in, uh, a program for two summers called Appalachian Volunteers and the VISTA Volunteers and so, um, and had interacted with peers from all over by that time, but went back to Randolph-Macon feeling that their admission policy needed to reach out to black women, black young women and, uh, low income young women to the extent that we could. And, uh . . .

BRINSON: Talk a little bit about how you did that, how the school worked on those kinds of issues.

WEINBERG: Well, the year I was there was an awkward year because Miss Tillett had just died.

BRINSON: And she was?

WEINBERG: She was the Director of Admissions so I—she had recruited me and then was sick and died very shortly after I got there--so it was a year of having some autonomy within sort of the structure that wasn’t going—I was certainly not part of any policy structure. But on my own I could call up and go to schools and present my agenda of where I was going to be and I just would—I felt comfortable going to schools that had black students. Uh, I’d have to think back whether I went to all-black schools or not. I may have. [laughing]

BRINSON: Well, at that point, uh . . .

WEINBERG: Would have been in ’67.

BRINSON: I’m not sure about and particularly since you were out in the, the more western part of the area.

WEINBERG: But also I traveled around. I didn’t just stay in .

BRINSON: Oh, oh that’s right.

WEINBERG: I went to and . Uh, I made connections with alumni, alumni groups in different areas and would go to, uh, , , different places, so . . .

BRINSON: So you could have been actually interviewing in some all-white and some all-black schools . . .

WEINBERG: Or predominantly. . . .

BRINSON: . . . depending on the place?

WEINBERG: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: Okay. Uh, were you successful?

WEINBERG: Well, this is embarrassing because I’m not sure how many students we actually--uh, how many students of color we enrolled that next year, because what I did was I got restless and I moved on that next summer. And I went to work for a local nonprofit in called the Lynchburg Christian Fellowship. And, uh, they had a coffeehouse and they were working on low-income housing and on a tutorial program in the inner city, and, and I took an apartment in the upstairs of where the tutorial was. And, uh, and I ran a day camp; that was my job and, uh, for the summer. And then by the end of the summer, uh, there was a job available to be Director of Neighborhood Development with the local community action program. And so I interviewed and was hired, probably in retrospect, as much because I was white as for any other reason because the entire staff--except for two other white women, the whole staff was black. So they needed some racial balance [laughing] and, uh, so being, uh, twenty-something and, uh, sort of, uh, adventuresome, I got into that job and just loved it.

BRINSON: I didn’t ask you what you majored in, in college.

WEINBERG: Well, of course, I majored in biology, just what you need to prepare for [laughter] any of these things.

BRINSON: Well, with a major in biology, where did you think you might have been headed?

WEINBERG: Well, I didn’t know, you know. I did not know. And when I went to Washington the first time and looked for a job in a laboratory--remember I was offered a job over at Georgetown--and I went to the lab and it was up on the sixth floor, and it was dark, and it was big and lonely and I thought, “Oh, I really appreciate the offer of this job but there is no way . . . I would, I would starve first. . . .” [laughing] So that was sort of my academic counseling at a late date.

BRINSON: Okay. Tell me about the Christian Fellowship. That’s not a group that I really know.

WEINBERG: It, uh—well, there was a church in, uh, Washington—there were two brothers—it was a family and the two brothers, uh, became, uh, Church of Christ ministers. And actually the brother in was named Gordon Cosby, and in it was Bev Cosby.

BRINSON: Bev?

WEINBERG: Bev.

BRINSON: B-E-V?

WEINBERG: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: Okay.

WEINBERG: And he . . .

BRINSON: Is that short for ?

WEINBERG: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And I think he was educated at, uh, Yale or someplace? And then came home and very clearly saw the mission to be there and gathered together, uh, folks of like mind to form a very, very small church, black and white, that met in the old family home in the living room. And they were, uh, very committed people who carved out the vision of what these programs should be in , which as you know, was just terribly segregated even at that late date. And, uh, Jerry Falwell was actively working, beginning his whole conservative school and church and all of that.

BRINSON: In the area I’m sure, without having looked at the statistics, had a much higher percentage of African American population, certainly than Prestonsburg . . .

WEINBERG: Oh, indeed. Indeed!

BRINSON: . . . who . . .

WEINBERG: And certainly in the inner city, uh, which is where mainly we worked. I lived there and we worked in the, in the inner city.

BRINSON: So the mission involved working, you said, on these different programs which, uh-- if you could articulate for me sort of the mission statement, or paraphrasing it, of the program, what would you say that it was?

WEINBERG: For the Christian Fellowship? Uh, it was ecumenical. It was, of course, nonprofit. It was inclusive of all economic, uh, strata and racial inclusion. Uh, the mission was simply to improve people’s lives, I think. You know, at this point they still continue what they call the wood ministry, and they, they chop wood and provide inexpensive wood to people who are still burning wood. They have the apartments, ( ) apartments. They have the Cumbaya House, which is where I lived and tutored that first year, even before I went to work for the Community Action Program. And, uh, then there’s been an economic or job placement service that has grown and, and continues until now.

BRINSON: Of course, this was the, the sixties and a lot of us and a lot of young people were working in similar programs to try and accomplish some social change. Uh, what, what though really motivated you to do this kind of work?

WEINBERG: Hmm. Gosh . . .

BRINSON: And also, at the same time as you think about that, what, what was going on in . . . not only locally, but, you know, nationally, internationally--were those kinds of influences there for you, too, either through articles or television or people that you might have known?

WEINBERG: Well, I’ll think about the first one, what motivated me. Uh, I think that’s just, in the back of my mind, the sort of things that I’d always thought I wanted to do. I’ve always thought Jane Adams was terrific--when I was ten years old and didn’t really know what she was doing. [laughing] Uh, and then when I graduated from school and was a member of the Appalachian Volunteers and we went back into eastern Kentucky and we worked with folks in, uh—well, where I was, was called Payne’s Creek. It was a hollow . . .

BRINSON: Payne’s Creek?

WEINBERG: Payne’s Creek in .

BRINSON: P-A-I-N-E?

WEINBERG: P-A-Y-N-E-S. And I was there with another young woman who’s still working in similar programs in eastern and a young man who—I’ve lost track of him. But we just sort of--I guess we encouraged each other that this is, this was important work. I mean, we, we lived with a family that had a, a wood cook stove and this was in 1965. And, uh, I’m not sure they had electric lights. I remember when it got dark everything else was dark in the house. [laughing] Uh, it was summertime and so it didn’t get dark until late and then we would just kind of collapse, and start at the next morning. But we worked with families, tried to, uh--we encouraged the families to send their children to Head Start. That had just begun. We, uh, had a little recreational program in the one-room school and got books that were boxed and sent in from different places, uh, to read to the kids and play games and do crafts and things. I mean, I certainly didn’t know what to do [laughter] so anything that was constructive, uh, was to the good. You know, we picked blackberries with the kids, and ate with the families, and learned—really, it was more about educating us to tell the truth. I mean, I had grown up in the mountains but I had never experienced the level of deprivation and poverty that we encountered that summer. No running water, no indoor facilities, uh, no books anywhere. Maybe one or two people had televisions, maybe. Uh, so for me that was a real eye-opener.

BRINSON: You said, “educating us to tell the truth.” It’s a wonderful phrase. What do you mean by that?

WEINBERG: Well, I think, uh, if you don’t, if you don’t realize the whole story you can’t tell it and therefore you’re kind of stuck. And if . . . I don’t know—I like to think that the truth encompasses different facets of a story and an experience.

BRINSON: Were you conscious enough at the time, uh, to have a plan as to who you would tell these truths to?

WEINBERG: No. No, you know, one day at a time and, uh, live for the moment and we’ll see what comes. It was a, a great optimism at the time . . .

END OF TAPE ONE, SIDE ONE

BEGIN TAPE ONE SIDE TWO

WEINBERG: . . . certainly from violence, certainly from any sort of deprivation, uh, from just a lot of, any sort of difficult situation in a way. And yet, you know, my family dealt with a lot of difficulties, my extended family, with sickness and death and, uh, but that all seemed very normal. And my brother, uh, is retarded and, uh, certainly my mother and dad had to deal with that, which in those days was no easier than it is now.

BRINSON: Uh-huh, sure.

WEINBERG: And that was, that was a real family crisis and yet, you know, like in any other family, it gets normalized. So that was what we did. [laughing] We figured out what to do about Tommy who couldn’t tie his shoes or any of the other difficulties that he had.

BRINSON: Growing up in —and I recognize that you lived in a number of places—but, but addressing violence, particularly racial violence, do you have any recollection of hearing about racial violence or reading about it in the newspapers or . . .?

WEINBERG: Not until, probably, I went away to school. Sometime after ’61. And, and, uh, one of the things that my dad not only encouraged me to do but, just to the extent that he could, coerced me across all those miles to read the newspaper every day, particularly the Courier Journal because our school library had it. I mean, that was just my obligation. So I began, obviously, to see those things that were happening.

BRINSON: So you were still pretty much aware of what was going on in both through your family, I expect, as well as the newspaper?

WEINBERG: To some degree, uh-huh, and also there was a small cohort of girls there and so we, we talked and shared.

BRINSON: Well, and some very interesting things were happening then. Uh, in 1961 when your father was governor, uh, he was supporting the integration of downtown restaurants in ; and, as I understand it, he basically endorsed the mayor’s proposal to integrate.

WEINBERG: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: But that was not an easy thing to come out and do at that particular time. Do you have any recollection of either that situation or, or others that your father or family members might have been involved in at that point?

WEINBERG: Not specifically except, uh, that I know he was influenced by some of the progressive leaders in and would have been, uh, receptive to, uh, what they thought was good for . People like Barry, Barry Bingham. Uh, and, uh, certainly Ed Pritchard who was not a Louisvillian but, but had strong feelings and who, by that time, was a close friend of my dad. So even though his experience hadn’t involved a lot of interaction with black people to my knowledge other than in the army perhaps, uh, nevertheless he was, uh, he, he, like my mother’s family, was very tolerant. A tolerant person. Uh, a wide variety of not totally socially acceptable things. [laughing] In other words, people—I mean he had good friends who were, uh, brilliant alcoholics, one in particular I remember, a lawyer who was just brilliant. Uh, but that didn’t seem to faze my dad that he had this terrible problem.

BRINSON: Well, your comment about maybe, uh, “when he was in the military” is interesting because, of course, you’re right. It was that period that the military became integrated.

WEINBERG: Right.

BRINSON: And it was out of that experience that we trace the, the advocacy, particularly of some of the returning black soldiers, uh, who had been in integrative environments and that really prompted them, as you know, in their return home to say maybe we ought to look at things here.

WEINBERG: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Uh, and that happened everywhere but do you recall anything at all that your father might have shared about that military experience in terms of integration or . . .?

WEINBERG: Not really. I do have a picture that, uh, was taken at, uh, Aberdeen Proving Grounds where my mother worked before I was born, and, uh, it’s one of those big long pictures and all of the white staff is in the middle. And on either end they have the black staff, separated and on either end. Uh, but, you know, I’m sure that for both my mom and dad that that was one of their first opportunities to sort of interact with, uh, black folks in a peer situation.

BRINSON: Okay. I’m interested also—while you were out of the state in 1963, your, your father as governor, then issued his executive order to eliminate, uh, segregation. Uh, what do you recall? Did you--were you aware of that when it happened or . . .?

WEINBERG: I remember him talking about it. He was very proud of it. He was very proud of it and wanted me to understand, I think, more than I did just how important he, that he thought that it was. And, uh, that, uh, needed to, to be a leader in doing these things.

BRINSON: How was that received publicly at the time? Do you have any sense of that?

WEINBERG: Not specifically but I’m sure, uh—he was a very popular governor at that, at that point. And, uh, whatever discussion, anti-discussion there was in opposition would have been sort of a mumble and a rumble, because he was at that point, uh, as I said, popular and able to sort of push ahead on some things that maybe not everybody liked anyway or felt certain about like community colleges and, you know, he just thought state parks were fabulous. Well, not everybody thought that we ought to spend money on them--and certainly not the , which was, uh, termed a road that began, that went nowhere. And . . .

BRINSON: I just took that road for the first time last week [laughter--WEINBERG] to Hazard. It’s actually a wonderful road.

WEINBERG: It is a wonderful road.

BRINSON: And the woman who was taking me there, uh, actually has a long history in , so she was sharing what that trip would have been like before the road. It sounded rather dismal.

WEINBERG: It was dismal and certainly we traveled it—it was like a four-hour trip to get to Lexington and over many, many, many curves and, you know, if you had any motion sickness, by the time you arrived on either end you were just about green. [laughing]

BRINSON: Okay. Uh, I’m, I’m interested though, again, in any recollection you might have of kind of public sentiment. And I wonder, uh, at the time of the executive order, uh, was there any Klan activity in that you were aware of?

WEINBERG: If there was, it was very, very subdued and I would have guessed it might have been in western .

BRINSON: Okay.

WEINBERG: Uh, down near the river.

BRINSON: Or white citizens councils? Was there any . . .?

WEINBERG: It was--I just don’t think there was a lot. There may have been some but it was not a real movement.

BRINSON: Okay. [interruption]

BRINSON: Lois, I want to move this just a little bit to sort of explore whether there are, uh, aspects about, uh, this whole topic in terms of legal segregation and gender that are applicable in any way. Uh, and I, I just wonder, uh, for you, for example, do you have any sense that women handled legal segregation the same as men, differently from men? And I’m talking about both black and white women here.

WEINBERG: When you say “handled legal segregation,” what does that really mean?

BRINSON: Did they accept it more than men? Were they more outspoken in opposing it?

WEINBERG: I wouldn’t say so. I mean, that’s my, that’s my gut feeling. What occurred to me when you said “handled legal segregation,” uh, how did they, how did they react to it. And it’s always been my feeling that white women were able to bridge the gap in terms of relationships, uh, much more easily, perhaps, than the men could or did and that, uh, the relationships between black and white women have always been richer in whatever way, even, even when it was sort of, uh, the mistress of the house and the employee. But still there was a closer relationship there than, uh, you would have found say with a man who employed a black man, a white man employing a black man. That’s just my, my hunch from family and my own experience, my own experience. I love to talk to black women, even total strangers, uh, you know, I—it’s just fun to get to some basic nuggets of wisdom in a short time. [laughing]

BRINSON: And you think you can do that with women in a way that you can’t always do with men? Is that because of your being a woman?

WEINBERG: Probably. Although, at this stage of the game, I--particularly after the experience when I worked with black men as well as women--uh, I don’t feel much difference. I mean, once, uh, once Felix Joiner—no, it wasn’t Felix Joiner. What was his last name? Felix . . . what was his last name? Anyway, he gave me a whole new vocabulary for everything. And when I understood that legs were yams [laughing], you know, and I just figured well I just need to translate all of this stuff and then I—you can communicate.

BRINSON: Legs were yams?

WEINBERG: Yams.

BRINSON: Is that a black sort of dialect or term?

WEINBERG: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: Hmm.

WEINBERG: And, uh, they—the men on the staff got a big kick out of educating me as to language and taking me to the chitlin suppers and, uh, making sure I got to black churches on Sunday and those kinds of things so, you know, after that men and women, they’re about like anybody else. [laughing]

BRINSON: Of course, starting in February of ’60 we began to see the sit-ins and other demonstrations that rapidly kind of moved across the South. Did, did you ever participate in any of those yourself?

WEINBERG: No, I didn’t. I didn’t but I was in doing the community action program when Martin Luther King died, uh, and was aware of the tensions very definitely. But I never participated in those kinds of demonstrations.

BRINSON: Who were your heroes or heroines, uh, in that period? People who were kind of acknowledged leaders in civil rights. Do you remember?

WEINBERG: I’ve always thought Jesse Jackson was neat. Uh, and certainly, you know, I mean, during that era, John Kennedy had to be a hero for all of us. Um, I don’t know that Bobby Kennedy was really one of my heroes but, uh—and at that stage I really think there were some—oh, a local, a local woman, a local black woman named Hazel Boulware was definitely one of my heroines.

BRINSON: Now she was local in ?

WEINBERG: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: Spell her last name please.

WEINBERG: B-O-U-L-W-A-R-E.

BRINSON: Okay.

WEINBERG: And a mentor and, uh . . .

BRINSON: Tell me, tell me about her.

WEINBERG: Well, she was, uh, she was a member of the Lynchburg Christian Fellowship and married to a doctor, a physician, black physician. Just involved in every aspect of the community, both black and white. She and Miss Schule were good friends. Uh, very outspoken and energetic and, uh, just a warm human being who was an effective leader. And to tell the truth, uh, played that role better than probably any other woman that I’ve been close to, black or white, to that point. So she definitely left a, left a mark. And, in fact, as I said, was a mentor and sort of took me under her wing and, uh, smoothed out a couple of rough spots perhaps along the way. But, I mean, she just, she was so talented. And, uh, and race was not an issue for her. I mean, you know, she just was able to move in both communities with great ease, and she was very well educated and very attractive and, uh, she was just beautiful.

BRINSON: Okay.

WEINBERG: I haven’t thought of her in a long time.

BRINSON: You think you have a photo of her?

WEINBERG: Uh-uh. Well, I may—yes, I do at home. One day, uh, we did a work project and got a bunch of teenage girls to come and, uh, she came and we took a photo that day. [laughing]

BRINSON: Okay. How do you know the Schules?

WEINBERG: Well, . They, uh—he was on the City Council and was probably—I’m almost sure he was on the, uh, Community Action Board as well. And, uh, I felt like he was a mentor to Haywood Robinson who was the director of the program, black man, black minister. Uh, they were just, uh—he, in particular, was just a very positive force in the community. And, uh, I found some notes, Betsy, and, gosh, no telling where, but that I had made about a conversation with Elliot Schule--I think as I was leaving . And he, he had said something to me—this was in a diary somewhere—he had said something to me that made me feel very validated in the work that I tried to do for those two years. And I was a little amazed that he even was aware of what I was doing. I mean, I was only twenty-something and he was this very established, influential person in town.

BRINSON: And that would have been before his election to the legislature?

WEINBERG: Oh yes, uh-huh.

BRINSON: Which I believe was about twenty-five years ago.

WEINBERG: Uh-hmm. Probably.

BRINSON: I think he retired a few years ago.

WEINBERG: Probably several years before that.

BRINSON: So he was—he hadn’t quite moved up to the state . . .

WEINBERG: Uh-uh. Uh-uh.

BRINSON: . . . office then. You know, I’m also intrigued thinking about this. I’d forgotten about your connections; but, uh, I’m thinking about Randolph-Macon, and I believe that’s also where Anne Braden of went to school?

WEINBERG: She did.

BRINSON: Years before you were there.

WEINBERG: Exactly. Exactly.

BRINSON: But Anne Braden of and, of course, her whole journey in terms of . . .

WEINBERG: Right.

BRINSON: . . . trying to improve race relations and--was there something about Randolph-Macon Women’s College that just sort of fostered interest in social issues and . . .?

WEINBERG: I think that’s, that’s fair to say, social issues and just being involved in community. I mean, uh, it just is a place that breeds people who are going to be involved in community in whatever way is natural for them. And as I look back on, you know, prior classes and current classes, they’re still doing it. And I really am not quite sure how they, how they did it, but it’s evident from all of the contacts I’ve had with alums through the years, both through the admissions when I would go and stay with them in communities all over and they were always right in the middle of the stuff. Sometimes it was garden clubs, and sometimes it was social issues or city council or the hospital board or—but they were always right in the middle of something.

BRINSON: So it was service oriented.

WEINBERG: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

BRINSON: Do you think it had anything to do with the fact that it was an all-woman’s college?

WEINBERG: Perhaps although there are other all-women’s colleges that I don’t think really came out that way. Uh, to be honest we weren’t exactly—I mean, we really, we were social but we weren’t exactly the social butterflies that some others were. Uh, not that we wouldn’t have wanted to be, perhaps, [laughter] we just--somehow that’s not the way it happened.

BRINSON: [laughing] Okay.

WEINBERG: I think we, we talked too much. You know, when we’d go on dates, we’d talk to the guys about, you know, what we thought was important instead of just concentrating on having a good time. And so [laughing] you know that colors things.

BRINSON: That’s very interesting.

WEINBERG: I remember one of my classmates organized, uh, I guess it was the first International Affairs Conference on campus when we were juniors.

BRINSON: And what was the purpose of the conference?

WEINBERG: Uh, just to, uh, look at what we would call global issues now. And, uh, I remember she had invited young men from all over as well as other young women, and had a good line-up of speakers and—but just sort of to push us beyond the borders . . .

BRINSON: Right.

WEINBERG: . . . of where we were.

BRINSON: Well, I went to an all-woman’s college, too. Uh, it was the Woman’s College of the at the time. And I remember when I, uh, thought about doing a doctoral dissertation years later in the eighties, I seriously thought about writing on, researching and writing about, uh, sort of the awareness that came out of some women’s colleges that kind of grew into the leadership of the women’s movement.

WEINBERG: Hmm. That would be interesting.

BRINSON: And I never did take that as a topic, but I talked to a number of people from different women’s colleges who were active, uh, in the states, in the South and actually at the national level. And there were lots of people who thought that there might be something there. And, uh, I don’t know about Randolph-Macon, but it sounds like there was something there in terms of developing a social conscience.

WEINBERG: And also just a willingness or an emphasis on thinking independently about whatever.

BRINSON: Right.

WEINBERG: I mean, those were the models; those were the professors who were there for us. And they, uh, they, they, they did their own thing and it wasn’t a carbon copy, that I could tell, of what other folks were doing.

BRINSON: Well, there’s probably also some of that research literature that, you know, out of the AAUW that talks about the benefits for girls in a classroom where there aren’t boys in terms of learning to speak up and having an opportunity sometimes to speak up.

WEINBERG: Absolutely.

BRINSON: Interesting. At what point did you come back to ?

WEINBERG: After Bill and I were married.

BRINSON: Which was?

WEINBERG: sixty-nine.

BRINSON: Sixty-nine.

WEINBERG: Sixty-nine. Uh, we went to —no, I’m, that’s not true. We were married in sixty-nine and then we went to for two years. And, uh, Bill studied international affairs and I worked in the office Carl Perkins for two years. And then we decided to come back to Pippa Passes.

BRINSON: Okay. And where was Carl Perkins on some of those race issues at that point?

WEINBERG: Well, it’s, it’s very interesting--and Bill, you know, is planning to do a biography of Mr. Perkins and, uh, has begun the research--and what is very clear is that he saw the connection between low-income children in eastern and the low-income children in . And he and Adam Clayton Powell formed this very, very tight bond on the, uh, Education and Labor Committee when Mr., uh, Powell was the chairman; and then when he was removed, Mr. Perkins became the chairman. But they had worked together closely on issues, uh, I don’t know for how many years but it was very real and they trusted each other. I mean, you can tell from the interaction, uh, in the Congressional Record and correspondence and so forth that they, uh, they saw eye to eye on a lot of things. [laughing]

BRINSON: That’s really interesting. Well, so, you came back then not in ’69 but about ’71?

WEINBERG: One, uh-huh.

BRINSON: To Pippa Passes?

WEINBERG: Uh-huh.

BRINSON: Okay. Did, uh—is Bill from originally?

WEINBERG: He’s from .

BRINSON: , okay. When, when you came back then, you’d been out of the state for a number of years, and we’d been through the sixties and we had legal changes, uh, as well as some social changes around race. Did you see any difference from the time that you left—the time you came back and the time that you left earlier?

WEINBERG: Well, you know, in Pippa Passes, again, there’s not a very large black population. [laughter] Although I did work with Upward Bound and there were some black Upward Bound students and so that was, I guess, different. Uh, where I would have seen it would have been in . Uh, I didn’t—frankly, I don’t think I saw a lot of changes. And I haven’t seen—I didn’t see a lot of changes, uh, until fairly recently in, in . And I just think it’s real interesting that you can go to Applebee’s now and it’s a very integrated clientele. In fact, when we were in Boston I noticed that there were many restaurants that we went to that should have been just, you know, so cosmopolitan and in such a diverse place and you’d walk in and it was just solid white, [laughing] you know. Now there was one neighborhood restaurant that was some—occasionally integrated, just a minor degree. But, uh . . .

BRINSON: So even with the ’64 civil rights act, which would have, uh, opened up restaurants and, well, all kinds of facilities, public accommodation, there didn’t seem to be the movement to make that happen one on one? Why do you think that might have been?

WEINBERG: We just, I guess, had had to change our culture and we’re still right in the middle of it, seems to me. We’re right in the middle of it even though it’s thirty years later, or thirty-five years later. And, uh, I don’t know if, if —I’m not so sure that we’re slower. Uh, but the, uh, the critical mass issue may be a factor in some instances, uh, in terms of people in government, or people in government positions, or policy-making positions in high-level, corporate positions and that kind of thing.

BRINSON: Okay. I think I’m going to stop there. [interruption]

WEINBERG: I do think we’re still in the middle of all of the, of figuring out all of these issues; and as my husband Bill reminds me frequently, the civil rights movement was about saving the black man’s body and the white man’s soul.

BRINSON: What do you think he means by that?

WEINBERG: Well, I think, you know, there was clearly--there have been abuses of black people, uh, in prisons and schools and employment and all kinds of places, just physically, uh, enduring abuse. But, in fact, uh, it’s been the white man who has walled-off feeling and . . .

END OF INTERVIEW