Oral History Interview with Chester Grundy

BETSY BRINSON: This is an interview with Chester Grundy. The interviewer is Betsy Brinson and it is taking place in Chester’s office at the University of Kentucky. Okay, well, thank you for meeting with me today Chester. Is it all right if I call you Chester?

CHESTER GRUNDY: Oh, please, yeah.

BRINSON: As you know I’ve been interviewing Ann, your wife, and we’ve been interviewing women in the first part of this project. But I thought since I’ve been doing such extensive interviewing with her that it would be helpful to me to talk with you a little bit. And as I shared on the phone I want to do a little bit with you but then I also want to ask you some questions about Ann.

GRUNDY: Okay, sure.

BRINSON: Is that okay?

GRUNDY: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Why don’t we begin Chester, tell me a little bit about where and when you were born, your early family life, your growing up.

GRUNDY: Okay. Well, I’m from Louisville, Kentucky. I grew up in Louisville in an area that Louisvillians know as California. I don’t know the origin of that name but it’s now one of the historic African American neighborhoods in the west end of Louisville. And my formative years were there. I grew up and was there until about age twelve.

BRINSON: And you were born in what year?

GRUNDY: 1947.

BRINSON: Okay.

GRUNDY: My education was in the public schools in Louisville. I went to elementary school at Phillis Wheatley Elementary, which was only two blocks from where I lived. And my teachers were people who knew my family well. I finished, well, what we called it, junior high school is now called middle school at Duvall Junior High School and went on to Male High School in Louisville.

BRINSON: Male?

GRUNDY: Male High School, yeah.

BRINSON: All men, was it all men?

GRUNDY: At one point in its history it was all male but by the time I got there it was co-ed. And it was, we were, I guess, the third or fourth wave of black students to attend Male. So it was still in its process of desegregation.

BRINSON: So it was an integrated school by the time that you got there?

GRUNDY: It was, yeah.

BRINSON: Ok. Had you been to an all black school previously?

GRUNDY: Oh, yeah, up until that time from the beginning of school up until ninth grade I had only had contact with black students and black teachers. So Male was my first contact in a desegregated setting.

BRINSON: Is Male spelled M A L E?

GRUNDY: M A L E.

BRINSON: Okay.

GRUNDY: And I graduated from Male in 1965.

BRINSON: Do you have any brothers and sisters?

GRUNDY: One of each, I have an older sister and a younger brother.

BRINSON: Okay. And what about your family origins? Are they in Kentucky here originally?

GRUNDY: Yes, my father’s family is from Kentucky. They come from Mt. Sterling, Sonora, Kentucky, uhmm, some I think are from Mt. Washington and some from Springfield. My mother’s people are from Tennessee. A little place called Lynnville, Tennessee. I’ve only been through there a few times. But basically most of my family is from Kentucky and from the Tennessee area.

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

GRUNDY: Of my father’s family all were laborers. My father was, my father had a number of jobs, but from the time I was aware till the time he died he was, he’s connected with a car dealership. At one point did custodial work and he was promoted to a truck driver for the parts department, but he took a lot of side jobs. He was real resourceful. So he would, he did what they called at that time trades. So he did TV repair. I mean one time he raised rabbits. At one time he, well he would do custodial work. You know he was pretty, he had a real provider spirit about him. So he would do just about anything. He had worked as assistant to funeral homes. I mean anything just a wide range of jobs. But you know, he was a man who didn’t finish high school. He had one brother who did finish high school and went on to college. But of the four of them only one earned a degree and the other three were just family men, laborers.

BRINSON: What about your mother? Did she work outside the home?

GRUNDY: No, she was a hairdresser.

BRINSON: She was a hairdresser.

GRUNDY: Right, and at one point in her life she did have a shop during World War II in that period. But later on she started as she said ,“Fixing heads” at our house. So she would do that in the kitchen and had a regular clientele that would come to the house; but a housewife for the most part.

BRINSON: In your growing up were you part of a church?

GRUNDY: My father was Catholic so we were raised in the Catholic Church. Never went to Catholic school. He resisted that. But…

BRINSON: How did he get to be Catholic? That’s unusual isn’t it?

GRUNDY: Yeah. My grandfather was a Catholic. My grandmother was a Protestant. But I think she just conceded to, I mean Catholics at one time had this policy where if you were Catholic you had to--like and you wanted to be married in the Catholic Church you know--you had to commit to raising your children as Catholics.

BRINSON: Don’t they still have that?

GRUNDY: Do they? I don’t know. I have left the church.

BRINSON: Well, my daughter who is not Catholic is married to a Catholic, and I think that is the understanding then that the children get raised Catholic.

GRUNDY: Yeah, well, that was the deal with us, so. The three of us were brought up in the Catholic Church. Went through catechism and communion and all. I remained with the church until I went to college.

BRINSON: Where were you in terms of, are you first, second or third child?

GRUNDY: I’m the middle child.

BRINSON: You’re the middle child, okay. Is it your sister that’s the oldest?

GRUNDY: Yes.

BRINSON: Ok. And your brother the youngest?

GRUNDY: Right.

BRINSON: Okay, how much of an age difference is there between you?

GRUNDY: I’m six years older than him and she’s about fifteen months older than me.

BRINSON: So when you graduated from high school what happened then for you?

GRUNDY: Well, uhmm, I came here. I came to the University of Kentucky. And at that time my sister was at Eastern Kentucky. So there was a period where we were both in school. My father was doing all he could to keep us here.

BRINSON: Two of you coming to college and it sounds like of your parents at least, you were the first members of the immediate family to attend college.

GRUNDY: Yes. Well, no, my sister was a year ahead of me.

BRINSON: Was a year ahead of you.

GRUNDY: Right. So she was at Eastern prior to my graduation.

BRINSON: How did it come that you chose the University of Kentucky?

GRUNDY: Well, I’m going to say, I was, I was pretty naïve at the time in terms of knowing anything about the University of Kentucky vis-a-vis it’s reputation with black Kentuckians, okay? So I didn’t know anything about that. But at that time I recall I wanted to go to a large school and I wanted to go to IU.

BRINSON: Indiana University?

GRUNDY: Right. But my father couldn’t afford out of state fees. So this was my next choice, and I think the fact that they had a ROTC program appealed to me, too, because I had done that all through high school. And I had aspirations of being a career military man. So UK being large and being at least a hundred miles from my sister was appealing, too, so.

BRINSON: So was it your sister you were interested in being further away from than your parents?

GRUNDY: Away from, oh, yeah. [Laughter] [Sound of phone ringing] Excuse me.

BRINSON: So you came here in 1965?

GRUNDY: Right.

BRINSON: And what did you study?

GRUNDY: Sociology.

BRINSON: Okay. Why did you choose sociology as a major?

GRUNDY: I think it had to do with, I was not clear on a major when I came here. But one of the people that I met early on was a fellow who was probably the first intellectual I ever met in my life. This guy, Major Jones, who was a career war vet and was older than most of us, but I met him in the student center. We would gather, black students would gather at the student center at noontime. And this guy just struck me, really impressed me with his maturity and his insight, and he was studying sociology. So I was convinced that that’s for me, you know. If it could do that for him maybe it would do that for me. But he was, uhmm, you know, somebody that kind of took me under his wing and he saw I was curious about things. So, you know, he would spend time talking about the affairs of the world just had a point of view on things that just kind of opened my head to some things.

BRINSON: Now, let me make sure, was he a returning student from Korea? He was a student not a faculty.

GRUNDY: Yeah. Right, a student, graduate student.

BRINSON: Okay. When you came here, Chester, how many other black students were there here at this point and time?

GRUNDY: Fifty.

BRINSON: Fifty, out of a total of?

GRUNDY: Sixteen thousand.

BRINSON: Wow. And you had been in an integrated high school so you had some experience of what that would be like.

GRUNDY: Yes.

BRINSON: But how did you find coming here with that kind of disparity of numbers?

GRUNDY: You know I said I was naïve. I really thought that this would only be, you know, an extension of my experience at Male High, but you know, we found out very quickly that it was going to be very different, and that race was going to be an issue every day of our lives. So, uhmm, you know, the thing that that I had to come to grips with was, if I was going to stay here and survive, I was going to have to find a way to cope being black and being at UK. And you know there were, all of us were kind of struggling with this and I think we dealt with it in different ways. But you know it was clear to me that I was going to have to be reminded that I was black every day of my experience here. For some people, even people like Henry, I mean it really took a toll.

I mean there are some people who I know are dealing with it to this day, their experience here at UK in 1965. But you know I think I was fortunate in that I did meet some people who, you know, I saw as kind of like sort of my support system. This guy, Major Jones was one and then there were a group of guys from eastern Kentucky, and there were some other people in the community who I really connected with immediately. And we found out that, you know, as long as we bonded around that experience of being black and being at UK, you know, maybe we could do something about it. So it was, you know, for me it was like my kind of coming to awareness about who I was as a black student.

BRINSON: I understand that you were involved in the early days of the Black Student Union here.

GRUNDY: Right.

BRINSON: Can you talk, that’s about all I know. Can you talk about that for me?

GRUNDY: Well, initially there was no Black Student Union. But we did have a group that we called Orgena. I mean this is--it says everything about where we were in terms of our sense of identity--because this organization Orgena was primarily a social organization and was just there to give us a social outlet. And the name itself is a Negro spelled backwards. Okay, so. I mean we talk about it now, it’s like, we were a bunch of backward Negroes, but [laughing] you know that’s what we had and that’s where we were in our thinking. So that, we, we relied on that for a couple of years, you know, to give us, you know, some kind of an opportunity to have some parties and socialize a bit. And we would have any reason to get together, you know.

BRINSON: So when you first came here the Black Student Union wasn’t in existence?

GRUNDY: No. That happened about 1968 and the development of that really did parallel the events around Dr. King’s assassination. So with, then, you know, the Black Student Union movement across the country was really picking up momentum. So we were, we were very much in tune with that. I mean we had people on campus who were doing some traveling and moving around other campuses, and they would bring us back, you know, kind of, information about what was happening in other places and what we ought to consider doing.

BRINSON: Do you remember at what point, Chester, that other campuses in Kentucky had Black Student Unions?

GRUNDY: University of Louisville, in fact we used University of Louisville as almost a reference point for us.

BRINSON: And Berea.

GRUNDY: Yeah, Berea did, too but you know we didn’t have as much contact with Berea as Louisville. We were up and down I-64 a lot.

BRINSON: Right as a public versus a private.

GRUNDY: Right, public school and those of us from Louisville knew students at Louisville. [Phone rings]

BRINSON: So when the Black Student Union started here in `68 do you remember what some of the program issues, the concerns were of the club?

GRUNDY: Uh-hmm. You know recently we did a panel, African American Studies and Research sponsored a panel that was kind of retrospective of that period. And you know it wasn’t until the four of us sat down and started talking about that period that it occurred to all of us that we were really pretty forward thinking. I don’t know what, [laughing] what our source of inspiration was except we did know what was happening around the country. But we were dealing with things basically like, well, recruitment and retention. I mean there was our own situation that was sort of a problem, but we knew too that if we were going to improve things that we had to have more of us here. So we were as students developing recruiting programs. We would go down to local high schools and visit with high school seniors. Talk to them about what it would take to prepare for UK as best we could, you know. We talked with, at the same time we were trying to put programs in place on this campus to recruit some of these students here for kind of summer preparatory experience. It was like, you know, [phone rings] I’m going to tell my assistant to hold these calls.

BRINSON: So you were saying that you all were going around to high schools and talking about recruitment, retention.

GRUNDY: Yeah, we were lobbying for hiring more black faculty and we were lobbying for creation of courses. I mean we were back in that period pushing for either a black history course or a black culture course. And you know it was really interesting reviewing some of these old Kernels. We were pushing this black history course, and the Chair of the History Department responded to us by saying that that would be much too narrow. That would be like asking for a woman’s history course. [Laughing]

BRINSON: Right.

GRUNDY: You know, it’s just, I mean seeing that now, it’s just amazing.

BRINSON: It doesn’t feel like that much time has gone by, yeah.

GRUNDY: Dr. Coomb, he has his imprint. A woman’s history course, now, come on. [Laughter]

BRINSON: I can relate to that.

GRUNDY: So we were lobbying for that and you know as things intensified around the country we stepped up our agenda so that some of the stuff became non-negotiable. [Phone rings] Oh, but let me tell you, too, that this transition from Orgena to BSU was not without some conflict, internal conflict in the group, because there were a number of students who really felt that we didn’t have to take on this political agenda. That it was really, you know, risky and that if we would just work within the system and work with people who were sympathetic that things would change. But…

BRINSON: Was it risky?

GRUNDY: Ah, being in the BSU? Yes. Yeah, I mean the environment at that time was really, I mean I tell people it varied from indifferent to hostile, you know. So for us to put a cover on all these issues was not popular at all. I mean there were a handful of administrators and a few faculty people who were sympathetic, but for the most part, I mean, it was seen as a troublesome kind of presence, you know.

BRINSON: I guess you felt strongly enough about it though if you let yourself get elected vice-president of the BSU.

GRUNDY: Oh, yeah.

BRINSON: And that probably made you even more visible as an officer of the organization.

GRUNDY: Right, right, but it was, the thing that I recall about that period was we knew, even though we were small in number that we really weren’t alone. That, you know, the campuses at that time were fairly, ah, there were a lot of influences coming through here. So we had a chance to meet students from other places. We met people from the Student Non-violent Coordination Committee. We had a guy from SNIC who was in the graduate school here who was kind of our liaison. We met people like Fannie Lou Hamer who told us we were doing the right thing. We met, oh, all kinds of people, the Deacons of Defense from Bogalusa, Louisiana came through, you know, it was like the forerunners of the Black Panther party. So it was, you know, it was heady times and we were just ready for it. And…

BRINSON: Did the school sponsor any of those people to come to campus to talk?

GRUNDY: No. You know I recall that there was no, at that time there was no programming unit, you know. The Student Center would sponsor some social/cultural things but not on a regular basis. Generally when speakers came they came under the sponsorship of--we had a Human Relations Club at that time. There were--I think SDS had a chapter here.

BRINSON: How about NSA, National Student Association?

GRUNDY: I think so. I don’t really recall but there were two or three kind of progressive, radical groups here. And the Kernel had a--I mean they were fairly leftist in their politics. There was a guy named Guy Mendes, who works at KET now as a producer. Guy was the editor of the Kernel. Part of what helped us in terms of just getting our agenda out there was Guy was very sympathetic to what we were doing and we trusted him. So Guy was the one white guy that we would let into our meetings because we knew that he would represent us well. But after a while Guy had to leave the Kernel because the Kernel was taking on all these causes you know, and he was getting some pressure.

BRINSON: And the Kernel is the school newspaper.

GRUNDY: Yes, uh-hmm, so he left the Kernel and founded a paper called the Blue Tailed Fly which was a little, ah, little progressive, radical newspaper. And the speakers, you know, that you asked about oftentimes had to be presented at the coffeehouse that was right on the edge of campus called Nexus. So when there was somebody that the university would not accommodate they would be presented there, so, you know, the radical, hippie, black militant types were always over there.

BRINSON: Okay. What about, in town now there were I know an NAACP chapter, a CORE chapter, I’m sure they were still in existence in 1968 or not. But the CORE chapter actually had some faculty from UK who were active, and I expect the NAACP did, too, but I don’t know that for sure maybe you do. Was there any kind of joint activity or cross-involvement there that you recall between the black students and community groups?

GRUNDY: You know when I think about what we were doing here I know we had the support from the community but it was really, I can’t think of a lot of direct involvement. We found ourselves in the community a lot. On weekends that’s where we would go. I mean we would sometimes leave here on Friday and not come back till Sunday.

BRINSON: Did you stay in Lexington?

GRUNDY: Yeah, uh-hmm, or we would take these road trips [laughing] you know, hit the campuses.

BRINSON: Oh, to other campuses?

GRUNDY: But you know, other campuses; but you know in terms, there were some individuals but I can’t think of a lot of, you know, real, a lot of people involved from the community in what we were trying to do here. Although I think, that you know, people were saying, “That-a-boy, that-a-boy” all the time, you know. UK was just another world to black folks in Lexington. So, I mean they were supportive but they didn’t get directly involved. This was kind of our campaign.

BRINSON: When I talked to Ann and I’ve also talked to one other Berea graduate, and both of them had about the same thing to say which was that, while there certainly were issues on that campus in terms of race, there were a few faculty or community who would help one way or another, whether it was with money or just kind of providing a sort of an adult mentorship role of some sort. Do recall anybody like that at UK when you were coming through?

GRUNDY: Oh, yeah, the former Dean of Admissions, Keller Dunn.

BRINSON: Keller?

GRUNDY: Uh-hmm, Keller Dunn, I think Keller, Keller may be deceased. Mike Epstein, I’m sorry, Allistine, Mike Allistine who taught English here who’s really supportive. Anna Boline was the one black staff person here. She was director of, at that time, she came directing the Y program, the YWCA, but later took a position in I think it was the Human Relations Club they had here. She was staff person adviser there. And there were a few other faculty people. But I tell you somebody who was definitely a big asset to us was Dr. Oswald, John Oswald who had come here from Berkley.

BRINSON: Where was he located here?

GRUNDY: Oh, he was the president.

BRINSON: He was the president.

GRUNDY: Yeah.

BRINSON: Oh, okay.

GRUNDY: He was the president then.

BRINSON: John Oswald.

GRUNDY: Uh-hmm, he died a couple of years ago, but Dr. Oswald came here definitely philosophically from another place. Like I say he was from Berkley

BRINSON: That explains it right?

GRUNDY: Yeah, you know, in terms of what we were trying to do here he saw the rationale. You know he knew what we were facing so it was never unusual for him to like appear at a Black Student Union meeting, you know. And he in his own way opened doors for us, you know. His vice…

END OF SIDE ONE, TAPE ONE

BEGIN SIDE TWO, TAPE ONE

GRUNDY: You know I think he is there now, gave a presentation not too long ago about kind of the reflections of that sixties period. So we had less contact with him than Dr. Oswald. But Dr. Oswald was fair and somebody we knew was supportive.

BRINSON: Okay. How did you meet Ann?

GRUNDY: I met Ann in 1969. I had just come home. I think I had been out of school maybe a month or so, and through the help of Paul Oberst over here, retired from law school, I had gotten a contact to work at the Human Rights Commission.

BRINSON: And Paul was one of the founding members of the state commission.

GRUNDY: Right, right. So through Paul’s contact to Galen Martin, I mean I had a job available to me as soon as I went home. So I went home to report to my first job and met Herb Seevers who was director of the Community Service Division. And I was to be part of that division, and I met Ann the first day on the job. And it was, it was just a real interesting meeting because she, she [laughing] did she tell you how we met?

BRINSON: No, I actually didn’t, we talked about you but I didn’t actually ask her how you met?

GRUNDY: Right. Well, `69 was quite a year because my father died in the summer of `69, and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to return to school. I didn’t know where the money was coming from. But my uncles, my Uncle John, God bless him, pulled my uncles together and they anteed-up my tuition. So it allowed me to come back here and finish out because I really didn’t, like I say, I didn’t know where the money was coming from. So I finished school, you know, through Paul Oberst I had this job set up for me. And I went to work at the Human Rights Commission but the first day I went to work I was waiting in the lobby area for my interview and heard this woman swish, swishing through the lobby area. And she had come to say something to the receptionist and she greeted me with “Hello, Brother.” And I was kind of like, “What? How you doing?” you know. And I could tell she was right out of school because she was a little fresh, you know, right out of school, short haircut and short skirts. So as it turned out my desk was right next to hers and we were part of the Community Service Division. I was a community organizer and Ann worked in the housing division. So from time to time we would be paired up on projects. And you know at that time the commission was on this heavy integration agenda, so we were at one time paired to go out to survey local apartments. And our job was to go in and meet with the apartment--whoever the manager was or whoever was the authority, and ask them how many black people do you have living here. And they would tell us, and we would come back to the office, and we would put a pin on the map. You know and that was like proof that integration was happening in Louisville.

So we did that and you know, we thought it was ridiculous and we, you know, would do this stuff but really it gave us time to get to know each other. We were both fresh out of school and fresh out of the student movement. So we really kind of hooked up in terms of like the way we saw things. And we ate lunch together sometimes and you know before we knew it we were good, good friends. So it kind of started like that.

BRINSON: She has talked to me about some of the early travel that you all did and the work that you did at Plymouth Settlement House and what not. And actually today she had a copy of the book that she had mentioned to me earlier but had loaned it to someone I guess, and showed me a beautiful picture of both of you.

GRUNDY: Oh, yes.

BRINSON: And told me that I could take it. I told her that I would give it to you to take back to her but I did have a chance to look at it. And did your wedding really last a week?

GRUNDY: It seemed like it. [Laughter] Ann knows, her family knows a lot of people. I mean they are, I have not run into too many people from Birmingham that I’ve met in other places, who didn’t know their family. Her father was a, just a very powerful presence in Birmingham and they are all very gregarious people. So you know people know the Beards through one of the Beards children or through Reverend Beard or through their mother who was quite well known.

BRINSON: Well, we didn’t really talk about your wedding but in reading it after I had left her, you know, I saw that you were trying to incorporate African traditions, Kwanza. And there is mention there of actually a weeklong ceremony.

GRUNDY: The ceremony itself was a day ok, but there were a lot of things leading up to it.

BRINSON: Okay. So it wasn’t every minute of every day for a week it was just …

GRUNDY: No, no, we stayed around for a week or so, and in fact it started in Louisville. I mean people gave us receptions in Louisville, and all of those people at the receptions in Louisville came down to Birmingham. So, I mean I’m still meeting people who were at my wedding, you know, because it was public. It was outdoors, in the middle of the city, and it was six p.m., so it was convenient for a lot of people. And it was, you know, there was all this talk about this African wedding because this was 19, you know, the 1970’s. And it was a new idea and people were just curious and there were those we invited but there were a lot of people who just came, you know, just to see what is this thing? So I guess it, you know, Ann exaggerates some but it could have been a week. [Laughing]

BRINSON: Well, she didn’t say that. I want to, I mean, the book reads, it says a week but I don’t know who did the editing, the storytelling in the book. But it sounds like a pretty special event.

GRUNDY: Oh, yeah, it was. And the Birmingham news did a piece on it. So far, I mean it was, I just remember it being exciting and there were times I when was just like, it’s the only wedding, at least for me; I was zoned out. [Laughter] There are times when people tell me this, this and this happened and I say, “Really?” But I do remember that it was really powerful because we didn’t spend a lot of money, but it was big because everybody contributed something. That’s the thing I like. And it was just, you know, I mean this was Ann Beard’s wedding so everybody wanted it to go well. And everybody was in the spirit of it. Even though it was a new idea and nobody really, a lot of people didn’t know how it was going to come off because Ann was always known for having these unorthodox ideas about things. So her mother just trusted that it was going to be, she told us in fact, “Just don’t embarrass me.” You know. [Laughter] So we promised her that it wouldn’t be embarrassing, and we did give a lot of thought to it. So it was well planned and it came off just beautifully, and people still talk about it. You know it was really very special.

BRINSON: Well certainly a beautiful photo of both of you.

GRUNDY: Yeah. We had—I mean that was done by a friend of ours. We didn’t pay anything. The reception was handled by some friends of ours.

BRINSON: Well, that’s the way to do it.

GRUNDY: It really is. I think we spent, we didn’t spend five hundred dollars on it. The most expensive things for us was the garments. No, no, no, let me correct that. Those were given to us. [Laughter] Yeah, we didn’t even know this guy, but the guy who designed the clothes just wanted us to wear them and if anybody asked to tell them like where we got the clothes. But he gave them to us.

BRINSON: Okay. I want to ask you some questions about Ann and I have to tell you I have really enjoyed working with her. She’s just an incredibly creative personality, I think.

GRUNDY: She is.

BRINSON: And I wonder and I’ve talked to her a little bit about this, too. With her great interest in African art and culture and her music, you know, from early on, she just appears to me with what she had done, to be what I call kind of a community teacher. Maybe not always in a formal teaching role, but an informal teaching role and I just wonder how you would see that.

GRUNDY: That’s actually how I see one aspect of her. Uhmm, here Ann is, I think one of the things that attracted me that she is one of the most unique people I ever met in my life. And I was intrigued by not only the personality; I mean she’s magnetic in her personality, but she’s someone who has had a wealth of experience. She left home at about fourteen, and very independent, and somebody that really does a lot of things just based on pure faith, you know. I mean she left home and wound up at Berea College with no money you know. And promised her mother that it wasn’t going to cost her and it didn’t. But it was that kind of thing that really intrigued me about her as a friend because we would do things a lot of times with really no, no, just kind of spontaneously. You know, no idea how are we going to get in or out of this, but let’s just give it a shot, you know. So we did, we went to Africa like that, you know.

Uhmm, a lot of things that happened for me during that period were--I was just really, you know, trying to find out who I was--happened with her. So you know it was like besides a good friendship, it was really almost like a journey to like discovery. We were like discovering a lot about ourselves, because we were working through things and being involved in programs. The Plymouth Settlement House--I mean that in itself was like--I mean that was a great leap in both of our developments. I knew she’d, she’d do it and she’d get into it and not look back, but for me, I mean it meant leaving a fairly secure situation at the Human Rights Commission going to this settlement house for less money, you know, but a much better job, you know. [Laughing] So, had I, I tend to be--Ann’s spontaneous--I tend to be much more rational and deliberate with my stuff. I have to like see the end before I’m going to like embark on something. But, you know, she has really tempered that side of me a lot; ‘cause I know it’s much more valuable to like, try it.

BRINSON: Well, as I heard her describe some of the things that you together have been involved in over the years that have been kind of cultural community cultural, the Roots and Heritage Festival and what not. And some of the things that you tried to do the African village at the settlement house and what not, uhmm, I, I wonder if to you that this kind of program that you’ve been involved in and actually been involved in, in making it happen in some cases, do you see that as political organizing?

GRUNDY: Uhmm, yeah, uh-hmm.

BRINSON: Can you talk about that a little bit?

GRUNDY: I guess it’s political in the sense that--well, let me tell you what I try to do. I mean the thing that is my--I mean the real agenda for me--when I, and I think it is very--what I do here is very much in tune with what Ann and I have been doing for years. But the thing that I know, and I know this from my experience as a student. I know this as growing up during the period that I grew up, is that there are ways that people can be moved to take on control of their lives that can happen almost, I don’t want to say sub-consciously, but I think there is a way to like impact people’s consciousness about things in ways other than the direct, didactic, dogmatic approach to things, you know. There’s a time for that. But I’ve seen people moved by being immersed in the cultural experience, or you know being in the presence of great people or great minds. I mean those can be life changing experiences. I’ve seen those students.

Like I said I saw it with myself. When Fannie Lou Hamer asked us, “What are we doing?” I knew that she didn’t mean what are we doing in class? You know, she meant what are you doing with your life and what are you doing for your people? And that stuck with me. I mean that’s just one of those moments that whenever, you know, I felt confused I would think about that. And I’ve had a number of those kinds of experiences with a number of people who, you know, I have high regard for. And it’s, it’s certainly been political in my life, and it’s been the kind of thing that has helped me stay clear about, you know, what my priorities are and what I think my purpose is. So, you know, I mean this work or what we do with NIA day camp or what we do in any number of things ultimately, yeah, has a political purpose. I mean we’re trying to change things, you know. And I think, you know, if education is not about that then it’s a waste of time.

I don’t see myself as trying to just prepare young people to go out and pursue a personal agenda or you know get, establishing a career as such. And I really think that they ought to be thinking about leadership, and thinking about what they can do to serve, and I’m, I’m serious about that; and I don’t think the University of Kentucky really hired me to do that but, well, maybe in a way. But I think I would still be here if that were not part of my agenda that I could do those things that are spelled out in my job description which really had nothing to do with this. [Laughing] You know as I think about it we were fortunate to get in here and kind of set a direction for ourselves before, well, really I think before the university knew what was happening. But it’s been successful and there’s been the kind of thing where I think, you know, the university has realized some positive benefits from it. But you know we have too, so it works.

BRINSON: We talked a little bit about the Roots and Heritage Festival and I understand you went to Frankfort recently with Catherine Warner, you two were the co-chairs to receive an award.

GRUNDY: Right.

BRINSON: From the governor?

GRUNDY: Uh-hmm.

BRINSON: What, what was Ann’s role in the festival?

GRUNDY: [Laughing] She’s the silent co-chair. Uhmm…

BRINSON: I can’t imagine Ann being silent.

GRUNDY: Right. Well, it’s just like silent only in that, she’s not--her name does not appear on the roster of committee members. But Ann, Ann and Catherine have an interesting relationship because I mean Catherine attributes a lot of her growth to Ann. And it’s, that is so true. But Catherine is a person who has a lot of energy and a lot of, uhmm, enthusiasm and somebody who is not afraid to try something new. So with, you know, Ann’s influence, Ann feeding Catherine certain ideas about what’s possible, and you know what she might consider trying has given Catherine some direction in developing this festival. So yeah, Ann is not on the roster but everybody knows that Ann is part of this you know, and has always been from the beginning, you know. If I’m in it, she’s in it. So that’s kind of the way it works. It works that way with that. It works that way with the King Holiday celebration. It works that way with, there’s hardly anything that I can think we don’t do that doesn’t work that way. [Laughing]

BRINSON: The NIA can?

GRUNDY: Uh-hmm, right, yeah. So it’s like a collective of people who we know our roles very well, and we have enough experience at these kinds of things and we know how to organize, and we know the community pretty well.

BRINSON: I didn’t talk to her about the Martin Luther King Celebration. Tell me what happens here with that.

GRUNDY: You know, it’s a, that’s something that has evolved over time too, because it started here on campus, oh, I don’t know how many years ago, Betsy. Shortly, shortly after, after the Minority of Student Affairs was founded we started doing these observances. And there was a period where we would do small things, you know, we would have a hundred people or so. We might meet over in Memorial Hall but after a few years into it we started collaborating with the Urban League and with what was in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholarship Committee which was headed up by Dr. Edgar Mack, he used to be on the School of Social Work faculty.

When Dr. Parker came, William Parker, the connection with the city was a little more formalized, so we started doing it as a partnership. Now there have been a number of people who have served in that chair but for the last four or five years Catherine has been the chair, maybe that long. But with Catherine as chair, I mean my role is elevated a little bit. Her consultation with Ann becomes very important to like helping to work out, you know, kind of a vision for like what the observance will be like. So, you know, Ann has been real helpful with that particularly with thoughts about possible speakers, with themes. Trying to get some substance to it so that it doesn’t just become another memorial service, you know. I mean it has to be a living kind of a tribute and also has to inspire people to like continue his work. Dr. King’s work can’t be symbolic, you know. It has to be something real. So that’s been kind of Ann’s role, you know, we, we all know she’s there.

BRINSON: Okay. I want to talk a minute, Chester, about resistance; and when I say that I’m talking about resistance to oppression, to patriarchy, to anything. And I’m asking this because as I talk to Ann clearly she gives me many examples of where she resisted in one way or another things that weren’t right in the system.

GRUNDY: Yeah.

BRINSON: And as I do these interviews I’m trying to look at resistance and whether there are differences between men and women through the whole Civil Rights struggle but even outside the specific Civil Rights movement. And I’m wondering if you, one, will kind of define resistance for me the way you see it and then talk to me a little bit about how you see Ann resisting.

GRUNDY: Uhmm, well, I guess for me, resistance has always been, you know, the act of just defying what the society has prescribed for us you know which is a--I mean historically it’s been a status of inferiority. And I guess I came to understand that. I thank God that I was a student of the sixties because I came to understand that when I got here, and we really encountered a very oppressive situation. And, you know, a situation not just designed to like keep us on edge. I mean we were, we were clear about the fact that there was simply no preparation for our presence here. And the students who, even the black students who we encountered when we first came had not come to grips with that whole question of resistance, really had not. [Phone rings]

They were inclined to get by, by getting along. So the major, the major conflict that we had and it came to surface around, you know, conflicts around the direction of this Orgena group as opposed to the Black Student Union. But you know their, their attitude was that if we just assimilate, and we just get along and kind of stay out of the way, things will get better eventually. And we just thought that was a foolish position that, you know, if the issues weren’t on the table, and we weren’t willing to like take some gambles with bringing some change; and we’re talking about just basic things like don’t call us nigger when we walk down the streets at night. Okay if you could just cool that out some, or don’t play Dixie at the football games, you know. Where is the school’s song, you know? We just thought that was fundamental. We really couldn’t tolerate it, you know and we just wondered about those people who could. So you know, for me, ( ) and that’s been something that kind of stuck with me. And you know, I mean, after you get a little older, and you know have family and career and all that as part of what you have to consider, then you know your approach is a little different. I mean the act of like resisting and knowing that, I mean, you know if you’re committed to your principles and knowing that ultimately that you prevail. I mean I really believe that ultimately you prevail, ‘cause we’ve seen it. I mean in my lifetime we’ve seen it. That, you know, validates one as a resistor or one as an activist or as somebody who is, you know, working for change. It just does not happen without that. I mean I just don’t think that people do the right thing for the right reason. They do the right thing because either there is something at stake or the alternative is worse [laughing] but there first has to be some sort of engagement, some sort of struggle.

BRINSON: Do you think there are any gender differences to resistance?

GRUNDY: Well, you know, I guess in terms of the way Ann and I approach things there are things that Ann can do that I don’t think I can do. You know. I think the risks are different for black men. And she knows that, you know. I mean it’s like, I mean there have been occasions where say if we’re stopped by a cop Ann can like say things to a cop that I know I can’t say. You know, I mean she can confront cops and it will be an entirely different outcome. If I confront a cop saying what she’ll say then the outcome will be very different, you know. So, I think it certainly differs along them lines. I mean that’s just a lot of history to that.

BRINSON: Right.

END OF SIDE TWO, TAPE ONE

BEGIN SIDE ONE, TAPE TWO

GRUNDY: I mean tactically I think there are some differences and again I’m just talking personally in the way she and I approach things on occasion. And a lot of those are driven by the fact that she’s a woman and I’m a man. But you know, we’re very much in tune with where we see what the object is, what the objective is. But…

BRINSON: Would you describe Ann as a leader?

GRUNDY: Oh, definitely. Oh, yes, I think she is recognized as a leader by a lot of people.

BRINSON: Uhmm, I would too but how do you see her leading? What’s her style?

GRUNDY: She leads very much by example. Ann is a person who is very consistent. I think anybody who knows her and have known her over the, say, last twenty years won’t see many contradictions in terms of what she says and what she does. And the one thing that she probably, I mean as a leader the one thing that I think she’s coming to better recognize is that everybody won’t do it the way she does it because she’s a person who, you know, is very fearless in a lot of ways. And there are people who simply can’t put it on the line like she does. But I think in terms of an example of courage and conviction and principle you know, she’s, I know a lot of people tell me that they admire her and that she’s had a great impact on the way they think or the way they conduct their lives. Even though they probably wouldn’t do it the way she does it but she’s very much a leader.

BRINSON: Do you think Ann could be described as a feminist?

GRUNDY: Yes, uh-hmm, uh-hmm, yeah. And I think my daughter’s are feminists, but they are very clear about who they are as women and at the same time they, they make some real distinctions between certain feminist issues and their own philosophical positions on things, certain classic feminist issues. And I say this in that they, they never confuse their roles as feminist and their roles as black women. I mean I’m not sure if that is clear to you. But I’m saying that race and gender are two issues that they don’t confuse. They don’t confuse the fact that certain things happen to them or certain things are issues in their lives because they are black women.

BRINSON: Well she and I talked a little bit about the early women’s movement. I did not ask her if she thought of herself as a feminist at all. And I also understand sort of the history of what you are saying and we did talk about that a little bit. I don’t know. Would Ann describe herself, would she call herself a feminist?

GRUNDY: She may shy away from the term. But I think…

BRINSON: The principles.

GRUNDY: The principles, yeah, I think she endorses most, yeah because I mean, she’s a person who is very sensitive to oppression by any category, you know.

BRINSON: Okay, okay. One last question, Chester, has Ann shared anything with you about the interviews that we’ve been doing?

GRUNDY: No, not a thing, no.

BRINSON: Okay. We talked a little bit this morning about me as a white woman doing an interview with her. I raised the question and she said, “Oh, I didn’t think you’d ask me that.” And how that’s kind of difficult because there is just no way that I can completely understand her or her me, you know, as it goes. And I just wondered if she had talked to you about that at all along the way.

GRUNDY: Her comment, when I asked her, “How did the interview go?” She says, “These are good interviews.” And I mean I’ll tell you she says you’re a good interviewer because you, well, she’s done a lot of interviews, you know, a lot of interviews. And I think when she’s allowed to like talk, [laughing] you know, and apparently the way you structure things has allowed her to like talk and develop lines of thinking. So she’s been pleased with the interviews themselves.

BRINSON: Good. Well, I have too. It’s, I think, been a good series that we’ve done together. I did say to her this morning one of the problems that I have as an interviewer though is that I frequently want to talk to her, have a conversation with her, you know. And I can’t do that in this role, in the taping. We do it a little bit afterwards.

GRUNDY: Right. Yeah, uhmm, I wish you could have met her mother. I mean in terms of personality a universal way, I mean her mother was like…

BRINSON: Very different?

GRUNDY: Very different, very, a gentle, kind, not a quiet woman but a quiet spirit. Uhmm, and sometimes I would be around her mother, “How do you have her?” You know. [Laughter] But in terms of their, where they come from at a deep level these are like really two special women. Her mom was just a wonderful person.

BRINSON: You didn’t know her father.

GRUNDY: Not, if you, [pause] yeah.

BRINSON: You did know her father?

GRUNDY: Yeah, but I never met him. Her father was such a, like I said, such a powerful presence in Birmingham that you can hear people--I’ve been at her house and you can hear people talk about him and share stories and you would think he was in the next room. Now this is like thirty-six years after his death. But this is a man who, I tell her sometime if Christians were like your father; I might be inclined to be a Christian. You know ‘cause he’s, he was a real servant of a man. I mean he was a brilliant man, but was very clear about his role in serving people; and would, now, I mean you see the impact of this work in Birmingham because I tell anybody, you can ask anybody about him and they’ll know something about him. But we had I don’t know if she told you this but we were [giggles] we were preparing for the wedding. Did she tell you this story?

BRINSON: No we didn’t talk about the wedding.

GRUNDY: Okay, but I really got insight into like this man’s influence. We were preparing for the wedding and the day before the wedding we went down to the park to kind of clean up a bit. So we get there and it was me, Ann and her brothers and there is this gazebo in the middle of the park. And the gazebo is like a flop house for these winos, right, and these homeless people. So we get there, and it was early morning, and these guys were still there just starting to move around. So we started picking up paper. We didn’t want to disturb them. We were picking up paper and trash and one of the guys said, “What’s going on?” [Laughing] So we said, “Well, we’re getting ready for a wedding tomorrow.” They said, “Who’s getting married?” “Ann Beard, Reverend Beard’s daughter.” Said, “Reverend Beard’s daughter?” And all these guys got up and started pitching in and picking up trash, bottles and everything. You know, they said, “Well, that’s my man, Reverend Beard.” You know so you were getting that element. Then you would get, you know, I mean the la-dee-das of Birmingham would say, you know, saying, kind of, you know warmth for this man, it was just really something.

BRINSON: If she was different from her mother, do you think she was more like her father?

GRUNDY: Personality probably more like her father. I get the impression that he was pretty direct and she idealized her father, you know. And it was her father who I think recognized that she was, of all his children I think he saw her as probably the most gifted and would engage her in these conversations. I mean, their dinner, you know, mealtime talk was about the affairs of the world, you know, he was an intellectual type guy. So Ann was engaged in adult conversation early and used to eavesdrop a lot when the adults would talk. And a lot of interesting people came to her house, you know, I mean there were Movement people, and there were people from the church community, and you know the who’s who of Birmingham. So she knew Ralph Bunch people like that. So, you know, her development was kind of unusual.

BRINSON: And it sounds like the two of you together have really continued with that kind of cultural environment here with people that have come through.

GRUNDY: Yeah. I mean that’s been why I’ve stayed here because it does offer the opportunity. This is like breaking new ground. You couldn’t do this in New York City, you know, I mean…

BRINSON: That’s right. Okay. Thank you very much.

GRUNDY: Oh, you’re very welcome, Betsy.

BRINSON: Is there anything else you wanted to say before I…

GRUNDY: Well, I enjoyed the interview.

BRINSON: Okay. Turn it off.

END OF INTERVIEW