Oral History Interview with Joyce Hamilton Berry

BETSY BRINSON: .....the year two thousand, this is an interview with Doctor Joyce Hamilton Berry. Doctor Berry resides in Columbia, Maryland, but we are doing the interview in Washington, D.C.. The interviewer is Betsy Brinson. Can you just give me a word or two?

JOYCE HAMILTON BERRY: Oh you want a word from me? Oh, to see what the level is.

BRINSON: Well thank you. We finally got this together. Traffic in Washington, D. C., is something else, I guess.

BERRY: And one of the nice things is that, I don’t deal with rush hour traffic, because with my practice, I don’t start until twelve-thirty in the afternoon, and I stop at eight o’clock. So I avoid rush hour. I guess if I hadn’t gone to the accountant’s office, I would have been okay.

BRINSON: But you made it.

BERRY: Yeah.

BRINSON: We talked a little bit before we turned the tape recorder on about the purpose of today’s interview. Could we begin, Joyce, just tell me where and when you were born.

BERRY: I was born in nineteen thirty-eight in Lexington, Kentucky, in the old Saint Joseph’s Hospital that was on Second Street. I was the oldest daughter of Lucille and Sam Hamilton. My father was a barber and owned his own business. The barber shop was on what we used to call “do as you please street”, but it was really Deweese Street, where there were a lot of Black businesses and Black homes in that community. It was considered East End.

BRINSON: Were you the only child?

BERRY: No, I had a brother that was six years younger. He died in an automobile accident when he was eighteen, the day before he was supposed to leave for school. He had gone to the dry cleaners to get some things, ran into some buddies and had an accident. Three of them died in the automobile accident, and one young man lived. I haven’t heard from him since then, and I often wonder how he is doing.

BRINSON: So you would have been about twenty-four at that time?

BERRY: Uh hmm. I went to Constitution Street School on Second Street. I have to back up. I went to kindergarten at the age of four. And the reason was because the kindergarten teacher’s sister lived across the street. And I guess because I was precocious and into things, they decided that she would take me to kindergarten with her. And I ended up being a discipline problem. There was one day she put me under the desk, and she forgot that she had put me under the desk, because I went to sleep. I wasn’t concerned about it. And my father and the teacher were going around the neighborhood looking for me, where the school was. This was Russell School, which was on Fourth Street at that time. Well, at the end of the kindergarten year, she told me--she told my parents that I couldn’t return. So then my mother took me to Constitution and Mr. Caulder was the Principal. And he gave me a test in his office. It was really an oral test, and decided that I could enter the first grade at five. When I was promoted to the second grade, they asked my father if they could skip me to the third grade. And my father said, “No, she’ll be finishing high school with pablum coming out of her mouth. She has to stay in the third grade.” But I ended up, I finished Constitution and went to Dunbar and I graduated from Dunbar in fifty-four. And that was the year that the Supreme Court had declared segregation in the public schools unconstitutional. And I can remember what I had on that day, because my birthday was May seventeenth, so this was also on my sixteenth birthday. I had just written my senior research paper. My English teacher was also the first African-American male to graduate, to get a Doctorate degree from U. K.. John Smith was my English teacher in high school, and I had written my research paper, which was on Blacks in--well we didn’t call them Black. I know it was about Black people in the South. And what amazed me about that, and I had quite a discussion with Mr. Smith, who later became Doctor Smith. I couldn’t understand why, if the Black people in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama outnumbered the whites, why they couldn’t take over. Of course, little did I know about economics and power, but he attempted to explain that to me. My English class was the first one in the morning, and then I remember going to the library, seeing this headline; that they had declared segregation in the public schools unconstitutional. And I took the paper out of the library, I was so excited, to run down to tell Mr. Smith, look, look what they’ve done, you know. And he looked at it, and he shook his head; didn’t have much to say about it. I remember when I was talking to my father about going to college. He had said--I wanted to come to Howard University, but the Dean of Women at Howard University was from Lexington; and she used to come home and tell our parents about the escapades of the girls and the fast life in Washington, D. C., so....

BRINSON: Do you remember her name?

BERRY: Her name was Yancey, Sadie Yancey. Her father, her parents lived on Upper Street, between Fourth, between Fourth and Fifth Street. Her father, let’s see, all I know is the Yanceys lived on Upper Street, because I’m getting ready to get them mixed up with the Hunters. But anyway, she would come home and tell our parents about, you know, the escapades of the girls and the men and what all they’d get into. So when I mentioned to my father that I wanted to go to Howard. He said, “No way am I turning you loose in Washington, D. C. at that age.” So then he wanted me to go to Fisk University. Well, Fisk being in Nashville and near Lexington I said, “No way,” because my father loved to drive. I said, “Every other Sunday he would be down there.” I wanted to get away from Tennessee. Well, I had two cousins, my father’s brother’s daughters had gone to Hampton, in fact one of them graduated in fifty-four. And so I said, “Well what about Hampton?” And he sighed and said, “Well they’ve got that Ag school.” I didn’t get the message. Nashville, where Fisk was, also had Meharry and so it was like, you go to Fisk--I didn’t get the message at the time, you know--and you may end up meeting a doctor. He never said that, but I think that’s what the implication was, and that Hampton had this Ag school. I didn’t understand it. It didn’t make me any difference. I wanted to go away from Lexington to go to school. When we were debating about schools, he said to me, “What about the University of Kentucky?” And I just said, “No.” And we never discussed it anymore. And I think he knew that, that would not be a healthy environment for me at that time. One of the nice things about having gone to Constitution and having gone to Dunbar and Hampton; I ended up with the self confidence and the self esteem that I know I would not have gotten if I had gone straight into the University of Kentucky, you know. I was told that I was smart. I was told that I was expected to achieve, that there was no reason that I could achieve. So I ended up feeling very confident.

BRINSON: Right. Were you ever counseled to consider Kentucky State?

BERRY: No. (Laughing) I wasn’t counseled to...

BRINSON: Why do you think that was?

BERRY: Because it was a state supported school. Hampton is a private school, Fisk is a private school. And also while Howard has the interesting distinction of being Federally funded, but private institutions had more prestige than a state institution. We never discussed Kentucky State, but I knew I did not want to be that close to home. I wanted to be away from home, and I wanted to be out of that geographic area.

BRINSON: What about Berea? A private school, which was accepting Blacks in the fifties. Was that ever mentioned to you as a possibility?

BERRY: Uh uh, because Berea, in my mind, was still predominantly white. And the interesting thing, when I was studying Kentucky History, I remember that Berea was integrated. Then I think with the emancipation of the slaves or some event...

BRINSON: It was nineteen oh four and the Day Law...

BERRY: Okay.

BRINSON: Which said that it had to become segregated.

BERRY: And then Lincoln Institute started, and I remember Whitney Young, Jr.’s, father was the Director of Lincoln. No, I didn’t consider Berea. I would not have, at that time, considered an integrated institution or a predominantly white institution. And I think because I wanted to feel comfortable. Now, it is interesting, I had often said that I wanted to go to the college that Booker T. Washington founded. And I remember someone said to me, “Well why don’t you go to the college where he was educated?” And I said, “Oh, that’s a thought.” Of course, the man who said that to me, had graduated from Hampton also. So it was like--no, and you know it wasn’t a matter that I couldn’t go. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to be with people that looked like me. And I thought we had great colleges, I mean--well, I won’t say that. (Laughing) But I thought that we had great institutions. I mean when I looked at the Black people, which we now call African-Americans, who had accomplished things, most of them had gone to Black colleges. Thurgood Marshall, who represented the Brown vs., in that trial, the trial Brown vs. the Board of Education; he had graduated from Lincoln University, which was at that time considered the Black Harvard or the Black Yale in Pennsylvania. And many of them had graduated from Howard, so it was like it was okay. It was never a thought about going to U. K. or a predominantly white institution.

BRINSON: So how did your family feel about letting you go as far as Hampton?

BERRY: That didn’t, that didn’t make a difference with them. I mean the distance wasn’t, it was that I was going to be in a good environment, one that was considered safe. His, my father’s niece, Gwen, who’s my first cousin that graduated in fifty-four. She had married a young man, who was, who had finished in Architecture and was teaching there, so she was living in Hampton. Then there were some family friends, whose daughter had finished Hampton and she had, she still lived in Hampton. But I don’t even think that was a consideration. It was just being in an environment that was safe, that was good. I think prestige played some part in it. The fact that he had two nieces--see, his oldest niece had graduated from Hampton, there was no way he could really criticize it, since he had helped send his nieces to Hampton.

BRINSON: Right.

BERRY: That was my way to get to the East coast.

BRINSON: Well, talk a little bit about the Hampton experience. What did you major in?

BERRY: I majored in English, minored in Physical Education, was a cheerleader. Now that is interesting. I was a cheerleader at Dunbar High School. And although I could graduate, I had enough credits to graduate from the eleventh grade, I started dragging my heels. And my parents starting asking me, “Well what’s the reason you don’t want to graduate, you know, why do you want to stay?” And I said, “Well I want to finish with my class.” And then I said, “Well I’d like to take Physics”, because finishing early, there were some courses that I hadn’t taken. And I thought that would impress them. And then finally my mother said to me, “What is the real reason that you don’t want to graduate this year?” And I said, “I want to be a cheerleader for another year.” And she said, “Well if you are a good cheerleader, you’ll be a cheerleader in college.” So, it was like, instantly, oh well, I’ll go to college and go out for a cheerleader. I mean, I guess I would have been devastated if I hadn’t made it. But I went to Hampton and second day, maybe the second week on the campus, I went out for the cheerleaders and made the cheerleaders that day. So it was like, I was well known on the campus. I have lifelong friends from Hampton. One of my best friends, who lives in Los Angeles, she was my room mate my Sophomore year. She ended up being Director of Personnel at UCLA Extension. She’s now retired. A lot of my friends have retired, so it’s like I’m thinking, “Gee, maybe I’m not going to work until the year two thousand.” Because I say I’m going to work until the year two thousand, two thousand four rather, and retire. My Freshman room mate, who interestingly, her mother was from Lexington, Kentucky, the Cannon family that lives in Nicholasville. Her mother was a Cannon, and we ended up being Freshman room mates. We were also the two youngest students in the Freshman class. And that wasn’t by design, we just happened to end up in the same room. And her first name was Joyce, also. She ended up getting a law degree at, well she majored in Chemistry at Hampton, got a Law degree at Indiana U., worked for Phillip Morris and she is now retired and living in Florida.

BRINSON: Were there many other students from Kentucky at Hampton when you were there?

BERRY: No, there was one fellow that was a Senior, who was from Lexington, and that’s the Johnson family. Their father, and I can’t think of his first name. Christine Johnson Tompkins lives in Oakwood. She was in my class in high school. I think she teaches in the public schools there. But her father had graduated from Hampton and one of his sons, William Johnson, who lives here in Washington, D. C., he was a Senior. There were some from Louisville. There was a Kelly Porter from Louisville, Kentucky. Oh! There was a Lillibelle Jones. I don’t know whether you know about the Jones family, there are a lot of ministers in the family.

BRINSON: Yes, yes.

BERRY: Okay. Lillibelle Jones was a niece of, all I know is, all I can remember is Reverend Jones, Reverend William Jones.

BRINSON: Right, and there was a son, Clayton Jones, who was an attorney.

BERRY: Yeah, Clayton was, maybe...

BRINSON: He was on the Kentucky Commission for Human Rights in the early years, and I think he now lives in Atlanta.

BERRY: Yeah, he graduated from Howard. He went to Howard. But no, there weren’t that many, no one else from Lexington was at Hampton during the time, well with the exception of William Johnson, who was a Senior. That was it. There was a young lady, whose family, her father was a minister. They had lived in Danville, Illinois and they moved to Lexington and she came to Hampton. But she wasn’t considered a native of Lexington.

BRINSON: Let me go back, I didn’t ask you. What do you know about your family of origin? I mean your grandparents, your great-grandparents, were they from Kentucky also?

BERRY: My grandfather, Clarence Hamilton, as far as I know, was from Kentucky. He died at ninety-three. He lived out on King Road and owned some property there. One of the things I do know, is that when his father died, his last name was something like Ezekiel, or something of that nature. When he died, his mother decided that the family name would be Hamilton. And she had eight children--there were eight children. And evidently they lived on the property that was near Keene, Kentucky; because when he died, and we were clearing up the lease--the deed to it, all but one of his eight siblings had signed the deed. So it was, as far as I know--oh, something about he was born in some hollow in Jessamine county. I do know there was something about a hollow. My grandmother was a Yates, and there’s still some Yates in Jessamine county. I don’t maintain contact with them. And she came out of a large family. There were--she had …(tape stops and starts) Really don’t know that much past my grandfather. I knew my grandfather and my grandmother. My grandmother was a very feisty woman, very outspoken. And I can remember an incident, we were in the Kresge Ten-Cents store, and I wanted some candy. My grandmother thought I was the greatest thing in the world and she, every Saturday when she came to town, she would bring me a gift. I always got Easter baskets, Valentines, whatever the holiday was, it was an excuse. But she brought me something every Saturday, and sometimes I would go shopping with her. Well, I remember she was standing there with me and I wanted this candy. And the clerk waited on some white women that were standing there and my grandmother went off. She said, you see my grandbaby standing here, waiting for some candy? And why would you wait on those women and ignore her? So it was like she was always very outspoken.

BRINSON: And you were about how old at that point?

BERRY: I might have been about four or five. I don’t think I was in school. And it was interesting, you know, I didn’t know for a long time that I couldn’t eat in any of those restaurants or any of those stands on Main Street, until maybe when I was in high school. Because when my mother and I would go shopping, if I said to her, “I want to get a hot dog or I want to get a sandwich.” She said, “Oh you don’t want one of those sandwiches or hot dogs. We’ll go up to the Barber shop, and you’ll get to eat with your father; and we’ll go to a restaurant.” Well, that was the greatest thing, because it meant I could spend time with my father. So at that point, I didn’t want to eat anything downtown. So it was never presented to me, that I couldn’t sit there.

BRINSON: At what point do you think that you became aware that it was a segregated society, and there were limits for you?

BERRY: I don’t think that I ever perceived that there were limits for me, limits in terms of how far I could go. Now, in terms of where I could go, I remember we would catch--we’d go to Cincinnati to visit my aunt. And we’d ride in the train, which you know, they had the colored car. But I can remember, my father--if he could take off--would much rather drive us; so we didn’t have the experience of riding on the train in the colored car. Interestingly enough, the buses, the city buses in Lexington were never segregated. You didn’t have to sit on the back of the bus. And I can remember an experience I had at Hampton, when I went to, it’s “Newpert News” is the way they pronounce it, but it’s really Newport--Oh, that’s right, you’re from Virginia, so you know. I had gone to Newport News, to the movie, because they had a Black movie in Newport News. I didn’t go to the movie in Phoebus, because you had to sit in the balcony, this was at Hampton. And I know, I’m not quite answering your question, but I’ll get around to it. I was coming back and I got on the bus and I paid my money, and the man told me to get off and go to the back door. Well, I just got off the bus, and then midway of the bus, I was saying to myself, why do I have to go to the back? And by this time, when it was dawning me, I stepped on the bus, I saw that white line. I had never had that experience in Kentucky. I had heard about it, in terms of, you know, some stories about the South. I can remember when I got ready to go to high school, I couldn’t go to Lexington Junior High School, which was right down the street from where I lived. I had to go to Dunbar, which was on Upper. But that never even crossed my mind. I had no desire to go to Lexington Junior. I never thought of the white schools as being superior. It was like that was just something I didn’t want to do and I think that’s probably the way my parents presented it to me. “Oh, you don’t want to go there, you don’t want to do that.” Not, “You’re Black or you’re Colored and you can’t do that.” It was never verbalized in that way. It was like, “You don’t want to go there, you don’t want to do that.” So it was like, I grew up thinking that everything I had was okay, that it wasn’t inferior. Now when it dawned on, when I started thinking about things being inferior, was when I entered the University of Kentucky.

BRINSON: And that was what year?

BERRY: That was in nineteen sixty-two. And that’s when I started working on the Master’s. And I can remember for about two weeks, that’s also during the time that my brother died. But I remember the first week that I went to school, then my brother died, right before the second week, so I stayed out all of that week with the funeral. And then I went back the third week after school had started. And I can remember that first week the instructors would ask questions, and I wouldn’t answer because I thought I might give a wrong answer. But I would listen to the responses and I’d think, “They didn’t know all of the information,” you know. “They should have said such and such.” It’s like I realized, I know as much as they do, I’m just as smart as they do--as they are. My education has been just as good as theirs, and after then, I would start answering questions. And it would be interesting, all of the students would turn around and look at me, like I had landed from Mars, you know. It’s like, gee she’s opening her mouth, she’s answering questions, and she knew the answer and it was intelligent. And I, from that standpoint, I had a ball at U. K., not in terms of some of the things that some of the professors did, and some of the students did. But it was like, I knew I was smart, I knew I was capable and competent, and I just didn’t get deterred. And the interesting, I’ll tell you something else that happened at U. K., and I know you had planned to get there later on. I finished with sixty-seven hours. Now, no one in my family had ever gotten a doctorate degree. My two cousins on my father’s side, that finished Hampton, were the first ones on the Hamilton side to get college degrees. And we just, the Hamiltons were not a large family. On my mother’s side, there were, my mother was the youngest of nine, the MacMurtries out of Jessamine, no it wasn’t Jessamine county. It’s where, when I taught in Lancaster, Garrett county, down around Gar--it was near Lake Harrington. Because my mother was seeing land that she grew up on, they later ran water through there for Lake Harrington, and they bought land and moved up the road. Out of the MacMurtries, I had a cousin that finished A & T, in Greensboro, North Carolina. He was probably, as far as I remember, the first one on my mother’s side to go to college. And he lives in Cincinnati now. And I guess Irvine was maybe a junior or, I think he was a junior when I entered Hampton. And Irvine is probably six years older than I am.

BRINSON: So you, in your immediate family were the first to go to college?

BERRY: With my mother and father, yeah, because there were only two of us, and I was the oldest, and my brother died before going.

BRINSON: You mentioned your father being a barber, did your mother ever work outside the home?

BERRY: Uh uh, no, my mother didn’t work outside the home, took very good care of us. I can remember when I went to Hampton. I had, had a difficult time adjusting to cafeteria food, because my mother would fix special dishes for dinner. We had dinner everyday. And my father would come home from the barber shop, and we’d eat dinner; and then he’d go back to the barber shop. And she would fix whatever each one of us liked. If one of us liked green beans and another one liked peas, she would fix that. She was a wonderful seamstress. She would make, I remember one time I saw this dress in Tots and Teens that I wanted. And whatever the price was, it would have been considered expensive. And I took her down and showed it to her. She came back and without a pattern, made the dress, identical to the one that was in the window at Tots and Teens. So she would sew. She was wonderful, very supportive.

BRINSON: So, let me go back then. You graduated from Hampton in nineteen fifty-eight.

BERRY: Uh huh.

BRINSON: And then what?

BERRY: Came back and taught at Lancaster, the Lancaster Public Schools, and that was interesting. I had finished, I majored in English and minored in Physical Education. Now, the reason for that was part of my father’s career counseling. I tell people that my father was my career counseling. We had a conversation one Sunday going to Church. And I had told him I wanted to be a nurse. And his comments were, “Nurses work three hundred and sixty-five days a year, twenty-four hours a day.” He said, “So that means you will be working on holidays and you may work on Saturdays and Sundays.” And I said, “Oh I want to be a nurse like Miss Smallwood.” Now, Frances Smallwood, who was the first Black nurse in the Public Health Department in Lexington. I thought that was what nurses did, and she worked like nine to five and she had Saturday and Sunday and holidays off. And I said, “Well Mrs. Smallwood doesn’t do that.” And he said, “And there is only one of Mrs. Smallwood.” And I said, “Oh, okay.” One of my ambitions was, I wanted to major in foreign languages, so I could be an interpreter at the UN. So I mentioned that to him, and he said, “I doubt seriously you would get a job that would pay you a lot of money as an interpreter in the UN.” So it’s like, that went out the window. Well, when I got to Hampton, I decided, I said, “I’d like to be a journalist. I’m going to major in Journalism and be a journalist.” And he said, “There aren’t that many papers.” He said, “There’s the Chicago Defend--the Louisville Defender, the Chicago--he said, “I don’t think you could make a good living with that.” So then I mentioned--all of this didn’t happen that Sunday, because after--the Sunday was the nurse thing. No, no, I take that back. The Sunday, the beginning of my career counseling, we were going to Church and he said, “What would you like to be?” And I said, “A mother with four boys.” And he said, “Oh anybody can do that.” And he said, “Get an education, so if you--your husband doesn’t take good care of you, or you are unhappy, you can take care of yourself.”

END OF TAPE ONE, SIDE ONE

BEGIN TAPE ONE, SIDE TWO

BERRY: ....you know, and he gave me the example of some women, that were in abusive marriages, some women that were in marriages where their husbands were disrespectful. And he said, “Look at them.” He said, “They don’t stay there because they want to, they stay there because they have to, because they can’t afford to do anything else.” And I thought about that. That was like real realization. He said, “You know, get an education, you know, and then you can have your children.” So, I got an education. His career counseling was, when I look at it now, was absolutely wonderful, because we didn’t have guidance counselors in Dunbar High School. I remember we took, we used to take Civics in the ninth grade, under Dorothy McCoy. I think she still lives in...

BRINSON: McCoy? M C C O Y ?

BERRY: Yeah, I think she still lives in Lexington. She taught me Civics in the ninth grade. And I can remember saying that I wanted--we had to research a profession or a job. And I said, “I wanted to be a secretary”. So when I was talking about it at home, I said, “You know, I’d like to be a secretary.” And my father said, “Why would you want to be a secretary and type for somebody and run errands for somebody?” And I said, “Oh I think that would be interesting.” And it was like, “What is the real reason you want to be a secretary?” “Oh, because they wear nice clothes.” And he said, “Oh, okay.” He said, “Well you know you can wear nice clothes and do something else.” He’d never really say you can’t do this, but he let me know the pluses and minuses. I remember I called home after the Journalism went out the window, because I wasn’t like the--you know--you probably wouldn’t be able to get a job. Now he didn’t say, “I didn’t get it in terms of you can’t do this.” He didn’t say, “You can’t be a reporter for The Washington Post or The New York Times.” He just said, “You know, we have a few papers and I doubt you are going to get a job that is going to pay you enough to take good care of yourself.” Oh, the other thing was, there was also Ebony magazine. And I can remember Ebony magazine and Jet, those magazines were always in our house. So it’s like I had--and The Chicago Defender--although we read The Lexington Herald Leader, primarily for the Colored News and Notes. We also read The Chicago Defender and The Louisville Defender, so it was like, there were a lot of things around the house that let me know that I was okay; and that Black people were doing things. And I could read in magazines about what we were doing.

BRINSON: Let me ask you about The Lexington Herald Colored Notes, (Laughter – Berry) Colored comments. What kind of news coverage was that of the community?

BERRY: Well Les McCann, who is a jazz piano player, who’s from Lexington, on the back of one of his album covers--I think the name of the album is The Truth. He says, he talked comments about the Colored News and Notes. He said, “It advertised our chitling suppers and our fish fries.” For me, it did something that I would say is one of the reasons that I excelled academically. They put the honor roll--the Dunbar Honor Roll was put in the Colored News and Notes. And I can remember in the seventh grade, I made the honor roll the first grading period. I didn’t make it the second grading period, because I had been misbehaving. Deportment was the category that you got a grade in, and I got a B in Deportment, because I was doing something that I didn’t have any business doing. I didn’t always follow the rules. And I had to answer to so many people in the neighborhood. It’s like, “Joyce, why wasn’t your name on the honor roll?” “Uh, Joyce, I didn’t see your name on the honor roll.” It was so embarrassing, because at Church, Sunday school, just walking in the neighborhood, you know, people wanting, “Why didn’t you make the honor roll? Why wasn’t your name....?” And it was like, gee, it’s easier for me to behave and make good grades and make the honor roll, than answer all these questions, because there is no way I can justify it. Because I had gotten all A’s in the academic part, but it was the Deportment, as they called it, the Deportment that I had gotten a bad grade in. In terms of not following the rules; the day I made the National Honor Society, you know when they come out in the audience with the candle to pick you up? I was cutting class. (Laughter) In fact, I remember my mother, my mother and I that morning had, had quite a discussion about what I was going to wear to school. My mother really didn’t bother me about what I was going to wear to school. I could pick out my own clothes, and I wasn’t someone who was really concerned about being just exactly so. Because I remember when I was in the eleventh grade, they decided they would cut my hair, so I would have to wear curls to the prom, because if not, I would just as soon put it in a braid or in a ponytail and go right one. And he said, my father said, “You will not go to the prom with a ponytail,” so they cut my hair off. So I had this little bob.

BRINSON: I take it, you didn’t know at that point that you might be tapped for National Honor Society?

BERRY: Uh uh.

BRINSON: Or you would have gone to school probably that day.

BERRY: Yeah. And see, my mother knew. They had told my mother, but they told her not to tell me, so it would be a surprise. So I remember, we had this discussion, she wanted me to wear this dress and she wanted me to wear--I used to wear these dirty brown and white saddle oxfords. She wanted me to--and I’m thinking, I remember when I walked out the door, what in the world is wrong with her? She’s never bothered me about what I was going to wear to school and how I was going to dress. Well, we were practicing for Baccalaureate at Main Street Baptist Church, and when we got through, I just decided that I would just go shopping. So I went, I left Main Street Baptist Church and walked up and down the street and in and out of the stores, and then went back to Dunbar exactly at, you know, at the time the kids were getting out of school. And I went bounding in the building, and I remember Mr. Passmore, who taught American History and Government; and I used to cut his class frequently, so I could have an extra recess. And he used to say, “One of these days, you are going to get caught, you know.” He would never tell me to stop. And because I would make A’s on all the tests, he really didn’t insist on my staying there. Because what I would end up doing is talking to people, and getting people in trouble. So it was like--I think it was easier for him, for me not to be in the classroom; so he didn’t bother me, as long as I was doing well. But he would tell me, “One of these days you are going to get caught.” Because he had like the--we’d go to class maybe for fifteen, twenty minutes, then go to recess and then come back. I just wouldn’t come back to the second half. And he wouldn’t bother me. I came bounding in the door, and who do I see, but Mr. Passmore; and he said, “I told you, you were going to get caught.” And I said, “What are you talking about?” He said, “You made the National Honor Society today.” H said, “And when they came out in the audience to get you (Laughing), you were nowhere to be found.” I remember turning around, going home and telling my mother. And my mother said, “You know, I started once to tell you”; she said, “I had been sworn to secrecy.” She said, “Because I had a feeling that you would probably do something like that”. But I mean she didn’t fuss at me. [Phone rings, tape stops and starts]

BRINSON: I wanted to ask you--Joyce, tell me why you did a minor in Physical Education. Was your father involved in that decision?

BERRY: Uh uh, well, yeah he was. At one time, I called home and told him that I thought I would major in Physical Education, and he said, “Physical Education?” He said, “There’s only one Physical Education teacher in the school.” He said, “So you are limiting your job possibilities.” And I said, ”Well, I’d also like to work in Recreation.” He said, “You mean you’d want to play.” (Laughing) And it’s like, we’d have these conversations and then I would go off and think about it and it would make sense. But I had originally started out that I wanted to be an English teacher, so I got back to, during my Fresh--In fact, when I went as a Freshman and when I applied, it was to be an English Major. But when I got there, there were all these other different things that I wanted to do. So he did say to me, “English would probably be a better major because there are at least four English teachers in every school, where there’s only one Physical Education teacher.” So it’s like, okay, one of the ways I can get a good job, which is majoring in English, and then I can still do the Physical Education. And so I minored in Physical Education.

BRINSON: Were you active in athletics of any kind?

BERRY: Just as a cheerleader, that was it. I didn’t play--I used to play football and baseball with the boys in the neighborhood. And I remember I fell one time and came in and wanted my mother to fix up my arm. And she said, “You have no business out there playing with the boys. You are in the seventh grade now and you are expected to be a lady.” She said, “So you just go in there and fix your own arm.” (Laughing) So it was like that was the end of my playing baseball and football with the boys out in the neighborhood.

BRINSON: I wonder, Joyce, were you or any of your family, ever members of the NAACP in Lexington?

BERRY: Not that I remember.

BRINSON: Okay.

BERRY: I don’t even remember an active NAACP Chapter in Lexington until--I think it was one of the Sills twins--either Tay Sills, or I think it was Tay Sills or Taylor Sills I think was his name; and they called him Tay. I remember that he ended up being the President of the local Chapter, but that was like when I was an adult. I don’t remember the NAACP.

BRINSON: Okay. So, when you went to teach in Lancaster, were you teaching English? What were you teaching?

BERRY: I taught English and I taught Physical Education. And I was nineteen when I first took the job.

BRINSON: Wow, you were young.

BERRY: And I had a student in my classroom, that was five months younger than I, and another one that was three months younger. And about the end of the year, this student, whose family or siblings lived in Lexington, she came back one weekend. Because I had an eleventh/twelfth homeroom, twelfth grade homeroom. And she came back and announced to the class that I couldn’t be more than nineteen or twenty years old, because her sister had been in school with me. And I remember one of the boys decided, ‘Oh, well if she’s not that old, than I can do’--And I said, “you won’t do anything.” So it was like they weren’t that much older--that much younger than I. But I taught English, grades seven through twelve. And I taught Physical Education to the High school girls with no equipment. And I can remember being extremely angry, because the equipment that they had at the Lancaster school was hand me down equipment from the white school, after the equipment had no value. And I remember, I was supposed to teach Physical Education with a volleyball that was not fully inflated, a volleyball net, and there was only one standard to hang the net on, so the other....I can remember saying, “What am I supposed to do, tie it in a tree?” And when I would go to the principal and complain about this, or the Basketball coach and complain about...”How am I going to teach Physical Education?” “I don’t have decent equipment, you know, this is old stuff.” “Well, you know Joyce, this is the equipment you have to use”. “Why do I have to use this equipment? You know, it’s old anyway. What do I....do I do a requisition to get some new?” “No this is equipment....” And one of the kids told me, “This is equipment that came from the white high school.”

BRINSON: So this was still segregated school? In nineteen fifty-eight.

BERRY: This was, yeah fifty-eight, September of fifty-eight. Then, what else...?

BRINSON: You were there for a year?

BERRY: For a year.

BRINSON: Then moved to the Lexington system?

BERRY: Uh hmm.

BRINSON: Was the Lexington school system still segregated then?

BERRY: Yep, it was still segregated. I taught at, I taught at Dunbar High School, which was an interesting experience, because I graduated from there. The first--the second year that I taught was the year that my brother graduated from high school. And I can remember one of the teachers asked me to say something to William about his behavior. And I did it. And, William and I, you know, were two very strong personalities, and he proceeded to tell me, “That I was not his teacher, I was his sister and I wasn’t going to tell him what to do.” And I had these seventh grade boys, who were just so glad to see my brother and I arguing in the hall. I’m a teacher and he’s a student. The little boys were saying, “Get her William!” (Laughter) And I was telling them, you know, “You be quiet and get back in line.” So when I went home and told my mother, her comment to me was, “You know this teacher couldn’t control her classes when you were in school. And you’re going to speak to your brother about something that is her responsibility?” She said, “You were out of line. You weren’t supposed to do her work.” And I said, “Okay.” She said, “So therefore I don’t blame him. I would have embarrassed you too, if you had forgotten, you know, your place and what you’re supposed to do.” So that was the end of that. But I remember, I was the teacher and my brother was graduating from high school.

BRINSON: So, help me understand how you became interested in psychology.

BERRY: It’s quite an experience, and I guess we can chalk that up to discrimination. I decided in sixty-two, summer of sixty-two.... What had happened, I had, had my first son in sixty-one. I got pregnant shortly after then and miscarried. I miscarried the baby on July twentieth. The last day you could say that you were coming back to the school to teach was July one; so I was thinking well what am I going to do, you know, since I had missed the deadline for saying I was going to return to teaching. And I said, “Oh, I’ll go to Graduate School.” So then I started thinking, “What will I major in?” Well, I knew I didn’t want to get a Master’s in English, because I wanted to increase my options; but I also didn’t want to take a lot of five hundred make up courses in order to be eligible to get a Master’s. So I said, “I wonder what I can do.” And I said, “Oh, I can do it in Guidance and Counseling.” And so I got the brochure, in fact, while I was lying in the hospital, I called U. K., and asked them to send me a catalog. They sent me a catalog and I signed up for Guidance and Counseling to get a Master’s. And what was so amazing to me, was that in, I guess this was sixty-two, yeah, in sixty-two, the tuition was eighty-one dollars a semester. And I remember thinking, I don’t know why everybody doesn’t go to college. Eighty-one dollars a semester, because Hampton had been more expensive than that. My parents paid much more than eighty-one dollars a semester. But anyway, I remember thinking how cheap it was. Well, at the end of, I’d say maybe around March or April of my first year, and I was completing the Master’s, one of the men asked me would I come to a meeting with Doctor Curley, there was Doctor Karst. Anyway what they did, was they offered me a fellowship to work on my Doctorate. And I said, “Well, I plan to have a baby this year,” and I did plan to get pregnant and have a baby; because I wanted my children to be no more than three years apart. Because I realize the six years of difference between my brother and I, ended up, that we had just started being friends when he died in the automobile accident. Because I mean we were, talk about sibling rivalry, we did it with a capital S and a capital R. I mean, William was very bright, but unfortunately William had to live in my shadow, so he used to often hear about his sister Joyce when he was coming along. And we would sometimes have the same teachers. I remember that in elementary school, his report cards were identical to mine. S’s were the highest grades you could get, and we would have all S’s. But by the time he got to seventh grade; it was like he was tired of being my little brother and hearing about me. And one teacher told me, after he died, Evelyn Black said to me, “One time that my brother had come in and talked to her and said he really enjoyed her class.” She taught English. He said, “Because you never compare me to my sister Joyce.” He said, “I don’t hear you say, ‘well why don’t you do this like Joyce or Joyce this.’” So it was difficult for him to be my little brother. But anyway, I had told the committee that I wanted--I was going to have a baby. And they said, “Oh you can have a baby.” And I said, well my husband is a student. We’ll give you a stipend for your husband. I said, “Well, I have a son.” “We’ll give you a stipend for him.” When I started adding it up, I said, Oh I’ll get more money, tax-free, going to school than I would working.” And I love to go to school. I love to learn. And I said, “Okay, I’ll do this.”

BRINSON: Now, was this the Southern Education Association?

BERRY: Uh huh.

BRINSON: ....Fellowship. And that was a University of Kentucky fellowship scholarship?

BERRY: Came out of a Foundation in Atlanta. Now what I had heard about it, and I can’t say I can verify this, but what I had heard was that they would give money every year to U. K. to educate two Black students or two Negro students. I think that was what we were called at that time. Two Negro students. And they could use money for development. Now, what I had heard, and I have to say I don’t, I never read this anywhere, but it was like the Foundation said we will no longer give you money for development, if you don’t find students who can get the doctorate. And the purpose was to give Negro students doctorate degrees, advanced degrees, so they could teach at historically Black colleges. So that was the reason the money was given.

BRINSON: There is a program out of the Southern Regional Educational Board in Atlanta that does that and has for a number of years. I’m not sure how far back. And actually when I saw your fellowship, I wondered if that might have been the predecessor of the Southern, SREB program in some way, or affiliated with it.

BERRY: I don’t know, you know the money came, the money was given to U. K. and came directly to me. I did know that I was considered a Southern Education Association Fellow. I did remember reading somewhere later on that a Samuel Nabrit and that’s a name that I’ve heard in Washington, since I’ve been living here.

BRINSON: How do you spell Nabrit?

BERRY: N A B R I T, was like one of, either the Director or one of the principals with the Southern Education Association Foundation. But it was out of Atlanta. They never made any demands for me, but I got this money. Now one of the things that I was told, and there was no one in my family that I could get guidance from, was that there was no prescribed curriculum for the Doctorate, that your committee decides what you have to take. I did sign, when I started registering, I used to sign on, as I called them, these green cards, when they would say degree seeking, I would put Ph.D.

BRINSON: And you knew that from the time you started your Master’s program, that you planned to go as far as the Ph.D..? No?

BERRY: Uh uh, not until they offered me the fellowship, and then I said, “Oh, okay, why not?” When they were going to give me all this money, I said, “Why not.” Plus they told me I could get pregnant, I mean, I could have a child. So, I promptly got pregnant, that September, and my daughter was born that May. And it was like, went to school. And I can remember the second semester of the year and it was around March again. Doctor Curley had seen me in the hall, and I was, it was very evident that I was pregnant. (Laughing) And I remember that he did a double take. And I said, “Hmm, I imagine he is going to send for me.” So, sure I got this letter to come and meet with him. And so I went in to meet with him, and he said, “Uh Joyce, uh you’re expecting.” I said, “I certainly am.” I was thinking, I could tell he felt very awkward and I wasn’t going to help him out any at all. (Laughing) He said, “Uh, are you doing okay?” I said, “Well Doctor Curley, if I were not doing well, I’m sure you would be the first to know.” And he said, “Yeah, yeah, you’re right.” I said, “So have you heard anything?” And he said, “No, no, I haven’t heard anything to the contrary.” He said, “Well, how are you doing?” And I said, “Just fine.” I said, “The baby will be born May eleventh, two days after my last final, and my mother will require that I stay in the bed for a month.” Oh, because he said, “Well will you be back for the summer session?” I said, “Oh sure.” I said, “I’ll spend my month in the bed and then I’ll come back for the summer session.” He just looked at me, as if to say, you know this is just incredulous, incredulous. I don’t believe someone plans like that. And she was born right on time. She was born on the eleventh. I can remember when I registered that second semester, that Doctor Estes looked at me and she said, “You’re pregnant, is it going to be born before the end of the semester?” I said, “No. She’ll be born two days after the final.”

BRINSON: Now, your program in Counseling was under the School of Education?

BERRY: Uh hmm.

BRINSON: Okay.

BERRY: Now, that was interesting. One of the things that I knew, was that no Black had succeeded in getting a degree in Psychology with Jesse Harris as Chairman of the Department. And I mean, one of the statements that I had heard was that Jesse Harris had said, “No Black”--at that time I think we were considered Black—“No Black would get a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology, because it was ludicrous to think that Black people were mentally healthy.” Now, I heard that statement. And there was a young man, who now has, he got a Doctorate. He started off in the Clinical program. He now teaches in San Francisco. Right now, his name doesn’t come to me. I can see him, because I remember seeing him in one of the Alumni bulletins. He was in the Clinical program and they were giving him so many difficult--so much difficulty, that he ended up transferring to the Guidance and Counseling Program. And he got his Doctorate in Guidance and Counseling. It was because of some of the things they would say. And some of my--well what happened was, my committee used to sit down every year and tell me what courses I needed to take. So the way I got to Psychology. I took all of the courses in the Guidance and Counseling. What I didn’t know--and what I truly believe, was they did not plan on my graduating. I could matriculate; they could get the money from the Foundation; they could use it for development; but they didn’t intend on my finishing. And this was something, I didn’t realize it at the time that I was in the program, but afterwards. That many of the white universities would let minorities matriculate, but they didn’t graduate. They didn’t help them or facilitate their graduation. So I would sit down and they would go over, and then it got to the place, well what do you want to take? So I decided that I wanted to take Psychology courses. So I took all of the courses in the Clinical Program. And some of my experiences in the Psychology Department were very interesting. I remember Dr. Petty, who taught Abnormal Psych, had the reputation of helping the basketball players. And I can remember that Cotton Nash, Louie Dampier and the one that’s at, he was the last coach of the Denver Nuggets. I can’t think of his name right now--Dan Issell. All three of them were in my Abnormal Psych class, and I remember they said all of the basketball players--because this was during Rupp’s day--would get A’s in Abnormal Psych.

BRINSON: And now these were all white basketball players?

BERRY: Oh yeah. In most of the classes, I was the only Black that was in the class. So, Doctor Petty had this tradition of naming, reading off the names of the students who got the three top grades on his test. So he would start with the third highest and then the second and then the very top score. So the other two, the first time he did it, after the first test, the first two names he called were basketball players, and the other students sitting there, you know it was like, well what else did you expect, you know the basketball players. And then he said, “Joyce Berry”, and I stood up. And he said, “I said Joyce Berry.” And I said, “I am Joyce Berry.” And his face turned red, and some of the students asked me, “Well what did you get on your paper”, you know, “What was the grade that you got?” The second test, same thing. He read of the top three and I ended up having the top score. And when I stood up, you could tell he was very irritated by the fact that I had done it. The third time, he didn’t read the top scores. So after class, the students started to run over and they said, “What did you get?” And I said, “Well I got a hundred, plus the bonus.” And they said, “Well was that the top score?” I said, “I don’t know.” And they said, “Well one sure thing, you’ve destroyed a tradition at U.K., because Doctor Petty has always done that.” Well, Doctor Petty also had the rule that if you had gotten A’s on his first three tests, you didn’t have to take the final. I went to the final and when I walked in, he said, “You don’t have to take the final.” I said, “I know I don’t, but I thought it would be a fun thing to do today.” (Laughing) I just wanted to aggravate him.

BRINSON: Right. Now do you remember, approximately what year are we talking about? How far into your program?

BERRY: Okay, I started in sixty-two. I finished course work in sixty-five. We moved to Chicago and lived in Chicago for a year and a half, because my youngest son was born in sixty-six. Yeah, my youngest son was born in sixty-six and he was born in Chicago. My children’s father at that time was a student at Northwestern in the Physical Therapy Program. And he had gotten a Bachelor’s degree from U.K.. He started out in Physical Education, but the man who was the Chairman of the Physical Education Department said that, “No Black would get a degree in Physical Education and Health, because Black people weren’t healthy.” And so he ended up getting a Bachelor’s degree in Biology.

BRINSON: Tell me your husband’s name.

BERRY: It was David Berry.

END OF TAPE ONE, SIDE TWO

BEGIN TAPE TWO, SIDE ONE

BERRY: ...survival skills, and without even saying to myself directly that there are some things you should do to protect yourself, I know that. I decided that I was going to get all of the courses that I needed in Clinical, and I was going to avoid Jesse Harris. He only taught one course and that was Clinical Testing, I think it was something Clinical Testing. And I had taken all the other courses, and I knew there was no way I could avoid Jesse Harris. And he was the one in the Department that was adamant about the fact that no Black was going to get a degree in the Clinical program as long as he was Chairman of the Department. Well, the day that I took his class on Clinical, Clinical Techniques, there were about thirty students sitting in the class, of course I was the only Black. And that had gotten to be--that was just standard. He started, he said, “I am going to call the names on the roll and I want you to raise your hand when I call your name.” I was probably about the third or fourth name, and when he called my name and I raised my hand, he said--now he hadn’t asked the other three students, the students before me this. He said, “Have you taken the pre-requisites for this course?” And I said, “Yes.” And he said, “What are the pre-requisites for this course?” Now, what I knew--because Graduate courses, you don’t get several sections of them--there were about ten other students in there, that I knew had not taken the pre-requisites because they had started out in the Program with me and I knew they hadn’t been in my classes. But I had, had other classes with them. So, he said “What are the pre-requisites?” And I said, “Individual Intelligence Testing and Projective Techniques.” He said, “And where did you take them?” And I, oh I just felt just so good at that point. I said, “In your department under Doctor Dimmick and Doctor Estes. He slammed the roll book shut, walked out of the room and left all of the students sitting there. And I knew where he was going. I knew he was going down the hall to look in the file to find out if I had indeed taken these courses. And I was thinking, boy won’t he be shocked to see that I made very good grades in those classes. Well the next time the class met, there were only fourteen of us. The other students that he hadn’t called--I guess they figured the rule applied to them--when they probably could have stayed there. Because he wasn’t going to, he only asked me that because he didn’t want me in the class. He would talk about how crazy Black people were, Negros was the word that he would use. He would make jokes about dumb, ignorant Negroes and crazy Negroes. He was saying one time when he was doing his internship at the VA Hospital in North Carolina that there was this Negro man that was just as crazy and paranoid as he could be. And I’m talking to his wife, trying to tell her how crazy his is, and she’s saying, “But God’s going to take care of him.” And of course all the other students laughed. And he looked over at me and he said, “Miss Berry, you didn’t find that funny?” And I said, “No.” And I didn’t say anymore to him about it. I didn’t have any reason to argue with Jesse Harris. Because one of the things I knew was that I would not get the grade I deserved, but he certainly was not going to flunk me. When he would give the test paper back, students would automatically, and I think it was because they knew; usually I had the highest grade, or I had set the curve. So students would come to me and say, “What did you get on your test?” And I wouldn’t be ashamed to answer them. And I remember a student came over and she said, “Could I see your test paper?” And I said, “Yeah.” And she looked at it and she said, “Oh I forgot to mention that and I didn’t put that on my responsive essay questions.” And she said, “But I got a higher score on my question than you did.” And I said, “That’s the color factor.” And she said, “What do you mean?” And I said, “You’re white and I’m black, so therefore you automatically get points I don’t get.” And she said, “Oh, that isn’t fair.” She said, “You should do something about that.” I said, “And what am I going to do?” I said, “Jesse Harris is Chairman of the Department. Who am I going to report him?” “Well...you should be able to take...” And I said, “No.” I said, “Let me tell you what. I will get my Doctorate. And when I get my Doctorate”--you might want to take this off the tape--I said, “Jesse Harris can kiss my black ass.” And I remember she looked at me, and it was a, “Oh my goodness, well, I really think something should be done about it.” And I said, “You know, once I get the ticket, there’s nothing Jesse Harris can do to me.” Now, that was interesting. I will get back to U. K.. One year somebody asked me, would I send my resume over to Saint Elizabeth, that’s the mental hospital for the District of Columbia. They said, they’ve gotten some Federal funds, they’re hiring people, and we just want to see if they will hire you.

BRINSON: Now this was during....?

BERRY: No, this was after I had gotten my Doctorate.

BRINSON: After you had finished, okay.

BERRY: Yeah, after I had finished and after I was in practice. The man called me on--I didn’t want the job. And I said, “You know I don’t want to work for anyone.” And they said, “Well just send your resume, just to see if they will acknowledge that they’ve received a resume from a Ph.D. psychologist, black psychologist.” So the man called me on the phone, and he said, he told me who he was, and he said, “I’m sitting here looking at your resume.” And I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Did you get a degree from the University of Kentucky?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “In Psychology?” And I said, “Yes.” He said, “Was Jesse Harris there when you got your degree?” (Laughing) I said, “He was Chairman of the Department.” I remember he said to me, “Wasn’t it a shame what happened to Jesse?” And I said, “What happened to Jesse?” He said, “Oh, he committed suicide.” And I remember, (Laughing) and you know, you really shouldn’t think this way, but you know, I was thinking, he got his. And I have always said that, that you reap what you sow and you get back what you give. And he gave people a lot of grief. And I was thinking, boy, it couldn’t have happened to a better person. And that was my reaction. And when he said that, I remember I automatically smiled. Now, you know, (Laughing) I should be ashamed to say this, but I’m not, because Jesse Harris was a nasty man. And I know that if I hadn’t had the self confidence that I did; and if I hadn’t known that I was capable, and I was not going to let Jesse Harris stop me. I would have been, either I would have given up on getting a Doctorate, or I would not have finished the Clinical Program, which entitles me to be licensed as a Psychologist. I remember, the experiences at U. K., some of those things that professors do in those classes, is just tremendous. I took Juvenile Delinquency under a Joseph Mouldous. And Joseph Mouldous would get in front of the class and ridicule the Black Muslims, talk about how ignorant they were; how they could--why do they talk about blue-eyed devils. This was when the Muslims used to do the paper, Mohammed Speaks. Yeah. And he would sit there and talk, and I would just sit there. This was an undergraduate course. And there were about five other Black students in the class. And he would make these comments and I would just sit and listen to him, and think, you know, you can say whatever you want. I mean, I would really get angry about it, but I also knew how to dismiss--it was like--I wasn’t going to lose sight--as I often say to my patients, I do see the forest. I don’t get hung up on the trees. So it was like Joseph Mouldous, there was no need in arguing with him, because I had decided that Joseph Mouldous was ignorant. Well, right after they bombed the church in Birmingham and killed those four little girls; when I went to school that Monday, I was extremely angry and hurt. And Joseph Mouldous made the statement, “Well you know they blew up that church down there and killed those little girls,” he said, “But the coloreds aren’t going to do anything.” And I went off. That’s the first time I had ever confronted a teacher directly. And I remember telling him, I said, “You know, you are sadly mistaken.” I said, “We’ve had enough. We’re not taking anymore,” and I said, “And I’m tired of hearing you ridicule the Black Muslims.” I said, “For centuries white people have been talking about how ignorant and dumb, Colored people and Black people and Negroes are.” I said, “And then when there’s a group that believes in self-esteem; that believes in taking care of themselves; you’re going to stand here and ridicule them; and say that they can’t have some of the thoughts that you’ve espoused for years?” Well, at that point I had an A, (Laughing) in Juvenile Delinquency. I noticed after that, I mean he, there wasn’t anything he could say. The other Black students just slid down in the seat. It was like, “Oh goodness, I wish she’d shut up, and I wish she wouldn’t say that.” The white students, it was like they were sitting there rigid. It was like, “Is she going to go off?” David, my ex-husband, was taking the class, but he was absent that day. And of course when he came back on the campus, all the students told him what I had done in class. And he said, “Boy, they say you really performed.” He said, “And some of them are embarrassed.” I said, “Well that’s their problem.” I said, “I am sick and tired of Mouldous.” Plus Joseph Mouldous didn’t have an advanced degree.

BRINSON: Let me ask you, is it Muldoo?

BERRY: M O U L it was a name out of New Orleans, a French name, Joseph Mouldous

BRINSON: Okay, Mouldous.

BERRY: M O....D O U S was the last.

BRINSON: Okay, thank you. I just want to make sure that we get names spelled correctly for...

BERRY: Yeah. He stopped giving me, he stopped returning papers.

BRINSON: To everybody?

BERRY: Yeah, to everybody. He gave us a take home test. We had a research paper to write. And I noticed this was after I had performed in class. Papers weren’t being returned. I thought, “Oh, that’s interesting.” And what my thought was, “He’s not going to give us the papers back, and our grades, my grade, will end up being lower.” So I said, “Okay.” Sure enough, I got my--when I got the grade report, I had a B. I went in to see, was his last name Johnson? Oh, he and his wife used to do research in Lexington. They were social scientists. See, he was a nice man. I don’t remember his name. I remember the names of the ones that were not nice. I think their last names were Johnson, but I know he was Chairman of the Social Science, Sociology Department at U. K., at that time. I went in and I told--oh, no, what I did before then, I went by the Departmental office, where Joseph Mouldous had his office. He wasn’t there that day and I said, “I’d like to pick up my midterm exam and my final exam and paper from Doctor Mouldous.” And there were some other graduate assistants in there. And they said, “Did he say you could have this?” I said, “He didn’t say I couldn’t.” And they said, “Oh, okay.” So they pulled open the door--and I mean, I think of all the lucky things that happened to me--and gave me my folder. And I had my papers in there. And then I set up an appointment with Johnson, who was Chairman, I think his last name was Johnson, who was Chairman of the Department. And I went in and met with him. And I told him, I said, “I would like to show you my papers.” I said, “I deserved an A in that class and I got a B.” And he sat and looked. He asked me something about where you, where I was from. And I said Lexington and you know, where I had graduated. He asked for information, it was really, very personal. And he said, “And you’re an SEAF Fellow?” That’s when I realized being a Fellow was really something distinguished. No one else had acknowledged that this was anything out of the ordinary, to have a fellowship and be a Fellow. He said, “Oh that’s just wonderful.” So he looked over the papers and he said, “Oh ( )”; and we discussed things and he said, “Oh these are so well written.” And then he said, “Well let me call Joseph,” because he either lived in Danville or Berea. And he called him and he said, “I have a Joyce Berry sitting here in my office,” he said, “she’s an SEAF Fellow and she’s questioning her grade.” And he said, “I’d like for you to set up a meeting with her and discuss it.” So we set up the meeting for one-thirty whatever the day was. And I remember going to the meeting, and I sat and I waited. I gave him his fifteen minutes and then I went to the desk and I said, “I’m here to meet Joseph Mouldous.” And she said, “Are you Joyce Berry?” And I said, “Yes.” She said, “Oh, he left this note for you.” He had come in the day before, I think to get the papers out of the file and probably put red marks all over them; and I had them. And on this piece of paper he wrote, “Your grade did add up to an A and it has been changed accordingly, Joseph Mouldous.” And I though all right, I got that A. I saw him one time, when I was doing my internship at the VA Hospital. I walked up to him purposely and I said, “How are you Joseph Mouldous?” I said, “I’m Joyce Berry, remember I took Juvenile Delinquency from you?” Yes, yes, he really did not want to look me in the eye. He had avoided me that day. But I remember thinking, this is all right, I enjoy this. (Laughing) I guess maybe you could say in some ways I can be sadistic. But it’s like, if you’re not nice to me, that’s okay. I won’t let you deter me. I won’t let you get in my way. But when I have the opportunity, I will let you know that I didn’t appreciate it and didn’t like it.

BRINSON: In your Doctoral degree, and you were in a Clinical track, as I understand it?

BERRY: Started out in Guidance and Counseling and then went to the Clinical track. Now, getting back to this committee of mine.

BRINSON: Let me ask you first, before you do that. Did you have to write a dissertation?

BERRY: Uh hmm.

BRINSON: What was your topic?

BERRY: The Rorschach Ink Blot Test as an Indicator of Empathy.

BRINSON: Hmmm. Why did you choose that topic?

BERRY: My thought was that the ability to empathize with others and to be a therapist is something that starts early in your life. It’s like almost innate, but it occurs very early in your development. And that what counseling programs and psychology programs should do, is evaluate whether you have this characteristic or this trait called empathy; because they cannot train you to do that. And the emphasis that I always got, was that they could train you to be a good counselor or therapist, and that meant make you empathic. As far as I’m concerned, you’re either empathic or you are not. And there is no educational program that is going to do that. So what I did was, I got the counseling program at Ohio State and the one at Florida State to let me administer the Rorschach.... Now let me back up. I used to think that because, well when it really hit me was when I was taking Projective Techniques from Doctor Dimmit. And we would administer--one of the things we had to do in the class was administer the Rorschach to another person in front of the class; and Doctor Dimmit would criticize--critique what we had done. But he would also, in his head--and it was magnificent to watch him--even though I think he was about eighty when he taught me, and there were times when the dementia was running rampant and he was senile. But there were times when he was extremely bright and on target. One of the students administered a Rorschach to a young man, that had been in my program. In fact, had started out with me and gotten some counseling. And he was a counselor at Transylvania. And I remember thinking, I used to look at him and think, “Boy he’s so cold. I can’t imagine him being a counselor.” I used to just think that from just observing him, very stiff, you know, very rigid. In fact he was one of the ones in that class that ended up leaving that day, when Jesse wanted to know what the prerequisites were. But anyway, he demonstrated in class the Rorschach with him. And when he got through, Doctor Dimmit scored it. And he said, “This is a very cold man, doesn’t establish positive relationships with people,” he said, “because he doesn’t see color, you know most of his precepts were in gray and off black.” He said, “A lot of anxiety, saw very few humans.” And basically, I remember thinking, this is int....

BRINSON: Did he announce that to the class?

BERRY: Well, he didn’t know who the man was.

BRINSON: Oh, okay.

BERRY: He didn’t, he didn’t know the person that you brought in to test. He never asked who you were. But he would score it in his head and give you a picture of the personality, as to what you would get, were supposed to get after you scored a Rorschach and interpreted it. And I remember thinking boy this is really unique, because I had thought just in his general, the way he projected himself. I had never really talked to him. He just appeared to be cold and non-feeling and aloof and distant. And to hear Dimmit say that and to know that this man was a counselor, it was like uh hmm. What I’ll do is I’ll administer the Rorschach to counselors in the beginning of the program, in the middle of their program and at the end. I will also take samples of their first counseling session, a counseling session at the end of the first semester and then two tapes in the second semester. And then Truax and Carkhuff, who used to teach at U. K., had developed this accurate empathy scale for rating skill.

BRINSON: Spell that name for me, please.

BERRY: Truax T R U A X and Carkhuff was C A R K H U F F. They had developed this scale. So I paid people to evaluate the tapes. I scored the Rorschach, and what I had said was that people who were empathic would see more humans than others, they would have more form color responses in their protocol. They would also see more varied precepts. Now animals are the most easy thing to see, and most people see animals, but they would have more varied precepts. And it turned out to be true, that those who had on their beginning Rorschach, had more indicators of empathy than the other students, also got the higher ratings on their tapes, at the beginning of the program, as well as the end of the program. And there was no change in the Rorschach between beginning and end. And there was not significant change in the level of empathy at the end of the program, when you get, in other words, they had not learned how to be empathic as a result of attending the program.

BRINSON: Where did you, when you were choosing this topic, where did you see yourself headed once you finished your degree? At that point. Or did you?

BERRY: I really didn’t think about that. I you know, I stay in the present. As my mother used to say, “You don’t count your chickens before they hatch.” It’s like, you know, when I get there, I’ll do whatever I want to do. It was like, you know, it was like, I’ll get the degree and then I’ll do whatever comes up.

BRINSON: Of course, this was the sixties in Lexington. And I want to ask you just a couple of questions, you know, the early sixties with the sit-ins, some demonstrations, a rally in Frankfort in sixty-four around Public Accommodations Statute. Where were you?

BERRY: I had an interesting dialog with my father, an interesting experience with my father (tape goes off and on) in about the sixties and demonstrations. They were demonstrating in front of the Kentucky Theater, it was either the Kent--I think it was the Kentucky Theater, marching in front of it. I remember going down and asking my father, would he keep David Jarrod, which was my oldest son. And he said, “Yeah I’ll keep him for you.” He said, “Where are you going?” And I said, “Oh I’m going to march in front of the Kentucky Theater.” He said, “You mean you are going to get out there and march around and beg them to let you come and sit in their theater?” And I said, “Well Daddy it isn’t about that.” He said, “I’ve never begged or asked them for anything.” He said, “Now if you are going down there to beg them to let you spend your money to go in and see their movies, take your son down there, so he can see you beg.” And I said, “Oh, okay.” And I remember driving down thinking, he said, “I purposely have done things in my life, so I did not have to depend on them, and didn’t need them to take care of me.”

BRINSON: Did you take your son?

BERRY: No. I left the Barber shop, I was driving, I had my son with me.

BRINSON: And he was how old at that point? Just approximately.

BERRY: I guess maybe four.

BRINSON: Okay, okay.

BERRY: Maybe four years old. And I remember hearing my father’s comments and thinking, “Why would I go down here and march up and down the street? If they don’t want me in there, I don’t want to go.” And he was saying, “And we have the Lyric Theater, and we don’t have to go down there.” And I parked--whatever the theater was--and I think it was the Kentucky; it was near the Esplanade, that street in front of the bus station. And I remember you parked on an angle. And I parked my car and I could see, you know, the other Black people marching; and I said, “You know what? I am not going to do this. I am not going to beg them to let me come in their movie and spend the money.” And I turned around and went back home. I didn’t go tell my father that he won that one. But that was what I grew up with, you know, that you don’t need them. And that was the way he referred to white people, it was always them. You don’t need them, you take care of yourself.

BRINSON: Well, that’s a very interesting reaction, I think, because clearly you knew from the News and whatnot, what was happening all over the South during that period. And I’ve talked to a number of people who said, particularly about their children, they said well there were safety issues. They really didn’t want their children to participate. But you have given me a new perspective on that, just one of pride.

BERRY: Uh huh.

BRINSON: You know.

BERRY: Yeah, because it wasn’t about safety. It was about--you are going to go down there and beg? Take your son down there and let him see you begging somebody to let you come in and spend--And you know, I thought about it some not doing that, and I thought no, I won’t do that. I want to tell you about my committee. I got sixty-seven hours toward my Doctorate, which is more than is necessary. I would sit down with my committee every semester and go over what do you want to take? Well, I had taken all the classes in the Clinical Program, all the classes in the Guidance and Counseling. And I was taking Sociology and Social work classes. And I remember Wilkey, Ray Wilkey, who had two Doctorates. I think he had a Doctorate from Harvard and one from Yale. He was on my committee. And he was in the Counseling Department. And they were sitting down, thinking of what other courses I could take for the next semester and Ray Wilkey said, “When are you going to let her take her qualifyings?” And they said, “Oh, what do you mean?” He said, “She will have enough hours for three Doctorates.” He said, “I just want to know when you’re going to decide that she’s taken enough classes.” So they went, you know, they fluffed through the files and they were looking; and oh, they were so astonished to see that I had accumulated all these credits. And then they said, “Joyce, do you want to take the qualifying?” And I said, “Sure.” And so they scheduled the qualifying, and I took it shortly after then, like a week or two; and I passed it. And when I think about all those things, you know it just hammers in, they didn’t expect me to finish. They expected me to get tired, to quit. But I only had to go to class two to three days a week. I could spend a lot of time with my kids. They were paying me, it was tax free money, this was wonderful. I mean, they don’t realize, I was in my heaven in an educational setting. So I mean I was the wrong person for them to think that I would soon get tired, or I wouldn’t accomplish the goal. I remember one time I took, I would take the chapters in for the committee members. I remember one guy said to me, “Gee, this isn’t that thick.” I said, “Do you want quality or quantity?” I said, “You’ve got quality, now if you want quantity, I can do that, because I can filibuster very well.” I remember he looked at me, you know it was one of those looks where he would just like to eradicate me. The other thing that I remember was that I would go in and give them the chapters, and they would automatically have criticisms, this isn’t right, that isn’t right. But what I noticed was, they weren’t keeping any notes at all. Now if they said something that I thought was worthwhile, then I would change it. If they said something that I didn’t think was worthwhile, I wouldn’t make the change. And I would bring the chapters in the next time (Laughing), and they said, “Oh just wonderful, you did a wonderful job on that. I like the changes that you incorporated.” And I was thinking you don’t even remember what you said to me the last time. And part of that to me was that they really didn’t care, it was like an insensitivity. But I said, you know, it makes me no difference, once I get the degree, it will speak for itself, and there will be nothing they can do. And I’m not even going to deal with it. In fact, I compared getting a Doctorate, that it’s not about intelligence, that it’s about frustration tolerance level. And it’s like going into a sorority or a fraternity. They don’t want you in the club, so they attempt to make it difficult for you. And it is about hassling you and harassing you, and I just got to the place where it just didn’t bother me. I had an experience with a Doctor Barkley. Now I have to go back, Doctor Carse was my first committee chairman.

BRINSON: Carse?

BERRY: Carse C A R S E

BRINSON: Okay.

BERRY: He was the first chairman, and he left to take a position at University of Texas, Austin. And he said to me, you know he called me in and told me, “That he was leaving, and that he really hated to leave me....”

END OF TAPE TWO SIDE ONE

BEGIN TAPE TWO SIDE TWO

BERRY: That he really hated to leave me, but this was such a, you know, was such a tremendous offer; and what all he would get to do at the University of Texas. He said, “I really wanted to see you accomplish your goal.” He said, “But I have one bit of advice for you, don’t do your dissertation on Black people.” And I said, “Why not?” He said, “Because you give them another opportunity,” and he used the expression “them”, “You give them another opportunity to disqualify you.” He said, “You finish with a dissertation on Black people and they will say, oh, we can’t hire her to teach at this university because she only knows about Black people.” And I thought about it and it made a lot of sense. Okay, I had lost some of my committee members and had to go pick up some more. And so Doctor Moore was my chairman at this time, and Doctor Moore was a very kind, same with Doctor Carse, they were very genuine people, very concerned about my welfare. And I think they knew without saying that it wasn’t easy for me, so they did as much as they could to protect me. And I don’t know whether I should tell you all of this, and I probably shouldn’t. Anyway I remember going to, I was given some names of people that I could go to interview to see if they would be on my committee. And Doctor Barkley, who had left Louisville and come to the University of Kentucky, and he was new there, I went in to tell him that I was a Doctoral candidate, and that I was looking for members. I needed three members on my committee and I was considering him. And he said, “Well, what is your dissertation about?” And I told him. He said, “That’s just trash. That isn’t even worth, it will be an embarrassment to the University of Kentucky.” And I remember sitting there, looking at him, thinking, and you won’t be on my committee, since I’m the one who makes the choice. And he just went on, he said “Now I have these I.Q. scores of some Black, of some students in Louisville, some Black kids in Louisville. And I would like for you to take that data and use it.” And I was thinking, there is no way I am going to be a Judas goat. I looked at him. I said, “You think I am going to write a dissertation and come out with what you will want, that Black people are inferior and intellectually.” I was thinking, “Oh no, not on your life.” You don’t even have to worry about that. And I would say to him, “I am not interested in I.Q. scores of Blacks or whites.” “Well this would make tremendous research, and I have all of this information.” And I said, “I’m not interested in that.” I said, “I’m doing my dissertation on what I am interested in, and I’m not interested in that.” I left. He wrote a very nasty letter to Doctor Moore about my dissertation and what I should be doing. It’s another example of how lucky you can be and how things, when you’re right and when you’re good, things fall the way they are supposed to. This was during the day when they had carbons.

BRINSON: Carbon copies?

BERRY: Yeah. And you know, you put the carbon in? Well the secretary typed the carbon on the back of the letter that came to me. So I had the original and the carbon. There was no other record of that letter. Now, I won’t tell you how I found out there wasn’t another record of that letter. But there was not another record of that letter in Doctor Barkley’s file. And the steno pad that the notes had been taken on, it was the last letter that was written, the last dictation that his secretary had taken from him, in that steno pad. And she had thrown away the steno pad, so she wasn’t about to let him know that there was no record of that letter. So we never discussed it anymore. Now, he saw me in the hall one day and he said, “When is your committee meeting?” And I said, “My committee has met.” He said, “Well I didn’t get a notice.” I said, “I didn’t select you.” And I went on about my business. I was thinking, “Now this man must have thought I was totally insane if I was going to select him to be on my committee after the way he had acted.” But I think he thought it was a fait accompli, when you know, because I had come in there. I was thinking, “No, he will not be on my committee.” So I had some interesting experiences.

BRINSON: It sounds like you had an all male faculty, was that true in that department there? And certainly you had an all white faculty.

BERRY: Oh yeah, definitely all white, mostly male. I had a Doctor Estes that I referred to was a woman that taught Individual Intelligence testing. And she was very genuine. She was concerned about my pregnancy. She would require that the men carry the Intelligence testing cases to the school, so I could use them, and they weren’t that heavy. But I was thinking, this is really nice, that she’s concerned about me and the welfare of my child. She moved the final up two days, because she didn’t want me to have any problems with the baby being born before the final. [Laughing] She was nice. There was a lady in the Social Work Department. I took a class in Community Organizations. Her name was Connie and that’s all I remember. She was nice. Those were the only, those are the only two women that I remember. Most of the professors were men.

BRINSON: Were there any other Black students that came along soon after you matriculated in the program?

BERRY: Well, there were two of us that started out. Eddie, oh boy, he’d be so upset. Eddie is all I can remember. Eddie ended up being the Dean of Admissions or the Registrar at Kentucky State College. And he got an Ed. D., and his was in Curriculum or something. That’s an interesting story. I had, every time they put, you’d fill out your registration cards and you’d put down that you were, the degree you were seeking. I would put Ph.D. degree. Now I took the language exam, because I knew that you needed to have two languages for the Doctorate. So I took the French exam and passed it. And they sent the results to the Chairman of the Department. And he called me and he said, “Joyce, I just got a statement where you had passed the French exam.” He said, “You don’t need a language.” And that was Doctor Carse. I said, “Doctor Carse when did they stop requiring a language for the Ph.D.?” He said, “Oh you’re not getting a Ph.D..” And I said, “Yes I am.” He said, “Oh no, every one of your cards you put Ed. D on it.” And I said, “No I haven’t, on every one of those cards I put Ph.D..” He said, “Let me get your file.” And he said, “Oh, you’re right. You have put PhD on every one of these.” And those would, things like that, that happened, you know, you’re not supposed to be number one, you’re not supposed to be on top. And we just automatically assume that, that’s not where you’re going. And he said, “Well, I guess now you need another language.” I said, “Yeah.” I said, “I’m taking German now.” And he said, “Oh.” He said, “Why German?” And I said, “Well a lot of the early psychologist were Germans, so I would like to be able to read some original works.” Well, in the process of doing that, U.K. stopped requiring two languages, so I never had to take the German exam, but I did pass the French. And I remember when they changed that, they added research hours. They said, you know, in lieu of two languages, I think you had to take fifteen research hours or twelve. Whatever they required, I had three more than was necessary. They required twelve; I had fifteen research hours. And this was when I had come back from Chicago. And I was coming--we came back to Lexington so I could finish up the Doctorate. And I went in and they said, “Oh well, you know you don’t need”-- this was Doctor Moore--he said, “You don’t need two languages now.” He said, “But you need, I think twelve research hours.” I said, “Oh well then I don’t need to do anything, I have fifteen hours.” It was like, “No Joyce, you’re going to have to take another course.” And I was thinking, “Well, three hours? I can do that with my hands”--I don’t have to worry about it. It was like, I wasn’t going to get upset and fight about that, it was just three hours. I took the additional three hours.

BRINSON: What gave you the inspiration, the stamina, just to deal with this sort of psychological abuse?

BERRY: My mother and my father. They were very proud people. My father, especially was proud, my mother too. They were very independent people. They never talked about my being inferior, or our being inferior, I mean, it just didn’t come up. I never knew that they had Black and White bathrooms in Kentucky, because I had never been to one. My mother used to say to me, “Oh we don’t use public bathrooms.” So it was like I never had to encounter seeing Colored and White on them. And I didn’t even think they had them in Kentucky. I mean, there were certain ways that she navigated me through this mine field, that I didn’t have to deal with the fact that you are Black, therefore you are inferior and you can’t do this and you can’t do that. I mean she would just say, “Oh you don’t want to do that. You’re not interested in that.” And I’d just slack off. And she’d give me a justifiable reason. My father, statements like you know, “I’ve never depended on them. I made sure that I could take care of myself.” He owned his business. He owned, we owned our home. He used to, and I remember one time, and I just marvel at--my father had a seventh grade education, but a very bright man. He went to Detroit one time and watched them assemble his car. It was a nineteen forty-eight car, a nineteen forty-eight Roadmaster Buick. He watched them assemble the car, and he paid cash for it at the end when they brought it around and drove home. He managed money very well. There are principles that, there were things that I used to hear him say that I use in my business now. There are things like, some money is better than no money. And so it’s like, sometimes with patients who cannot pay the full fee, I will lower their rate, because some money is better than no money. I remember he would say things like, “Nobody takes care of your money like you do.” I’ve had secretaries that I’ve expected to bill. In fact now, I do my own billing with the computer software, because when I did start doing it--and this was when a secretary left, and I didn’t have a replacement and I had to get my bills out. I realized she hadn’t been doing all the billing. And it used to be when I started out, that I monitored my billing. Then my daughter started doing my billing and I trusted her. And then when she started practicing--my daughter is a licensed, professional counselor--when she started practicing, she would train the secretaries. And I was just sort of out of it and didn’t get in touch with it. But I realized, and I remember thinking when I discovered that they hadn’t done the billing; and hadn’t done it completely, I said, “And nobody takes care of your money like you do.”

BRINSON: Okay. The Black Student Union that organized at U. K. in the sixties, were you involved in any way? You were an older student, you had family responsibilities.

BERRY: I was an older student, I had family responsibilities. I rarely went to the Student Union and when I did go, I would see behavior that I didn’t particularly relish, respect. The Black students would all sit in a group. I used to call it “tribal behavior”. And tribes do things to protect themselves. And that’s it, they’re in a hostile environment and they know it, and so they act like a tribe, they band together. I didn’t need to do that. I mean it’s, when I did go, I would sit by myself. They would invite me to sit with them, and I’d say, “No that’s okay, I need to read this.” I didn’t feel that I needed to do that. I understood why, and they were undergraduates. I understood why they did it. I just didn’t. And I don’t remember, I think maybe toward the end when I was leaving, that was when they developed a Black Student Union, or there was some rumblings. I think Henry Tribble was one of the leaders of the Black students. But I didn’t participate. I’m not denigrating or criticizing the organization, that wasn’t what I wanted to do with my time.

BRINSON: Well, other than selected faculty, was there any kind of a support network for you on campus, with other students or staff?

BERRY: No. And I learned my first semester that I was alone and I was going to have to do this on my own. There were no study groups. When my brother had died and I was out that week, I was taking this course called Rehabilitation Counseling. The instructor’s name was something with an “A”, Archam something. But I remember it was with an “A”. There was this young lady, who had been very friendly to me, who was in the graduate program. And I asked her when I came back, I said, “May I see your notes for the class meeting that I missed?” And she said, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll bring you the notes.” After about the third time, she would always forget to bring them. And what was so puzzling to me, is that most students keep their notes all together, so I didn’t even believe that she didn’t have the notes with her. But when she would come, I’d say, “Did you bring the notes?” “Oh no, I forgot to bring the notes. I’ll bring them the next time.” Well, by the third time, I knew she had no intentions on letting me see those notes. And when she came in, she looked at me and she said, “Oh, I forgot the notes.” I hadn’t even asked her. I said, “You didn’t intend on bringing the notes.” I said, “You don’t want me to use your notes.” I said, “But I will pass this course without your notes.” She got red in the face, started crying, and when the instructor walked in, she ran up to him and told him what I had done, that I had insulted her. And he had the nerve to call me up and ask me what I had done to her. And I said, “Uh, told her the truth.” And he said, “Well did you insult her?” I said, “No I didn’t insult her, I told her the truth.” She has no intentions on--.and I related to him what had happened. And I said, “But I don’t need her notes.” I said, “I can do very well without her notes.” I said, “But she’s the one, who’s going to be so helpful.” And she was so friendly. And she was sitting there sniffing in class, and I was thinking, “This is graduate school, this is not kindergarten. And he has the nerve to call me up.” And I was thinking, “You are going to rescue this damsel in distress, because you think this black woman is going to do something horrible to this white woman.” But you know it was like, I’m not going to take time and deal with your insulting behavior. I’ll get past that. And I remember I got an A out of that class. I was thinking, “Yeah, it was like, they would do things, they didn’t know.” That’s the one thing--they are not even sensitive to know what they are doing that is disrespectful, that is discriminatory. They just don’t know. Oh, and that’s something else, I finished in a high school class that had three valedictorians and salutatorians, two salutatorians. I wasn’t among that five, and some of them went to U.K.. The only one that finished from U.K., was Doris Wilkerson, who’s now on staff. They rest of them flunked out. Doris Wilkerson and Bernice Jones, and Bernice Jones was from Douglas, were the only two that managed to get through. The rest, and they were bright....now one of the other, it is interesting, another one of the valedictorians or salutatorians went to Fisk, and I went to Hampton. Many of those that went college went to Kentucky State, but some of them attempted U.K., and most of them did not finish, and I can understand. You have to have self-confidence, at that time you had to have a strong self-concept and high self-esteem to be able to go through that maze and not get caught up in the minutiae.

BRINSON: Tell me about your graduation.

BERRY: Ha! Ha, ha, ha. (Laughing) That, that, oh that was really neat.

BRINSON: It was nineteen seventy when you finished your Ph.D..

BERRY: Uh huh. I finished in nineteen seventy. They didn’t have commencement that May because of Vietnam demonstrations, so commencement was held in August. Now, I need to back up. I was, I had gotten a divorce in the meantime. I had decided, I was debating about whether to complete the Doctorate, all I had to do was the dissertation. And I said you know hey, if Black men are going to have a problem with my having a Doctorate degree, that will be their problem, not mine. I have three children that I want to have as much out of life, as I did. And that was another thing, my parents and my grandparents, gave me--I didn’t have--whatever I wanted, I got. Now, I always say, I knew what to ask for and what not to ask for. They took good care of me. And my father paid for my college education. And I had decided and I did that for my children. All three of them have a college degree and I paid for it. And all three of them went to private colleges, you know, that was something that I had picked up as I went along, you didn’t go to a state supported institution. And that’s not to put them down, it’s like the Yale and Harvard. Our private institutions represent the same thing. And it’s like, you have three children, you want them to have as much out of life as you, so you get the Doctorate, so you can earn enough to take good care of them, give them experiences that you want. I had, I was goofing around, and I remember I came in one day and my father was sitting in the chair in the living room and he said, “When are you going to finish that book?” And I said, “Oh, one of these days.” And I remember I got--he was sitting in the living room and I got in the dining room and I said, “That must be important to him,” because he never hassled me. None of them, they didn’t hassle me. It was like, “Oh, you’re going to graduate school?” There was no you need, you have to do this and you have to get that. It was almost like, we know you will do it, we expect you to do it, but there’s no direct pressure. So when he said that, I said, “This must be important to him.” And that’s when I decided okay, let me hurry up and finish this, because he seems to be interested in it. So that was the motivation too, because I had collected my data, just hadn’t done the writing. So I wrote it, and I’m really glad I did. My father, I marched in August, my father went in the hospital in September and died July of seventy-one, so I was really glad that I did it. Now, when I walked across the stage, I was either the second or third name. The first one was some Abadobeegabee something. Louie Nunn was the Governor. I don’t remember who the president was, but when they called my name and I walked up those steps, the Governor did a double take. I mean he--it’s like--and he looked back at the president and he looked at the dissertation and it was like, is this really--by that time I had gotten there. And he said, “Joyce Hamilton Berry,” like, it’s the same stuff that Doctor Petty did. (Laughing) And I remember I said, “Yes, Joyce Hamilton Berry.”, and went on across the stage. After then Louie Nunn sent me a letter to serve on some committee. I wrote him a letter and told him that I had a prior commitment. I mean it was like at that point...

BRINSON: Do you remember what committee it was?

BERRY: Uh uh. I just remember he wrote and asked me would I come to a meeting. It was something that was being held in Frankfort for some committee and I just wrote back and told him I had a prior engagement. And it wasn’t that I was angry, it was like I had made a commitment to somebody. And I am one who honors my commitments. And it’s not about whether you are Governor, President, it’s about the fact that you are a person. So I had made a prior commitment and I wasn’t going to change it for the Governor. And the other thing was that (Laughing) he waited until the last minute, it was like three or four days. And I said, like most Governors or people in power, they figure you just drop everything to do what they want. And I did say in the letter, if I had, had adequate notice, I could have arranged to change that. I never heard from him again, and I said, “well at least,”--I thought about it later on--I said, “At least he was reaching out, after having been shocked to death.” (Laughing) But I didn’t have to do that. I had some other interesting employment experiences. I worked at the Fayette County Children’s Bureau. And had the P--got the Ph.D., during the time that I was there, working there. There was a white, male social worker, who had only been on the staff for a year. I had been on the staff, it was either my second or third year. He ended up--he got a salary increase and he was making as much as I was. And I found out about it. And I went to the Director, his name was Dick Walker. And I said, “Dick, I want to know why he is making as much money as I am. And he is a Master level social worker and I’m a Ph.D.,. I have worked here,”--I think it was three years—“I have worked here for three years, and he’s only worked here for a year.” And he said, “Joyce, he’s head of a household.” I said, “Guess what Dick, I’m head of a household too.” “Well, a, a...well...Joyce.” At that point I decided I’m not staying at the Children’s Bureau anymore. Right after that--and I had just bought a house. I bought a house in Robin Wood Estates, off of Clays Mill Road. I was--for two and a half years, we were the only Black family there. I realize I did a terrible thing to my children those two and a half years. After then I got an offer for a job in Washington and left. And my kids told me, they were the only Black kids in Stonewall Elementary. And after we moved to Columbia, they said to me it was so lonely. And they were so glad to be in a school where there were other kids like them. And that’s when it dawned on me how much having gone to a Black elementary school and high school and college had meant to me, in terms of my self-esteem, plus research supports that. I remember I wrote a letter resigning, because I got a job at Kentucky State right after that. And in the letter, I quoted to the Board that Dick Walker had discriminated against me, racially and sexually, and that I found it insulting, therefore I was resigning from the job. It’s like, those are the things that, that’s the way my father would have said. He wasn’t living at the time, but that’s the way you do it. You don’t have to get a whole committee to rally around and speak up, you take care of yourself.

BRINSON: I have two other questions. Have you been involved as an alumni at U.K., in any way?

BERRY: No.

BRINSON: No.

BERRY: You know when (Laughing) I was asked to speak for the Lyman Ginger homecoming dinner. And when the guy called me and asked me (Laughing), boy I tell you. I told somebody, I said, “When I get through talking, they won’t do a videotape, they probably won’t even include my oral interview.” The guy called me and asked me, “Would I be a speaker for the banquet?” And I said, “I don’t think you want me to do that.” And he said, “Why?” I said, “Because I have no love for the University of Kentucky.” He was speechless, you know (Laughing), those pregnant pauses. And he said, ”Well they speak so highly of you and they say such good things.” I said, “It has nothing to do with me.” I said, “It has to do with my experiences at U.K..” I said, “I support Hampton.” And I do, I give money to Hampton and I’m an active Alumni. I don’t do that for the University of Kentucky.

BRINSON: Now, you were the first Black, woman Doctoral degree. Do you know who the first black male?

BERRY: John Smith, who was my English teacher in high school.

BRINSON: Ooohh.

BERRY: Yeah, he was the first African-American male to get a Doctorate.

BRINSON: Hmm, that’s wonderful.

BERRY: Yeah, and I was the first African-American female.

BRINSON: Do you know how, what period did he do that?

BERRY: I think it must have been when I was in Chicago, because I know I wasn’t around when--no, I think he probably completed--no, he completed before I got there. So he got his before sixty-two.

BRINSON: Is he still living?

BERRY: I don’t think so. I know his wife had died early. His sister is Katy Smith Stevens, and I think she is still living in Lexington. But no, I think John Smith is deceased.

BRINSON: And then I wanted to ask you to tell me about your experience at Kentucky State. What were you? You were employed there?

BERRY: One semester.

BRINSON: One semester, okay.

BERRY: (Laughing) I remember, well what happened was, I had done a semester there, I was the only Doctorate in the department. It was the Sociology Department. And I really wanted to stay there. I enjoyed working with the students. I knew that I was contributing, enhancing their intellect and their lives. I mean I would do things, I remember one time I took a Dick Gregory album on, Black Side, Light Side, it’s an album that he has about racism in America. I remember taking it to class. So, I did a lot of innovative things and enjoyed it. But I got this offer from the Hunter Foundation, which was the Federally funded HMO. The Federal government funded six HMO’s across the United States as an experiment during the seventies. And what happened was, Lexington along with U.K., had gotten one of these Federal grants, and the agreement was that they would hire fifty percent white and fifty percent black, and this was from the top down. Well the Director, the Executive Director, Rich Carter, kept telling the Board that he couldn’t find any qualified Blacks. And someone called me and said, “Joyce, we would like for you to apply for the job at the Hunter Foundation.” And I said, “Well I’m really not interested”; and they told me why. They said, “We just want to see if he will come back and tell the Board that he’s gotten an application.” Well, I went to the interview and we ended up arguing in the interview. And I told him, I said, “You don’t know anything about Lexingtonians. You don’t know anything about being Black in Lexington, because they were making all these lofty assumptions.” And we ended up yelling at each other. Because I had no...

END OF TAPE TWO SIDE TWO

BEGIN SIDE ONE TAPE THREE

BERRY: So I decided to take the job, much to his dismay, because I ended up being the acting Executive Director. But that was....oh when I went back to Kentucky State and I had negotiated that I would complete my year at Kentucky State, because I knew they were coming up for accreditation. That I would do the work that I needed to do for the Hunter Foundation, that I would complete whatever task I was given, but I wanted to complete my year at Kentucky State. So I went in and I did my research and found out that there was one other professor at Kentucky State, who was a white male, who had two full time jobs. The President at that time was an acting president, and in fact he had graduated from Hampton many, many years before I had. And had also been an administrator at Tennessee State, and he was the acting President at Kentucky State. He was a micro-manager, you know, he did everything, he hired, he fired, he did everything. So I went to meet with him, and I told him I had this offer, that it was an experience, one of those once in a life experiences that I was not going to pass up. It would be an opportunity for me to create, I was going to train family, community workers to be family health workers and to work in this HMO. And that I would be supervising, that I would be managing a budget, and this was an experience that I wanted, that I thought would truly enhance me. He said, “Well, you can’t have two full time jobs” I said, “Well why is it that Doctor Poloski or Polinski or something has two full time jobs?” He said, “That’s different.” I said, “How is it different?” “Well we won’t discuss that, it’s just different.” I said, “Okay, so there are some people at Kentucky State who can have two full time jobs, but I would not be permitted to do that.” So then he said, I said, “Well you know, one of the things that bothers me is that as a first year Professor, I am probationary, I’m temporary. So I have no guarantee that I am going to have a job at the end of this year.” But I said, “I know that I have a family to support.” And he said, “Well”...I said, “Plus, you didn’t meet your enrollment projections,” and I said, “And the Chairman of the Department has informed us that we will have a half time secretary, that we won’t have mimeograph. So I’m not sure that financially if I am guaranteed of having a job.” (Laughing) And he said, “I can’t believe that you are ignorant enough to believe in rumor.” At that moment I knew that he would have my letter of resignation within a half hour, as soon as I could find a secretary to type. Because my parents wouldn’t let me take typing (Laughing) because they would say, you’re not going to be a secretary, so I didn’t take typing in high school. I wish I had, I see now that having had typing didn’t mean I had to be a secretary. But that is part of my father’s career counseling and guidance counseling.

BRINSON: Thank you very much.

BERRY: You’re welcome

END OF INTERVIEW