Oral History Interview with Bonita Lasley, Sylvia White, and Lottie Alexander

DAVID WOLFFORD: This is David Wolfford with the school desegregation in Western Kentucky project. I'm here with Bonita Lasley, Sylvia White and Lottie Alexander in Columbia. Today is the 8th of August, 2002. I'd like for each of you maybe to introduce yourselves and just say basically where you're from and so forth.

BONITA LASLEY: I am Bonita Lasley from Columbia, Kentucky. Born 9th, 10th, in '38. Finished school at Adair County High School in 1956.

SYLVIA WHITE: I am Sylvia White from Adair County ( ) finished at Adair County High School in 1961 and I was born 11/4/'42.

LOTTIE ALEXANDER: I am Lottie Alexander from Adair County, Columbia, Kentucky, 1:00and I was born 4/10, '44. I went to high school but didn't finish. I stopped in eleventh grade, went to work.

DW: All right I guess we should--. Okay, if maybe we can go one by one and each of you can tell where you went to school from maybe first grade on up and what that, maybe some of your most fondest memories from that experience perhaps. Ms. Lasley, you want to start?

BL: Okay. I am Bonita and I started, I mean I went to Jackman through my eleventh year. I can remember a lot of, I have an awful lot of fond memories there, some good, some bad. But Jackman was a, it was a beautiful place. The building wasn't much. It was cold in the winter, hot in the summer. We didn't have heat and air like the other type school had. But we enjoyed it. We always 2:00had our baseball team, a softball team. I can remember we were all slipping smoking. I started smoking at eight years old ( ) we did, and the older girls would go out for a smoke and the younger girls would say if you don't give us a turn, we're going to tell you've been smoking. So they had to give us ( ) to stop us from talking. I, Ms. Brown was there for a long time because she was--. I can't remember if she was my teacher or my sister's teacher and I just remember her, but I can remember Ms. Brown. She was a beautiful person. I saw her last year and she's still the same beautiful person that she was then. I can remember, I had Mr. Robert Young. I think he 3:00was in the eighth grade I think was when I got him. Then I had a Ms. Smith, a home ec teacher. Mr. Bomer's wife, her name was Ms. Tanzie Bomer, and she was my eleventh, tenth and eleventh teacher. She taught music and we did plays. We, as I say we just, it was more like a family thing. Everybody knew everybody, and it was just kind of nice to be there. I can remember we would have chapel and somebody would speak and we would have a glee club that they would sing. Somebody would come in and speak to us. I can remember that we used to talk about this me and my brother in law, they would always put up mistletoe at Christmas. We had these, the Hughes, she was a Hughes. I won't go 4:00into all of that though. Somebody might hear it and that might not be nice. But the one of the girls walked under the mistletoe and I had a brother in law and a cousin up the street here and then they had a friend. They grabbed this girl under the mistletoe and one kissed her. So she cried and we just thought that was so funny because we thought oh how nice ( ) to have been kissed. We were just kids ( ) think about all this stuff. So the next morning she came back to school and she brought a note from her dad saying that he didn't send her up there to be kissed. He sent her to be learned and he didn't and taught and he didn't want that to happen anymore. We often get together and reminisce and talk about school. I had told Sylvia or Lottie one that I didn't think about this. This is Jackman's high reunion weekend. So if I had thought and told you to work the Friday and Saturday you could've gotten quite a lot of people.

DW: Really. Well, I have--

BL: Because there would be a lot of people in for the reunion that comes on Saturday night.

DW: That's this Saturday. I'm going to have to return. I won't be too far away. Bowling Green area. Okay.

BL: But I'm sure if you can ( ) everybody's moving quite a little bit, but it's a lot of people that will be in for the weekend. But my days at Jackman was wonderful. Then when we went to Adair County High School, I had enough ( )--. Well, there was three of us. Meredith Johnston and Shirley Jones Bradshaw, Meredith Gray Johnston and I was Bonita Todd now Lasley. We, when we went in, we had enough credits that we only had to go a semester. So by going back the first semester we didn't graduate with the '56 class. We 6:00just got our credits and we were out of school. So now this meant that we don't get any class reunions because we didn't graduate. I always felt like that that was an error that we should have been involved with that '56 class.

DW: Was there any discussion at the end of your semester that you did attend at Adair County, you and the other two girls, was there any discussion about the participated in the graduating ceremony?

BL: I really don't remember, but I don't think so. But I wouldn't swear that to be the truth.

DW: You don't recall any actual--

BL: I don't recall any actual conversation about that.

DW: Do you think that was ever a possibility?

BL: Well, I think that maybe they just, they just said this is nice you know, put them on out the door and that's the end of it. Then we just, and I think that's bad and maybe I have the wrong feeling about it. Maybe I shouldn't feel like that about it, but I've always felt about it there. It just kind of felt 7:00like it would be nice ( ) but now all of my classmates and if I could ever find out when there was a reunion, I'm sure I could go and have a good time because I had a lot of friends.

DW: White friends.

BL: White friends. I don't say that they were so much friends then, but after school, after everything had settled in and been as the years passed and you see people you say oh yeah, we went to school together blah, blah, blah. So now you become a little more acquainted, I guess you'd say.

DW: Okay. Miss White, what would you say? What are the things you recall about going to school in Columbia either the earlier days or Jackman High or whatever?

SW: I lived next door to Jackman High so I before I went to school I kindly knew everybody that was going there. I mean, I lived maybe like next door. And if anybody got sick at Jackman or whatever, they brought them to our house. So 8:00I knew everybody. There was kids like from Jamestown that didn't have a high school and they was transported there. So they were always the last ones to leave the school. Even after school was out sometimes their ride wasn't there right then. One of the student's father's drove a station wagon, and he brought like six or seven students in from Jamestown and I knew all of them and I'd see them even when school was out. So we'd go up by there and talk to them. My days at Jackman High they were good days because at that time everything was built around the school. That was the black people's center. They had socials and as she said all kinds of plays, and you knew where the talent was because people, they had a glee club, a good glee club that sung and everything was good 9:00at Jackman. Although Jackman, Jackman burned when I was in the fifth grade. From there we went to school at the Methodist church. We finished that year up at the Methodist church. The next year we went in the Baptist church, a whole year. From there we went to ( ), but that first semester while we were the house, I didn't go to school. My parents kept me out of school because they were filing this lawsuit. So we sat out the first semester. We didn't attend school anywhere. Then the second semester we went all day, and then from there I went to the eighth grade at Columbia Grade School, but I remember basketball, the basketball team played all their games at Columbia Grade School because we didn't have a gym. We didn't have a, I remember baseball games. I remember May Days. We had May Day. That was a big day they 10:00crowned the king and queen and we were at the maypole and I remember all of that. Those were fun times.

DW: Let me ask you a question before I go on here. Since you lived next to Jackman and you, you experienced as a neighbor Jackman before, kind of as an institution, and then you know what life's been like here without it. Especially the first few years what changed with the black community when that building ceased to exist, I mean, besides just the educational losses? There was no place to really have proper school. I'm going to get to that, but what do you think, what else has happened in Columbia or with the black community when Jackman ceased to exist?

SW: Well, we had no, I mean it wasn't, the school was the center of everything. Whatever you had, most of the time it was right there at the school. I mean, graduation was a big time everybody in the black community was right there, and 11:00there was, I remember the first Siamese twins I ever seen, I seen them at Jackman High School. They brought them there for I believe they were from Lexington. Then I remember-- ( ) too.

SW: Yeah, and then I remember there was a pastor here in town. He would come out and have chapel service and give us--. And he had this board and he would stick these people on, he'd give a story and put the people up on this, it was like a canvas. It set up on a tripod like and there was a big board and he'd tell us stories and stick the little people up and they'd stay up. Do you remember that? Reverend Ross.

SW: I remember.

LA: Reverend Ross.

SW: And he would come to the school every so often and do stories for us for chapel and so forth. After Jackman burned down, we had nothing. And I mean, when Jackman was there, we were the center of attention for a play or whatever. 12:00When you got to the white school, you wasn't that anymore. Maybe you would get to be in the play or maybe you wouldn't. Then there was some of us that didn't want to. We didn't want to--. So it was, it was a lot different from--

DW: Okay. This is Lottie Miller Alexander here. Why don't you tell us what was your first impressions of schools around here in Columbia? What is it that you recall most about the schools, attending school?

LA: Just the good times. Everything was come along. But I loved everything about it. I loved my teacher and all the students. I just loved school.

DW : What kinds of, how did a day of learning go at Jackman or any other school? I mean what was it like to the school started? What was a routine day like? What was some things that might have happened?

LA: You started off your morning with, in--what do you call it?

BL: I remember the, from first through fourth grade we had this teacher as I say she was, went to school at Spelman. So she was a certified teacher. Our day started out with a morning prayer. Do you remember that? Then she taught us these little songs and we sang maybe two of them. Sometimes we have, sometimes we have a scripture reading and sometimes we would have a poem. You remember Ms. Brown used to have us read poems and we had a lot of poems or something. Somebody did that in the morning. We had outside bathrooms we had to go use.

DW: Now was that typical of any school at that time or would that have been rare?

BL: I'm not sure.

SW: I would say that the white school ( )

BL: Well, I mean the white schools in town didn't. They had inside.

LA: Well, grade school had ( )

BL: That's what I'm saying but the black schools ( ) and one 14:00is still standing today.

DW: Which one is that?

BL: One--

SW: Is it?

BL: Yeah.

SW: Back behind the trailer.

BL: Um hmm.

DW: What's the name of this?

SW: At Jackman High.

BL: One of the bathrooms.

DW: Oh one of the privies is still standing.

BL: Yeah.

DW: Oh I thought you meant another building, okay.

BL: No.

DW: I'm not going to go see that I don't think. Now we know that the schools were segregated back before 1956. What was the town segregated or were the--

LA: Oh yeah.

DW: Services in Columbia can you tell me a little bit about that maybe?

LA: Oh yeah. Services ( ) courthouse, places to go in ( ) drug store.

DW: Shops.

LA: Yeah.

(): You couldn't go inside and sit down and eat.

LA: I'll never forget--

BL: You go in the back door and get your order and leave. I had a cousin that married a white girl. He was from Springfield Illinois. They had a little 15:00restaurant down here in town. It was called Culmers. So every time he'd come down he's say, "I'm going in that restaurant ( )." So he came down once and brought his wife with him. He told me, he said, "I'm going downtown, going to Culmers today." I said, "Oh Gene you're not do any ( )." So he went down to Culmers and he came back he said, "You want ( )," and I said, "I'm not going." He said, "( ) well, I'll tell you about it when I get back." I said, "You hurry back. ( )." I said, "Well, did they serve you?" "Serve me ( ) but treated my wife terrible." He said, "They didn't want to serve the soda. They throwed her food, set mine down nicely." Said they treated her just awful.

DW: When was this you think roughly?

BL: This was probably, um, probably in the '80s.

DW: Really. Okay.

BL: Late '70s or early '80s I would say because I don't think they was married too much before then.

DW: Did, I mean did you ever even really go to town to take care of any business at all? Was there reasons to--

BL: Yeah, you could go downtown, but you just, certain places--

SW: They didn't want you to try on the clothes. You couldn't--

BL: They didn't want you to try, if you were going to buy clothes, you, they didn't want you to try them on. They just wanted you to buy them off the--

LA: Off the hanger.

BL: Yeah. I hat, shoes, they didn't want you to try the stuff on. But sometimes we just done it for the devilment of it. We just go in and do it. We did.

LA: ( ) the time we was in Jiffy's. Were you with us?

BL: Went to Jiffys?

LA: I was working. I think I was working. And I was working down in town at Columbia Laundry and Linen Service Jack Williams. We all was going to eat at the house together. There was so many of us. But we went in Jiffys and we just sit down on the stools and they had little vender on the counter. I and Joyce 17:00put a quarter in it. It was playing music. I'll never forget the song, No Particular Place To Go by Chuck Berry. They cooked our food,and we made our order and cooked our food and everything and put it in a paper sack. We told them we were going to sit there. We were going to eat it there. Said, nope. Couldn't eat it there. They asked why not? They asked why not and the woman said, 'You all can't eat from here." That's what she said. Earlene said, "No I'm not," and ( ), "Oh yes I am. Good old Columbia Kentucky." She said, "If you ( )." Well, we paid for it and they would not let us eat it and we didn't do a thing but just get up and leave. And Lois she ( ) got up and left because we wouldn't eat. Round the corner drug, 18:00right there where the florist is now. Me and Evelyn one Saturday and wandered up town and sit down on the stool and they looked at us like we'd gone crazy. ( ) our drinks in a paper cup. Lillian said, "We're going to drink ours here." "No, you can't drink it."

SW: ( )

BL: In the '60s even after the law passed, it was still times that they didn't want you to ( ).

LA: Culmer's was like that for years.

BL: We used to do it for just the heck of it. Yeah, we, I remember one Sunday we just all went to ( ) and got the biggest table in there. There were about six of us. It was right in the window and I mean people were just driving around looking through the window. They didn't hurt you or nothing. Try to fight you because we would've been fighting with them. But we, they just didn't want us. We just pushed and pushed and pushed.

DW: This was even well after the schools had been integrated, you're talking about. Yeah.

SW: Yeah. Yeah. This was in '60--

BL: They even had black bathrooms and white bathrooms. You could go downtown and--

SW: In the courthouse.

BL: We had, I believe it was a blacks was downstairs and whites was up on the main floor. ( ) go in that bathroom. I remember we'd do that for the heck of it. We'd go ( ) bathroom were down and we'd just run up in the bathroom. It's a wonder we didn't get hurt though. It's really a wonder.

DW: Do you, well, that was my next question. You had said that they wouldn't hurt you at least at that situation.

SW: No, they didn't try to fight you or anything. They would just, most of the times they would just look at you like you was crazy. They would, they didn't know what to think or even think. As she said--

LA: Like they had never seen a black person.

SW: You were from some other town. You would come ( ) up north. That's what they called them.

DW: Do you remember a name, does anybody remember a name Ethel Cooper by any chance?

UNISON: Yeah.

DW: Okay. I read a, she was NAACP branch president at one point in Columbia, 20:00probably in the early days. She was writing to the headquarters saying that the parents, I'm thinking that the black parents refused to send their students to the dwelling houses that were used last year for school purposes. This is what you're talking about after Jackman was burned down and you all were attending schools here and there at different buildings. Well, what did she mean? Why had the black parents finally said we've had enough?

BL: Well, I think the lawyers--see we had, they would have NAACP meetings, and they had this lawyer Crumlin out of Louisville--

DW: James Crumlin.

BL: Yeah. Then they had another guy, I think he's a judge now, McNally. What was his name?

SW: Something like that.

BL: They would come out and speak and they would tell us what to do and how to do and so they asked us to keep the kids out of school. A lot of people kept their kids out and some people they kept them out for a while, then they sent them home. But most of them stayed out until they--

LA: ( ) Lincoln Ridge ( )

BL: One guy--

LA: ( ) State NAACP

DW: Only one student went to Lincoln Ridge, which is the black school, is that Shelbyville?

BL: Um hmm. That was a boarding school.

DW: Okay, these lawyers you're talking about. I mean do you remember any kind of communication with the lawyers or maybe your parents dealing with the lawyers, Jim Crumlin or anybody else with the NAACP. Do you recall like how this went down?

LA: Mr. Earl was one of them.

BL: Yeah, Mr. Earl was the, he was ( ). I think Aunt Mary she was, my mother's sister. She was a beautician. She lived in Wilkes but she came down on weekends and got help. She ( ) after James Crumlin and I think she told Mr. Willis about it. Mr. Willis got in touch with her. That's how they got James Crumlin out here. Then every so often he'd come out 22:00and they'd have a big meeting at the church and so forth and he'd tell them how to do, what to do and so forth and I think am I reading that Thurgood Marshall had something to do with that lawsuit.

DW: I think, yeah. He may have, I was going to ask that.

LA: He was the NAACP lawyer at one time I know.

DW: At this time. And I mean he may have traveled through here with Crumlin at one point. Seems like I--

LA: I don't remember him being here but I remember--

BL: I just remember the name.

DW: Well, he argued some cases in Kentucky. I know that. I don't know if he dealt with this one at all.

SW: He was a NAACP lawyer for the NAACP.

DW: He was the head. Yes. He was the one that argued the case that actually in the Supreme Court that caused it to change. Okay. Mr. I believe his name was Harbear Walker--

BL: Harbor.

DW: Harbor Walker. He was the superintendent when the Supreme Court made the 23:00decision and he was the superintendent when the Adair system finally integrated. Can, does he have a reputation here in town or is there anything you would want to say about Harbear Walker or Harbor Walker?

LA: The only thing I remember about Harbor Walker would be just that ( ) built that school and built that gym.

DW: What happened?

BL: When the school burned down, he took the insurance money from the black school and built a gym they have on at Adair County High School out here.

DW: You feel like that's kind of known in the community that that's how that happened?

SW: Yeah.

LA: Yeah, it's known but nobody--

SW: They might not tell you but that's--I mean that came out in the state court case.

(): Did you read right here?

SW: My mother was one that was there at that.

DW: Do you think that, when the schools refused to segregated, desegregate after Jackman had burned down and you were attending schools in different places, what was the general feeling you think amongst the white community at 24:00the time? Were they reluctant to accept integration or was that just the school board itself? What if you polled the general, let's say the general white community, what would they have said about blacks coming to school in Adair County?

BL: They didn't want it. Like just very angry and ( ) was the same way.

DW: Okay. So it wasn't just a few remaining conservative whites on the school board. It wasn't a thing like that? It was general feeling in the community.

LA: I think it was just the community.

DW: When do you, if Jackman hadn't burned down, I'm guessing it's geographically located so that most blacks would attend Jackman anyway, right.

(): Um hmm.

DW: But if it hadn't burned down, when do you think that blacks would've started going to school with whites in Adair County?

BL: I don't know. It would've been a while. I think it would've been a while. Don't you?

SW: Yeah, because ( ) their school for a long time ( ) several years and so did ( ) and Rosenwald, but they had Catholic schools over there. I believe they ( ) blacks school ( ) that was--

DW: Do you feel if Jackman hadn't burned down, do you feel that the black community, let's assume that it remained intact the first few years after segregation was declared illegal. Do you feel that blacks in this community would have pushed to be integrated or would most blacks have been satisfied with the Jackman facility?

BL: There would probably have been some blacks that would have wanted their kids to have a better education than what we were getting because we were using books that they had already used. You know these were hand-me-down books. And I'm sure--

(): ( ) far ahead.

BL: Yeah. And I'm sure some of them, and then when basketball came along, there was, there was, I mean it got to a place the black had the lot better 26:00athletes. And when they did integrate well, they threw the blacks over into their tournaments and things and they were winning them all. So they were going to have some, I'm sure they would've got, well, that's the way--

LA: ( )

BL: Clem Haskins, he went to a black school until he got to the tenth, the ninth grade, and I think he, and at one time he was the only black going to--( ) and maybe his family because they had a new black school over there. He was a good basketball player so they wanted him to come play with them.

DW: Clem Haskins.

BL: Um hmm.

DW: Well, what when you said a lot of blacks still would've wanted integration for the better books and you said a better education. But I got to ask you do you feel, I mean, I think I know the answer about the tangibles, you know the books or the materials were probably better in the white school without 27:00question, but where do you think the better education was happening? I mean, was Jackman a--

BL: The teachers were better qualified--

DW: Where?

BL: At the white school.

DW: And what qualifies them? What--

BL: ( ) as you say some of those black teachers did not even have teaching certificates and they just, they had two years of college and ( ) a year of college or--

DW: Okay.

BL: ( )

DW: I would like to ask Bonita a couple of specific questions. After the Judge Swinford in, he actually made that ruling in '55 and so by early 1956 you entered Adair County High School with your two friends, Shirley Jones and Meredith Grady in early 1956 and spent your final semester of public school 28:00there and now an integrated setting. What was that like? What was the first day maybe like, if you could recall it, or the first few days that you actually went to Adair County High School?

BL: I can remember it being, well, I guess we were kind of standoffish, you know. Here's three blacks and all these whites and ( ) kind of out of place. But now I really can't remember a whole lot about the classes, but I can remember just kind of I guess just standing around. Three little people standing over in the corner, just kind of, well really I'd say kind of scared. Maybe we didn't know what was going to be next because when we first went there, they wouldn't let us in. Now you come back and you let us in so what are you going to do to us? But then I think after a while, you know, you 29:00got to where you ( ), and you went ahead to class and you began to learn, but I think we all stayed in places together. ( ) together. So that made it the three of us. So that made it a little better knowing that you had somebody with you at all times. But it was so far as I can remember it was rough for a few days. Nobody bothered you.

LA: ( )

BL: But you just didn't feel comfortable.

DW: Was there, did you ever have any kind of threats that you know of or your house? Did your parents ever speak of any kind of major opposition? Okay, just the fact that you knew you were out of place in a new place.

BL: In a new place. Now I can't remember anything, any trouble coming through, you know anybody bothering us. I don't remember anything like that. I just remember that we were kind of I guess kind of standoffish, kind of ( 30:00 ).

DW: How were the teachers or administrators those first few days? Did they communicate with you in any special way?

BL: I don't know how to answer that because I don't know. ( ) answer that because I don't remember.

DW: Right.

BL: But I really don't remember, I can't remember too much about the school day. No more than we were standoffish but--

DW: You don't remember any teachers being exceptionally good or exceptionally bad to you either? So you're telling me, just kind of--

BL: Just kind of equally.

DW: Right. What about you all? Did you notice anything about teachers when you shifted from the, you all, you were a younger age when this happened, but when you went to the white schools, now what were your first days like?

END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A

START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B

LA: My mother was real sick. She couldn't walk.

DW: The fall of '56 I believe would've been the first year, first possible year. But tell me again, Lottie, what you experienced in terms of, how did the white students treat you when you first attended school with whites?

LA: They would treat you like they never seen nobody that ever looked like you before. You know they just, they stand off and they just look at you. Then some of them would bully. Now I've been spit on. I can't recall her name but who could she have been.

DW: What did you do?

LA: I told the teacher now, now what they done to them I don't know.

BL: I never had that problem.

LA: Boy, I sure did. ( ) and Mildred was one of them.

SW: See I wouldn't be here today if--

LA: Mildred was one of them. But I was so mad. I'll tell you I was crying. I was so mad that when I went to Ms. Shuler, she was in fifth grade, and she took 32:00her out of the room. Now I don't know where she took her. ( ) took her to the principal, I don't know. But ( ) to be spit on. Then I can't think of her name. My mom used to work for her. Her brother called me a name. Earl was the one, Juanita, Juanita, oh what is her name. Earl--used to work down to the--. Yeah, I can't think of her name. Her brother, oh.

BL: But I think they done, just like anywhere else they--

LA: I think it's the parents. Parents teach your children not to call people names.

BL: But they didn't teach their children.

LA: No, they didn't.

BL: We was, ( ) they wanted to be together with their kids.

LA: And they acted like that you was dirty like they don't want to touch. They don't want to get close to you.

SW: If you were ( )

LA: ( )

SW: It was people that was poorer than you were. White people that were poorer than you were. The people that was anything, they didn't pay no attention to you. I mean, they went on about their thing, daily thing as anybody. If you had any problems, it would be with the poor people.

DW: What, you had mentioned this a little bit earlier, but any of you could comment on it. What kind of activities did you take part in after you were attending integrated schools?

BL: I didn't take any parts.

DW: Was that because it was your final year of high school or final semester or--

BL: Final semester.

LA: I don't remember taking no parts either.

SW: I remember in high school belonging to the pep club. I remember belonging 34:00to the, what is it?

(): ( )

SW: Uh uh.

DW: FFA.

SW: No. Something Christian Athletes.

DW: FCA.

SW: Something like that.

DW: Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

SW: Yeah, something like that--

DW: How did you, was that a club or a group that was pretty mixed up? Was there a lot of blacks and whites in that?

SW: No, it just, I think some of us just decided we were going to join it and we did. Pep club. My brother was the first black to play ball at that time. So ( ) joined the pep club ( )

BL: Yeah, I met his ( ) down there.

SW: ( ). We didn't have any problems with people, but I remember going to ( ), and it was like we were sitting in the seat and 35:00every time my brother would get the ball, they'd say, "Get the nigger. Get the nigger. Get the nigger." I remember that. But the gym was, the seats were down on the floor, you know.

DW: What year, did he play the very first year that the school integrated or do you recall?

SW: I don't know if he played the first year or not.

DW: But he was the first, one of the first blacks to play.

LA: I think ( )

DW: How do you think that, I mean, obviously he wasn't welcomed on the visiting court. You were talking about what the opposing team's fans were saying. How do you think he was received in town and on the Adair County team?

SW: Mostly, I mean, it was fine. He was a good ball player.

LA: ( ) athletic you were accepted anyway.

DW: Regardless of color.

SW: Then he had, he used to sing so he had used to sing at a lot of, ( ) white churches so people knew him before he started playing ball.

DW: Has there been, it seems like you've answered this one too, but was there any kind of unrest in town when this happened? Was there any kind of, I know there was no kind of directs threat to you you said Bonita, but was there any kind of demonstration? Was there any kind of opposition? Was there any kind of white boycott at all?

BL: I don't think so.

LA: I remember the day we went to school at the grade school. I think that was a little bit worser than it was at the high school. They said a few things but our parents was with us so they weren't going to let no harm come to us. They 37:00were being ( ) they would stand out looking and so forth. They'd say things out of the crowds, but other than that, after that it was along fine. As I said it was the poor people in the county and ( ) and so forth. The rest of them was ( ) so long and nobody ( ). They might have done some undercover stuff that we didn't know. But you know.

DW: What would you say, how would you describe race relations in Columbia or in Adair County since then, in the last, let's say forty years? What has it been like, fine?

ALL: No.

BL: It's still not good.

DW: Really.

BL: I can remember when my youngest child played basketball and they went to Florida and when he came home he didn't tell me about it but ( ) 38:00I heard that the coach down in Florida, they got ready to go to dinner. So he took, told the kids to get for dinner. Well, he took the white kids, but the white kids told him the black kids had already gone out ( ). So he left the black kids in their rooms and took the white kids for dinner. When I found out about it, we was on our way to Russell County. And we ( ) Adair Cleaners so I, I asked him. I said, "Mr. ( ). I'd like to ask you something and I hope you will tell me it's a lie." He said, "What is it?" I said, "While in Florida, did you take the white kids to dinner and leave the black kids in their room?" He said, "Yes he did but it was an error of the mind not of the heart." I said, "My kid didn't have a speck of ( ) because if he had of, he would've played ball. Because when you took them down 39:00there, you should've treated them all the same." I said, "You didn't have to buy him food because when he left here I made sure he had money to, plenty of money while he was there." And I let him know I did not appreciate that and ( ) graduated in, hmm, he must've graduated in '93, '4 somewhere in there. So they hadn't been that long. Since then I've found out and he's done a lot of nice things ( ).

LA: Was that the one that I ( ) out there down on, down there on Nine. I don't know which one it was. Young, I believe it was Young. He don't like Kerry. He didn't like Kerry. He grabbed him and he was ( ). He grabbed him in the, grabbed him by the head of hair and just, grabbed by the 40:00head of the hair and just juke him up off the floor. He came home and told me and Lord when ( ). I went out there and I told him, I said, "You know if Kerry does something, I'm not going over there. If you're wrong, you're wrong. I want you to be punished. But do it right." I told him don't never, ever do that again because if he does, get ready for me because you're going to have to whip me. I meant what I said. I don't play. He didn't open his mouth. He just looked at me like--. He could run through me I guess. But I mean where I ( ). If he does something if he needs to be punished, punish him. But don't, I mean ( ), but you don't do that.

BL: We have one black person in the school system, I mean in the high school, taught at the high school. That's the first one and how long has ( 41:00) been out there as a teacher? He was a teacher's aide before.

SW: I don't know. This is his second or third year.

BL: Yeah. Okay.

LA: Isn't Donna in there?

(): Who?

LA: Is Donna, where is she at?

BL: No, Donna's on to the other school.

SW: Donna's at the grade school.

BL: One of the grade schools. We have one black person in the grade school.

DW: Faculty, teacher you're talking about.

BL: Uh uh. Uh uh.

DW: That's one in the high school and one in the grade school and that's it ever.

BL: No, at one time there was what, in the grade school.

LA: There was ( )

BL: After integration and they closed up the little small schools, there was people they had to put in because they had tenure or whatever you call it. They had to put them, give them a job. So at the time there was Mr. Bomer and two Hughes.

SW: ( ) and Evelyn.

BL: Um hmm, they taught in the grade. At that time the high school, their nephew was teaching at the high school. Now he teaches computers or something. But that's the first black teacher they've ever had at the high school.

SW: ( ) black period out there.

BL: Um hmm.

LA: ( )

DW: What happened to like the black teachers that had jobs at Jackman and there was a few other black schools?

SW: They didn't live here. They didn't live here. Well, the Hughes and them, they probably in the more small schools in the counties around.

DW: Montpelier maybe.

SW: Yeah, um hmm. Well, some of them got jobs and then some of them retired. Some of them--

DW: Did any of them come over and teach at any white schools. Did that happen? Oh it did happen?

BL: ( ) Bomer and two of the Hughes.

LA: Ms. Arlene never did.

DW: So initially there were some, but a lot lost their jobs or just went ahead and worked elsewhere because they lived closer.

(): Retired or yeah.

SW: And then the other, some teachers, that the teachers we had in ( ) transported from somewhere else. They came here to live during the school year and then they'd leave here.

DW: Right. Okay. Well, is there anything else you would like to finally say. 43:00I think we're going to wrap it up here.

BL: I can't think of anything else to say. No more than. The schools here, and I hope as the years go on school can get better and I think they need more blacks. You know, if you got the black students out here and you're taking money off of the black students, I think they should have some black teachers out there also. Also janitors or some custodians or whatever you want to call them, somebody else needs to be there. I never have seen ( ) you take these kids out here and take their money, and then you don't want any blacks participating and I don't think that's right either. Even as of today. Now that was '56 when the schools integrated but so far as teachers, I think it's still segregated. I think Phyllis went to, I believe she, I think she's 44:00going to finish. So she is supposed to get a job out there, I think. But you know, that still remains to be seen too. She is a substitute teacher. But I guess that's about it.

SW: But as you said not only in the school system, there is no blacks in any, you go downtown and there's no blacks in the, I mean in the county system no kind of way. I mean in the courthouse, they have maybe eight girls working in there but no blacks.

LA: There are no, there's one black working there and ( ) she was keeping ( )

SW: She was in maintenance. She wasn't ( )

LA: I know. That's the only thing I remember.

DW: That's the exception, huh.

BL: Anything.

SW: In anything. We're not included in anything. I'm just telling you the 45:00truth. Maybe some of us, it's our fault because we don't push a little harder but we're not included in anything. And whatever goes on is for, even some grants and things that come into town, we know this and we set here and let it get--

LA: Let it happen.

SW: Yeah. They'll use it for whatever they want to. Like police cars and stuff, they'll put in for a grant for this area, but it's going for something else and we know this.

DW: All right. I'm going to stop it then.

END OF INTERVIEW 19