Oral History Interview with Dixie Logan, Elizabeth Van Leer, James Van Leer, and John Cox

DAVID WOLFFORD: All right. This is David Wolfford, and it is the 11th of August, 2002. I'm in Madisonville at Miss Dixie Logan's house, and I'm here with Mr. James Van Leer and Mrs. Elizabeth Van Leer and Miss Dixie Logan. We're going to talk a little bit about Madisonville and the integration of schools here in the late '50s. Perhaps if each of you would introduce yourself, tell where you ere born and where you grew up and where you were educated. And we probably should just start with Mrs. Van leer if that's okay.

ELIZABETH VAN LEER: I was born in Madisonville, Kentucky 1920, and I don't remember the other questions.

DW: Just, did you grow up here in Madisonville?

EV: Oh yes.

DW: Where did you attend school?

EV: I attended school at Rosenwald High and Madisonville High, those two places.

DW: Okay. James, where and when were you born?

JV: I was born in October 27th, 1947. Mrs. Elizabeth Van Leer is my mother, and it was in Madisonville, Kentucky. I started in Branch Street School and then was my mother took me from Branch Street School and put me into Waddle Avenue School. So she took me from the white school, took me from the black school and entered me into the white school.

DW: What year was that?

JV: I don't know. Fifty-three.

EV: He was ten years old.

JV: No, that's too--

DW: Was it not in fall of '57?

EV: Oh you mean when he entered--

JV: When I started school.

DW: When did you actually enter Waddle Avenue?

EV: In 1956.

DW: Okay.

JV: See, Mama's got all that stuff.

DW: Miss Logan would you please tell us about yourself. Where did you grow up and what did you do here in Madisonville?

DIXIE LOGAN: I started teaching in 1937 at Charleston, one of the county schools. There were eight rooms there. There were, we had two rooms. It was two-year high school there, and we had much fun there. Everybody had such a good time. All the teachers were so congenial, and I thought all students were brilliant. I had no dreaming idea that you would come to the place that there 3:00would be students that wouldn't be as bright as those. Now I don't know whether it was because I was so young. I started out when I was nineteen with a two-year certificate. Then I stayed there four years, and I would go back in the spring term. It was only a seven months school, and I would go in the spring term to Bowling Green and maybe stay in the summer. I had the offer to come to Madisonville in 1941. I came to Waddle with ninety-six hours, and so then I was, I did not go back to Bowling Green for maybe ten years. Then I decided I wanted my degree. I went back and I went on Saturdays and many 4:00summers and had my BS degree in '49, I think. Then I stayed on another five years or so and went back and did get my masters, and the education is something you can't take away from you. I have enjoyed, let's see I was only teaching nine years, I think nine years when they made me a teaching principal. Mr. Gatten was superintendent of schools, city schools at that time, and he called me at seven-thirty the morning that school opened and said I would be principal as well as the teaching. We, I think received sixty dollars a month for being a 5:00principal besides teaching all day long. It was a challenge, and it was fun, and I enjoyed it. The children either liked me or they hated me. There was no in between. We had lots of fun. If I made a child unhappy, sometimes during the day I tried to make that child happy before he went home. It was really, we had expected when the ultimatum came down from Washington that we would no longer have segregated schools, we all knew and we were all expecting students all over the town, see, for several years. Now James did not come in the first 6:00year that we could've had them. I think it was the second or third year, wasn't it.

EV: Well, what I mean is--integration had taken place 1954. Of course we had to have the battle here meetings with faculties and all during that, after that. But it occurred definitely in 1956.

DL: Is that when he came to--

EV: Yes ma'am.

DL: All right. So the ultimatum came down in 1956.

EV: Yes, that's when we had gone through the Owensboro court and everything. That's when it was really--

DL: I just didn't think he came in the first year when the ultimatum came down from Washington.

DW: When you speak of the ultimatum are you talking about the Supreme Court decision?

DL: When they made the decision--

DW: That was--

DL: '54.

EV: '54.

JV: So it was a couple of years.

DL: So James did not come into my school for two years. So it was not a surprise when he came in. We had, we had registered our children that day, and all the children were gone when the family came in to register him. So of course, the word spread like wild fire, and it was headlines in the paper, Madisonville paper the next day saying that Waddle was integrated. The next morning Ms. Van Leer brought James, and all the other mothers were there. I mean my room was lined up. All the parents all the way around the room.

DW: What were the mother's there for?

DL: Well, they were just wanted to see. They just couldn't believe it, and 8:00they, I don't know what they thought, but they wanted to be there. I don't guess, I guess that maybe I won a battle that very day. We didn't have uniform seats at all. We had maybe we'd have a junior high chair. Or maybe we would have a little one that would just fit him. But he ended up sitting up in one of these junior high chairs, which was one of those old things that had the arm to it on the side. He said, he didn't say anything, but one mother came in and she had a great big fat child in that room, and I can remember that one as well as anything. She came up to me and she said, "Miss Logan, I'd like to put my child in the chair that he's sitting in." I said, "That's perfectly all right. You 9:00may do so." She started, she started to make James get up, and she was going to pick the chair up. I said, "No ma'am. You will not pick the chair up. If you want your son to sit in that chair, it's perfectly all right for him to sit there. James can sit in a smaller chair." Well, I won my battle. That was my battle. She backed off, and we never did have any other incidents that day that I can remember of.

DW: This was the first day James came.

DL: This was the first day he was in school when classes came. Now you see we were already dismissed the day he enrolled. See he was only there, you remember that.

EV: Yes.

DL: Everybody was gone.

DW: You enrolled him in the afternoon of the--

DL: Afternoon.

DW: Of one of the first school days.

DL: The first day of school he was enrolled. I think we just had the 10:00enrollment that day and that's all. So we were, I think it must've been about one o'clock and the teachers were all there. We were all standing out in the hall when they came. So we really had our conference there and then went into my room. But there were so many ( ) at that time. They had the all white, all white library. They had the all white park. There were so many things that they had that wasn't fair to anybody. But I can remember at the end we got, James and I got along fine. We didn't have anything at all. Now I wasn't going to let anybody do anything to him. I guess I spoiled him rotten. I don't know. But maybe he wasn't. But I remember that I really wasn't going 11:00to let anybody pick on him. The last day of school we have, the parents wanted to, we always took the children on a picnic or something. Something for fun, and we didn't have buses in the city then. We had them running in the county. So these mothers and I had decided that we would have a picnic for the children at the park. We would get one of the school buses to take the children to the park for the picnic. Okay. We thought that was fine. That night we had everything set, and about nine o'clock I said to my mother, "Oh Mom. I don't know whether we can even go to the park or not." I just then thought that it's 12:00an all white park. Pee Wee the mayor lived right down on the next corner from me, and I called him and I said, "Pee Wee I want to ask you something. I want permission to take my class to the park for a picnic. You know I have James Van Leer in my class. He's the only black student that is in the county at this time." So he said, "Dixie I would love to give you this. You ( ) this." Said, "I would love to give you permission, but if I gave you permission, probably nothing would happen. But said this town is sitting on a keg of dynamite." Said, "It could blow or it could go smoothly." But said, "I can't give you permission." Well, I said, "Thank you." He said, "I don't think 13:00you'd better try it." I hung up the phone and I went like this to my mother. I said, "Mother what do I do?" So I had a good sales talk the next morning. I went into that room and I said, "Children you all have been such a wonderful class all year long. We have had so much fun. We are going to go on a bus ride today." But I said, 'We're going to get, I want you to come to my house for the picnic." Now we had a great big back yard. I mean great big field out there in the back. Well, it wasn't. It was a lot, vacant lot. I said, "We can play there." I said, "James you will be at my house. I just want you to be at my house instead of the park. It'd be so much fun for me to have you there." I 14:00said, "Besides that, you will get a longer bus ride. We're going to go all the way to Hampton and come around by the Brown Road and come right up to my house." Do you know it worked like a charm and they had the best time? Nobody ever knew anything about it.

DW: Wow. Let me return to James here. You attended the Branch Street Elementary. This was an all-black school the first couple of years of schooling.

DL: First three years.

JV: Right. First three years of school.

DW: Tell me a little bit about Branch Street Elementary, whatever you can recall about it, your teachers, the building itself, what was the school day like there.

EV: You were so young.

JV: I remember this one teacher. Her name was Orabelle Clemmons. She had had 15:00her teeth pulled. Wasn't no teeth in here.

EV: ( )

DL: Oh you're kidding.

JV: Looked kind of vampirish like. That's one of the things I remember. I remember there were still some smart persons, smarter than I was. There were some persons that weren't interested. Then it was some, and I remember this one teacher that stood out also. Her name was Miss Dickerson and she was, she was quite a teacher. After a while they added on to the Branch Street School. They started building more on to it.

EV: ( )

JV: Let me see. Well, my classroom.

DW: What kind of condition was the school in? Did you say it still stands today?

JV: Yes.

DW: What kind of condition was the school in back then?

JV: Oh I guess it was okay conditions.

EV: You were so young.

JV: I remember one time when they were, I don't remember a lot of things, but I remember one time when it was snowing and icing, and they were having recess. At the base of Branch Street School was a deep hill. Of course I went out and was going just playing and frolicking and slipped on that icy part and went all the way down the hill and that type of thing. But--

EV: ( ) your books.

JV: I don't know I wasn't--

DW: Did the building, was it a brick building?

EV: Yes.

DW: With running water and everything.

JV: Oh yeah. Yeah. It had all of that.

DW: Probably modern for its time, would you say.

JV: Yeah, modern for its time. Running water, hot and cold running water, bathrooms. They were kept clean. Everything was kept pretty clean.

EV: The first story I ever told, I was a little girl when they ( ), and it was about Flopsie, Mopsie, Cottontail and Peter. ( ) how they have the children in the concerts I believe they used to call it. That's the building that he's talking about now. So and that was the building that used to be ( ) High ( ) back to a grade school.

DL: Now you see when they integrated the two schools, see when he came, we still had the black and white schools. But they integrated the schools, and I was the principal of both Waddle and Branch Street, and I was going around the corner see every time something came up and I needed to be in one school. I'd always would be going around the corner to the other school. So I didn't have any trouble.

DW: Were you the only white faculty on the Branch Street, were you the only white member of the Branch Street faculty at the time?

DL: Oh no, no. By the time they had integrated, they had moved the black teachers in different schools, and I had, what did you say her name was? Ora--

JV: Ora Clemmons, Orabelle Clemmons.

DL: Oh she is a nice looking person by that time. She had all of her teeth, and she really was nice looking and a good teacher. I had her as one of them 19:00over there. I had several. There was one from Nebo. There was, oh, I can't remember. Carneal--

EV: ( ) she was kind of a heavy.

DL: Well, anyway. But the building is there was in wonderful condition. In fact they had the, that school had the only television set in the whole county. That school, now I'm not saying that you all had put the television. I'm saying that the patrons probably bought that rather than, I don't know how you got the TV, but it was in the library, and it was the only TV that we had.

JV: There was TV.

DL: In the whole county.

EV: I don't remember seeing it.

DL : It was a little, it was a small one. It was about a thirteen-inch, but when Martin Luther King died, why we had, the children could either go home or they could stay at our school and watch it over TV.

EV: Well, I'll tell you what. You were saying something that made me, I had already made up my mind what I was going to do about James. They had something Mrs. Logan that you might know about. I really don't know how it was phrased or set up that if a teacher felt that the student didn't have enough in that class even if he did pass, you might know, they could keep him in that class somewhat 21:00longer or see that he could come up to the average that they feel that he was weak in or something of that kind. So I'd made up my mind and when I got to the school that day they was, all cards and things was made out. I'm talking about down on Branch Street now. Then I, Miss Clemmons came out in the hall, and James he had, he had made the grades but just barely made it to get to the other class. Seemed that they would let the teacher really have, they would grant their opinion of it whether he should go or be strong enough at that particular time if he had just barely gotten by. You see what I mean to go to the other 22:00class. So Miss Clemmons came out of there and Mrs. Pritchard. Do you remember Mrs. Pritchard?

DL: I can't remember her.

EV: What was her first name?

JV: Pritchard.

EV: Pritchard.

JV: The name sounds familiar, but I can't put a face for anything.

EV: Anyway, Miss Orabelle Clemmons came out in the hall when I came there to talk to them about James. I was thinking of carrying him and integrating him. She, the teacher came out and said that it really wasn't wise to take him to the next class although he was in position that he could go on. But she wanted to say that it wouldn't--

DL: He wouldn't be any stronger.

EV: That's what I'm trying to say.

DL: Stronger student if ( )

EV: Teacher out there in the hall. So well, the other one came out and she 23:00said to us, "Now Mrs. Van Leer," said, "if you just really want him to go on into the next grade," said "I would accept him." That's what she said. So as I stood there with the two teachers I said, "I've already made my mind up. I want him to go to the other school."

DW: Well, let me get back to my next question. In the Madisonville Messenger I forget the day of this but one of the headlines the day, probably the day after you registered James, it said, "Only One Negro Registered" and this is after the court case. This is probably people were anticipating how many blacks would come, actually come over now that there is permission from the school board, but only one Negro registered and my question to you is why James? Why was James the first black to go to school with white students in this county?

EV: The others got afraid. There was a whole list of them. We met at that the Zion Church, and the NAACP, it was decided that we would get the names if they wanted to, they would want to enter. So at this church they come up and this one put his name down. The other put his name down. But the people they didn't seem to understand. They thought going to the Messenger, so I imagine there were about twenty-some. I'm not exactly. I don't know the number that put their names down on there--

DL: And they were supposed to enroll that day, weren't they.

EV: Yes, yes. So what happened they got afraid. They just really got afraid. People were afraid that they knew their jobs and whoever would treat them like a 25:00sore thumb and different things like that. So they all just went one by one and pulled their names off. Take my name off the list. I don't want my name.

DW: Yeah, I've got it here it was eleven families and twenty-one students that actually were plaintiffs in the suit that went. But let me ask you. Was that fear--

EV: Pulled their names off.

DW: Was that fear legitimate? Was that fear, did they need to be afraid or was that an unnecessary fear?

EV: I don't feel it was unnecessary. I feel that they had in mind, they didn't know how, had dealt with the whites. I feel this was a war but a different kind of war. They were--

DL: There never was a lawsuit at any time was there?

DW: Certainly.

EV: Yes. Yes.

DL: I don't remember that.

EV: Well, you, when we came in that school, all that was ( ).

DL: Oh okay.

EV: Well, immediate integration.

DL: All right. I guess I had forgotten that.

EV: The school--

DL: Had nothing to do with that.

EV: Okay. Like we had the meeting with the board and everything. They felt that it was really going to come about anyhow. This is the way I felt. But in coming about then they wanted to hold it down to one grade at a time. Integrate the first grade and then second grade. So I had to tell it like it is. I think it's necessary to be told like it is.

DW: Please.

EV: Yes. In Owensboro when they fought it down, no, it cannot be that way. It has to be immediately in the whole thing. So--

DW: So the Hopkins County Board of Education created an integration plan where 27:00one grade would be integrated by choice per year over twelve years. The judge in Owensboro, the Owensboro court actually ruled that plan unconstitutional, but what would you, why did the board come up with such a plan do you think?

JV: Probably to slow the procedure down and give white power structure a chance to battle against it and find loopholes against it and find loopholes around it I would suppose.

EV: They just really didn't want integration. That's what I figured. Yeah. They just didn't want that.

DW: How did you respond Mrs. Van Leer? How did you respond to that plan when you first heard about it?

EV: Well, I was sitting in the auditorium, and of course they had a long pink, 28:00I guess they had carbon copies pink, yellow ( ) long booths that they were coming out of there. When they read the part about not being integrated completely or anything, and I was sitting Attorney James Crumlin was sitting here on the side. I had another, a Miss Taylor. I don't know whether you know. She was an instructor, a very good one. She, I mean, she just speaks so well. She just sounded like a pro speaking. She was sitting on one side of me. Attorney Crumlin on the other and I was in the middle, and when they read this long paper saying one at a time and one year at a time or something. So when they said that, I done this a way to jump up and challenge it, and Attorney 29:00Crumlin threw his arms across me. I did. He said, "No. Don't say anything. We're looking into it. We're scheduling everything here to carry to the courthouse." So he kept me from standing. So that's how I reacted. I wanted to jump.

DW: Wow.

EV: Because I know from years and years look how many thousands of our children would be helping ( ). So that was the way it was.

DW: Let's talk a little bit about the NAACP here in Madisonville. How did that really come to be? I know that you were president, local president. Were you the first president of the NAACP here?

EV: No, I think my mother was I believe the first president.

DW: So the organization locally had already been established by the time 30:00schools were declared unconstitutional. By the time segregation was declared unconstitutional there was already an NAACP chapter here by the '50s.

EV: Sure.

DW: Well, what kind of, tell me about the activity in the mid '50s or late '50s up until the point where the lawsuit actually happened and was decided. What kind of communication did you have with Louisville, with Mr. Crumlin? What kind of membership did you have here in Madisonville in the NAACP?

EV: Well, Mr. Crumlin who was one of the strongest presidents I believe I had ever seen because he knew the law. He was an attorney and a good one. So this had already been worked on nationally by the NAACP from different states. When 31:00they started this, they was ready. My understanding is the lawyers fought, they didn't even go to bed. They slept out there on the porches of the White House. They didn't even go in to lay down. So they stayed there until it was given to them that this chain would be broken, and they had all the law for it. So that, then they said to us, the plan as the steps that we need to go by to get this accomplished. So by me being the president they give us the understanding as to what might occur and anything could have.

DW: What are some examples they--

DL: Excuse me. How many did you have in the NCAA--

EV: NAACP.

DL: NAACP, I get my letters mixed up now so much.

EV: Well, as we had meetings, of course I don't remember the number. Sometimes was twenty-four or twenty-five would come to the meetings, and then sometimes like we'd meet at ( ) at the restaurant and sometimes it would be so many that someone would stand out under the trees while we were having a meeting. So it wasn't, I don't remember how many members we had, but I imagine, I imagine it was about thirty or something like that.

DW: This is for any of you really. How did the board of education respond to this law--

END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A

START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B

DW: How did the board of education respond to the lawsuit that was filed against them?

EV: Well, it wasn't nothing they could do. We went to this, I went to the court, and it wasn't many there. So they--

JV: Wasn't many board members there.

EV: I don't remember many being there. So there, the judge contacted them to let them know. So there was one attorney from New York, but I can't think, I 34:00can't think, I'd have to read in all my books to see because I meant to. I just hadn't had time. So Crumlin, I think Crumlin, he was there, and it was, it wasn't very many people there. Some standing around--

DW: This is in Owensboro you're talking about.

EV: In Owensboro.

DW: Was the attorney from New York, was it Jack Greenburg?

EV: Well, you said Jack Greenburg, but I don't think that was his name. I have to, I'll have to check and I'll let you know that, hear.

DW: Yes.

DL: Throw those pillows on the floor. Throw them on the floor. Throw them on the floor. That's where they're supposed to be anyway. ( ) nobody wants those silly pillows ( )

JV: Yes ma'am.

DL: ( ).

EV: All over.

DL: There's one over there behind you. Get it off.

EV: I was thinking it was--

DL: Goodness gracious.

EV: I was thinking his name was Gordon that was--

DL: Gosh, they're not.

DW: That accompanied Mr. Crumlin.

EV: Yes. But that wasn't a Gordon here. There's a Gordon over that was, over the federal court or whatever. This was a different Gordon. It should be down there in Owensboro, should be. I will let you know.

DW: Ms. Logan do you recall the integration became obvious that it was going to happen or there was a push for the integration, do you recall what the public opinion was about this in the white community?

DL: You know I don't remember discussing it a whole lot. I really don't. In the principal's meetings I don't remember discussing it. I remember after we had integrated and even after James, maybe James had already left our school, we 36:00had more blacks, but they hadn't come to Pride at that time. The private schools was where they had the trouble here.

DW: Yes, why was there, I've read that the following year after James integrated Waddle Avenue, which is part of the Hopkins county board, the next year at Pride Elementary there was a boy named James Mayes I believe and maybe at least one or two other black kids that came there. Why was there a problem the following year at Pride when there wasn't such the problem, I think, once he entered the school building the year before?

DL: I think it was a different class of people that were there. I think that we had the elite blacks and the sensible whites around in our building. I mean in our area. There was a, I don't want to say it, but it was a lower class of 37:00whites, and they did not accept the blacks like our people did. Now of course I know that he went through an awful lot, but so did I with holding my head up. Now for instance when we would go to principal's meetings, these principals would all be in the same car. There'd be five or six of us in a car going to Louisville or wherever, and they'd say, "I'd say you know what, when we get back home I'm going to go to Mr. Crowe, and I'm going to give him a wonderful idea about what we can do." I said, "I think each one of the principals should go and visit another school for a week and be in charge of that school for a whole week."

JV: Whoo.

DL: I said, "It would be fun to see the problems that different schools have." Boy, I'm telling you. They said, "No way."

JV: I know they did.

DL: "No way am I going to swap schools with you. I wouldn't have any idea how to handle the situation."

DW: This was after it was integrated.

DL: I said, after it was integrated. Yes, because we were going to some kind of meeting out of town and I thought it would be so much fun to see what their reaction was. Of course, I didn't have any idea. I didn't know whether I could handle theirs or not. But it was fun. They just had a fit. Now I think that it was hard all along, and I think a lot of it is still going on in this town. I think there's just a lot of racial stuff going on right here. Now I don't 39:00know about it, but I mean my old dyed in the wool friends some of them are just as rabid as they can be. ( )

JOHN COX: One thing at Pride you're talking about, it was pretty well known in the town that many of the white people who were on the front steps of the school at Pride Avenue causing the trouble and the disturbance did not have children in the school.

DW: Were some of them not even from Madisonville? You said some of them were not even from the area as well.

JC: My guess would be they came from a lot of places. They were segregationists and probably Ku Klux Klan members. They didn't, many of them didn't have any children at that school, but they were on the steps making their, making their disturbance but they--it wasn't necessarily at all the 40:00parents of those children.

DL: Do you all remember or would you remember the time that they sent busloads in here from Chicago, but they were black people that were on there. Now when I was at Branch Street, thank heavens I was in that building at the time. You know where the back door over there where the wing was added on, they would come in that back door and go out around through the halls and back out to the one on the street that goes out there on the street. They would yell Black Power. I mean, they yelled it, and then in about twenty minutes there'd be another group. They'd come through again. Well, I went to the teachers and I said, "Close your doors." So I closed the doors after the first one. So it kept on and it 41:00kept on and finally about the fifth time I called the office, and I told Mr. Crowe what was going on. I said, "I think you and somebody that's head of that place over there ought to come over here and be in my building with us." I said, "We only have the janitor and I said of course he's going to protect us in every way he can, but I don't know why they're doing this." I couldn't, I never understood why they were doing this.

EV: I'm just now hearing about that.

DL: Well, they were, I think there were three or four busloads.

EV: Buses coming--

DL: So anyway, what was so funny though--

EV: Black people.

DL: They were black people. They came in yelling black power and going up. They came in the door over there on one side of the cafeteria, walked through 42:00the halls and walked out the back. Well, Mr. Crowe said, "Well, somebody will come over there." Well, he sent Mr. Pat ( ) and Pat came over. By that time it was about eleven o'clock when he got there and he said, "Well, I don't see any disturbance around here." Said, "Let's eat lunch." So we ate lunch, no disturbance. We sat around for a little while there with him. I and everything was going fine and he said, "Well, everything's just fine. I believe I'll just go on back to the office." Do you know what, when he left it started again. Do you know what he had done? Now to show you how chicken he was, how afraid he was, he had told the janitor to lock all the outside doors, and they 43:00couldn't get in.

EV: Well, I never heard of it before.

DL: Well, that's happened.

DW: Was this some years after the initial integration here.

DL: Oh yes. This was--

DW: This was probably a decade afterwards or something.

DL: This was in sixty--when did Martin Luther King die?

JV: '68.

DL: '64.

DW: '68.

JV: '68.

DL: '68.

EV: Was it '68, you sure?

JV: Yes.

DL: Well, anyway it was just one of those '67 somewheres. Anyway, there was a bunch from Chicago. There were three, I know there were three bus loads of them. But now it would be a different group.

JV: That would come from.

DW: Right.

DL: That was the only thing and I thought I needed help from the office. But I didn't get any. It was just the funniest thing in the world.

EV: It wasn't the time they had the sit in here was it?

DL: It pardon?

EV: You know they had the sit down overnight, lunch counter sit down. It 44:00wasn't that time.

DL: Uh uh. I don't remember that.

EV: Oh boy, you know that--

DL: Now this is the only time that I ever had any incidence, any incidence, well, whatever--from my part that I was a little bit. I wasn't afraid. I've never been afraid of anything in my life. But I was a little concerned because I thought the office ( ) should be there. Some man from the, the superintendent, so he sent assistant.

EV: And that was what year was that?

DL: That was when I was principal of both schools.

EV: Well, see--

DL: ( ) Waddle Primary and Waddle--

EV: I remember that because I had the first float. I was president of the first float that the blacks ever had. That was when the two schools.

DL: Yeah, yeah you were. I remember that.

EV: First float.

DL: See what they did--

EV: That was way up in there. That's why I can't understand.

DL: Of course Mr. Crowe called me in and said, "We're going to make you principal of both schools." Said, "You're the one to do it."

DW: Why did Mr. Crowe, this is Thompson Crowe right.

DL: Yeah.

DW: Why did he retire? He retired about the time all this happened it seems to me. Is that right? Did he leave on any, on any bizarre fashion or did he just retire when it was time for him to retire.

DL: I think he just retired when he was supposed to.

DW: Okay. There was no controversy around his resignation at all.

DL: Uh uh.

DW: Okay. Okay.

DL: I don't think so. I don't remember that.

DW: James, let me ask you again, I don't think I've asked you to talk specifically about this. But you were pretty young, but can you recall that first day that you actually came to school, after you'd enrolled, your first full day at Waddle Avenue. What was that like for you?

JV: I think when Mama brought me there, I didn't have to stay at that time, which kind of reinforces the part about there wasn't a class at that time. There was just enrollment. When on the first full day of school, it's just everybody makes you feel very self-conscious because they kept, they look at you, stare at you, that type of thing. That was, that was basically it. It wasn't anything that where I, it was a thing that I felt that for some reason I 47:00have to do this. You understand. And so that's why, that's why I never turned tail and ran or anything like that in going to any of the white school systems. I, or any of the black school systems because see, I would meet, I would meet black students going home as I was coming from my white school.

DW: They were close enough where that made sense.

JV: Sure, right. They'd say, "Oh you're going to a white school. You go to a white school." I said, "I'm not going to a white school." The school is red. Red bricks and that kind of stuff.

DW: How did you friends, black friends that were still at Branch Street, I'm guessing, yeah, how did they regard the fact that you were going over to school 48:00with the whites now?

JV: They didn't care for it. I mean, it wasn't anything they could do about it. But they didn't care for it.

DW: They weren't impressed, huh.

JV: No, they weren't impressed.

DL: Bless your heart.

JV: I think it was, I think some people had envy. Some people wanted to be with me. I think there were some students who would've liked to have been with me. But then again of course it was their parents thing, and they so they wanted to be there. Then other persons would make fun and laugh and so forth like that. It seems like there was a situation as to where there was, well, I told my mother that--thank you sir. Where I told my mother that the book that 49:00we have in the white schools, that book is being used two grades lower. I guess what I'm saying is whatever book was being used in fifth grade, whatever book we were using in let's say the fifth grade--

DW: At, what school?

JV: Well, we could say let's say there would be a book that would be used in the grades, in the black school. Okay.

EV: If it were two, it was almost two grades--

JV: Two grades of below or above.

EV: The black was two grades below what was used in the high school. We'd go to the bookstore, and blacks wasn't allowed to get certain books. They was marked off. I couldn't even, you couldn't even get it.

DW: Oh did you have to buy your own books back then in the system or--is that what you're saying?

EV: No, the black school was teaching, was teaching subjects, like teaching subjects, like they were in the fourth grade or they was in the fifth grade, they was teaching subjects that was two grades in the rear, two grades. So that's--

DL: ( ) third grade material.

DW: Right, I understand.

EV: That's what I'm trying to say.

DW: Okay.

EV: So--

JV: So whenever I would be using in the fifth grade in the white school, then 51:00the black students would be using that in the seventh grade in their school.

DW: What are some other differences you noticed right away?

JV: There were a lot of differences when it came to black people, well, I guess all blacks and whites, very proud of their athletic abilities and their teams and stuff like that. So there would be a lot of teasing and a lot of shame and anger and stuff like that because you're going to that school. You go to that school. So therefore, it's your fault.

EV: They liked the way he talked because he began to be mixed with another--

JV: I would say things like Mother.

EV: Yes. And they would laugh.

DW: Your language was affected around--

JV: My speech--

DL: By the whites.

JV: Was being changed.

DW: And what did your black friends say about that?

JV: I--

EV: They made fun of it.

JV: They said, "What's wrong with him."

EV: They said, "Listen, it's Mother." They would say that.

DW: A little too proper.

JV: Yeah, right uh huh.

DL: You know what. We did know how to teach manners and all.

DW: Sure. Sure.

DL: But there was--

DW: It was unusual for others to hear that I'm sure.

JV: Well, yeah, not having been a part of it, and if you had to hear it while you were at work, you didn't have to keep hearing it after you got home, that type of thing. So if you were a janitor or if you were a maid and you heard that type of proper kind of--

DL: It rubbed off.

JV: Kind of conversation, right--

DL: It's your environment.

JV: Yeah, and go back home and it's the old regular old thing.

EV: While he was sitting in a car with a friend ( ) still friends, and he began to notice things then. This young man and I believe, he was about a year older than you, talking about Mr. Cohen's son and the two books, supposed to be in the same grade and he came home. He says, "Mama, did you know what?" Said, "His book was two years behind my book. We're in the same grade. Why Mama?" So that's when he discovered it.

DL: Now listen, we got, we started the levels program in the schools where like not when he was in my room, but right along at that time where we had them reading and trying to do their work on the level that they could do it. That went along in the blacks and also in the white schools.

EV: Well, now I'll tell you said they're trying to bring up to the same level. Let me tell you one thing. When I went in fighting that, I went after the schools. I examined everything. I went to workshops. I went to all of that. And I found out comparing, I was comparing. So in the workshop where the young 55:00men learned to do carpentry, ( ) to the high school, the room ( ). They had so much equipment. I was told that they had around $60,000 worth of equipment there for the young boys to learn woodcutting or whatever and all that goes with that. They only had one machine at Rosenwald ( ), and that's all the children could work.

DL : Well, I was say that through the years--

EV: I know that.

DL: After several years I thought it would be fun to compare how well they were 56:00trained before they came into the Waddle School, and you would find that there would be one excellent student to every ten and every ten at first. Then as when they really were integrated more and more, why then they really came up. But there was several years--

EV: It took time for awhile, I think.

DL: Uh huh. But then you see the white teachers were also put in the black schools.

DW: Early on you're talking about.

DL: Uh huh.

EV: White teachers in Rosenwald School.

DL: Well, I don't know whether it was in--. It wasn't Rosenwald but I had white and black--

EV: Well, you all did, but they didn't have any white teachers in the black schools.

DL: When we divided the first three grades and left them at Waddle, we put the 57:00fourth, fifth and sixth grade at the Waddle School on Waddle. See the first three were on Branch Street. The other three schools, fourth, fifth and sixth, were at Branch Street. So therefore, the fourth and the fifth and the sixth grade teachers from my building went over from Waddle Elementary went to Branch Street, and the fourth and fifth and sixth grade teachers from Branch Street went to Waddle.

EV: But you know they closed, they closed the all-black school. They closed them completely. The state came down and closed every black school.

DL: Now I know they did hon, but now I'm talking about when we integrated the elementary.

EV: Oh you're talking about the integration.

DL: I'm talking about when they integrated, when they closed the black school, they divided mine. They had the three first grades at one school from both schools and the fourth, fifth and sixth grades in the Branch Street School. Mr. Crowe said, "We're going to make you the principal of both schools."

EV: But the schools were integrated then. So they all came together. ( )

DW: When did Rosenwald close? This is the high school, right. When did that close do you know?

EV: I, now listen. The Methodist should know. I should know it.

JC: '68 I think. I have a program from the last commencement at Rosenwald. It was on the front yard and ( )

JV: It was outside.

JC: They had the steps, had the chairs on the steps as I remember at the door for the speakers and all at the church, sort of like horseshoe shaped out in the yard. It was the last commencement, and I went because it was the last one that was ever going to be here.

DW: What do you think a graduating class of Rosenwald would've been then maybe?

JC: Well, what had happened was the state law said you cannot run, at that time it said you cannot run a high school with less than a hundred students. Well, Rosenwald had dropped below a hundred, but Madisonville High School helped them out by appealing to the state by saying we don't have room, and there was some truth to it because that was right before they built Madisonville North. They were still ( ). But that's what they kept telling the state. Don't close Rosenwald because we don't have room for them here. They left it for two or three years, I don't know how long, they left it open with less than a 60:00hundred students, which was against state law. But then finally the state said that's it. You taking them. You'd better find a place. You don't have room; you'd better find a place because they're going to be there next fall.

DW: So no white had ever attended Rosenwald High School.

DL: No, not that I know of.

JV: No, white student ever attended Branch Street.

EV: I don't know why they would because we didn't have but sixteen subjects down there, and they had seventy, about seventy-eight subjects at the white high school.

DW: To choose from.

EV: Yes, and then the next year they doubled to 100 and some. We still had the sixteen. Now why would they come to the black school. I don't think that they would. Nobody would want that.

JC: As an integrated school ( ). That building was reopened as Caldwell Smith.

DW: But it wasn't called Rosenwald High School anymore.

JC: No.

DW: You're saying that whites attended in that structure, but it was later on and it was a younger group of kids, younger group of students.

DL: They never did, the whites never did go to Rosenwald.

JC: Not until it was renamed something else. It wasn't a high school anymore. See they ( )

JV: Learning center.

DL: It was a learning center.

JC: Learning center. They had alternate school for a while there.

DW: Alternative--

JV: Oh okay.

JC: They had an alternate school, and they had the head start kindergarten, which am I saying, kindergarten or head start, which was it? It was kindergarten wasn't it for a while.

EV: ( )

JC: Had the little bitty ones because I remember--

DL: I was director of the head start program.

JC: They erected a, after the building was empty then there was so many break ins that they erected a twelve-foot fence, a chain link fence around the building. That was I think, I think there was conspiracy myself to make that 62:00look like that part of town wasn't fit for anybody to have anything that could be kept safe, see what I mean. I don't think that the break-ins were so severe that they had to have a twelve-foot fence around it. But I thought they put the twelve-foot fence around there it would have something to say to everybody about that part of town.

DW: Who is they that you're speaking of?

JC: I don't know.

DW: Right.

JC: The powers that be.

DW: All right.

DL: You know there are a lot of things that we don't know what went on.

EV: Sure, I don't know. We know.

DL: We don't know who instigated a lot of the trouble that was caused here in this town.

JC: When they had those tiny little children in there, the kindergarten kids walking off the sidewalk through a gate into a twelve-foot chain link fence. I said, doesn't this give them a good impression of what school's going to be like 63:00to walk inside a twelve-foot chain link fence.

DL: Why did they put that fence? What in the world.

JC: They said there were so many break-ins in the building.

EV: I heard that too.

JC: That they said there was no way to keep people out of there. So I thought that was awful bad for tiny little children to keep going inside of a twelve-foot fence. This is there first impression. Well, here I am inside school. This is going to be like being in a penitentiary.

DL: A prison. Yes. Yes.

END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B

START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A

DW: Ask.

JV: You had asked me one question I wanted to go back to.

DW: Okay. Go ahead, James.

JV: You had asked me about the first day of school and what it was like. Now it wasn't that intense the first day, but as time went on then, persons began to 64:00want to fight and be mad, angry and challenge you.

EV: As he got older and come into the bigger kids.

JV: Always and continue picking fights, continue picking a fight, continue picking a fight. I mean they, it was the same I think probably after the first year in the ninth grade and Waddle Avenue. Then maybe about later on in the months people began to want to pick a fight, pick a fight, pick a fight, pick a fight, stuff like that. That's what you were talking--

DW: But yeah, how did you respond to that?

JV: Sometimes you fight. Sometimes, I mean, you do what you have to do. You fight or either you don't fight. I mean--

EV: ( )

DW: Did you ever get physically damaged in any of this or was it just kind of like a fight any other two boys might have. I mean, did anybody ever team up on you or anything like that or was it more just individuals?

JV: It was basically individuals, yeah. It was even at that junior high school, which was the seventh and eighth grade. Where all seventh and eighth grade, where all, after the white elementary in sixth grade, they graduated, they all went to what is called Seminary, which was junior high school. There you get seventh and eighth grade from all different parts of the--

DW: All the elementaries fed into seminary junior high you called it.

JV: Right, all into the same place. Right. Right. Then it becomes extremely 66:00tough right there.

DW: I see. So that kind of goes back to what Miss Logan was saying. Maybe at Waddle Avenue, the mix of students perhaps allowed for integration a little bit more so than normal based on what you're saying now. Because once you, even a few years later you got into another school building with people from all over the county.

JV: ( ) where persons had not gone to school with blacks I suppose or African Americans.

DL: All right, how many of the Black Americans were in the school when you went to junior high?

JV: African, I mean, well--

DL: Say like seventh and eighth grade.

JV: I think there was only two African Americans that had gone into the seventh grade at Seminary, at the seventh and eighth grade.

DL: Well, you went in.

JV: Yes ma'am. Uh huh. And that was Laverne Griffith, Laverne Griffith and 67:00myself. No, no. I'm sorry. Wrong. I was wrong. It was James Mayes and myself.

DL: Right.

JV: Right, and then of course James Mayes was kind of big, huge stocky person and--

DL: Now well, he was from Pride, wasn't he.

JV: Yes, ma'am. And of course he was able to keep folks away, but then after he was no longer there, then folks come back. That's what I say.

EV: Was that the seventh grade?

JV: Well, at the, eighth grade.

DL: Seventh and eighth grade.

JV: Yeah, it was seventh and eighth grade, but it was, yeah.

EV: ( ) something about James Mayes.

DW: Yeah, he was the first black at Pride. I think he and together at least with one more.

EV: What did you mean--after it was integrated, then he went into Pride at the 68:00seventh and eighth grade. I couldn't answer that because I didn't know.

DW: Right.

DL: Now I tell you who you could talk to because she was the principal at Pride, and that's Edwards.

JC: Jessie Edwards.

DL: Jessie Edwards, H.H. Edwards. Mrs. H.H. Edwards.

DW: I'll try to get a hold of her.

EV: Where you in there with, I mean, was he in your class at Pride?

DL: No, he was--

EV: I mean was he at your class at junior high?

JV: Uh huh.

EV: Mr. Mayes.

JV: Yeah.

EV: That's the seventh grade.

JV: Right.

EV: I don't even know that young man. Where is he? Is he dead?

JV: I think he relocated or something.

EV: Is he living?

JV: I don't know. I think he, I think they left town, Mayes. You remember the Mayes family.

EV: Kind of. ( ) I think he kind of knows--

JC: Minnie Mayes, not the same family, Minnie Mayes.

EV: He was talking about ( )

JV: Yeah, James Mayes the guy I went, the student I went I went to school with.

EV: Did you know him?

JC: I know Minnie Mayes here in town. I ( ) it might be the same family.

DW: All right. In early September about the time that James had actually entered school Mr. Van Leer had phoned in that a cross was burning across the street. You guys were living over at, in the Rosenwald Apartments, and this was maybe Branch and Kentucky. But this story also made the Louisville Courier-Journal. This was on the front page of the Louisville Courier-Journal. Can you explain what happened there?

EV: Well, it happened so quick. I just happened to be--I'm sorry--I just 70:00wanted to, see this was our front in a way. Because down there on the lower level is the CME Church. When I came to the front from my house that was facing Kentucky, all I saw at that time, it was a huge like a post or something. It was just a blaze. So I looked at whoever it was was running from it, but I don't--I never did find out who did it.

DW: Was that a one-time occurrence?

EV: That was one time.

DW: Was there any other kind of, I mean, I guess I would call that a threat. 71:00Was there any other kinds of threats or pressure that resembled that that you experienced at the time?

EV: Yes. Yes. Of course. It ran from my place in the apartment up to my mother's place too. All of that was an involvement there of them trying to scare us and pressure us. Yeah. Let me see now. It's so much to it. Oh yes. Man came to my apartment, and James was in school, already in there. It was the same apartment you're talking about. I carried, we had carried, no James had gone to school that morning. I don't remember whether we carried him or not but he had gone to school.

DL: No, I don't think you brought him. I think he walked by himself.

EV: He might have, but anyway he was at school that morning when this man came, and I could hear him coming across the apartment lot. I was in the apartment, Rosenwald Apartments then. I heard, wasn't nobody there but me because he had already gone to school. I heard my name called, Miss van Leer, Miss Van Leer. A man with a real coarse voice. Somebody, he wanted to know where I lived. I know that's what it was about. Because in a few minutes he knocked on my door, and I opened the door, and he asked is this where Miss Van Leer down here. I said yes, this is Miss van Leer. Come in. So he came on in. So he was trying to make me think he was a painter. He had on clothes with paint all on it. I 73:00could tell that he, that was something just to pretend because his shoes didn't have a spot of paint on him. So anyhow he says, "Your son James is still in school there." I said, "Yes. He is." He said, "Well, now I'm just coming to you because I want to help you." Said, "I heard somebody say up there"--I believe he said it was in the courthouse lobby or somewhere up there. He said, "If you don't have that boy," said, "now I'm trying to help you. I heard three folks planning to do you harm. If you don't have that boy out by in the morning, I'm trying to help you," said, "they said they're going to blow you to kingdom come." So I looked at him. I said, "You people are doing just like you 74:00always do. You've always wanted to hurt people." I said, "You're doing just like you've always done." "Well, I'm trying to help you. I'm trying to help you." I said, "Well all right," and I looked at him. I know he was disguised because you don't paint a building and your shoes look all nice and don't have--. So that was one incident, and I think he was one man also that had some sort of you know how they farm things. ( ) job in town.

DW: Would you talk a little bit. Your brother's Eggie Elliot. Right.

JV: Edward.

DW: Edward, Eggie was that his nickname?

JV: Yeah. Egg head.

EV: Egghead. He never did like that name.

DW: Is that right?

EV: Yeah. His name was Edward.

DW: Edward. Okay. I'm sorry. Could you maybe tell us a little bit about his 75:00involvement in this whole situation?

EV: Well, Edward had a, made pretty good money out of what he was doing, and I believe he was working at one of the leading barbershops there in town, a beauty shop and barber shop combined. He was on salary for a while, and then they decided that he was good, but they decided to see if he could make it just like an agent or something, his salary. So he made way more just making it himself than them even paying him a salary. So anyway, he could make polish. At that 76:00time folks did a lot of shoe polishing.

DW: I remember reading that. He was a shoe shiner at one time.

EV: Yeah, and he made all kinds of polish, and people would send things. He'd have to pick them up at the train for him to do his work and then send the shoes back.

DW: Really.

EV: So he was, he made quite a bit of money. So anyway, he was boycotted in a way because this one man he would walk up and down in front of the building, and he would have some people to call in on his job. So he finally just gave up the job, and then he started with first with a restaurant doing that. The Lord was good to us during that time that he was out of a job because he was on the 77:00telephone and everything. He just felt he didn't want to stick there no more in town. So anyway--

JV: I didn't know about the restaurant.

EV: Yes. Yes. He did. There's so much to it all.

JV: All right.

EV: So anyway, yes. One of the stores, the Lord is so good. One of the stores, the meat counter went off during the time they didn't have a job. They sent all the meat over to our house. It wasn't ruined. But they came in our house with meat on their shoulders, bringing to us. I don't know how long we didn't have meat. We ate better during that time we only ate in our life. Do you understand?

DW: Yes ma'am.

EV: That was just God provided. That's what it was. So anyway, and then later on there was people that we used to work for. I don't know whether to call their name. I mean, he did. That brought him a check for a couple of thousand dollars said, "If you need any more, just let us know," and handed it to him. Couple of thousand-dollar check.

DW: Do you remember who this was?

EV: Yes, I know who it was. I guess it was all right to tell.

DW: Sure.

JV: Is he still living?

EV: Some of them. They were Corums.

DL: The Corums.

EV: Yes, the Corums.

DW: So these were sort of, were these white people?

EV: Yes.

DW: Sort of supporting you without, did they not want this to be public?

EV: Well, I don't know because I never--. At that time my brother was old, and 79:00I didn't really weigh out all of that stuff. But it seemed like he had become friends with him or something. They're pretty wealthy people and said, "If you need any more, let us know." So later on he started with this set up to have a car lot, sell cars. They said he became the best car agent and the only black real car agent in the town. So we just, we did well selling cars.

DW: Was he directly involved with the NAACP here or did he just sort of help you or what was his involvement with school desegregation?

EV: Well, no. I'm his sister.

DW: That was the connection.

EV: Yes.

DW: So the boycott--

EV: We were family.

DW: He lost business and he basically lost his job at this time, it was just because of his connection with you, not so much what he was doing.

EV: Yes, that's what it was about.

DW: So he wasn't that active in the--

EV: No, not that active. No. He was not. But they know just the connection. Sometimes many members of the family sometimes the weight goes on them.

DW: Certainly.

EV: They knew he had a special job and he was doing whatever they could to harm.

JV: Uncle Edward was a flamboyant type of personality. I mean he very good vernacular, speaking, good physical statue (sic). I mean it was hard not to notice him as you passed by him. Then he always dressed well. He was colorblind, but he still dressed well in suits and ties and things like that. 81:00So and he just looked like he was a man about town.

JC: He looked like a movie star.

JV: Yeah.

EV: You know him, didn't you.

JC: He looked like a movie star.

EV: ( )

JC: Edward. Ed Elliot.

JV: So you couldn't help but notice, you either liked him or you didn't like him because of what he did because the fact that he was an African American or not an African American.

DW: Or flashy.

JV: Just jealousy for whatever reason. Yeah.

DW: Let me ask you.

EV: You'd think he was a minister. If you go to the church, his praying sounded like a minister or something like that. Some people just campaign--

JV: He was a barber. I mean, he had many talents. He could've been a beautician. Yeah.

EV: Always brought me different ( ) to put in my beauty shop. He 82:00did. Just like that. Thank you of the Coke. It was very good.

DW: James, when you went to Waddle Avenue, how did the, it's become obvious to me how Miss Logan received you. How did the other white teachers at Waddle receive you?

JV: I didn't have any problems that I know of.

DW: That you can recall.

JV: With any teacher whatsoever. Now the white teachers were just fine even in the places where there would not, where there would not be white students, where there would not be black students. Even in the places, let me see how to say 83:00this. Even when in the seventh and eighth grades, the teachers who were in the seventh and eighth grades in junior high schools where the other persons were coming from who had not been mixed with blacks, okay. Even those teachers were very cordial, very cordial.

EV: Very proud of your teachers. I wanted you to hear that.

DL: Oh I mean--

EV: Yes, tell. Let her hear that.

JV: I was just saying that I never had any problem with any of the teachers, any of the white teachers in Madisonville, Kentucky, whether it was in elementary school at Waddle Avenue because every one, every one who that was in an adult capacity acted professionally and acted very friendly and acted very 84:00nicely. Even in the seventh and eighth grades those students, those teachers there were really pushing for blacks to, really pushed me to become, to be comfortable and to be happy. I guess because they knew there was going to be problems with the student body whatever it is, I don't know. But I still remember some persons, Miss Croft. Do you remember Miss Croft? I went to her funeral. Beautiful lady. It was just, the principals, Mr. Bacon.

DL: Well, you're talking--

JV: All these beautiful people. Beautiful people.

DW: Miss Logan, what, it sounds like you welcomed James and you tried to make this a harmonious situation that first year and there was no opposition by you. 85:00But how, did other white faculty or probably white parents, did anybody ever come after you for this?

DL: Uh uh. Never had any problems at all over it. That's the reason I said I think I won my battles the first day because I showed the parents where I stood, and there would be no, no--

DW: No influence on you.

DL: Uh uh, in any way. Just that I would be, of course I guess I was, I was determined that it was going to work, and it did work. I am so proud of our record because it was as far as I know and I don't ever remember him coming to me with a complaint.

JV: No ma'am.

DL: He kept it all to himself. He never did come to me with a complaint.

JV: I don't complain today.

EV: But he was good. He was happy in that school.

DL: Well, I hope he was. He had to be. He ( )

EV: We were happy, and then the biggest joy that I had there was when he won a cake there.

JV: Oh yeah.

EV: ( ) I believe that was the best piece of cake I ever had.

DL: What in the world?

EV: ( ) a cakewalk or something like that.

JV: It was a cookout little festival.

EV: Was it Halloween? Was it a Halloween?

JV: I guess it could've been because we had this Halloween things every year, and then one year I won a cake in a cake walk.

EV: I was walking too. I'm telling you.

JV: It was sure nice.

EV: Now we never had had nothing like that at the black school.

JV: We tore that cake up.

EV: No. No. And that was great to me.

JV: Yeah, it was a beautiful thing.

EV: Never will forget that white cake. Yes, it was really good.

DL: Well, as I said there's been so many good things that come out of it. Now of course the thing about it through the years, I don't remember any of the, anything that ever went wrong with anything. I just think of all the good things that happened all the way through our lifetime. I can't remember the bad things that happened. I don't want to. I just erase those.

EV: There was a teacher that wrote me. One of them teacher's names started with an M, and I believe it was from her. But she thought I was worried.

DL: Do you have ( )

EV: Wrote a letter to tell me not worry. Everything--

DL: School was out when they enrolled him. I mean we just, the first day of school back in those days is, we enrolled them and kept them before lunch the 88:00first day. So then they enrolled him after the students were gone and the teachers were all still there.

DW: Did you, was that done purposefully? Did you wait until students were gone to enroll him?

EV: No. No. I didn't mean to wait. I really don't what occurred then. I thought, see I didn't know the schedule of your school.

DL: I guess she--

EV: The time of what happened at the opening of it. I didn't know.

DW: So that was just coincidence that he came when school had let out the first day. Okay. I thought maybe it was to kind of insure--

EV: I looked around. I looked all around after we got there, and things were so quiet. It was different than I expected because I was thinking there was going to be some of them there and things I'd seen having problems and fussing 89:00going in. That's what shocked me when I walked in. It was so quiet. That's what happened.

DL: Yeah. Yeah.

DW: It was a surprise I'm sure.

EV: Yeah, I'm sure.

DL: That's the reason I said the headlines in the papers were, we got the Messenger in the afternoon and it was in that paper I think that very day. That was what was so funny to me was, I don't know why. I'm sure I kept it for a long time. But I didn't.

EV: But every time the paper would come out, well, pretty often it said, that student is back in school again today. Like where was he going to go.

DW: It was a daily update. I know what you're talking about. Yeah.

EV: Yeah, that's what it was.

DW: Because they were expecting the added pressure to take him out I guess.

EV: Yes. Yes. He was back again today.

DL: Well, I guess if he hadn't have showed up--

EV: I said of course he's back again.

DW: Um, James.

JV: I went to see--I had never seen my name in the paper before and I said, "Daddy. people are telling me my name is in the paper. Is that right?" Daddy said, "Yeah." I said, "Well, where is it in the paper?" He showed it to me. I said, "Oh that's my name." He said, "Yep."

EV: Yeah, they'd call and my husband would talk so nice to them saying ( ) things.

JV: Probably though it was a bill collector.

JV: My husband was kind of unconcerned anyway. He told them, they'd say ( ) "Well, why don't you just come over here and let's us talk it over. Just come on over here." Didn't nobody never did come.

DL: Well, you all really been through some things.

DW: James, tell me. You were a pretty young boy when this all happened. How 91:00did this overall, how do you think this has impacted your life?

JV: Well, thing that's impacted my life is you have to realize that when things are for the right, then there can be a struggle in making it come out. It can be a struggle in seeing I through. Okay, the problem is if you don't see it through it won't ever come out to the right. The other thing is that it seems like one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch. That's a complete lie you see because people are people. Black, white, sky blue, green. Wherever you are. 92:00There are things that are going to happen in our lives. See I was born with a serious, serious disease. My mother and father have had a struggle with me most of my life with sickness of sickle cell anemia. So they and I have had to deal with the sickle cell anemia while going into the white school system, while the pressures, the pressures of sickle cell anemia in, on top of the pressures in the white school system can be a real struggle. Life is good when you do what's right. I used to teach a class. I used to tell the class, life is easier when 93:00you do what's right. You'll find that your life is easier on you. Everybody else will, more persons will come to respect you more. So when you do things that are right. These are things that I've learned in my life. At the same time I've had a very good parental background. I mean you know very good parental background. All right. But then--

DL: They didn't care anything about you though, James. They didn't love you.

EV: I didn't mean to put it on that.

JV: The other thing is when you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior, then he will surround you with persons who will be able to watch over you and protect you and take care of you as you go through your life in becoming that which you ought to become.

EV: I feel all this was the Lord's will. I think the, ( ) good about the Lord. Some people are for certain things.

DW: If I could just wrap it up with this question for all three of you. You as well sir. How do you feel race relations have come about since all this happened here in Madisonville?

DL: Well, I think some of these people as I said are just like they've always 95:00been. They haven't changed one bit. But there are lots of people that have changed and are so happy to be friends and mix and mingle with both races. I think that's wonderful. I think they have. I think it's done a lot. But we still have along way to go.

EV: Sure do. ( ) we do have. It's just still it ain't all come to light yet. But just like she says, when you look around you see blacks on this 96:00job and a few on that one and then some of the children have some things have come from their homes and everything like that. So that's--we still have a long ways to go. The very serious thing.

DL: Do you know I think that in some places and some of the colleges the blacks do not want to have anything to do with the whites and they don't want them in the colleges. I mean they still cling to their own, both of them, both white cling to the roots, but the blacks don't want the whites to enter them. Don't you think that has a lot to do with it now too, James?

JV: Oh yes ma'am. I think that's the case.

END OF TAPE 2, SIDE A

START OF TAPE 2, SIDE B

DW: Go ahead James.

JV: When no matter what you are, black, white, whatever, short, tall there can always be problems that you can come up with. There can be problems and situations that you can make real big for yourself, and then you could fight for your traditions, just like the Klan, just like the Panthers, just like all these types of groups, the Aryans and all these types of persons. But if you will continue as I said before doing what's right. Okay, see because that means that 98:00you want to be what God wants done. All right, that you want to do what God wants done. If you want to be what God wants done, then God's going to make you a minister whether you realize it or not. You'll become even larger than yourself, and I think that's what's happened with our family here. We have a little bit of family, my mom and my daddy and myself. Then God has given us friends to guide us, lead us, protect us, be with us and those types of things. So again according to how you live your life and trying to do what's right then 99:00the more you will progress.

EV: I think the Lord just has special people because I didn't have sense enough to be a ( ). My sister didn't either. ( ) NAACP president was killed ( ) hit the top of the ceiling on the light things like that. So it was God within me that didn't make me afraid. It's a lot of things you haven't even got to today and how they slept out in cars and different things like that. You never got to that part, and somebody come to take my brother away and with a casket box in the trunk, just different things 100:00we still haven't gotten to yet. So I just, we had showed me a vision like that maybe that I had practically died up to here meant more than three-fourths, and it seemed like the bottom had dropped out of the earth. Different things. People were afraid for us to park at their homes. You may be out trying to do something to help but they jump in and want it after everything has been done and the road was easy. We had that experience. So there's more things, but that was the way it is. But I feel that it's good that maybe that the Lord has 101:00me do a special thing. Just never did until people looked out at me later on and said, and I heard them trying to say you sure are brave or something like that. I never thought of it as bravery. I didn't think of that. So my mother, I know she was worried. Her children was involved. I know she was worried. She would walk the yard, come out, and our house was set afire, different things like that. She come out in the back yard because things were really getting heated up. So she said, "I was praying. I've been out here praying." "What about it Mama?" "Well, I prayed and the Lord spoke to me." I said, "Lord why? 102:00Why did it wait for us to come into all of this? Why? Why? Why?" So the Lord, said the Lord spoke to her and said, "The reason's just now happened because you weren't ready." Black folks, they didn't have lawyers.

DL: Well, you see when, that thing's off isn't it?

DW: No, it's running.

END OF INTERVIEW 24