Oral History Interview with Cecil Maddox

DAVID WOLFORD: Yeah. This is David Wolford, and I'm sitting here with Cecil Maddox. It is the 14th of August, 2002. We are in Fulton, Tennessee, actually, right across the Kentucky line from Fulton, Kentucky. We're going to talk a little bit about the integration of schools in the Fulton Kentucky system. But let's start off Mr. Maddox, would you just please explain where you were born and where you grew up.

CECIL MADDOX: I was born in South Fulton, Tennessee on Key Street, March the 6th, 1931. I've been here all of my life. I mostly spent my time on Taylor Street where I am right now. Most of my time away has been in the United States Navy four years and college four years. The rest of my time has been in this hometown.

DW: Where did you attend schools when you were growing up?

CM: I attended school at Rosenwald High School. Rosenwald Grade School in 1:00South Fulton Tennessee, and then after I finished eighth grade, I had to be transported to Union City by bus, went to Miles High School there in Union City.

DW: Miles High School, Union City, Tennessee.

CM: Some of the kids here in Tennessee went to the school in Hickman, Kentucky. Some I believe went to Martin, Tennessee because they ( ) school over here and couldn't go. So some went to Martin. Some went to Hickman. Some went to Union City. I went to Union City.

DW: Did anybody from the Kentucky side go to school in Union City, any blacks from Fulton Kentucky?

CM: No, no, no. Most of them went to Union City or Fulton South.

DW: Where did the blacks in Fulton, Kentucky attend school before the integration?

CM: Where the blacks in what now?

DW: Where did the blacks in Fulton, Kentucky that live in Fulton, Kentucky--

CM: Oh they went to school in Hickman, Kentucky.

DW: Riverview High.

CM: Right, Riverview High.

DW: Okay. Can you speak much about Riverview High? Do you know that building or--

CM: I don't know they sold the building. I think a church has it now. I think it still exists, but I think it's a church or community center there, but it's still I think still there.

DW: Is that in Hickman City.

CM: It's in Hickman, Kentucky. Right it's still there. It's over there in the black neighborhood where it's always been, and I think it's a church or ( ) some center, but I think it's still there.

DW: Where did you go to college?

CM: I went to college at Tennessee State and Murray State. I got my BS degree at Tennessee State. I got my masters at Murray State.

DW: Which college was your masters?

CM: Murray State.

DW: Murray State, right. I'm highly interested in your teaching career in Fulton, Kentucky. What buildings did you teach in?

CM: I taught at Kerr Elementary. I taught at Milton, which was a black school at the time before they integrated. I was over there three years. I went to 3:00Kerr Elementary in 1965, and I taught there and I taught at high school in Kentucky for three years.

DW: Tell me a little bit about Milton Elementary.

CM: Milton Elementary was grade one through eight. It had been there for a long time. My mother even went to school there. The building burned back in 1958 I guess. In 1958 it burned. We had to have school in the church, and then they built a brand new building, a fine building about the same spot in Kentucky. We went in and stayed there three years and then 1965 the school integrated, and all the teachers left Milton and went to Kerr Elementary in ( 4:00). At the time I was the head teacher there. We went to Kerr Elementary in 1965.

DW: Well, while you were at Milton, let's do some comparison. How did Milton Elementary, a black school, compare to other schools in Fulton?

CM: Well, the latter school, the new school was equal to in everything. I don't know about before I got there, but I know when I went there, they were building a new school, and we had the same textbooks, brand new books. We got all the same privileges that the white school got. There wasn't no separation. The only thing that was separated was the bodies ( ), but everything else was even.

DW: Was your salary equal to teachers over at Kerr?

CM: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. We got state salary.

DW: When did that begin? Do you know when that happened?

CM: Well, salaries.

DW: Were those always equal in your day?

CM: Yeah, always. Yeah. We always, ( ) everybody made the same thing depending up on your experience, your degrees and also your years. They were equal.

DW: Did black parents, how did they value education in your experience in the early days?

CM: They put high value on it because the older parents didn't have the opportunity to go to school, and they could see the benefits when a child going to school and learning, being educated. They put a top value on it.

DW: Okay. What caused Milton to actually, you say in 1965 Milton, the schools in Fulton totally integrated at the grade school level. What caused that? Why did that happen in '65?

CM: That happened because--

DW: I mean was Milton situated in a black neighborhood?

CM: Yeah, it was in a black neighborhood. People when that old school burned, the people wanted the school back because it was a neighborhood school. The school was closed, and all the kids could walk within the school within two blocks. It was a very, right there in the community, and they wanted the school back and they built it. Then in '65 they decided they wanted to integrate.

DW: How was the Milton school building used, the newer one, after the elementary children were integrated?

CM: Then I think for a while they used it for a community ( ) and then they tore it down.

DW: But it was never a mixed school, Milton.

CM: No, never was.

DW: Was that ever proposed.

CM: No.

DW: I can't imagine why that school if it had been new in the late '50s, right. 7:00It was the new one replacing the old one.

CM: That was as late as '62, '62 when they built the new one.

DW: Okay. So it was pretty new at the time--

CM: It was brand new. It was brand new when I went in. I was the head teacher, brand new.

DW: Then just a few years later they quit using it altogether.

CM: Yeah. When they integrated, we went over there to Kerr School.

DW: Was Kerr Elementary the only elementary school by that time?

CM: No. They had another school then called Terry Norman. It was two elementary schools, Terry Norman and Milton. They also bought ( ) over there too.

DW: Was Terry Norman a black school or a white school?

CM: White school.

DW: White school. So it all consolidated in '65.

CM: All consolidated in '65, teachers and the students all.

DW: Now tell me how it was, I'm assuming that at Milton it was strictly a black staff.

CM: Four of us.

DW: Four, the black teachers all went over, none of them lost their jobs. Is that correct?

CM: No. No.

DW: You all four went over to the Kerr Elementary. How was that? How was that transition?

CM: The transition, out of the four of us, I was the only one who had a regular classroom. The rest of them were put in special education. I was the only one put in a regular classroom.

DW: When you transferred to Kerr. How did the others feel about that?

CM: How'd they feel? Well, they accepted it. They didn't regret it none. They accepted it.

DW: How did the white faculty at Kerr receive the black teachers that were coming from Milton?

CM: Unusual.

DW: Explain.

CM: They were just as nice as they could be. You couldn't find a better set up or relationship between blacks and whites at that school.

DW: So it was unusual in the sense that it was very welcoming.

CM: It was unusual, parents and the teachers, I was the only male in the deal, 9:00and I recall a superintendent said he told me, one time he said, "The only thing these parents are concerned about was you and the white girls." He said, "I'll be damned if you aren't the best friend a white girl's got." But the relationship real good, working good. I helped coach. There were times I went around with the football staff. I went everywhere, the kids did too. Blacks and white and it was superior. It was superior. No problem. Parents, black parents, all mixture, students, faculty, all mixed together real well. No trouble.

DW: Good. How did sports play a role in the integration here in Fulton?

CM: Well, just like anywhere else it played a major role in it, black athletes. At the time when they first integrated, I think they had about two good super 10:00star basketball players and football players. Later on the black boys started coming out. They had the opportunity to play football and they started coming out. That made a big difference, and the kids were just like that. I taught all of them. I taught all of the football players. I went all the time. I never heard nobody say nigger or white. You don't, a lot of these kids. They don't talk that stuff anymore. They don't give a dang who you are.

DW: How did the, what was it like to teach white students suddenly?

CM: To me it wasn't nothing. I had no problem with it. Matter of fact if you go up here to the, if you go up here down at the Kerr School, the brand new building at the high school is dedicated in my name.

DW: That's what I heard, yeah. That must make you feel pretty good.

CM: Oh yes.

DW: Was there any special procedures taken when this transition happened or was 11:00there any caution necessary at all?

CM: You mean, from the public.

DW: I mean from the public or from parents.

CM: No.

DW: Were the parents okay with the black teachers and the black students coming over to Kerr?

CM: Everything just jelled right in. We had a good board at the time and a good superintendent. We had people in Kentucky then that were professional people and they understood. They knew it was coming, and they had worked it out, both sides did, blacks and whites. They made it work it out.

DW: Who was the superintendent?

CM: Lawrence Holland.

DW: Lawrence Holland.

CM: Lawrence Holland.

DW: Do you know when he retired?

CM: He died, let's see. I don't know when Lawrence retired. Let me think now. 12:00It was somewhere in the '70s I believe. Let's see, '65, '65 he was there then. It might have been early '70s I believe.

DW: Okay.

CM: Because I was teaching over there in that school when he was there then. Yeah. But Lawrence put that thing together. He had a nice board. All the people on his board were educated folks and they understood, and they made it work. Everybody's cooperating and made it work. You just, you couldn't find a better situation. There wasn't no protests, no parents, no black and white.

DW: No boycotts.

CM: No boycotts, not all that.

DW: Okay. Why was a suit necessary in nineteen, in the late '50s to integrate 13:00the high school under the same superintendent?

CM: Well, they thought they'd start out with the grade schools and see how they work out. It was sort of a pilot deal, pilot thinking. After they found out that it worked, then they went over to the high school with it.

DW: I see. Now you were involved with the NAACP here as well?

CM: Oh yeah.

DW: What was your position there?

CM: I was just a member.

DW: Member of the NAACP. How active was the NAACP here in Fulton in terms of making integration happen?

CM: It was well-organized came from a national source, national program. It influenced ( ) then because the idea to integrate was high, and it was become national, and all the NAACP organizations in every community was on 14:00top of everything because at the time there was some things happening to blacks, the NAACP had to detest, not only for the schools. But it was other things, jobs and opportunities and things in that order.

DW: Do you think that made a difference here in Fulton, NAACP involvement?

CM: I think it did. You take a town like this now whites and blacks, they always lived together in the same neighborhoods. Where they find the ( ), this town was divided up in three or four little sections. We called it, we call this state factory because used to be a State Factory Plant here. ( ), Kentucky we call it the bottom. We call it the heel and all that kind of thing, but Negroes have always lived together with blacks and whites. We 15:00just didn't go to school together. I played with the white boys every day. We fought every day. They called me niggers, and I called them that. But we got along, but we was all poor folks. But we grew up together, whites, Negroes worked for whites, kept the children, did day work for them, had a good relationship. You worked there. You knew each other.

DW: Do you recall when the Supreme Court made its ruling in 1954?

CM: Yeah.

DW: What was the feeling around here when that happened?

CM: It wasn't nothing to protest, not in this town.

DW: How did the black community feel about that ruling?

CM: They felt good about it. They felt good about it because the kids, we were put at a disadvantage having to get up at seven o'clock in the morning or six in the morning and walk way down here. Had to walk about three or four blocks to 16:00get on the bus. I live right there. See them steps right there. That's when I, and four to six, and four to five we built a house. My daddy built the house there. I had to walk there and go down about half a mile walk every morning to get on the bus.

DW: To Union City.

CM: Yeah, to Union City to be transported to Union City.

DW: So what, do you think the black community was anxious to be integrated?

CM: I think sure because at the time they had inferior books, supplies and handicapped by transportation and all that.

DW: Okay. So it's obvious there was, there was not an equal footing for both schools, but did that necessarily make the blacks want to go to school with the whites or did they just want the same materials and the same--

CM: They just wanted the same opportunities, same opportunities. That's what the NAACP was fighting for. At one time they were separate and unequal, and 17:00then they came separate and equal, and then they came a national thing getting the NAACP integrating school. Everybody fought for integrated school.

DW: How would you describe race relations in Fulton over the last maybe thirty years?

CM: Fine. Fine. Everybody know each other. More so now because all the kids now, all the kids now here and ( ) went to school together most of them. I've got--

DW: ( )

CM: Lawyers and doctors and judges, all school, all went to school together. Now they run the town now. They went to school with blacks. They played football with blacks, played basketball with blacks. They run around together. But they were the same type of atmosphere that the parents had. At that time 18:00you had a home life was different. People taught their children how to get along with folk. Now you might, we had a few kids up there, white kids who detested, but it was just, it was a bunch of, what we call the ( ) class of kids. But overall I would say ninety-five percent of everything was fine. You're going to always have some rebels.

DW: Sure.

CM: On both sides.

DW: When you were, you were an early integrated teacher I should say, one of the first black teachers to come over to a white school, it sounds like you didn't have any kind of problem with that.

CM: I didn't have no problem.

DW: It was a very smooth transition.

CM: I didn't have no problem. When I went in there and I did my work, and the kid they all came into the coach. Now when I first went in there I was a PE, I 19:00taught PE. Then they took and put me in a classroom, and I taught history. I taught civics. I taught science. I taught math. They found I could do everything. I took jobs the white teachers couldn't do. They put me in their places.

DW: You think having that diversity made it easier for you, being that well rounded.

CM: Yeah, I'd been around the service. I'd been used to people. I know how to get along with people. I slept with boys, I slept with boys in the Navy, been around white. I've been knowing white people all my, I've been around people all my life. I know how to treat people. I know how to get along with people. I don't care what color they are. It don't make no difference to me. It's up to the individual. You get along with anybody you want to. They may not like me. May not ( ) so far, but I know how to get along with you because I've been in the Navy. I slept with white boys. I run with them. I 20:00grew up with them. It didn't make no difference whether or not, in that classroom. It didn't bother me whatsoever. The kids accepted me. And for years you'd be surprised how the kids honor me up there. I'm not bragging. I'm just telling you what it is. I feel highly honored. The kids celebrate my birthday. They would always give me good write up in the papers and everything. They always come to me for information. They had a problem, personal problem, they come to me. I wish I could show you my annual in there. I was in the grade school, in the high school and the kids dedicated a high school annual to me in the grade school.

DW: Wow. I know you're well respected. I've already heard of some other people in town talking about you today. Yeah.

CM: You know listen. I'm not bragging. I'm thankful of all the, we've had 21:00one, two, about five or six schools in this town on both sides, and they've had superintendents. They've had teachers, principals, and none have a school dedicated in their name. I'm the only one.

DW: That's quite an honor.

CM: That's an honor. I'm thankful. You go out there, you ought to go out to that school and see it. They built a brand new junior high school out there to high school, and they, the building was dedicated to me.

DW: That's very nice. All right, well did you want to say anything in closing? I think that about wraps it up.

CM: Well, no. I just, I'm just thankful.

DW: All right thanks--.

CM: I made my living here and I raised five kids here. I'm still here and I've got my retirement here. The state has been nice to me. The parents have been nice to me. They still my friend and the kids are still love me. They call me up. They send me on my birthday. They come by and see me. I see them up and 22:00down the street. They still hug and thank me. So I've got my glory, and now they've got their glory and I'm thankful.

DW: That's good.

CM: I've enjoyed a good career teaching. It's paid off. It's paid off. I enjoyed it.

DW: Well, thanks a lot Mr. Maddox.

END OF INTERVIEW