Oral History Interview with Herbert Oldham

DAVID WOLFORD: Wolford. Today is the eighth, no excuse me, the ninth of August 2002. I'm here with Herbert Oldman in Bowling Green, Kentucky for an interview. Mr. Oldman, just go ahead and introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about where you are and where you're from, where you grew up, that kind of thing.

HERBERT OLDHAM: Okay. My name is Herbert Oldham. I'm a native of Bowling Green, KY and Warren County. I grew up here in this, in Bowling Green in Warren County. I was educated in the city of Bowling Green. I spent most of my entire life here in the city of Bowling Green. I was educated here and I was able to work here in the same city for thirty-seven years.

DW: And where did you spend most of your time working, in what buildings did you work?

OLDHAM: Most of my work experience took place at the old black high school and 1:00elementary school. And then, I shouldn't say most of it. It was quite a bit of it, maybe fifteen years. And I spent the rest of the time working for the Bowling Green independent school district until I retired in '92.

DW: Where exactly did you attend school growing up?

OLDHAM: I started out attending school in the Warren county school district. Warren County had an elementary school and a black high school. There were K through twelve. And the high school was located in Bowling Green. And although I lived in the county, which was about fifteen miles from Bowling Green, I attended school at Delafield Elementary and Delafield High School. Later on my parents moved into the city of Bowling Green and I transferred to State Street 2:00High School which is the city school operated by the Bowling Green independent school district.

DW: And what year did you graduate from State Street High School?

OLDHAM: I graduated from State Street High School in 1951.

DW: Could you recall some of your experiences at State Street School either as a younger student or maybe during your high school years?

OLDHAM: Oh yes, I remember many of those days. They were very fond memories that continue to come back and we still celebrate today. We still have school reunions where many of these students and friends come back and I remember the years of competition in athletics. I remember the social life that we had at the time. All of these things are still fond memories in my mind today. And a, I often compare buildings with situations today. I compare curriculum and 3:00educational opportunities with things that took place then. So although I am seventy years old today, I still fondly remember some of those days.

DW: When you participated in the athletics at State Street School, what was the competition like and who did you play? You know what other school did State Street play?

OLDHAM: Of course back in those days it was predominate segregated school system. And we did not play, of course, any white teams. But we did play schools throughout the state of Kentucky. We played schools from Missouri, St. Louis, MO. We played schools out of Evansville, IN. And one of our teams back in 1944 was the Negro National Champions in football.

DW: Really?

OLDHAM: They were that good. That was the 1944 football team, which was coached by J.S. Owmby. So a, we played teams out of Lexington, Lexington Dunbar, had outstanding teams during those days. Covington Holmes, I call it, not Covington Holmes, that's the white school, but Covington Grant--

DW: Right. Right.

OLDHAM: Was the black school back in those days. Schools out of Richmond, KY. Very strong schools. Pearl High, out of Nashville, TN. Howard School in Chatanooga, TN. We, we played everywhere. Even Columbia, KY, had an all-Negro elementary school, so we played Columbia. Just about, Madisonville had an 5:00outstanding strong black athletics program and educational program. And Rosenwald High School in Madisonville. Earlington had outstanding teams. They won a couple of state championships. So it just, Princeton, Dotson in Princeton KY. Schools in Paducah, Owensboro, Henderson, Douglas. So, we had our own teams that we played. They were very, you know, outstanding teams, very strong teams. And a, from participating in those types of games, we had an opportunity to have our own All-American teams, just like you have today. So I still remember those things. They were very good times.

DW: You finished school before there was ever any integration in the public schools in Kentucky. But did you say that there was ever some a, did you ever 6:00play white schools as an athlete? Did you ever compete against --

OLDHAM: Never competed against a white school. I competed against many white athletes.

DW: And how did you so that?

OLDHAM: My neighborhood.

DW: Just casually.

OLDHAM: In my neighborhood here in Bowling Green I lived on the west, west side of town, which is Delafield and West Main. And most of the athletes that played at Bowling Green High School lived in the neighborhood. So, of course, we played together all day long and went to separate schools. So we never played organized sports, the only organized sports that we played, even though we were segregated, the only organized sport that we played together was baseball. There would be community baseball teams that were organized and some of the black kids would play on these teams, you know, with the whites. But we never played in any organized sports with them until after desegregation.

DW: Let's talk a little bit more about State Street School and maybe the teachers that were there when you were a student. And just the, your education there or just the general quality of schooling there. How would you describe that?

OLDHAM: The quality of education at State Street during those days was superior. It was during a time when blacks were unable to acquire jobs other than teaching. And many of the teachers that we had were people who had been educated in universities like Indiana University, Purdue University, Notre Dame. They couldn't go to the state schools because of segregation but they were able to be sent away to these schools and to be educated. And many of those teachers came back. I fondly remember Dr. E.T. Buford who was our principal being educated at 8:00the Indiana University, highly educated man. He was also a minister. Dr. F.O. Moxley was educated at Indiana University and came back here. Several of the others, the Barlow sisters and the caliber of teachers were, it was outstanding. They were well educated. They demanded a lot from their students. And many of our students today that we read about were students who came from that old school, old State Street and later on High Street, High Street School.

DW: What about the materials and the physical plant of the building? What was that like?

OLDHAM: Well, you compare old State Street, it wasn't too bad. It was a four-story building. For the times it was a modern school. It had indoor 9:00plumbing. It had all, all of those facilities. It had lab facilities for science. It had home ec facilities. The only thing about it, it was just segregated from the white school. Many times the materials that we received, such as textbooks, were hand-me-down textbooks. We didn't get the new books and things of this nature. So many times the teachers had to make material that was appropriate, you know, for the class that they were in. But other than that our kids received an outstanding education because they went on to some of the better universities to graduate: Tuskegee Institute, Hampton, VA, and even some 10:00went to Indiana as I mentioned before. So even though we didn't have the same things that whites had in numbers, the quality was always there.

DW: And where did you, after you left State Street School, where did you go to college?

OLDHAM: I attended school at a Christian school in Raleigh, NC, St. Augustine College in Raleigh, an Episcopalian school. I was born and reared Baptist, but I was educated as an Episcopalian. And, from there I came back and I did attend Western Kentucky University where I got my Masters and continued to get thirty hours, Rank 1, from Western Kentucky University.

DW: When you got your Masters, roughly when was that?

OLDHAM: I got my Master in 19--, I think it was in 19 and 67, I believe.

DW: Did you do that on a part-time basis while you were teaching?

OLDHAM: Yes.

DW: Okay.

OLDHAM: We'd go to school during the week and go to school on Saturdays and go to school in the summer. And you got your education.

DW: Was it pretty well integrated by the time you were attending it part-time?

OLDHAM: Yes, when I started attending it was fully integrated. There were no problems.

DW: And once you got finished with your basic degree, you came back to Bowling Green and where did you teach school?

OLDHAM: When I graduated from St. Augustine, I came back to Bowling Green and I started teaching at High Street High School here in the city, which was an all-black school. And of course, I remained there teaching for about nine to ten years. And I continued, well, I left for a short period of time to go to the service for about sixteen months and I came back. And I remained at High Street 12:00for about nine years as a teacher. And then they closed the high school. And then, we had approximately thirty some teachers at, at High Street, black teachers, and when they closed the high school, all of those teachers lost their jobs, except about six. Six of us were allowed to go to Bowling Green High School to teach and the others lost their jobs and had to leave, had to leave the state of Kentucky. So, I spent a few years at Bowling Green High School teaching. And then later on I was able to come back to High Street Elementary School as principal. And I remained there as principal for about nine years. And then we closed the school in 1974. And then I went to Bowling Green Junior High 13:00and worked as a curriculum director for two years. Then I finally went to the central office and worked as director of Pupil Personnel for the next seventeen years until I retired.

DW: Tell me a little bit about Bowling Green, maybe you can talk about the school system or you can talk about the community, but what was Bowling Green like in terms of race relations, you know, before integration and maybe immediately after?

OLDHAM: During segregation, it was segregated. You might say blacks knew their place. They stayed in their place. They had a certain part of town that we lived in. Most of the accommodations were segregated during my boyhood days. Being a 14:00boy though, you tried to overstep your boundaries to try certain things like F.W. Woolworth had an all-colored fountain, you know. You're not supposed to go sit at the fountain, but you know how you do as a kid, you slip and you go to the fountain just to see what it was all about.

DW: Was it an all-colored fountain or all-white fountain?

OLDHAM: All-white fountain, I'm sorry, all-white fountain. But you would go to try and see, see what it's all about or they would have a water fountain that colored couldn't drink from, you know. And you'd try it to see what the water is going to taste like. You'd do these kind of crazy things. But a, I don't remember anything that was historical that was happening. Like I said, you try to stay in your place and you try not to cause any problems. But it was segregated, very few jobs for blacks. The only jobs that blacks had in our city were domestic jobs for the women. Several of the men worked on the railroad. The 15:00rest of them were farmers. And it was very bad, just no jobs. But we socialized together, even though we were segregated. My father worked on the railroad. And we lived in a little community with black men and white men, white families, we all lived right there together. It was just one family. So, it was tough, you knew your place, but you learned to adjust to it.

DW: As Bowling Green became desegregated, was that done easily, you think?

OLDHAM: No it wasn't. It wasn't done easily at all. Bowling Green was one of the few cities and the counties that were forced to integrate their schools. They 16:00didn't do it freely. Warren County schools integrated freely. I guess as result of what they saw took place in the, you know, in the city school. But it wasn't done freely and there was no hostility, there was no fighting over it, no rioting, nothing like this. But you just weren't open, your, their arms weren't open saying "Hey, we're desegregating, come to us." They didn't do that. They had to be forced to do it. And I think as a result, we still see some scars today. It's not, it's not perfect. It's a Southern border city. And there are still vestiges of segregation undercurrent that's, you know, that is going on today. And what I mean in lending money and things of this nature. You know you still can't you can't borrow money, you can borrow money but you can't get it on 17:00the same terms that the white get it on. You got to have more backing for your money than they have and if one black fails over here, they use it to hold the other blacks down. "Can't let you have this because John didn't pay his bill." Well, John doesn't have anything, you know, to do with me. So, we still see that in Bowling Green. I hate to say it, but it's still here.

DW: Uh-huh. You were talking about the school, Bowling Green system being forced. And in 1963 a U.S. District Court ordered the schools to desegregate. Why did the court have to tell them, do you think that was, you know who is it that was reluctant to desegregate here? Was it the administration, the school administration? Was it the community in general and then the administration wanted to do what the community wanted? How, why do you feel that the board was 18:00so reluctant to desegregate?

OLDHAM: I think it was just a good ole boy attitude. I think those who were in charge used as an excuse that the people didn't want it to happen and so they didn't, they didn't do it freely. But I think it was just, was just that attitude of being that Southern vestige, of being a Southern city. They just weren't ready to openly, you know, to receive, to receive blacks. I think the one thing after they were forced to desegregate, the one thing that probably made the school system finally come over. It's a shame to say, but it's the truth, was athletics. The outstanding black teams that we had at High Street continued to, beating up on the white, all-white teams.

DW: Was that the routine once the black schools would play the white schools, was that--

OLDHAM: That was routine.

DW: In the early Sixties we are talking about?

OLDHAM: In the early Sixties these teams were beating up on the white teams. And, of course, everybody wanted to win, so the attitude was, "Hey if we take them, we get their athletes." So I think that's why the schools really were desegregated to get the athletes to start playing on the white teams. Particularly in Bowling Green. I think that did it. Not necessarily in Warren County, but in Bowling Green that was the thing.

DW: Were there any, before the suit itself, do you know of any steps or action that was taken to try to desegregate before an actual court action?

OLDHAM: I don't know of any. I know a few steps on the part of blacks who wanted to go. They took some actions. NAACP had applied pressure to try to get the 20:00school system to accept them. And they would not. They were going to wait until the last, last minute until they had to do it. Like I say, I think the sports is the thing that really did it.

DW: So, when High Street closed, there was a '63 court order, and I think that High Street closed that very next fall?

OLDHAM: High Street, no, High Street finally closed in 19--, if I'm not mistaken, the last class--- they sort of gave, when the court order came out. They sort of made it volunteer, that if some of the students wanted to come to the, Bowling Green High School, to the all-white school, voluntarily, they could come. And of course, some of our students did go. But like I said previously because of the athletics and the athletes, two years later, by 1965, the Bowling 21:00Green Board of Education closed the all-black school and required all students to, all high school students to come to Bowling Green High School, and some of the elementary schools were, were desegregated. Particularly one school, Parker Bennett, which was predominately, about fifty-fifty with back and white. And Porter Gray may have, may have received a very low percentage, one percent of the students out of High Street to go to that elementary school. But the other schools were still pretty much segregated.

DW: Do you feel that the black community wanted to integrate before the school board was forced to or do you think that was kind a loud minority of the black community?

OLDHAM: I don't think the majority of the black community wanted to integrate, 22:00no. I think they wanted to keep their school. They wanted to keep their situation the way it was. It was a good school.

DW: Hm-hmm.

OLDHAM: And they were happy with the school. And the school was putting out good, you know, good people. The product was good. And the quality of teachers were outstanding. And I guess that's one thing that's shocking with me, I can say, I was a teacher at the time. And they used to tell us the story about over the fence the grass is greener. You go to Bowling Green High School and you got all and you got this and you got that, but when we integrated schools, the high school in particular. And I went to the high school as a teacher and I taught science. And you can't teach science out of a briefcase. You can't teach science 23:00appropriately, I should say, going to five different classrooms during the day. But that's what I had to do. At High Street we had science labs, well equipped.

DW: But you had to float, once you got to, as a teacher, you had to float at High Street, at Bowling Green High because you were the new kid on the block?

OLDHAM: New kid on the block. You had to do all this floating you know.

DW: Right. Float from room to room.

OLDHAM: And on top of that, you didn't have the materials to work with.

DW: Because you were the new kid on the block or because that building didn't have materials?

OLDHAM: They didn't have the materials.

DW: School-wide?

OLDHAM: School-wide.

DW: Okay.

OLDHAM: Like I said you say the grass is greener, but you don't know until you, until you get there. And then the thing that shocks you, you, they backed the moving van up at High Street, loaded it down with our equipment. We though it 24:00was our equipment, but it was the school system's equipment, loaded it down in the vans, carried it to the white school. The white professors are using it, but we still don't, we don't have it. We don't have anything, you know. So you see, hey, you know, we could see, we're not bad. But I don't know if the patrons, the black patrons ever knew the difference, you know. Whether they thought they were going to get more or not, but we, we just didn't have it. There were a lot of inequities. And they continued even after desegregation. And many of those things today, you look at them and they still exist when you compare the schools.

DW: What are some of these inequities you are talking about?

OLDHAM: Well, like the equipment, classrooms, even though you have, but see when I came along back in the Fifties, you didn't have what Kentucky called the 25:00minimum foundation program where it, where there was going to be a minimum education provided for every child in the state of Kentucky. And when I tell people this they don't believe it. There was a separate curriculum for blacks and there was a curriculum for whites. There was a pay scale for black teachers and a pay scale for white teachers.

DW: Even once you were working as a teacher?

OLDHAML: When I was working as a teacher in nineteen and fifty-five. There were two pay scales. And that's why you wanted the, that's why you wanted desegregation to make things equal. And then like I said the state of Kentucky passed the minimum foundation program where they said hey, each child is worth so much money and there is going to be a minimum provided for everything. Then everything went on the same level. Black teachers then got a pay raise because 26:00you couldn't pay them one thing and pay the whites something else.

DW: When did this happen roughly?

OLDHAM: That happened roughly in 1957. 1957, '56-'57. When they come up with the minimum, minimum foundation. So it's just like KERA today, you know. It's just another one of those steps in the evolution of education in the state of Kentucky. And it was a good step.

DW: Well, I guess what we really should get to is when you came over, and you've explained some of it, but when you came over to Bowling Green High after you had been teaching at an all-black school, you know, what was that experience like? Maybe your first day working that school year when you were transferred. Do you recall that?

OLDHAM: It was just, to me it was just another day. It was, like I said, there was about six of us that went to the school. We didn't go afraid. We were well 27:00prepared. We knew, you know, we could do the job. It was just a bigger school. It was a crowded school. Very congested between classes, it was just so crowded, you know. And we, we just weren't used to that, but it was, it was no problem. The students were very receptive. The administration was very receptive. The teaching staff was so-so. And just, that's normal, you know.

DW: Some welcomed you, some didn't. That kind of thing?

OLDHAM: Yeah, some did. But for the most part, the administration, like I said, was very receptive. The board of education was very supportive. So there was no, no problem. The only difference as I mentioned was, being able to have your own 28:00classroom at one place and then you're floating in another place. That made a difference. But a--

DW: Did all six teacher float? I'm guessing that all six black teachers that came.

OLDHAM: No, not all of them, no. Some of our teachers, like those who taught English, they had, some of them had a room. But I can remember a gentleman who taught Industrial Arts at High Street had this beautiful Industrial Art department. And when you went to Bowling Green High School, he was given a room that used to be a coal den, where they stored the coal to stoke the furnace. Now I'm not saying they gave it to him because he was black, but that's, that was his room. So when you compare that with what you had--

DW: It was not an improvement, was it?

OLDHAM: No, no. No improvement at all.

DW: How did the community regard the people that were involved in that 1963 29:00suit? You may, I know you weren't closely involved with that, but you know, was there any strong feelings expressed by the community, black or white community, for a, for example, James Crumlin, he was the NAACP lawyer who kind of led the action?

OLDHAM: The only thing I can remember that a, most blacks when that decision came down, came down out of the court, they were very jubilant They were very pleased. They were glad that this had taken place because a, it was supposed to be another, supposed to be a big step in their life and, of course, a big step in the lives of their children. So they were very happy, happy for it. I don't 30:00recall any, any disturbance on behalf of the Afro-Americans. They were, they were glad that it took place. I don't recall any disturbance on the behalf of the whites. They knew they had to do it because there was a federal order to do it. So they did it. So I think everybody accepted it.

DW: And I think you have probably answered this too, but how do you think that this change has affected education in Bowling Green on the whole?

OLDHAM: Well, I think that on the whole it improved education. If nothing, it allowed whites and blacks to come together in a school setting. Like I said, most of our communities that, during those days were not as segregated as they are today because Bowling Green wasn't a big place. And if you had blacks living here, you had whites living there. So they weren't scattered. Today they're 31:00scattered, so they're segregated. But back in those days--

END OF INTERVIEW