Oral history interview with Carolyn Suezette Brown Roney, 2011 [text/print transcript]

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THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT GREENSBORO
INSTITUTIONAL MEMORY COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Carolyn Suezette Brown Roney
INTERVIEWER: Hermann Trojanowski
DATE: October 10, 2011
HT: Mrs. Roney, if you‟d give me your name, we will use that as a test as well.
SR: My name is Carolyn Suezette Brown Roney.
HT: Today is October 10, 2011. I‟m in Davidsonville, Maryland with Mrs. Carolyn Roney and we‟re here to conduct an oral history interview for the African American Institutional Memory Project, [which is part of The University of North Carolina at Greensboro Institutional Memory Collection]. Mrs. Roney, thank you so much for seeing me this beautiful autumn day.
SR: You‟re very welcome. I‟m delighted to do it.
HT: Great. All right, let‟s get started by my asking you something about your background: when and where you were born and that sort of thing.
SR: Well, I was born in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Do you want the date and the year? [laughs]
HT: That would be wonderful if you want to tell me. If not, okay.
SR: I don‟t mind. I don‟t mind. July 24, 1946 and I know that sounds a little ancient but it is what it is. I am—I was the second child that was born to my parents. My parents are and were: my father, Joseph Cephus Brown—he is now deceased; and my mother, Vera James Brown, and she is about to turn ninety-two years old. My sister, Elaine Brown Murrell is two and a half years older than me; and then three years after my birth, my brother, Joseph Ivan Brown was born; and three years after his birth, my brother William Clinton Brown was born. And being true southern folks we all use our middle names: Elaine, Suezette, Ivan and Clinton.
HT: So you go by Suezette and not Carolyn.
SR: Yes, that is correct. I use Carolyn for official things when I have to sign documents and at work when I was employed, but socially speaking I am Suezette or Sue.
HT: All right. And what did your parents do? 2
SR: Both my parents were school teachers and eventually my father became an elementary school principal and my mother graduated from the first grade classroom where she taught first grade for thirty-odd years. And then she became a reading specialist. She was actually a reading specialist all along but the county—they worked in Greene County, North Carolina—and the Board of Education finally realized that she was a specialist in the first grade so they took her out of the classroom and gave her own office and special students would come to her for help in reading. Actually, my mother taught three of the four of us first grade, everybody except my baby brother, Clinton.
HT: And how did that work out?
SR: Extremely well, especially for me because I was an inquisitive child and I loved to learn. I tried to start school when I was five years old and the year I turned five was the year North Carolina instituted the law that said that said you must be six to go to first grade. My mother and father were teaching at the local school and I remember—even at that age—I remember walking—slipping away from the babysitter and walking out to the school so that I could be in first grade and my mother just dutifully just picking me up and putting me back in the car—putting me in the car and taking me back home. “No, you cannot go to school, the law says.” But what happened was I used to, as much as I could, I would read everything I could find and I loved learning. And we were living in Greene County at that time in a little town called Walstonburg [North Carolina]. Nobody‟s ever heard of it, I‟m sure. But the summer between—after I turned six, we moved to Farmville, North Carolina. That was town for us because before we were living down in a place called Ditch Bank Lane, sort of similar to my pathway to come to my house now: long and then you turn a curve and go some more and then you‟d finally reach the house. Then we moved to town in Farmville, North Carolina when I turned six so—but I did go—but my mother did teach me first grade when I turned six. So by that—after first grade, we moved to Farmville and I went to second grade and after about a month in second grade, the teacher contacted my mother and said, “This is not working. She is disrupting my classroom. Everything I am teaching she already knows. I have to get her out of my classroom, so let‟s move her to third grade and see how she works out over there. Maybe she‟ll behave herself and stop talking so much or whatever.”
And then the third grade teacher and my mother coordinated with each other and they kept tabs on me and I did well in third grade so that‟s how I ended up graduating one year early. They wouldn‟t let me start at five. The state of North Carolina wouldn‟t let me start at five but I caught up to myself anyway. I always think that is pretty humorous.
HT: That is funny. So where did you go to high school?
SR: At that time in Farmville, North Carolina there was one school for black students, H.B. Sugg High School, so I started in second/third grade and I graduated from H.B. Sugg High School.
HT: Is that S-U-G-G?
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SR: S-U-G-G-S.
HT: S
SR: No, no “S” on the end. H.B.Sugg.
HT: Okay. And do you recall what your favorite subjects were?
SR: Probably reading. I just loved to read at that time. English—I was, you know—anything to do with reading and comprehension and things like that.
HT: And you probably graduated about 1964, maybe?
SR: ‟63.
HT: ‟63. And did you always think you were going to go to college?
SR: Oh, there was no question in my family [laughs]; absolutely, absolutely. From the time before I could even remember that I was talking, I had told my family that I was going to go to college and that I was going to go to medical school and that I was going to be a doctor. And then I have a cousin who is about ten years older than me and I was going to be just like my cousin Rupert. I was going to be a doctor.
HT: Medical doctor?
SR: Medical doctor.
HT: And what happened?
SR: [laughs] You‟re jumping ahead of the story.
HT: I‟m sorry.
SR: That‟s all right, I will tell you what happened. When I went to UNCG [The University of North Carolina at Greensboro], I did major in biology and I was headed towards medical school even at that time and then—It has to do with the, at that time, the UNCG Junior Ring Dance and that‟s where I met my husband and my attention was sort of diverted. But—
HT: We‟ll get back to that later.
SR: Okay.
HT: Okay, that will be fine. All right, why did you choose UNCG? Did you think of other schools?
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SR: Initially I was going to follow my cousin and go to Hampton University. And I did apply there and I was accepted; however, you have to remember now, my parents had four kids: my sister, two years older than me was—Let me interject: when she started school, there were no laws in North Carolina about what age you have to be and she actually started school when she was four because my mother would babysit her sometimes in the class, her first grade classroom. Just as an aside story, my sister said to her one day after class, “I can read that.” My mother said, “You can?” and whatever it was, she read it perfectly because she had been in the corner being babysat but she was also paying attention. And so mom said, “Okay. Well, tomorrow when I have reading class, you just bring your little chair up here, too and you can be in on the class.” And then by the time the end of school year came, Elaine—my sister Elaine—knew as much as the rest of the little kids in there [who were] two years older than her. And so she passed along to second grade until the second grade teacher, said, “If she doesn‟t work out, I‟ll just send her back.” She worked out, she worked out, and she worked out so she graduated two years ahead of the normal grade level. And so anyway, I say all that to say this: my sister Elaine—when I graduated—my sister Elaine was then a rising senior at Bennett College in Greensboro and even though I really had my heart set on going to Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia, I was also very practical. With four kids in the family and on schoolteachers‟ salaries—And I don‟t know if you know what they were way back in the day but not that much. You had a lot of respect but not a lot of money.
HT: That‟s still true.
SR: [laughter] I don‟t know about the respect part now; sometimes I wonder about that. But anyway I was thinking now that‟s going to be a real financial burden on them because there will be two of us in college and two brothers coming behind me that will need to go to college. And my parents are doing all that they can plus they had elderly parents at that time and if I go to Hampton, that‟s out-of-state tuition. So let‟s see, let me think about what I can do, perhaps in North Carolina, instead. And I thought for two seconds about going to [North Carolina] A&T [State University] but I didn‟t want to go there because I knew home people, you know, home students who had gone there and I wanted something different. I wanted to go to a college where I was going to be making a start by myself, not dependent on friends or this—you know. I didn‟t particularly care about the networking thing at that time, you know. I‟m “Miss Independent.” [laughs] So anyway, I rejected A&T. I wanted a strong science department, too, so after looking at a couple of places I thought about NC State [North Carolina State University]—Where is that, Raleigh?
HT: Yes, Raleigh.
SR: [NC] State, Saint Aug. [Saint Augustine‟s College] never made the list. So then one of my teachers, I think it was my history—no, my math teacher—said to me “Well, have you ever thought about UNCG. I understand they‟re accepting blacks now, you know. Might be something a little different for you.” So I thought about it and I said, “Well.” And I looked into the program and they seemed to have the strong science section, particularly biology and biochemistry and all 5
those kinds of things that I would need to get into medical school. So I said, “Well, this might be a growing experience so why not. I‟ll at least apply.” And I applied and I was accepted. I just assumed anybody that applied would be accepted. I doubt it, but I‟m not sure why I was accepted but I was accepted. And I thought about the tuition at UNCG; tuition at Hampton plus all out-of-state fees and I said, “Okay, I can swing this. I can go to—and if I don‟t like it, you know, I can always transfer in two years.” As a matter of fact, the more I thought about it I was actually planning to go to Chapel Hill, UNC-Chapel Hill [the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill], after two years but I never—but then I nixed that idea later on.
HT: Now when you applied and were first accepted, it was still Woman‟s College.
SR: Woman‟s College of the University of North Carolina.
HT: Right, because the change happened in ‟63 and the first men came in the fall of ‟64 so you were right on that cusp, so to speak. Did you have any thoughts about men coming with Woman‟s College traditions?
SR: I was going to be a bachelorette all my life. I was never going to get married. That was the least of my worries. [laughter] Seriously. I tell you, when Mr. Clensy Roney came into my life, my whole world went upside down.
HT: Oh, my goodness. Well, tell me about your first day on campus at what was then Woman‟s College.
SR: You‟ll have to back up just a little bit here. “Miss Self-sufficient, Miss Independent, I can tackle any new thing that you throw at me.” Oh, I had knots in my stomach on my way to UNCG and was, “Oh, my gosh, what have I done?”
HT: Now did your parents take you?
SR: My mom. My mom took me because I think elementary schools started in August—mid- to early mid-August to late August—and I think my first day was either late August or early September so only one of them could get off from work and of course my brothers were still in school. My sister was at Bennett so my mother took me. At first she was initially thinking about taking me—sending me on the bus because I‟m so independent, always have been, and then she—At the last minute she thought better of that idea and said, “Maybe I‟d better take this child and see where I‟m sending her.”
HT: Now had you been on campus prior—
ST: No. I had not; never seen the campus.
HT: But you‟d been to Greensboro I guess.
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SR: I had been to Greensboro because my sister was at Bennett and we would go to a few functions at her school.
HT: Because Farmville is quite a distance from—
SR: At that time, before interstates, it would take four, four and a half hours to get there.
HT: Because it‟s way east.
SR: Yes, and [Interstate] 85, as we now know it, didn‟t exist. The number may have been the same but it was a two-lane road up and down the rolling hills which meant you could never pass anybody because either the car was too slow going up the hill or there was inevitably somebody meeting you when you were going down the hill and you had a little more momentum. Yes, that was a long ride. And after the initial trip there, most of the trips home were—except for the one at the end of the school year—were by bus and you don‟t want to go there. [laughter] You do not want to go there.
HT: So you said on your way up to school.
SR: I was getting a little, just slightly apprehensive. No, I take that back; I was very apprehensive.
HT: You were—what?—sixteen, seventeen?
SR: I was sixteen.
HT: Sixteen. That‟s very young.
SR: Yeah, well, you know. I was six—Let me see, was I sixteen or seventeen? I was seventeen because most people are eighteen the summer they graduate, so I was eighteen—I was seventeen. I was seventeen. That‟s what I was; I was seventeen.
HT: That‟s still very, very young.
SR: Well, but the children grew up a lot faster then than they do now because with working—two working parents—even while I was in high school I sort of took charge of the house, you know, with the cooking and the cleaning, The cooking especially; I became the chief cook in my house from the time I was in ninth grade in high school until I graduated.
HT: So when you got to campus, what was your reaction?
SR: Well, I sort of looked around and said, “Well, I guess this is it” and they directed all of us, the black students, to Coit Hall. I think it‟s still there.
HT: Yes, it is.
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SR: And that was the place to go for black students at that time. You know, I didn‟t know any of this. I didn‟t know anybody who had been there; didn‟t know anybody who had even considered it and rejected it so this was all new territory for me, so, but I had my—They had sent me the paper saying what I should bring and where I should report when I first got there so I got to Coit Hall and I had no idea who the roommate was going to be or anything so this was all going to be very, very interesting, to say the least. But what they did at that time in my class, they admitted exactly twelve hundred students and exactly twelve black students. This is what I found out after I got there.
HT: Okay.
SR: The class before me—I don‟t think they had quite as many students, maybe a thousand students, and exactly six black students. The class after me, they had something like fifteen hundred students and exactly eighteen black students, so you see the pattern there? They were gradually acclimating the campus to the introduction of black students and I don‟t know who did the picking—I never did bother to check that out—but whoever it was did a pretty good job because we were all somewhat independent-minded. We weren‟t needy people. You know some college students, first time away from home and you‟re sniveling in the corner and you don‟t know what to do. None of us were like that. We were all fairly self-assured and we could take care of ourselves. We didn‟t need to go running off to mama or somebody when the first person looked at you a little as if to say, “Why are you here?”
HT: Do you recall who your roommate was during freshman year?
SR: Oh, yes. Yvonne Cheek Johnson. She was my roommate.
HT: She lives in Minnesota now.
SR: I think so. We‟ve kind of—We‟ve lost touch a little bit.
HT: I‟ve got her address.
SR: Yes, okay. She was a music major; I was a biology major and what they did was—The twelve of us they put us all on the first floor in Coit. I can remember it now. Facing the dorm, left side, right side, we were all on the right side on the first floor within talking distance of each other and that was actually a good thing because we got to know each other, just in case we needed support from each other.
HT: So all of the freshmen were in Coit. What about—
SR: That was the freshman dorm at that time.
HT: And what about the upperclassmen? They were scattered in other dorms?
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SR: They were in other dorms. Yes. But for that initial invitation, fresh out of high school, coming to college—You know that, in and of itself, can be a bit of a traumatic experience for some people. But to be at a fairly recently integrated school; that was another hurdle, if you will, to add to a freshman‟s back so somebody had the presence of mind to put us all on the same floor just in case we needed some moral support or to say “You‟re not in this alone,” kind of thing. So I remember who—Sara Bryan was across the hall from us and her roommate, Willine Carr, who is—lives in [Washington] DC now.
HT: And what were your favorite subjects during your freshman year? Do you recall [what your favorite subjects were] throughout your college career?
SR: Well, I had a goal in mind when I went there, remember. I was going eventually on to medical school so I immediately signed up for the biology class, chemistry class. I had to take a foreign language. Well, I had taken French in high school. I wanted to try something new so I took German. That was my worst class. I tell you that—I do not have an affinity for languages. Starting from the bottom, that was my worst because I just don‟t care for languages. But I enjoyed the biology and—what else did I take that freshman—English. I‟ve always enjoyed English and writing and things like that—literature. I still have some of my freshman literature books as a matter of fact, upstairs. So those were my favorites. And of course, I always was—My outlet has always been music so I was in Glee Club. I was in Glee Club all four years; not the choir which was for the music majors, but Glee Club which was the fun part.
HT: Sort of like the “Glee” on TV. [laughter]
SR: I don‟t watch that so I don‟t know.
HT: Okay. Oh, goodness. And I guess biology turned out to be your major after all.
SR: Yes. Biology was my major.
HT: Okay. And did you enjoy school?
SR: I did, but that first year was definitely a transition period for me because in high school—I won‟t say it was a piece of cake but that it was fairly easy for me. I got all As all the time with some effort but, you know, I didn‟t burn the midnight oil every night but—And I graduated valedictorian of my class in high school. And then to go to UNCG to just be one of four hundred people in a lecture hall, no interaction with the teacher or most other students, to tell you the truth, because there were so many people there compared to my—You have to understand; my high school class, there were only sixty-three of us in the high school class. And to go from a class of sixty-three to a class of twelve hundred—in just my class, not to mention the other three classes also on campus: quite a change and so that—And then all the A‟s that came relatively easily didn‟t come relatively easily in college. I had to read and learn how to study at that level. So I had—I won‟t say they were difficulties—but I had challenges in that area. Does that make sense? 9
HT: It does, it really does. Yes. I‟ve heard other students say the same thing. That it‟s such a change from high school to college. Well, what did you do for fun other than being a member of the Glee Club?
SR: That was pretty much it. [laughter] I was not a big-whiz player, you know, and I wasn‟t particularly into sports. UNCG—At that time you had to take four semesters of PE [physical education] but they weren‟t just exercise, they were—One semester I did swimming; another semester I did bowling but I was so bad at the bowling thing—I probably—I was the only student in my class because I‟m not athletically inclined—I was the only student in the class that actually was taken out in the hallway by the teacher to just practice throwing the ball down the hallway, the long hallway. It was sort of remedial help in bowling, if you will. But then I also—The swimming. I had always wanted to learn because in my town where I grew up, you know, there was the white swimming pool and there was nothing for blacks and so I said, “Well, I would like to learn how to swim one day” And once I took the swimming class at UNCG, I realized why it never really, really bothered me: I don‟t like water. I don‟t like to get my face wet. You can‟t take a swimming class without getting your face wet so I tolerated—I endured that one for a semester. The one PE class I did take was—that I really, really enjoyed—was square dancing. I loved the square dancing class and I was pretty good at that. And what was the other one that I took; was it volleyball or some other kind of ball? And again, my non-athletic ability came shining through there.
HT: Right. But you—
SR: But those kinds of classes were sort of fun but I didn‟t do a lot of hanging out with the people because I had so many labs. I had biology labs and I—had chemistry labs. And I had Glee Club and by the time you finish all of that and get a little studying on the side, there just wasn‟t many more hours in the day.
HT: Did you ever go downtown?
SR: With a group of girls, I would go down occasionally but see, I didn‟t have a lot of money—extra money for shopping—so what‟s the point of going downtown if you don‟t have—I didn‟t do the clubbing scene, didn‟t do that. Once in a while I would go over to see my sister at Bennett but she was a senior and I‟m a freshman, you know, so what do we have in common? I‟m just teasing about that because my family is a great family but still she was just very busy with her senior year activities and again, my schedule was pretty full with what I was doing. Of course, now occasionally I would just sort of hang out with the girls in the dorm at night, just talking—chatting about how this went in your day and that went in their day. But I was never one to hang out all night long playing cards like some of my friends did.
HT: Well, how about hanging out at Elliott University Center. It was called Elliott Hall at that time.
SR: It was there but I did more hanging out at the library than I did at Elliott. [laughs] 10
HT: That would be Jackson Library.
SR: Yes. I don‟t remember. I remember Elliott Hall. I don‟t remember the name of the library.
HT: You said earlier that you lived during your freshman year at Coit Hall. Did you—I assume you moved to various other dorms over the years—
SR: Yes. Well, after fresh—That was your initiation dorm for the black students and after that I moved to Moore—Moore Hall, room 224, second floor—and I was in that particular room for three years.
HT: How did that happen?
SR: I don‟t know but that‟s where I was.
HT: Did you have the same roommate all—
SR: No. Let me see: sophomore year, Cheryl White was my roommate; and then after that, Cynthia Inman, Cynthia Farrell Inman, the one that you‟re going to talk to? Yeah. She and I became roommates. Cynthia‟s—In many ways she and I have the same—some personality traits that are similar. Because she‟s two years—two classes behind me. Let me see; were we roommates two years or one year? I can‟t remember. I was thinking it was two. Maybe she was only one year behind me. Now you‟ve piqued my curiosity. Seems like we were there for two years. [sound of shuffling pages]
[recording paused]
SR: Okay, got it.
HT: Okay. Well, we were talking about resident halls when we stopped earlier. How about the dining hall? What are your memories of the dining hall?
SR: The lines, but they moved fairly quickly and some people complained about the food but it wasn‟t that bad. Some of it was, in many ways, like home cooking so it really wasn‟t that bad and I had no problems with it. But at that time, you paid your room and board. My freshman year I remember my parents paid nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars exactly and that was for my tuition and my room and board. Nine Hundred and ninety-nine dollars my freshman year. It went up a little bit each year after that. At that time it seemed like a lot of money. But that “board” wasn‟t like it is today at some colleges where you‟re given a book of meal tickets. There were no tickets; you just went through the line. I guess it was the honor system because they just assumed that if you were in the line you had paid your room and board.
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HT: But I‟m sure some people didn‟t eat at all or skipped a meal and that sort of—
SR: Yes, some of the more persnickety people would not go there. You know, they had extra money and they would go down to the little place on the corner. There were two corners: there was one you had to walk past the library, down the steps and on down there where the movie theater was.
HT: On Tate Street.
SR: Tate, yes. And—
HT: That place was called “The Corner” on the corner.
SR: Yes. And then there was the ice cream parlor.
HT: Yum-Yum.
SR: Yum-Yum. Yes. And when you had an extra ten cents you could go down there and get an ice cream cone.
HT: Yum-Yum is still in existence. It has moved across the street.
SR: Really?
HT: Yes. When they built—In the 1970s the university built a new administration building and so they bought the Yum-Yum building and so Yum-Yum's moved across the street but it‟s still there.
SR: It‟s still there?
HT: And they still serve wonderful ice cream and I‟ve never eaten one of the hot dogs but they‟re famous for that.
SR: Yeah. That‟s true. But I had no problems with the food and that was usually—I didn‟t always eat three meals a day because if I had a choice of sleeping in or getting up to going to breakfast, I usually slept in. But I had a lot of—I also had a lot of early classes, like eight o‟clock classes.
HT: Did you have Saturday classes?
SR: Very, very rarely. I made a point of trying to get my things scheduled Monday, Wednesday—I mean Monday through Friday. Seems like freshman and sophomore years I may have had Saturday classes—early Saturday classes—but by the time I became a senior I did not.
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HT: Well, earlier when we had the tape recorder off we were talking about class jackets. What do you recall about your class jacket tradition?
SR: I thought that was a very neat tradition. I liked that. It gave you sort of a sense of belonging, a sense of identity and when you wore your—When people were wearing their jackets, you knew exactly which class they were part of.
HT: Well, you wore them everywhere just about; is that correct?
SR: During the right time of the year because it—I think it was—Mine was kind of wool.
HT: Yes, I think they were all wool.
SR: Yes. I didn‟t know if they had changed them or anything. But, you know, when we first got there in late August or early September, sometimes it was a little too warm for them. And by the time spring came, it was definitely too warm. In the dead of winter in Greensboro, when we would get the two feet of snow—I won‟t say that, at least a foot of snow—you might wear it under a coat or something but it was not unusual to see somebody, at least one or two people a day if not more, wearing that class jacket because it was a sense of pride. The same thing about the rings. I think most of us who got the class rings actually wore them.
HT: And did you get the class rings your senior year?
SR: No, junior year.
HT: Junior year.
SR: Beginning of junior year and that‟s when there was a big formal dance to commemorate the event.
HT: Okay. Well, tell me about that.
SR: [laughs] That‟s where I met my husband. That‟s how I met my husband because I was going merrily along—you know, freshman and sophomore years. By the time I hit sophomore year I was more in tune with how this whole college thing worked. My grades improved and you get into a routine or a pattern, if you will: class today, study hall, Glee Club, you know, a little bit of socializing and whatnot. And so then at the beginning of junior year we got our rings and, as I said, in order to commemorate the event, there was always the Grand Junior Ring Dance which was a formal affair. Well, I decided I wanted to go to that affair but I didn‟t have a boyfriend; didn‟t know any homeboys over at A&T that I wanted to go with so I enlisted the help of some upper classmen. One of them was Jean that I mentioned to you before and her roommate (I can‟t remember who her roommate was) to find me a blind date because they were a lot more sociable than I was and they knew a lot more people than I did. So I said, “I want to go to the ring dance and 13
I don‟t want to go with anybody that I know. So can you guys help me out? Can you find me a date?” “Oh, sure. Sure.”
So I think initially they found a fellow they knew who went to Winston-Salem who had agreed to come over and take me to this dance. The fact that it was formal meant that you had to have somebody who could either rent a tux or something, you know, and had transportation. Transportation would be nice, especially if they were coming from somewhere else. So, and I said, “Well, I‟m not going to invest a lot in this because I‟m not looking for a boyfriend or a husband or anything. I just want to go to this one dance. Just something different.”
And so I borrowed a dress from somebody; I borrowed shoes from somebody; I borrowed a handbag from somebody. [laughs] I‟m not going to invest a lot in this affair. I just want to go. And so, I had asked them to find me the date so I was all set. The morning of the dance, I‟ll never forget—or maybe it wasn‟t even morning; it was lunchtime—I had gone to the dining hall to have lunch and Jean said to me: “What we had planned didn‟t really work out but don‟t worry. You‟re covered. Everything‟s cool. Everything‟s good, so your date will be there.” I didn‟t really pay a lot of attention to it. All I heard was “Okay, it‟s all worked out. You‟ll have your date there at the appropriate time.”
What I found out later was the fellow that they had initially contacted, who had agreed to come, had called them the morning of the dance and said, “I‟m not coming. I don‟t know what kind of scab you have waiting for me; I am not coming.” And there they were, feeling very obligated to me, you know, because they had promised that they were going to do this for me. And so they went running over to A&T to Scott Hall, which was the upper classmen dorm over there—I think it was Scott, whatever that hall was, the biggest dorm, it was a huge dorm for upper classmen, guys, and many of the fellows at A&T belong to—go to—are involved in ROTC and they knew that if you are in ROTC, you have a uniform. The uniform could serve as a formal—as formal attire so they stood in the lobby of that dorm. Yes, they did! And they asked fellow after fellow, you know, “Are you in ROTC? Would you like to take a nice girl out on a date tonight, a formal dance for which you‟d have to wear your uniform?” And I don‟t know how many people rejected them because they won‟t tell me to this day but they finally were talking to a friend of my—the brother of a friend of my present husband. He came in and he was talking to them—this friend was talking to the girls and my husband, Clensy, came in. The brother of my husband‟s friend was trying to get away from them but he didn‟t want to be totally rude so he was looking for a good excuse. He saw Clensy come in and he said, “Hey Clensy, come over here. These girls want to meet you.” Well now, what self-respecting young man is going to turn down an opportunity to meet some nice-looking young women? So Clensy went over.
And as soon as Clensy was in their vicinity, the friends of the brother say, “I‟ve got to go. I‟ve got a class coming up.” He hightailed it up stairs; found Clensy‟s friend: he and his brother and all the other buddies that my husband palled around with; told them what was going on downstairs and they were all just laughing their heads off [about] how the friend had gotten out of the situation and left Clensy there in the snare of these girls. So they explained the situation to Clensy: this nice girl that they knew over at UNCG wanted to go to this formal dance tonight and the fellow they had lined up had 14
backed out at the last minute—something came up at the last minute, they probably said—and would he please, please, please agree to take her. And Clensy‟s first reaction, like any self-respecting young man, was “No, I can‟t do it. I‟m busy.” So they said to him, “What have you got; what do you have to do; what are you doing?” He‟s not a liar so he says” Uh, uh.” [laughs] He couldn‟t come up with a lie fast enough. “You don‟t have anything to do. Just this one time. You never have to see her again. Just this one time. Please, please, please.” Well, he‟s a Christian. He‟s—My husband has the gift of “helps.” If somebody is in trouble, you call Clensy and he will help you out. And he finally—they twisted the arm just the right way so, bottom line is he said okay, I‟ll help.” And they gave him the appointed time and, you know, what he had to do and then he says okay. “And you won‟t back out?” “No, I won‟t back out.” Because he‟s also a man of his word. So he went upstairs and there in the hallway was this brother and his good buddy, you know, the friend and his roommate and couple of other guys who all palled around together, ROTC guys, you know. “Clensy, what are you doing tonight?” Well, I promised these girls I‟d take this girl out” and they all rolled in the floor—in the hallway, according to what he tells me—just laughing their heads off. “She‟s a bear. You have no idea what you‟ve gotten yourself into.” So right now he‟s feeling about this tall, you know. And then, [being] a man of his word, he actually went down to the flower shop and bought a little corsage—cheapest one he could find, something like five dollars or something—and he was all prepared and he actually walked over to UNCG because he didn‟t have a car—It was junior year for him also so he didn‟t have a car. So I don‟t know if you know the distance: it‟s a mile from A&T to the middle of town and it‟s a mile from the middle of town to UNCG. So he walked over and actually got there, wore his uniform, actually got there early; met my two friends in Moore Hall and said call for me, because at that time there were no men going up to the dormitory room, of course. [They] called for me and then they hightailed it out of there. All right—Clensy‟s thinking, “Yes, see, they don‟t even want to see my reaction when this whoever she is comes downstairs.” [laughter] So he‟s in—he‟s thinking “Now how can I get out of this? But I guess I‟m stuck. Oh, well. One night won‟t hurt me.” You know. “At least I will have done my good deed for the day.” So it was early. I remember I was not dressed. I just had on normal clothes and I came down to meet him, you know, this date and I really didn‟t care what the person looked like. I just wanted somebody to go to the dance with and I figured you can tolerate anything for a night. So went down and my first reaction was “Boy, that‟s a nice-looking young guy.” Of course, at this time it‟s overwhelmingly a white school and just a few blacks so he‟s the only guy there and I‟m the only black girl coming down stairs so obviously he must be for me and I‟m thinking, “Wow, they did pretty good for themselves.” I still didn‟t know that he‟s the last minute substitute. At this point, I didn‟t know that. He looked up and saw I was the only black girl coming down the three little steps down into the parlor and he says, “Oh well, I don‟t see any others. She must be the one. Wow. Well maybe I didn‟t do so badly after all.” So we sat down and we started talking and it was at least an hour and a half before the dance was supposed to start. He had come early and we started talking and it was like we had known each other all our lives. And then, I finally had to leave, go upstairs and get dressed in my party clothes and then come back down. And he spent the few minutes it took me to go and get dressed trying to 15
figure out what he was going to do with his cheap corsage and how could he go back to the store and trade it for something better because, you know, maybe she deserves something more than this, the cheapest I could find. Anyway after that I did not know also at the time that he was already engaged to somebody else at a different school in Virginia. He‟s from Virginia and so after we started—and so he was just going to do this as a favor and that was going to be the end of it but we had such a nice time at the dance. We even went down to the—What is that little restaurant, down on the corner of Tate Street?
HT: Gosh, there are so many restaurants—
SR: Apple? Apple?
HT: There was an Apple House. There‟s a Rathskeller.
SR: Apple House. That was the one. After the dance we went down there for dessert and coffee and just talked and just had really, really a nice time. So he walked me back to my dorm and he says “I enjoyed the evening, had a nice time. I‟ll call you sometime.” And I‟m thinking, being the practical person that I am, I just blurted out “Yeah, right.” Man, I don‟t believe that. This is a one-night stand, you know, for a date. And so, that‟s—we‟ve had our one night and we both had a good time so you go back to your life; I‟m going back to my biology lab and that‟s it. He accepted that as a challenge, my “Yeah, right.” And so he did call me a few days later and we kept calling and we kept going out and it wasn‟t until we were married several years later that I found out he had to figure how to ditch his fiancée so he could be with me. But anyway, I‟m digressing from the story.
HT: That‟s all right. That‟s a wonderful story. [laughs] And how long have you been married?
SR: Forty—Trent‟s forty-two, forty-three years. Forty-three years and in next March it will be forty-four. But—So that was my social life. Just once in a while I would do something out of the blue like that but as a rule—My other part of my social life, if you want to call it that—Some people probably wouldn‟t call it social but I did. At that time, some of the local churches would drive up to the dorms on Sunday morning. And you knew about it because they posted thing inside the dorms and if you wanted to—They had signs in the windows so you knew which church this car was affiliated with and if you wanted to go to a Baptist church, you went to this one and if you wanted Catholic, then you get in this one. And looking back on it, you would never find that nowadays—strange girls getting in the car with strange “church people”—but that‟s what we did. Dragging somebody off into the woods to kill them was totally unheard of at that time or was such a rarity it made national news or something. But I decided [that] to get through this whole experience, I‟d better maintain my close relationship with the Lord and when I was in Moore Hall, I decided I was going to find a Christian church because I was baptized by the Disciples of Christ Church years ago. And then in high school we attended the Christian Church which is pretty much the same thing. So I found—I ended up going to the Christian Church there in Greensboro on that side of town which meant it was predominantly a 16
white church. And at that church at the time what they did was, a family would adopt a college student and would invite the college student to their home for dinner occasionally, about three or four times a year. They would exchange Christmas presents and they would give you little care packages. I cannot remember the name of the family that adopted me but they were wonderful people. And looking back on it, people just didn‟t do that kind of stuff at that time. It kind of reminds me of the church that we attend now—Riverdale Baptist here in Largo, Maryland—where we have a diverse congregation. They don‟t care who you are as long as you come to church and you want to know Jesus Christ. So—But at that time, looking back on it, I just accepted it as the way things are. That‟s what Christian people do but that‟s not necessarily what Christian people do, especially during that era. So—But my family did. They called me during exam time and would send me little packages and almost every Sunday I would sit with them or whatever. We became really, really good friends during my time there and they gave me a letter opener when I graduated, you know, with a little memento on it. So that was another different experience that was sort of unheard of at that time but that I had a very pleasant experience, I might add. But that was often my social life outlet going to church on Sunday mornings and occasionally having dinner with these people and then they would bring me back to the dorm. But now I don‟t think I would recommend that to anybody because that can be very scary, getting into somebody‟s car that you [absolutely] don‟t know anything about.
HT: Well, you entered UNCG in the fall of ‟63 and I think we discussed earlier that the men came in the fall of ‟64. Do you recall what it was like at that time when the men started coming in?
SR: Well, there were only a hundred of them.
HT: There were—I think there were—
SR: The first year of my—Well, they told us—
HT: Very few, right. Very few.
SR: And they didn‟t live on campus; there were no dorms for them. So the only time that I would see them is perhaps when walking about because since they didn‟t live on campus, they didn‟t eat in the dormitory—I mean they didn‟t eat in the cafeteria and I would only see them maybe walking about or in a class occasionally. I don‟t think most of them were biology majors, though, because I didn‟t see that many of them. So it really did not impact me one way or another. A lot of the other girls would talk about, “Well, what are you going to do for a date this weekend?” You have to understand, I was not looking for a husband; I was not even looking for dates. I was more about keeping my nose in the books so they didn‟t—it was—If that‟s what they want to do, come to UNCG, that‟s fine but it—No, absolutely no impact on me one way or another.
[End of CD 1—Begin CD 2] 17
HT: Well, I looked up some information about you, about that you were a member of the dorm committee and that you were a member of the Glee Club and Premedical Club. You‟ve already talked to me about the Glee Club; what about the Premedical Club? What was that all about?
SR: Not very active; just one more thing to put on your resume in the Pine Needles [yearbook], to tell you the truth. I had more interaction with a few of the students in the class, lab partners and what-not. I got to know them better than I did anybody in that Premed Club. It was—If that‟s your major and that‟s what you aspired to do, then you put your name on the list. There were no organized meetings, no gatherings or anything like that.
HT: I think you mentioned earlier that you had planned to go to medical school and that your husband—What was the deciding factor? When did that take place?
SR: Well, when did that happen? Two weeks before we got married. And another tale. I did graduate as a full-fledged biology student. I was accepted into Howard University Medical School and I actually did attend there for two trimesters after UNCG—and I say “trimesters” because they had three—actually their year was divided into four sections. No, three sections—and so I went—of the school year I went two of the three semesters so they weren‟t, you know, just half a year here and then half year and then that‟s it. It was three different segments. So my husband-to-be at that time came up to Howard early—no, it must have been late February—and I was in the middle of my second trimester there. I had done the first one with the cadaver and, you know, chopping up the cadaver and taking the classes and all of that. I enjoyed it but I had already started having doubts as to what my calling was supposed to be. What was I really supposed to—“What am I really supposed to do with my life at this point?” And so God and I had a lot of conversations, very interesting conversations. “Lord, now you told me, or at least I thought you told me, that I‟m supposed to follow this path: get my education at UNCG, then go over to Hamp—Howard and then get my doctors and then—And I didn‟t plan on having all this time with this fellow over here that I‟ve met who seems to be in my thoughts a lot more than he ought to be if I‟m not going to do anything with him. And exactly what am I supposed to do here?”
And so we—the Lord and I—went back and forth on this for quite a bit. I prayed about it an awful lot. And then Clensy came up and he was still—He graduated, you know, under the ROTC program at A&T and was scheduled to go to Williams Air Force Base for pilot training. And he was due to leave—due to report the middle of March of ‟68, March ‟68. And I knew the time was coming where we had to decide, am I going to break it off with this fellow because my philosophy was if you‟re doing medicine that‟s fulltime. There‟s no time for family and, you know, you‟re going to shortchange somebody. If you get married, you‟re going to shortchange your patients by having all these, husband, babies and all this stuff, on the side. But, at that same time, if you‟re fully devoted to the medicine then you‟re going to shortchange your family so why inflict that on anybody. Sometimes it doesn‟t pay to be too rational. You get yourself all befuddled. But whatever. 18
So anyway, I was trying to decide what am I really supposed to do and you‟ve heard about the still, small voice that speaks to you and you know it‟s God speaking but you can‟t—It‟s not audible but you hear it plain as day. If you‟ve ever heard of anybody talking that way or you‟ve experienced it yourself, that‟s the message I got. “Okay, you‟re supposed to leave Howard. You‟re supposed to go ahead and get married to this fellow and you go ahead and make a life with him and then we‟ll see what other surprises I have in store for you.” And that‟s the message I got and, like I said, Clensy came up about two weeks before—about three weeks before he was due to leave to go on his first military assignment out to Williams Air Force Base in Arizona and we decided, “Okay, enough of this dilly-dallying around and let‟s just go ahead and get married and then I‟ll go with you when you go.” So I put in a letter to Howard and told them I was leaving. My mother and father—my mother especially—rejected me and told me I had lost my mind entirely; my husband-to-be, at that time, had put goofy dust in my shoes and had just totally ruined my mind and was going to ruin my whole life. You got the scenario here? [laughs]
HT: Yes.
SR: And so we ended up announcing to his parents who lived in Dinwiddie, Virginia, that that‟s what we had decided to do. I left Howard, went to his parent‟s house. We had a week to find a minister who would agree to marry us; to go down to Virginia to get a license; to invite, again, Jean. [laughs] Well, she was the one that introduced us. She came and my sister and her husband and his parents and that was pretty much it. We got married in their living room—From the time Clensy came up and we said okay, this is it because I didn‟t know at the time—We‟d discussed a lot of things and I knew he had a strong Christian background also, but I didn‟t know that he had also been praying about it: first what to do with this girlfriend, this fiancée; and then, second, is it fair for me to pull this lady that I really, really like away from what her chosen career field and ask her to follow me to who knows where all over the United States and outside, too, perhaps. So he got the same message I got that, you know, you guys are supposed to be together. So in less than two weeks‟ time we put all of this stuff together, got married in his folks‟ living room and two days later we packed all of our worldly possessions in a ‟61 Chevrolet that he owned at the time and it was so packed that half the front seat was packed with stuff and I sat in the middle because it was a bench seat. And he was driving and that‟s how we went to Williams—from Dinwiddie, Virginia, to Williams Air Force Base—for his first assignment. We were both so green to Air Force ways that we didn‟t know that all he had to do was call the military base and say, “Come pack my household goods and ship them for me.” We had no idea—all new territory. But that‟s how—Now had did we get from UNCG to that? [laughter]
HT: Via Howard Medical School.
SR: Yes, that‟s how we got there. So I left Howard and got married. That‟s what happened and years later after our first child was born, my mother just reconciled herself to the fact that, okay, I guess I‟m not having a doctor in the family; I‟ve got a new son-in-law. And I 19
think she sees him—She‟s as close to him now as she is to her own sons so everything turned out.
HT: It worked out very well so that‟s great. Well, if we can backtrack to UNCG: what was the political atmosphere like at UNCG in the 1960s? Do you recall?
SR: You know, on campus we were somewhat isolated. I don‟t recall—Well, I vaguely recall one incident in some dorm where there was a little disagreement. But I‟m not one to really dwell on that kind of thing so I know something was happening in—When I was a freshman, something was happening in a sophomore dorm and there was a little bit of unrest but it wasn‟t enough to rock my world because I was focused. I had my own agenda and okay, let them work it out. They‟re adults, young adults, but they‟re still adults; let them work it out. And it wasn‟t enough to put the whole school in a tizzy. It was only because there were so few black students at the time that I even knew about it. I do recall that freshman year, when we were assigned to Coit Dorm, there were enough rooms on that floor so that not all the rooms were occupied by black students. There were a few whites and I don‟t know how those people were selected. I do recall this one girl, early on like the first day we were there or maybe the second—She realized who her housemates were on her floor and she ran out of the hall screaming because, “How dare you do this to me? Putting me down here with these heathens” or whatever she was thinking. I don‟t know exactly what she was thinking because she never talked to any of us. She just looked and saw what was on her floor and she ran out. And of course they immediately reassigned her. To this day I don‟t know who she was; I just remember her reaction. But the way it was for me, the people that wanted to interact with you, they didn‟t care what you were, what color you were; they would do that. They would interact; they were decent people. The ones who didn‟t want you there, didn‟t want to be bothered with you, they kept their distance and I would keep my distance. You know, I actually—I guess in a way I was insulated from a lot of it because I‟ve always been a very independent person and self-assured and I don‟t need other people to affirm to me that I have self-worth. I already knew that I had self-worth. If you didn‟t know it, you‟ve got a problem but I don‟t have a problem. So in that respect, I was probably a little different from some of the black students that were there because I would hear some—“Did you see the way she looked at me?” “No.” “Well, she did. She didn‟t say anything but she did (such and such). When I came in the room, she moved over.” “Well, that‟s her problem, isn‟t it?” That‟s my thought, but some people are very offended by that kind of thing. But I was aware enough to know that those—that we were making some headways into new territory and if you invade somebody‟s else‟s space, you know, on looking at it—say if I went overseas and I invaded the space of the Japanese—that‟s their space. They‟ve had it hundreds of years, you know, thousands of years and if I go over and act like I belong here and I have every right to be here and you can‟t say anything to me because I‟m now taking over your space; that‟s wrong. That‟s wrong. I just knew it was going to be a growing period for everybody, those of us invading this new space as well as for the people who are already in the space. And changes like that, you know—what do they say, paradigm shifts?—paradigm shifts don‟t happen overnight. I never heard the word “paradigm shift” until much later in life but that‟s what I was thinking. That drastic changes like this don‟t just happen overnight. There‟s going to be some give-and-take on 20
both sides but you can‟t be thin-skinned about it because if you do, you‟re going to be miserable. And again, I‟ve always had my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, on my side so if you‟ve got a problem, you go and work it out with whomever you deal with. I deal with Jesus and with God and they‟re going to take care of me, no matter what. And He always has. In that respect, I remember Sara Bryan: she was very sensitive to how people looked at her; what they might have been saying behind her back; and I would try to talk to her sometimes. You know, “Sara, why are you taking that on as a problem? That‟s not your problem; that‟s their problem. You do what you‟re supposed to do. You act the way you were trained and were raised to act and then if they have a problem, let them work it out.” You know, you do what you‟re supposed to do. That‟s just the way it is.
HT: What about the administration and the professors. Did you ever feel any discrimination from them?
SR: You know what, I never did. There probably was some but oftentimes when people are in positions like that, they are astute enough to know that if they do anything out of line, their job is going to be in jeopardy and they might be out of there and there might be a scandal that they don‟t want to deal with. So the main thing was esp—in the early classes—freshman and sophomore years the classes were so big that you really didn‟t get any interaction with the professors. By the time I was a junior/senior, classes were smaller because they had culled out the people who were just taking it to get a credit versus the people who were in it because they were headed towards a vocation. And I had also learned by that time that you can‟t just be Miss Stand-off, Independent; you do have to develop relationships with these people and I started paying more attention to that aspect. And actually there was a biochemistry professor—nice as he could be, you know, once we got—He started to see me as a student interested in learning versus just a name and a number on a page, and the same thing with—There was—What was his name? [Walter] Puterbaugh or something like that. I could probably look in there and find it. But the same thing. But my science classes, those were the professors that I got to know a little bit better. And they got to know me as a person and some of them, a couple of them I even asked to write recommendations for me to get into Howard. And it must have worked because Howard took me in.
HT: I guess most of your classes were probably in the Petty Science Building?
SR: Yes, you know, after I got past the German and the English classes. Now the English classes were—the literature classes were my outlet; that and the choir. And Mr.— What was that guy‟s name?
HT: Did you ever have Randall Jarrell for any of your classes? He was a well-known poet and English professor.
SR: He was there when I was there but no; that was for the English majors. I remember the name, yes. But in the Glee Club professors—Glee Club director—was a little roly-poly guy—Gosh, I‟m terrible with names. 21
HT: I‟d asked you earlier if you had been discriminated against by the professors or the administration. What about students? Did you ever recall any incidents there?
SR: Well, just the one that ran out of the place [incident mentioned earlier] and then, like I said, if they didn‟t want to interact with you, they made a point of making a wide girth around you so that if you were walking down the sidewalk and they didn‟t want to interact with you, then they would turn around and go someplace else or cut across the grass or something. But I made a point of not looking for that kind of reaction from people. I knew who my friends were in Glee Club and in the science department and those were the people that I interacted with. I even went to—First time in my life I ever went to a Catholic church. I went with one of the girls in—We had science classes together and she invited me to go to church with her so I went to Catholic mass just because I‟d never been to a Catholic mass before.
HT: Did you go to St. Benedict‟s?
SR: I don‟t even remember because I‟m not Catholic. Okay. I just went with her that Sunday morning. [laughs]
HT: Probably so because that‟s the one that‟s downtown.
SR: Yes. I don‟t even remember what it was. I just remember that as soon as I‟d get comfortable on the seat, it was time to kneel or time to stand up or it was time to kneel or it was time to sit. The whole service, I had no idea what the priest talked about. It was just, okay, am I standing, sitting, kneeling, standing, sitting, kneeling? What am I doing here? [laughter]
HT: Oh, goodness gracious. Well, the four years that you were there, did you have any interaction at all with the chancellor, by any chance, or any of the administrators?
SR: Only those special things that we did at the, you know, at the end of the year like the Daisy Chain. When I was a junior I was part of the Daisy Chain thing and you know, you would meet and get your instructions and things and I think the same thing with the people in the Alumni House at that time. But I was a goody two-shoes and I never had to meet with the chancellor because I was in trouble. Never. People at that level, you know, they had a lot more to worry about than little old me, struggling to get through the biology department. But I was aware of all the things going on because some of the [Greensboro] Sit-ins—especially my freshman year—those things were going on downtown in Greensboro, you know. That was a hotbed at that time. And I would get the calls from my mother: “Now you stay out of that. I don‟t want you to—Your father and I need our teaching jobs here in Greene County. The last thing we need is to find out that you‟ve been arrested and have that get back to our superintendent. So bottom line is [you] just keep a low profile, stay out of trouble and don‟t get mixed up in that stuff. Don‟t go downtown at the five and dime store and do your share at the Sit-ins.” You know, because they knew my personality would be the kind to go down there and get in the middle of it. But no, I was focused and I also knew that we could not afford 22
for them to be out of a job because of something I was doing, even though it would have been for a good cause.
HT: Well, tell me about some of your professors that you had who might have made an impression on you.
SR: That one that I was telling you about: he was such a friendly guy; I wish I could think of his name, other than Puterbaugh.
HT: Was it William DeVeny?
SR: DeVeny, yes. He was Glee Club and that, by my interaction with him, he didn‟t care what color you were either. He wanted to put on a good program and I don‟t even know how he figured out that I could do solos. May be somebody around me told him and then they found out—in my talking to him, he found out that I had done it in high school so this was no big deal. And he didn‟t care that, okay, this is predominantly white group here so we should—“If the Negroes want to be in it, we‟ll just keep them in the back or something like that.” He didn‟t care. He wanted singers and he wanted to make his group shine so he gave me the chance to do it, you know. “Ain‟t Necessarily So” was just one of them. I did “O Holy Night” for them one Christmas concert. Same thing. And he didn‟t care. And even with all the turmoil going on in Greensboro and in the country at that time that solidified in my mind that a lot of people out here really don‟t care what color you are. They want you to—If you are willing to step forward and do the best you can and they are looking for the best, then they will pick you if you happen to be the best or very, very good at whatever it is you‟re doing. And contrary to what some other people were trying to teach me, that it‟s all about the color, it‟s not all about the color. It‟s all about you doing what is right and presenting yourself in the best possible light. I can‟t remember—My relationships with the professors was not the kind where I would go to their houses and hang out with them and their families. It wasn‟t that; it was primarily strictly classroom interaction or lab interaction. But the same thing happened: If you showed through your conversations, through your lab work, through coming in after class to ask additional questions—which I did, you know. If I needed to I would. But if you showed that you really had an interest in learning, they really didn‟t care, most of them, the ones I had. But, you see, I had the people in the sciences. Now sometimes the people in the sciences, who see things in black and white, for the most part, are very different from the political science people, from the artsy people whose minds are a little different than science. [laughter] Now I don‟t know. Am I stepping on your toes? I don‟t know what you are.
HT: I was a history major.
SR: Okay. Well, history, too; that‟s kind of a black and white—This is what happens so that‟s the way it is. No questions asked. So do you understand what I‟m saying about the philosophies of life being very different?
HT: I do. I do. 23
SR: So the science people were a little different, I think, than some of my friends who were in the social—more social aspects of education. They saw things a little differently than I did. And some of them to this day have said on occasion when we‟ve gotten—I‟m talking about black students—when we‟ve gotten together for reunions or dinners together. some of them to this day regret having gone there to UNCG because it “stifled them” and they didn‟t make the connections that you often do if you go to a place like Bennett or A&T. But then it all depends on who you are. My husband went to A&T. He doesn‟t really socialize or interact with anybody he met there because he wasn‟t a fraternity guy. That‟s where you make your connections. What I actually liked about UNCG was that there was no sorority. You had—You were part of a class. That‟s why the jackets were sort of important to me, but there was no sorority sisterhood like you find on the black campuses. And even after I graduated—Bennett, my sister‟s college, Bennett College didn‟t have it either but as soon as she graduated—well, not so soon, but maybe ten or fifteen years after she graduated—she found herself—what did she find? AKA [Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority] or something. I don‟t remember which one but now she‟s a sorority sister. That stuff has no appeal to me. So maybe I was destined to go to UNCG because it suited my personality more.
HT: Well, you know, a school has to suit someone‟s personality because that is where I think a lot of kids get off on the wrong track when they go to the wrong school.
SR: Yes. I doubt that I would have fitted in as well at Bennett, you know, with all that sisterhood. Even though we had sisterhood in that we all belonged to the school. You know, we all felt—Well, I felt affinity to the school but it wasn‟t, you know, this select group of people. Those are the people I have to hang out with or else. I can‟t be seen talking to somebody else. No, that wasn‟t it for me; that wasn‟t it for me. I was there for an education so that I could get into Howard. And so then that‟s what I did. [laughs]
HT: Well, what did you do after—Of course, you‟ve already told me what you did after. You went to Howard University for a little while and then you got married and became an Air Force wife.
SR: Air Force wife and mother: that was my job description for about sixteen years.
HT: Well, tell me some of the places that you and your husband were stationed.
SR: Well, we started out at Williams Air Force Base in Arizona and we were only there a few months and we found out that he was not suited for the flying program. Then we went to Mather Air Force Base, which doesn‟t exist anymore—in Sacramento, California. He thought he might want to be a navigator. Well, he decided that‟s not for me. And then we went to Rantoul, Illinois for six weeks so he could train to become a transportation officer. And that‟s another thing: UNCG was good preparation for me. I found, you know—After the fact I realized that it was—Because at the time he was in the Air Force—first went into the Air Force in spring of ‟68—black officers comprised less than one percent of the population of officers. There weren‟t that many blacks in the Air Force to begin with. Most of them went to the Army; some went to the Navy. 24
HT: Because this was the height of the Vietnam War?
SR: Yes. Vietnam. So at that time there were black officers—less than one percent of all the officers in the Air Force so guess who our friends became, especially on the West Coast. We were one family out of fifteen—one black family out of fifteen—so by the time I graduated from UNCG, this was no big deal for me. That had been my last four years of life—with that interaction—so retrospectively speaking, it turns out to have been good training for my next job—for my first job. which I consider a job—as Air Force wife and mother and his—and he‟s also been very people-oriented rather than group or—We‟re not people that have to hang out with people exactly like us (meaning black people) for us to be happy. If we were, we wouldn‟t be living where we live because if you know anything about the dynamics out here, there aren‟t that many blacks in Davidsonville to start with. So this is just us, this is just who we are. Not that we‟re denying our race or anything, but we don‟t get hung up on it. That‟s the point I guess I‟m trying to make: we don‟t get hung up on it. We like people and some people we like more than we like other people but it has nothing to do with race; it has to do with the inside; it has to do with the heart. Does that make sense?
HT: It does, yes.
SR: So then after Rantoul, then where did we go? South Carolina. Now, that was—We had been on the West Coast or the Midwest for two years, three years. First full-fledged Air Force assignment: Sumter, South Carolina. It was an eye-opener because we‟re back in the South again after having been away for awhile and we went to [Sumter] and my husband would call an apartment because there was no room for us to live on the base. So we had to get an apartment first until base housing became available and he would call and say “I‟m Lieutenant Roney and I‟m here with my wife and my child and we‟re looking for a place to rent. Do you have any openings?” “Of course, sir. Come on over, come on over” because they like to rent to officers, you know? And then we‟d show up and then they‟d say “I‟m so sorry. I didn‟t realize my husband just rented that place this morning.” “Have you got any others?” “No, that was the last one.” After that happened to us about three times, he called and said, “Now, look. I am Lieutenant Roney but I am a black officer. Do you have a problem with that?” “Just a minute. I‟m sorry, sir, we don‟t have any openings.” Finally somebody told us about a black family who had a few little apartments and we ended up living in one of those. But to have been away from that kind of thing for a few years and then to come back and find ourselves right back in the South immersed in that—That also was an eye-opener .So we ended up staying in that little place then we eventually got on base. But I probably—We probably felt more discrimination, if you will, from that incident than from anything that ever happened to me at UNCG, other than the child running out down the hallway [refers to earlier incident]. And so after South Carolina, that‟s when he went to Vietnam and I went back and lived with his parents because my mother was still trying to reconcile herself to the fact that I was not still at Howard. [laughter] So then after Vietnam, now we‟re into ‟71, ‟72. [From] ‟72 to ‟75 we lived at the Yokato—He was assigned to the Yokato Air Base, Japan, and we lived at a little—used to be an army unit called Tachikawa, T-A-C-H-I-K-A-W-A, Japan. And that‟s military housing 25
basically is what it was. And we were there for three years and we made a point of meeting some of the Japanese people. It‟s very interesting. He had a Mr. Sugano working for him, a Japanese national. I was dying to get into a home of a Japanese person, a real Japanese person; not walking through a museum but actually going to a home. And I know how they are, how the Japanese are. You invite them to your house, they feel obliged to invite you to their house. So we had the Suganos—Mr. Sugano and his wife and the two little kids—over for dinner at our house.
HT: Do you know how to spell Sugano?
SR: S-U-G-A-N-O.
HT: Okay, thank you.
SR: And he was the only one that spoke English in his family but his wife was very nice and very gracious and so she—Then after they had dinner at our house, then a few months later we were invited to their house. [We] sat on the floor on the mats and had sushi, which I do not like to this day. And they were trying to accommodate our two little boys who were very, very young at the time so they cooked hamburgers but you‟d never recognize it as a hamburger. But they were trying, you know, trying to accommodate the westerners. But again, training at UNCG where you learn to take situations for what they are, interact with people no matter what the culture, no matter what the nationality; perfect, perfect training for later in life. Now it didn‟t do anything for my biology background but just the interaction with people and getting along and learning to appreciate other values, other cultures and things like that. Perfect training ground.
HT: So how long was your husband in the Air Force?
SR: Twenty-one years. He retired in ‟89.
HT: And then you eventually went to work.
SR: Yes. Where were we at the time? We were at—let‟s see—after Japan, we went to Williams Air Force—no, not Williams. Where were we? Michigan. Wurtsmith Air Force Base—Oscoda, Michigan. Another place that you would never hear about and never, ever want to vacation—to take a vacation to, you know. [laughs] They called my husband in and told him he had an assignment to Wurtsmith Air Force Base. If you look at Michigan, it looks like a mitten. Oscoda is right here next to Lake Michigan which is out here. So they said, “Who did you tick off? You must have really done something to somebody for them to send you to Wurtsmith.” Turns out we were there five years with the eighty inches of snow on the ground every year but it was one of the best assignments we‟ve ever had. Again, you make of a situation what you want to make of it instead of sitting in the house and saying “Oh, woe is me.” More training, you know. So that was nice. After Oscoda, that is when went to New York for three years; lived on Staten Island. And then after Staten Island we went to Edwards Air Force Base and that‟s in California. That was during the time of the early days of the space shuttle and that‟s 26
where our sons graduated from high school. So anyway when we first got to Edwards, that is when I no longer was needed to be godmother—den mother to the boy scouts or cub scouts for the boys, or I used to do the—Oh, when we got to Edwards I taught music part time. My left over Glee Club days and choir days. I actually taught music to—I was a roving music teacher and I would have a keyboard on a rolling cart and I would roll it around to the individual classrooms and teach the kids the basics of music: how to count time and sing songs and then we would do a concert at the end of the year. Have them sing in harmony, you know, elementary school kids. That was a lot of fun. And then I would do choirs, church—We‟d attended the chapel on the base which, again, was a diverse group of people so I guess starting with UNCG, my whole life has been full of diversity, you know. Not just in this—We come back, let me finish this. Oh, you‟re out of space?
So anyway I directed the church choirs, children and adult choirs, at the base chapel at Edwards. And when our oldest son was—he was about a junior in high school, sophomore or junior, somewhere in there—I decided okay, they don‟t need me at home so much as a mom looking after them, doing projects in the classrooms with them. It was time for me to go to work and earn some money because we will have college bills looming on the horizon. And I applied for a job as a social worker because I was so busy interacting and there‟s one other thing about being an officer‟s wife at that time: part of your job was to nurture the wives of the enlisted people, especially the young airmen. You became like a mother hen to them; you would organize activities for the ones that were away from home. And like being a freshman in college, away from home for the first time, and we were like the—The officers‟ wives were like the mother hens to keep getting them involved. Wurtsmith especially, up there in that country where four months out of the year, maybe five months out of the year, it‟s possible that if you didn‟t have your own transportation, you‟d be snowed in and that kind of thing. So it was our job to keep them from getting cabin fever, which was a real entity up there; to keep them involved; to check on the wives, that was—You didn‟t get paid for it but that was your job. Kind of unwritten code for an officer‟s wife. So that was part of what I was doing there and then when we went to California, college bills were coming up and I decided to get a job. And I tried for social work. God has a way of shutting doors from you if you are headed down a path that He‟s thinking “That‟s not really what I want you to do at this stage.” I found out from—I was doing volunteer work and pittance part-time work for the Red Cross, the American Red Cross. I would—Oh, I had gotten my bachelor‟s—my master‟s degree there in management.
HT: From which school?
SR: Golden Gate University. So I was looking for a job, initially in social work since I had done so many social things and those doors were all shut to me. But then a mutual friend who also worked at the Red Cross, who had just recently gone through a divorce and she had had a job for the first time—another officer‟s wife—first time she had ever had a job in her life. She had found this agency called the Defense Investigative Services. “So what do you do?” “I conduct background investigations on people who need security clearances.” “And how do you do that?” So she told me all about it and she said, “You 27
should prepare a resume and let me take it to my boss and I think you would be very good at it.”
And I said, “Okay, whatever.” I‟m still trying to pursue the social work thing and getting very, very teary eyed because all the doors in that area were being slammed in my face. I couldn‟t understand it. “What‟s wrong with me? Why don‟t you want to hire me?” And there was a mutual friend who also worked at Red Cross. Every time I‟d go in to do my night shift, I would—What I would do was man the phones at night for emergency calls that would come in from military people, from the official Red Cross headquarters, “I need to find Airman Joe Schmuck. His mom just passed away.” And it was my job to find that person and then pass on the news that they need to call home right away and things like that. And it would pay like two cents an hour or something but, you know, And I did that while I was pursuing my master‟s degree. So anyway, finally every time this guy would see me at the Red Cross when I would report for duty, he‟d say “Did you do that resume yet?” No.” And after about three times I said “Well, let me get this stupid resume together so the next time he asks me „Did you do that resume?‟ I can say yes.” So I did the resume and I gave it to my friend Anne Porter. She took it to her boss and he called and asked me if I would just come in and meet with him. What was his name; Tony, Tony something-or-other. I can‟t think of his last name at this moment. So I went in and I just thought I was going to meet him and, you know, see if he was going to tell me a little bit about the investigations business because I knew nothing about that. My husband did not need a clearance for what he did so I knew nothing about that process. And we just chatted and I told him, you know, where I went to school and what my family was like and what I did, you know, on a daily basis. We just chatted for about forty-five minutes and he says, “Okay. Well, I‟ll turn this in.” Two weeks later he called and says, “Would you like to start working for me tomorrow?” Two weeks later. And so I talked it over with my husband and he said okay so I started out as a GS-5 in the government. My sister was already a Department of Labor employee so I knew a little bit about government service. You get in, you know, and if you stay with it, that‟s a nice retirement package at the end. So we talked about and it‟s the kind of job where you can—to a certain extent, you can sort of set your day yourself. You don‟t report to an office because you are out running around interviewing people all day long, writing reports whenever you want to write them—at night, in the afternoon, whatever suits you. So I got the job. Little did I know, nobody gets a government job in two weeks, you know. Normally the process is you go take a test; then you wait; then you go and do an interview; and then you wait; and then maybe five or six months later, if you‟re lucky, you have a government job. Two weeks is all it took. So again, God‟s opening doors for me that I didn‟t even know existed. So anyway, I started out as an investigator and I did that in California for three years and then he retired—My husband retired and we moved over here to Maryland and I was also a field investigator. That is the person actually knocking on doors, interviewing, checking records, writing the reports, et cetera. And my goal was to do this for about five years and then become a supervisor. First time I applied for the supervisor‟s job I didn‟t get it because that was at the four and a half year mark. Six months later another opening became available in a more suitable spot for me because the first job was going to be in Virginia; I was going to have to commute across the bridge and face all that terrible traffic. But I was willing to do that because I wanted to be a supervisor. And I didn‟t get that one. So the next one 28
came open pretty much in the office where I was already working here in Maryland. I got that one. And I was a supervisor for the remainder of my twenty-three years, a total of twenty-three years. During my time, it changed from the Defense Investigative Service to the Defense Security Service and to—then when we were moved from the Department of Defense to fall under the OPM—Office of Personnel Management, or OPM, was the second—was the other entity—it changed again [to] Federal Investigative Services. And so I finished my career under them rather than—
HT: Was this all here in Maryland?
SR: All here, other than the first three years in California where I started. Everything else was done here in Maryland.
HT: And where is that office located?
SR: Well, when I first started we were in Lanham, [Maryland] and then we went to Beltsville, [Maryland] and then we went to a little place—My final office was at Fort Meade, [Maryland]—on Fort Meade; the last office I had. And now for awhile it was Fort Meade and Andrews Air Force Base and now—since I have retired—they have officially made that office to be located at Andrews Air Force Base. But it‟s all here and it‟s all the same office; they just did restructuring—quite a bit.
HT: The government tends to do that. [laughs] Well, it sounds like you had a great career.
SR: I enjoyed it immensely. I enjoyed it immensely and—
HT: So you put in a total of almost thirty years?
SR: No, twenty-three. But, you see, that was my second career. I did sixteen—I was an Air Force wife and mother for sixteen—
HT: That‟s true. But you didn‟t get paid for that. [laughter]
SR: No. [laughter] Other than the little side jobs. Like, I think they would give me fifty dollars a month when I was directing the choir for the chapel. But then that was more for, you know, just mad money, but not a real career per se. And of course Red Cross paid about two cents an hour or whatever it was so that didn‟t really count except to go on my social security. So I retired from OPM in—two years ago; September 30th, two years ago. And it was a great career. I enjoyed it.
HT: So you‟re enjoying retirement these days.
SR: Immensely. I am now a real estate guru.
HT: Real estate agent? Or speculator? [laughter]
29
SR: No, no. Let me explain. Let me explain. My mother has property that she inherited from her parents so we‟ve been dealing with that. Initially it was her parents [who] left it years ago. There were nine kids in my mother‟s family that grew to adulthood so the parents left it to all nine of them collectively. My mother, in her infinite wisdom, began to buy out some of her siblings. Long story short: last year when I started saying “Okay, it is time to divide this property because my mother is coming up, last year, at ninety-one; my aunt is coming on ninety-six; their brother that was left was eighty. Somebody is going to pass away and then we are going to have to deal with all of their children before we can do anything on this property. So my job was to call a family meeting of everybody involved that still had a vested interest in the property and agree on how it should be divided. And this year, we divided—There were two large plots: fifty-some acres over here; sixty-some over here. And my mom and her siblings and two nephews—one brother died but the two nephews got his share—They had already agreed that Mom and the two nephews would get this piece; and then the brother and the ninety-some-year-old sister would get this piece; but nothing was in writing. Everybody knew that was the plan. So it was my job to get the plan going; and actually get a lawyer to draw up a document; to get everybody‟s signature and get it registered at the courthouse. And don‟t you know, two months after I got that done, the aunt passed away.
HT: And if that hadn‟t happened, what a mess that would have been.
SR: That particular aunt had thirteen children. Can you imagine?
HT: [gasps] No. Oh my gosh.
SR: So now my next role is to get my mom and the two nephews separated out. We‟ve already decided how that‟s going to be done but all in between that comes a timber broker. That sixty-some acres—thirty-nine acres of that is timber land—has timber land—and this summer I was playing three timber brokers against each other. One contacted me; then another one contacted me; and my sister heard about a third one so I‟m getting bids from all these people. “Well, your bid is not as high as his bid. Do you want to be considered?” Okay, give me another week to go back out. “Okay your bid is not as high as—” [laughs] That was my mom‟s property. We own a rental house in Farmville right across the street from where I grew up. Our tenant died in May so then we have to get that refurbished and get a new tenant in. Just got the first month‟s rent through the new tenant this Saturday, so that‟s done. Our son, our oldest son, is on active duty, following in his father‟s footsteps. He‟s serving in Afghanistan at the moment. He has a rental property in Hampton, Virginia. Unfortunately on June 3rd of this year we put a deadbeat tenant in there, didn‟t find—Should have used my investigative skills upfront to check the courts and the credit bureau report and all these things but we were—In our haste to go ahead and get somebody in there, I did not do that. Until after the fact, that‟s when I found out what a dirt-bag he is. But, whatever. So it took us three and a half months, court trips and trips down to the property to post things on the door to get him out. Just got the—My son just got the first month‟s rent from the new tenant, a paying tenant who has been vetted—thoroughly vetted by me—Tuesday, last week. So that‟s done. My mother also owns rental property in North Carolina. I‟ve had to throw three 30
people out of one of those properties in particular. Finally got a really nice guy in there now so now I‟m helping him get all of the bugs out of the—you know, like the heating system, the gas turned on, the—upgrading the wiring: all these things that had just gone not noticed for the past two years that really do need to be upgraded now. So that‟s what I‟ve been doing for the last few years. That‟s why I call myself a real estate guru now because I‟m learning all that. So that‟s what I‟m doing now.
HT: Well, I don‟t have any more formal questions. Do you have anything you would like to add to the interview?
SR: I just want to say that some people, as I‟ve mentioned before, regret having gone to UNCG because they don‟t have the sisterhood like you would have in a sorority or they don‟t have the networking. They feel they lost out on not having the networking that some black colleges afford their students. I—Those kinds of things have never really meant that much to me. I‟m more about doing the best you can with whatever resources God has blessed you with and then making the most of whatever situation you find yourself in. And I really see it as more of being the glass half full rather than the glass half empty. It was good training ground to get out of Farmville, North Carolina where I went to high school—elementary and high school—one school all of my life. We lived on this side of town. The “other folks” lived on that side of town; never will the two mix. So it was my first chance to see how other people live and do what I wanted, what I was comfortable doing without actually having to go to jail for it because it was no longer legal or anything like that so I found it to be a great training ground and, retrospectively, wonderful training ground for all the other things that I‟ve done in my life. So I appreciate my time there. I really—excellent training.
HT: Well, speaking of that: what kind of involvement have you had with UNCG since you graduated?
SR: Well, funny you should ask. Twenty years after I went there, this oldest son that I talked about was trying to decide on a college. Guess where he went?
HT: He went to UNCG?
SR: University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
HT: I did not know that.
SR: Yes. Yes.
HT: That‟s wonderful.
SR: Trenton Lance Roney graduated from there in—what—‟90? I don‟t remember when he went there but he did. And he graduated. And guess where he did his ROTC training? Across town. A&T.
31
HT: Because UNCG does not have an ROTC program, right?
SR: Well, it didn‟t at that time so I guess it still does not.
HT: It does not.
SR: So he got the best of both his parent‟s worlds: he got the ROTC from his father‟s alma mater and got the—He was a math major at UNCG. And because of the environment he had been brought up in all of his life, you know, he fit right in. Because [of] being the son of a black Air Force officer. I think by the time Clensy retired, the percentage of black officers in the officer corps had risen from less than one percent to, like, four percent but it was still extremely low comparatively speaking.
HT: And you said the son is in the Air Force now?
SR: He‟s currently serving—He was—When he left Hampton two years ago, he went back to Germany, to Ramstein Air Base, Germany and in May or late April, they said “Okay, you‟ve got”—He‟s only got one more year left in the Air Force before he‟s also eligible to retire. I don‟t know how he got to be so old. [laughter] But anyway, they said, “Well, before you retire, you‟re going to give us one more year of an “unaccompanied tour” they call it, in Afghanistan so he‟s been in Afghanistan since May and he‟ll be there until next May and then next summer some time he‟s due to get out. But he enjoyed his time, too, at UNCG. He was on—He got a three and a half year ROTC scholarship, so even though I had gone to work in anticipation of college bills, we had to—And then he also got a little bit of a scholarship from UNCG. So that was very helpful so we actually only paid for his first semester in school and between the UNCG scholarship and the ROTC scholarship, his college was pretty much paid for by that.
HT: That‟s wonderful. So hopefully you—I hope that you will be able to attend the chancellor‟s reception coming up in a few weeks.
SR: I did—Years and years ago I did attend one reception that was held in this area and I am looking forward to this one. Some of my friends and I have already talked about the fact that we want to go.
HT: Because it‟s amazing how many UNCG alum live in this area.
SR: Yes. Quite a few; quite a few. And I have contributed, not a whole lot but some, to the alumni—the UNCG Alumni Association and I read the literature for it. As for actual trips back, no, we have not been back since our son graduated.
HT: Well, in just a few years it will be your anniversary coming up, a big one.
SR: I don‟t want to think about it; I don‟t even want to think about it. Yes. You were asking me about people in the biology department. Dr. Putterbaugh and this one here, he was another one. He was— 32
HT: Bruce Eberhart.
SR: Yes.
HT: And there‟s the Eberhart Building named in his honor.
SR: He was an excellent—He was another one of those instructors that he didn‟t care what you were, you know, if you were about learning and really, really interested in what he had to teach. Enjoyed him; I really enjoyed him as a teacher.
HT: Well, Mrs. Roney this has really—This has been great. Thank you so much for talking to me today. I got some wonderful stories from you.
SR: Well, I‟m not sure if it was exactly what you were expecting but I think we all came away with our own perspective as to how things were.
HT: Yes, and that‟s so important to get that down and have it for future students to listen to and future scholars to research and that sort of thing because you were an early pioneer so that‟s great. Again, thank you so much.
SR: Oh, you‟re welcome. You‟re welcome.
[End of Interview]