Oral history interview with Clara Withers Berryhill, 2013 [text/print transcript]

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THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT GREENSBORO
INSTITUTIONAL MEMORY COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Clara Withers Berryhill
INTERVIEWER: Hermann Trojanowski
DATE: May 11, 2013
HT: Today is May 11, 2013, and my name is Hermann Trojanowski, I’m in Bowie, Maryland, at the home of Clara Withers Berryhill, Class of 1962, and we’re here to conduct an oral history interview for the African American Institutional Memory Project, which is part of the UNCG Institutional Memory Collection. Mrs. Berryhill, thank you so much for seeing me today. If you would, tell me something about your background, when and where you were born, a little bit about your family, and that sort of thing.
CB: Okay. It’s my pleasure. I’m Clara Berryhill, as you said. I was born in 1939 in Charlotte, North Carolina. I am the oldest of five siblings. Our parents are since deceased. My father passed at ninety-one just about two years ago, and, unfortunately, my mother was deceased early. She was only forty-three, but they were both alive when I went to UNCG, [The University of North Carolina at Greensboro] fortunately. So they saw me through that process in my life. I am the oldest of five children; I think I said that, and four girls and one guy. We are—Four of us are in this area now, and so all of us remain close, keeping the family alive. I don’t know that—Do you want me to talk about my parents and the family?
HT: Well, just a little bit. Tell me what it was like growing up in the l950s in Charlotte.
CB: Well, it was a segregated society, but very—Our parents insulated us against the political atmosphere of the world, so we were comfortable, very happy. But part of the time we lived in the projects which was a development subsidized by the state or the city, and I never knew that until I was in college. They made us very comfortable. It was a happy family. My parents were senior high school—I mean high school graduates, but always stressed that college education was a way to a better life. At that particular time, there were not a lot of opportunities open for us, so their dream for us was to become, not—start as teachers in school but become the principal of the school. That was just—they just thought that was just ideal, if we did that. And the constant table talk was, look at who is a principal now. I remember when she was a little girl, or here, here’s a book to read. So they would—There were not a lot of libraries; I remember one library that they had to—It was like a little one-room place, and they would take us there to read books. I know my mother always thought reading—If it’s in a book, you can get it. There is nothing that’s happened in the world, if they put it in a book, you can get it.
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HT: It sound like education was really emphasized in your house.
CB: Very much so, so we always knew that we had to go to college. They used to kid us; there was a college in our hometown—Johnson C. Smith [Charlotte, North Carolina]—and when their circumstances improved and they got a car, they would put us in the car and drive us through the campus of the college and say, “This is where you will end up.” And my father used to joke, “Now you’ve been to college,” because he drove through the campus. But we always knew we had to go to college, and we always knew that we needed to be as smart of we could be, read as much, because they did not have the money to send us. And so you had to get a scholarship to go where you wanted to go.
HT: What were your favorite subjects in high school?
CB: I always loved math and English. I was always good at math in high school and just understood it a lot, and then the next one was—I say English, but really reading. I didn’t like the grammar part. We did it all, but just the joy of reading. I still enjoy reading. In fact, my kids gave me my first Kindle, and I did not like it because I could not turn the pages so they think I’m ancient. But I’ve learned to. I’ve overcome that now and I can enjoy the Kindle, but reading is still a great pastime of mine. So I did math and reading. Oh, I don’t know that there’s anything else I can say about that.
HT: Okay. Well, why did you choose to attend Woman’s College, [now The University of North Carolina at Greensboro]? What—
CB: Actually, I did not choose it, but fortunately we had a high school physics teacher—His name was Julian Powell, he’s deceased—but at that time, he was a very learned individual, and he was our mentor for a few of us in school. I mean for the whole class, but those of us that he thought had potential, he’d have after-school classes where we would read Shakespeare, things that we did not get in the ordinary classroom, and he exposed us to a lot of things that high school—that the schools were not giving to us. And he had several of us—My sister and I were part of that group—and he always knew that we did not have money, that we were not money but we were loved, and so he just catered to us, and so then he came up with the idea. He said, Well, you should go to a state school because you pay taxes, and the state schools are less expensive, and I think we can get you some scholarships. So at the time we were studying for the SAT and all of these things, getting ready for college, he said, “Woman’s College is now accepting blacks and it is a state school and you will be in the second class,” I think. He said, they—because the first—We don’t want to go through what was happening at Central High [School, Little Rock, Arkansas], so at first we were—and, you know, he would come and talk to the parents about his plans for us; that I’m going to help you get them in the college. We’re going to get them in a good school, and they will be able to get scholarships and so forth and my parents were at first reluctant. They did not want to put me in a situation where people were spitting and carrying on, but he convinced them that this did not happen at Woman’s College. He said, “First thing, just let me handle it. I know we will not steer you wrong.” And then we all came to embrace it. He, on a Saturday, he took us to the campus, and then he made sure that we liked it; that we 3
thought we could survive in that environment. And we were there without the school knowing we were there. I mean, we didn’t do any legal thing with the school. I mean, nothing illegal, but he was just—He was just showing us the area. Incidentally, I’ve come to just love Greensboro. I always said that’s where I’m going to retire to because he took us through, and tried to make it as our home. Just a wonderful man, just a wonderful person. And then we went through the—You know, first, getting prepared to take the test, and we got accepted at Woman’s College, and by then we were very excited. And so that’s it was chosen, because it was a state school and now they were accepting blacks, and he thought he could get money.
HT: Were you able to get a scholarship?
CB: Well, we got a [chuckle]—You know when we went to school—This is my memory of it, that it was only about $790.00 a year, but that was like twenty-thousand to us, and Woman’s College did subsidize it. We found—I think the United Negro College Fund gave me a scholarship, and UNCG—Woman’s College, as it was then—gave me a small amount of it, because one of the criteria is that where you’re going, they have to give you something, so they gave the whatever they could give to count. That was standard. It wasn’t a lot, but it was encouraging enough for us to come.
HT: So what do you recall about your first days on campus as a student? I guess that was the fall of 1958.
CB: Yes, it was, fall of 1958. A beautiful day, beautiful day. I remember my parents drove me there, and we had the car all packed up. They were excited and worried. It was always a family joke: my father was driving and we were coming up [Interstate] 85 from Charlotte to Greensboro—We lived in Charlotte, as I said—Coming up 85 to Greensboro, and we got to the exit on Greensboro—for Greensboro—and it said something like, This is the exit for Woman’s College, or something. And my father took the exit, and when you took the exit off of 85, when you got off the exit, you had to go either right or left and they were just as nervous as I was. And the family joke is my father said, “Well, which way? They say to come this way, but which way?” And my mother said, “Go either way.” [laughter] And so we’ve always—It’s so stupid that I remember that, but we have always remembered that and laughed about how—because at first they were trying to make us feel okay, but that just showed me that they were just as nervous.
[telephone rings, recording paused]
CB: We arrived on campus and, of course, we had already been assigned our rooms, and we went to Shaw [Residence Hall]. We had to find Shaw Hall; that’s where we were living. Shaw was in a beautiful setting. It was an old building, but—
HT: It’s in the Quad.
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CB: Yes, it was in the Quad with trees and so forth, and we walked up to the building. Well, as I remember it, walking, and we first left everything in the car and tried to walk and find our rooms, and immediately—I almost had her name—when we walked in the front door—that was one of those names I was going to look up—this lady, it turns out she was the dorm leader—they called them, I don’t know, something else—she met us at the door.
HT Counselor or something like that.
CB: Yes, it’s not—It was not the—It’s the—She was a student.
HT: Right, it wasn’t Celeste Ulrich [Class of 1946, and physical education faculty],was it?
CB: No, no. [pause] Oh gosh. I was going to say Nancy; it’s not Nancy. I’ve talked to her once since then. Anyway, she was standing in the door, and the resident counselor was there, but this girl was the lead. You know, she was a student, a resident lady, they called her, but she was also a student. And so she greeted us, and without—My parents made me realize this later, but I’m not sure that I really caught it at that time—without, you know, like saying, Let me see your room assignment, she ushered us to this wing of the—It was on the first floor, the wing of the building, and as we walked through the doors, they were all—the walls were all green, painted green. Anyway we walked in this room—through these doors, and this whole thing was green. There were bathrooms on that side, and on the other side were all these rooms, and so it was at this point she wanted to know which room that I was going to be, and we had an assignment, and they took me to the room, and my roommate which—I remember Jewel [Anthony, Class of 1962] because she and I came to be friends, but that was not my roommate. I can’t recall my roommate’s name. She didn’t stay long, so that’s why I can’t recall her name, but anyway. Oh, I remember her boyfriend’s name, just like this, because that’s all she talked about. It’s crazy. But anyway, and so we met. My roommate happened to be there, and we met her. We were in the room. Then all of a sudden, Lily came bouncing in. This girl was a black girl and her name was Lily.
HT: Was it Lily Wiley [Class of 1962]?
CB: Lily Wiley came bouncing in, and if you—I don’t know if you had a chance to meet Lily. She’s probably still bouncing around. She was avante garde; she was bohemian; she was just a different kind of person, but very outgoing. She came in and starting chatting, and then my roommate was disturbed because we were all in this—She said, “This suite is for us.” All the black girls that had been admitted were assigned to this end of the hall. And of course, I hadn’t gotten to that point yet. You know, it was my first day in college, and now I’ve seen this room; how am I going to get all my stuff in this little space. We didn’t have a lot, you know; we didn’t have the electronics and things to bring in, but, you know, the few clothes we had and now I see the closet was much bigger than the closets my grandkids have when they go to college. But we had a closet to put our clothes in and so forth, and we started hanging them up. But I remember that one girl who, white girl, who was the dorm residence lady, being extremely friendly. The counselor never was; 5
never could get there. She—but fortunately this other girl took her place, you know, and she was very comforting and she says, “You’re not going to be liked, but it’s not about you; it’s about changing things, but you can always come to me,” and she was true about that.
I’ve repressed a lot of these things over the years, and I’ve refused to do this because I just didn’t want to bring it back, and bringing it back, that’s why I needed to go back and get the names because I’ve been thinking about it since I finally agreed to do it. But I do remember that I never got a relationship with the lady who was the dorm mother or whatever she was.
HT: Well, did you get a chance to meet JoAnne Smart Drane [Class of 1960] those first few days, by any chance?
CB; Oh, yes. I did not meet her the first day, but JoAnne, of course, JoAnne and Bettye Tillman [Class of 1960]. How I can recall their names without recalling my roommates name is amazing. But anyway, JoAnne and Bettye came over later, not on that first day. I don’t remember them on the first day. They first day, you know, I was with the parents, and all the girls on the hall, and then some of the other—After awhile, I remember—Before I went to school, I didn’t know the difference—I mean everybody was either white or black, but we came to realize that, you know, now we can point out Jewish girls because the Jewish girls were very friendly. I mean, you know, understanding, and they would come in and they would get angry that we were in this hall with these bathrooms that we could have by ourselves, and they were in rooms.
Never, never walked to the rest of the part of the dorms. I never went into anybody’s room. It was—Before I visited any of the other students’ rooms, I think I was out of Shaw. I don’t have a recollection of ever visiting any other floor, and when we had a dorm meeting, it was in the lobby, and everybody sat on the floor in the lobby, but never got around. But from them I could hear that, We are in rooms where we have to share the bathrooms and you all have all these bathrooms out here by yourselves. And after a while, a couple of them would ask, “Can we come and use your bathrooms so we don’t have to stand in line,” and do whatever they had to do upstairs. So that was good. And then JoAnne, for Bettye Tillman, they came over and introduced themselves. I traveled with Bettye Tillman. We got to be great friends. I mean, they were very instrumental in helping us to navigate the campus and understand different people.
HT: Well, tell me more about Bettye because, you know, unfortunately she died a number of years ago, very young.
CB: Oh, yes. Very young. I was at her funeral. She was buried—and I don’t know why now—but she was buried in D.C. I went to her funeral in D.C. I remember—
HT: Wasn’t she teaching in this area?
CB: That must be why she was here. I haven’t been able to recollect that, but Bettye sort of took me under her wings, and after—I mean, I could go to her with books and problems, and on the summer she took me to New York to work in—We worked in children homes 6
and stuff like that in Brooklyn, New York. She gained the confidence of my parents, because I was very sheltered, but she gave me a lot of laughs and taught me to enjoy myself in the world. And then, yes, she was here teaching, and I remember I was working at Goddard Air Flight—Goddard Space Center then, and had met—because I remember taking my coworker with me to her funeral. But I couldn’t believe that she had passed, so a lot of this—I’ll tell you this experience, what it taught to me is that I know now I can get through anything because I have this ability to, you know, cloud it over, and I—It’s not the greatest idea but that’s what I learned in Woman’s College. If you can’t—certain things you can’t change. You know, this is what it is, and you live in the space that you are, so it was in a lot of ways, traumatic, and then in other ways very gratifying. I don’t think I became a woman at Woman’s College, the kind that I see other kids go to school and come back, because I was still dealing with shielding off things and not being—not putting your whole emotions in it, because you didn’t want to get your feelings hurt or feel like you were not as good as someone else or something. And, of course, we were still in the early stages and, as Bettye and those told us, some of the teachers are not going to be happy that you are here, but you wouldn’t be here if you couldn’t do the work. I remember them telling me that: You would not be here if you couldn’t do the work, so don’t worry if you get Cs because unless you’re a genius, they are not going to give you As. They’re not going to give you that, so what you have to do—I just remember them telling us this: What you have to do is learn it. What you have in your head, they can’t take away from you, so you don’t have to worry about the grades. And I remember them telling me that on any resume, you’ll be able to get any job you want to get with Woman’s College on your resume, so don’t worry about—You’ve just got to graduate.
HT: Because Woman’s College had a wonderful reputation in those days.
CB; Absolutely.
HT: It was top-notch.
CB: Top-notch, and so that’s what they told me to focus on, that you will find some people who will treat you just like any other person, and others that will not. So they were wonderful, both of them, and it’s just amazing to me that JoAnne has remained very committed to the university.
HT: Oh, she’s just a wonderful person.
CB: Very committed to it, and it’s just—I love the picture you sent me the other day of her. I remember them taking that. And—Because she got over it; she understood it, and made me understand it. She and Bettye were—Bettye was the—a mother. She had a child, and that she could be away in college was always amazing to me, but it’s also connected to me in the fact that my parents had told me: Education is a way out. And she was seeking her way out of that and so it was just wonderful.
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HT: Well, you said you lived at Shaw the first year; did you live in Shaw the second and third year?
CB: No, no. After—Shaw got to be wonderful; I mean, our little group in that we all got very close. They were from areas closer to the university then Charlotte, so we got to visit their parents. They were from High Point, and one lovely white lady from—a girl, lady now, from Ahoskie was there. So anyway we had a very nice group; they taught us bridge, which is now my life’s pastime. And so dorm life came to be wonderful, and you know, some of them, as I said, shared our showers and so forth. I never went to the other part of the dorm: You want me here, I’ll stay here. The next year we went to Ragsdale. I lived in Ragsdale-Mendenhall [Residence Hall] I think it was called, and we felt bad, because when we went to Ragsdale, they put the dorm counselor out of their rooms and gave us their room. You know, they had the end rooms in the dorm that was complete with its own bathroom. They never—The whole time I was there, they never allowed us to share the bathrooms with the non-black students. I mean, we always—The whole four years, they always made sure that we were, you know, that we were in our own bathrooms and so forth. So our room was very nice and large because it was where the dorm counselors would ordinarily live. I guess they put them—So you know that had to tick them off, that they didn’t get their, you know, their own space with their little whatever, their cooking area. You know they had a big, huge bathroom, and big rooms, and so forth.
HT: Did you have just one roommate?
CB: Yes, and they only put one roommate in there with me, but— [pause] So that dorm life at Ragsdale, I was on the end room, and across the—I could come out the side door and across the side door was the health unit [Gove Infirmary, now the Gove Student Health Center] so I felt very—not that I was sickly or anything—but it backed up against the woods, and there—To me, it was a beautiful space. And I was in a tennis class, of course. When I went to the tennis class, they thought that I was—What was the black lady’s name? Ashe that was there. I want to say Ashe, but that was a guy. Oh, black woman that was a tennis player. I recalled the name today; is that the early stages of Alzheimer’s, I guess. Anyway, I was—Of course, I went to the class and the first thing they said: Was I going to be like this woman in the tennis class, but I certainly was not like her but I certainly enjoyed the tennis class. But I was talking about her because I was in this dorm, and I loved to wear that little white uniform that they had for the tennis players, and was coming down those steps and some guy was on campus, a white guy, and whistled at me, right, and so I thought, “Oh.” These are the memories I have of that dorm because we were on that side. But one of the bad memories we have because we were on that side: One night the Ku Klux Klan came in, one day. They came in and how—when I think back—How did they get on the campus in their regalia. I mean they had the white pointed hats and by then, they know those of us who were black were all in the end rooms, because that’s where the dorm counselors—They threw Molotov cocktails at our windows and yelled. I mean sooner or later the police, the campus cops or whatever, came and tried to get them out, but by then they were doing it; they were there. And I had enjoyed that space so because we could come out that door, hit a—didn’t have to hit a 8
few balls, I could see the—I could remember the woods and the medical center sitting right there. It was just a, I thought, a beautiful space, but they ruined it for me because now I’m afraid. But they were there and then, by the time we got to phones—We did not have cell phones in all of that, but I somehow got to my parents by phone, and they drove there. I don’t know whether it was on the news or how, but my parents showed up. That went on—that was on this day. The next day the parents showed up. There was no official person to come and say: You know, they’re going to be safe. We are competent. But my dad was a—He just said, “Show me to the office. Where do you go to pay the bills?”
HT: Now did this happen just that one time that the KKK came by?
CB: Oh, they only came one time. Oh, yes. They didn’t—It wasn’t—Oh, boy [unclear] So that it wasn’t but one time, and I, you know, on reflection, the university—You know, how they got there in the first place, we don’t know, but once they were there, the university seemed to handle it. They seemed to have gotten—I mean, you know, it wasn’t like a long all-day thing, but they were singing and throwing these things up against the window, and they went off with a terrible smell or something, but they were able to—You know, they didn’t come back ever.
HT: And this happened at night.
CB: No, it was like late evening. I mean you could see them clearly outside, so I don’t know whether it was—Just imagine how frightening it was, and all this stuff has been repressed for a long time. [laughs] More than fifty years ago, but that, yes, that was terrible.
Now in that dorm we visited other girls and so forth, so it wasn’t—As I was saying, there was this one girl from Ahoskie, and I can remember her sitting on my floor all the time, and I had—And by this time Jewel might have been my roommate, and they would sit there and play cards and not go to class, and that kind of stuff. My head had been washed so I had to go to class, but I remember the times in that dorm were not bad at all. But that’s where we were for the whole four years. I think I always got that room after that first time. I stayed in Shaw and Ragsdale for the four years I was there.
HT: What do you recall about the rules and regulations of living in the dorms at that time?
CB: Well, not much because they weren’t for us. I mean, you came to realize which rules were for you, and which were not. Because we were on this door, this girl from Ahoskie would always try to say, You can bring guys right into that door and they would never know it. You know, you have the best of situations, and she wanted to know if she could bring a guy through that door. I mean, we just loved that corner so we didn’t—There were not—We didn’t have to deal with the rules, and in Ragsdale, we didn’t have a lot of dorm meetings and we don’t know whether they had them without us or whatever, but we didn’t have a lot of dorm meetings where they would tell us what to do and not to do. I don’t remember any restrictions. We just went about our business. What did they call where you go down to the stores, The Corner.
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HT: The Corner, right.
CB: I think they used to call it The Corner, There was discrimination there of course, but by now my parents had realized that they had shielded us. You know there was discrimination in Charlotte. You know, they would take us to the stores and we couldn’t touch anything, but you know they would just tell you not to touch. Or you’d go to the bathroom before you’d go to shopping, or you’d do that kind of stuff. So they didn’t—It wasn’t a big deal. This is just the way it was, but by the time you got to campus and, you know, you start to make friends with all the students, not just your color of students, and we’d go down to The Corner and we couldn’t sit and eat with them, or that kind of thing, you know. It became obvious about the discriminations of the world. And of course I was there during the Sit-ins in Greensboro.
HT: What do you recall about the Sit-ins?
CB: A lot. I had, you know—The Jacket Day was great. I had gotten my green jacket and, you know, you put those jackets on just to say you were a junior. I had made it to being a junior, and I wore my—put my jacket on and went to the—What the university did not realize is that we were black students who had a, you know, we had a cross to bear, too, because many of our black friends thought that we thought we were better than them, because we went to this integrated school, right, so we had to—We were in a place where we had to show that we understood your plight, that we were doing the same thing. Yes, we were in an integrated school, but it was for the studies only. We realized that the social was not integrating so we put on these—You know, by now, we’ve made friends with students at Bennett [College, Greensboro, North Carolina] and our own friends from home. Some had gone to Bennett and some had gone to A&T [North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College, Greensboro, North Carolina], and from time to time we would get together, so when they said, We’re all going down to the—We’re going to the Woolworth Sit-ins, what I must do is put on my jacket and go because I wanted to make the statement that, yes, I’m over here but I’m with you. I understand we need to do this. This is not about school. You have the choice where you want to go to school, but this is—You need to have a choice if you’re paying money to Woolworths, that you could sit at the counter. So we were sitting up at the counter with these Woman’s [College] jackets on, and evidently we got in the news with these Woman’s College jackets, And I remember coming back, and when we got back, we had to go to the auditorium—Aycock Auditorium—and got this speech about, We, here at Woman’s College are supportive of all our students, but they didn’t want our students to go to the Sit-ins, and especially with your jackets on.
HT: That would have been probably Chancellor Gordon Blackwell, who was chancellor at the time. Now did you, by any chance, know—We know of at least three or four white girls who went down. Did you know which of—? Let’s see, Eugenia Seaman Marks [Member of the Class of 1962].
CB: It’s funny, because we weren’t the only ones there, now. Black girls were not the only ones there. There were several white girls but, you know, we used to say—We looked at 10
them and were they friends? We didn’t know they—But there were a lot of white girls who had no problem with us being there, but there was no one-on-one connection, and so they, they taught us about—You had friends because you had to share the same ideals, some same interests, or something; not about the color of your skin, so we looked at them and said, You know, they’ve never been overly, you know, overly supportive but yet they were. So we didn’t know of them personally. No. I didn’t.
HT: You didn’t know them personally. I’ve talked to all three—actually four—white women, interviewed them, and they said it was more or less a spur of the moment type thing that they decided to participate in the Sit-ins.
CB: And they did it on their own. It wasn’t—
HT: They did it on their own. They walked downtown
CB: It wasn’t a group things, yes, They did.
HT: I think three of them came back by taxicab.
CB: We were very surprised that they were there. And you would have thought we would have met with them afterwards or whatever, but we realized it was an individual commitment. It wasn’t—It certainly wasn’t organized. Now I can’t say it was organized with us, except that we just said, We’re going.
HT: Did you by any chance go with Claudette Graves [Class of 1961]?
CB: Yes, I sure did. I was with Claudette Graves who lived in the city, and she is the one who came over and got us. And I think Claudette had on her coat, too. Claudette was a senior by then, I think.
HT: She graduated in ’61.
CB: Yes, and I did in ’62, yes. So she was a senior. Yes, she orchestrated that. Have you talked with her?
HT: She died, unfortunately, a few years ago.
CB: Did she?
HT: Right, and she was a member of the City Council of Greensboro. I think she’s been dead about three or four years. I can’t remember right now.
CB: I remember when she became a city council [member]. But we got to a point you’d just wipe all that stuff out. I don’t know why we did that. But anyway.
HT: Did you go down more than one day, or just—Do you recall? 11
CB: Actually, I can only remember going that one day, but I remember arguing that, you know, we paid for this coat. I’ll wear this coat anywhere I want to go. But, I didn’t stop wearing my coat, and if I went downtown, I wore the coat. I don’t remember going back to the thing. I remember [them] getting upset that we were there with our coats, but on the local paper they had the white girls’ picture on the—
HT: Right.
CB: With her coat on, and we were there with our coats on. But that’s the news, you know; that’s the way they do it. No one ever said that we were there, because they didn’t understand. They did not understand. I guess they expected us, but we had another thing to—we were—As blacks kids, we had another thing to say to our black counterparts: We’re not better; we understand the struggle, and we needed to be a part of it.
HT: I understand there was a little bit of animosity from some of the other black students, especially from Bennett College.
CB: Yes, oh yes.
HT: Is that how that was?
CB: Yes, and that’s what I think. Most people didn’t realize that by us wearing them [class jackets], that, we had to do that, and so, You couldn’t come to our school, so don’t come, so they may have been the reason we didn’t go back down, not that speech didn’t—Yes, we didn’t care about his speech telling us not to go, or not to wear the jackets, but we—I mean we can home saying, [makes sound] you know. We would wear our jackets; we paid for them. You can’t tell me where to wear my jacket. But I think our own people kept us from carrying it on more so than the college. Now the college made [unclear] that they had told us not to go, but it really wasn’t.
HT: Well, I talked to Myrna Lee [Class of 1962] a couple of years ago, and I’m sure you remember her, and she said that she actually drove people back and forth to the Sit-ins, but that she didn’t actually participate because I think her dad didn’t want her to be sort of in the forefront. He didn’t want her—but she could do things behind the scenes.
CB: Oh, okay. Yes, she was supportive.
HT: Was she a good friend of yours, by any chance?
CB: No, Myrna was not, I mean, a friend. I knew her of course—
HT: She was a day student so that’s a little bit different, right.
CB: Yes, yes it was.
12
HT: Well, do you recall anything else about participating in the Sit-ins or any other political protests while you were on campus?
CB: No, I’m not that kind of a person. I—So I don’t remember anything. May I just share with you one thing that I remember—
HT: Sure.
CB: —that I have not been able to say to anybody, but I thought, I’m going to put this down.
HT: Please do.
CB: I was a member of the health class, and it’s funny that I remember this teacher’s name when I can’t remember people who were closer. Her name was Mrs. White. She was the health teacher, and just racist. You know, she had to teach us, but she would always figure out some way to—now I would say, I don’t know what I used at that time—to zing me, and she would put questions on the test or things that were culturally oriented, that perhaps we had not discussed in class, and then she would pick at me if I answered. And I remember once she wrote on the test, People should take baths only on Saturday night. And in our culture, that was something, but my parents never taught me that, and what I learned from this experience is never to misrepresent my parents anymore. My parents never said to us, “You only take baths on a Saturday night,” but it was a thing in our community that on Saturday night everybody was taking their baths, getting ready to go to church on Sunday, but it wasn’t that just on Saturday night. I mean we took baths every day. We had—I told you we lived in the subsidized projects and so we had a bath; we had bathtubs and so forth, but anyway she wrote on there then. And so I said, Well, gosh my parents, they never told us that, but, I mean, you could hear it from the other kids so maybe this is right. And she’s asking this in this setting. So it was a true-false test, and I wrote “true,” and, you know, that’s annoying, I know that I’m not a stupid person. Back then I was supposed to be smart. And I don’t know; I just kept sitting there with that question. Why would this woman put this question on here. She’s getting at me again. Why would she want to do that. So I just said, Okay, say yes; live with it. And when she came back to review the test, she reviewed the test, she went—I can just see her standing there now: [imitates fake laugh] I don’t know—and she looks over at me; they knew what she was doing, and she: [imitates laugh again] I don’t know about this question, but you should take a bath every day, or something like that. So then I vowed that day: You will never get me again. I’m going to ace this course, and you will never get me again. So it taught me something then. I would say now, you know your parents are right. If they didn’t teach you that, and you didn’t read it, then you know it’s not true. So I learned a lot from that, but she ridiculed me good that day.
HT: Did you have problems with her the entire semester?
CB: Oh, yes. She would just do little diggy things like that. Well, you know, we were nice and clean, but I’m sure we didn’t have the right clothes. You know, we just didn’t have stuff, but we would work, and that’s one of the things Bettye taught me: My parents, we would 13
work every summer, and my parents would [say], “Any money you earn, you buy your clothes.” And I know Bettye helped me to buy clothes and stuff that probably fit in. I never was conscious about my clothes. To this day, I’m just not that kind of a person, but I just figured we just didn’t fit in because we just weren’t dressed properly. I mean, there was something she could pick at me about all the time. But she did it overtly.
HT: Now were you usually the only black student in each class?
CB: That’s what it comes out—That’s what it would come down to: only one, because, you know, they didn’t take in a bunch, and we—When I think back, I probably should have decided to get in some of the same classes at the same time because health was a core class that everybody had to take, but I just—I can remember where I sat, and with her looking at me. And with all the other classes, I had one English class that I can remember like that. And that is because, as I told you, I used to love to read and write. I thought I understood, but I could never please this particular professor. In fact, I got out of writing. I always had intended to write. I wanted to do math and to write, but I also understand it now that people don’t usually do those two things. But he got me out of it because I could never get on it. Then my sister came along, and I think she had the same man, and he was pleased with her writing so I decided, It must be me. I can’t write. But— [laughter]
HT: Oh, gosh.
CB: But anyway, we got out of it.
HT: Well, what did you think of the dining hall, and the dining hall food? Was that adequate and nutritious?
CB: Oh yes. It was. We—The dining hall was a pleasant time. I don’t remember—The food was good, and I know my sister later even worked in the dining hall. I never—I worked in the physics and math department. I took a job doing something with math and so forth, but I didn’t work in that kind, but she worked in the dining hall. But we liked—I mean, the dining hall was good. I remember the circle—We had to—By now I was assigned to Spencer [Residence] Hall, and—Oh, I did live in Spencer one time because Spencer. I thought I lived in Rag—I did live in Spencer one year.
HT: Now Spencer is the one that’s connected to the dining hall.
CB: With all those dining halls, so I know I did that. Yes, I did live in Spencer one year. Or did I just hang out there? [laughter] Because I would have to go back—Oh boy, did we wipe that away. Yes, I did live—I think I did live in Spencer one year, probably my senior year, because by then my roommate, whose name is going to come to me, had either flunked out—Both Jewel and this other girl. She was from High Point as well. I don’t even see her name on here. You all didn’t even get her. I thought her name would come back to me.
HT: Well, those are— 14
CB: They had flunked out so, either flunked or left. Now I think—I know Jewel flunked out, right? I think she left because of grades, but my roommate, she was such a strange person until I’m not sure why she left. I just wanted to know if you all had—
HT: The list only includes the graduates. It doesn’t include the people who left early.
CB: Jewel graduated.
HT: I think she finally—I think she finally graduated in ’63.
CB: She did,
HT: I think so, but she’s considered Class of ’62.
CB: Yes. Oh, wonderful. So it’s only graduates on here. Well, I wouldn’t have thought that because I saw Jewel. I never knew she graduated. She didn’t walk with us, so I didn’t know. She was—But that’s great because it wasn’t—It was like—She was a Spanish major, and it was like—If I think long enough, I can remember the course. It was like this one course. She wasn’t that bad, but that one course, she couldn’t get through.
HT: You know, at that time, there was only one graduation a year which was in May, so if you had to take a summer course or something like that, you just missed it that year and had to go to the next year. That happened to quite a few students in those days.
CB: She never told us though. She was supposed to be the godmother of my child, and I went to her—and when she got married, I went to her wedding, and when—So I didn’t know that. She never told me that, and I see she’s back in her maiden name and back in High Point. Well, anyway.
HT: And I’ll have her to contact you.
CB: Okay. I was down to High Point. My granddaughter wanted to go to High Point College—
[End CD 1—Begin CD 2]
CB: And so we went down there. I have a granddaughter who is at UMBC—I don’t know if you know that. I don’t know if you know that. What is that? University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She is a Meyerhoff Scholar; wants to be a doctor, but I took her to The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. I wanted her to go there, and she loved it. She wanted to go also. Her—School has become very expensive, and she didn’t get the scholarships from there that she got from a lot of other places, from UNCG. But I wanted—I went to the Alumni Office because I wanted to see if—Because, you know, I used to give to the school. I have the card; I have a credit card that says UNCG that 15
money goes back, so I was saying—And I identified myself, went to the Alumni House—I don’t know who the lady was—and I identified myself as a graduate of ’62, and I told her, I said, “You know, we were in that group when you first started to integrated,” and she looked at me very wildly like, What are you talking about? And so she says—And I said, “I have a granddaughter who loves this school. I’m trying to get my kids—You know, I’m getting over what happened to me here, and I loved it enough that I would recommend it, and bring my child down here.” I loved going back. I took her to the ice cream shop and all that stuff. It’s all moved and changed but, you know, it’s still very much in my—And I said, “I’m trying to—I want her to be a part of this university. I want to know what you can do,” and she just—I remember her looking at me and just saying, “Oh, yes. Oh.” So I just turned around in the little Alumni House and walked out. Well, fortunately my granddaughter is resourceful and bright, and so she got, you know, she got the Meyerhoff Scholarship and goes there. So now I have a younger granddaughter, and I want her to go there. So I’m taking her back—Well, she went with us when we took the other one so she loved the school. She wants to go—My parents, of course, lived in North Carolina, and we would always take them back to North Carolina, so they were very excited about going to North Carolina, and this one did not even apply at UNCG, this granddaughter that we’re getting ready to put in school. And do you know where she ends up? She had scholarships everywhere, and her parents let her choose A&T. Well, they keep reminding me, when I was there, A&T was a party school, but I was at UNCG, and you know, I didn’t go to school at A&T, but I knew the people. I mean, we sort of stayed in contact and that’s where the guys that visit us would have to come from, and so I am very—still to this day—upset about her going there, but I recognize—and I don’t want this tape to get out in saying that I—But in my day, fifty some years ago, A&T was a party school. I just don’t want my granddaughter to go to a party school; I want her to keep focused on her education. She, too, wants to be a doctor, and I want her to be focused on her education. A&T didn’t give her a cent, and her parents are letting her go there. Which means they’ve got to pay whatever it costs, all out of their pocket.
HT: I’m assuming she’s out of state, as well.
CB: And she’s out of state. Her mother is my daughter, which I seem not to have a—can’t tell her what to do, when she and her husband agree on something. I just can’t get over that they would pay all that money to go there, but anyway. That was an aside. I’m sorry.
HT: But this sort of leads us into—You know, you were talking about A&T and social life. What kind of social life were you able to have at Woman’s College in those days?
CB: Nothing on campus, absolutely nothing on campus. By the time we got to our senior year, I think maybe I could go down to The Corner and have a pizza, but, you know, in the first few years, we couldn’t do that. There wasn’t anything, so if we kept our connections with the—You know, I had friends in my senior class who went to Bennett—and you tried to keep that connection, but as you’ve already observed or I observed earlier, they had this thing, that, you know, you’re trying to be better than us because you went there. And so it was at A&T—We would go over there when they had dance night or whatever, and try to, you know, try to meet the guys and so forth. That was it. We had to keep up with 16
when there was a social over there. And of course some of the guys would be very excited to come and pick us up and take us over there.
HT: Did you ever attend any dances at Woman’s College, that you recall?
CB: No. I did take—I was trying to remember—You know, they would have something over at UNC [University of North Carolina], Chapel Hill. In fact, one of the things that our mentor, Mr. Powell, had told us, this was an all-women’s college, and my parents did not want us to go to an all-women’s college because they wanted us to find a husband and [unclear] and he—One of the things he sold us on is that, you know, a lot of girls go to Woman’s College and transfer over to UNCG—I mean to UNC in Chapel Hill, so we settled on, We’re going there for two years and transfer to UNC [Chapel Hill], so once the school sponsored something over at UNC. I remember the girls got together, and I got on the bus. I mean, I went over there because I wanted to see the campus, and I knew that—Early on our plans were that I would be at Woman’s College for two years, and then go over there. I got over there and I wasn’t terribly impressed. I wasn’t. Of course I wasn’t because I stayed at Woman’s College for the whole time. But that was a social event. You know, you went over there. but no, there was no social life.
HT: Well, you mentioned earlier that you did play some bridge, so that became part of—
CB: Well, yes. The girls did teach us to play bridge. I mean, I have since learned that there is a national bridge association for black people in my community. I didn’t even know they played bridge; didn’t know it existed. But by them exposing me to bridge, I have eventually found that out. So, that’s the one good thing. Yes, I did learn to play bridge there, and I truly enjoy the game.
HT: Well, what do you recall about campus traditions? You’ve already mentioned the class jacket. What about Rat Day? Do you remember anything about that?
CB: No, I saw that on there. I didn’t know about Rat Day.
HT: That was a freshman hazing type event.
CB: Really. Nope, didn’t know that. There was something else on there that I did know. What was that thing about the Daisy Chain?
HT: Daisy Chain. That was during graduation.
CB: Right. Yes, yes, so we—I did remember that.
HT: They’re trying to bring that back.
CB: Oh, really.
17
HT: You know, so many of the traditions sort of fell by the wayside once it became coeducational.
CB: Coed, yes.
HT: In the late sixties and early seventies, all of those Woman’s College traditions just—
CB: Went away.
HT: Went away, right.
CB: I actually hated that the school became coed, and I know, at first we didn’t want to go because it was all-girls, but I don’t know. There’s something—I can say, there’s something—But I guess the state just can’t do that anymore.
HT: Well, you know, I think at that time all the schools became coeducational in North Carolina, it seems like.
CB: Yes, they did. Bennett alone is remaining, but all of the schools that are state schools have become coeducational.
HT: Did you ever feel—I think we’ve already probably mentioned this a little bit—being discriminated against because you were black at Woman’s College? You mentioned the health teacher. What about from your fellow students?
CB: Oh, absolutely. You learn to recognize those who didn’t want you there or who didn’t want you there specifically because of the color of your skin, and you stayed out of their way and they stayed out of yours. But yes, there was plenty of desegregation there—I mean, segregation and discrimination.
HT: What about from other professors, because you’ve already mentioned Mrs. White, you said.
CB: That was the worst one, but—And only because she took her little digs and laughed and we spent all of our class time taking her little digs and laughing. But others were more discreet than that. You know, like you couldn’t ever get to meet them in office hours, or things like that. And that Mossman, what was her name?
HT: Mereb Mossman. She was not an instructor by that time; she was vice chancellor, sort of second in command.
CB: She was in administration.
HT: She was in administration, yes.
18
CB: Yes, she was somewhere in the administration building, not personable at all. For some reason. For some reason—Was she head of student affairs or something? Something you had to interface with her on.
HT: Well now, there was Katherine Taylor, who was—
CB: I knew Katherine Taylor.
HT: Dean of students at the time.
CB: Maybe that’s the one, but there were some who would, you know, clearly say it to you, you’re [unclear]. You are not here because of me. I mean, I don’t want you here, or something. You know, they just—You just had that, but, you know, we were constantly getting instruction, You are here for the education; you could care less about the sociability and stuff.
HT: Well, it sounds like you really focused on getting that education, which was the important thing.
CB: You had to. [unclear] You know like a lot of people go to college to find themselves or whatever. We had to focus on trying to stay in this class. You don’t care about the grades, but if you learn what they taught you, then that was it. So you just learned to fog over that, but there certainly was discrimination.
HT: Did you ever have a history teacher by the name of Richard Bardolph?
CB: Oh yes.
HT: Do you remember that name?
CB: Oh, yes. That was a brainy man. I don’t remember discrimination from him. I remember learning to recognize from him, excellence. Isn’t that something. I don’t remember—I mean he could have been discriminatory, but I didn’t look at that. I look—I had hated history before that. I mean, I don’t like—I couldn’t remember facts; I couldn’t—I just didn’t like it, but he mesmerized me. I just thought he was a brilliant teacher. And, of course, I read his—You know, he would be teaching from his own books. Wasn’t he one of the ones who—I just thought he was a—
HT: He was—
CB: He was one of the first people that was impressive to me as what you can do with education. Yes, so I don’t know—secret idol of mine. So I don’t, you know, I just don’t—Now was he that way to other people? I didn’t have to really do anything face-to-face with him, you know, except I think I took history from him one—I took enough to know that that was a bright man, and that I was duly impressed.
19
HT: Now Randall Jarrell was a poet on campus. Did you—
CB: Yes, yes. I know that I sat and listened to some of his readings. And if you would ask me to recall his name, obviously if I can’t recall one of my roommates, I can’t recall his name. I’d see her all the time. But I don’t remember any face-to-face, and that there was one-on-one. He probably would not know Clara Withers and I certainly—But I do remember, and I remember how he looks. That’s one of the few people that I remember that if I saw today, I probably know that was he.
HT: Did you ever have a chance to meet Barbara Parrish, who was alumni secretary?
CB: Yes. I met her. She ran the Alumni House.
HT: She did, yes.
CB: I remember—You know when I first came here, I was still connected. They would have alumni meetings here. I went to several white homes here, too, to meet with other alumni in the area. Tremendously gracious. And I remember her coming to one of our meetings to talk about, you know, the school there, and getting other people to come.
HT: Well, do you recall who your favorite teacher was during those four years you were at Woman’s College.
CB: Yes. She was my physics teacher. There were two of them: she and she had—Oh, Miss—Oh, I know exactly who it was, and she hired me to grade physics papers and to grade—I worked for her, gosh. Oh, another bright woman. I want to say—I don’t know her name. Sorry. I want to say it started with an R, Miss—Oh, I can see her, but very—She got into my brain. I mean, she recognized that—I have not done what I could have done, and sometimes I blame it on Woman’s College, but it has to be on me. But she made me—She was just a wonderful, wonderful person. And her assistant, a guy, was wonderful also. I used to grade his trig—He taught trigonometry. I graded his trigonometry papers, and—But they are long gone. In my high school, they used to put the faculty in, but I don’t think they did.
HT: Let me stop this for a second.
[recording paused]
CB: In my time—I was speaking about my speech teacher, which once again, I can’t recall her name, but she was very good at trying to make me sound generic rather than—I don’t know, she—And I’ve since become a speaker. I mean, I’m not the person that you’re sitting, but I can stand in a pulpit or I can stand on a stage and speak and talk. And it was because of her, and some people say that—But it’s not something that I do every day, but, I mean, it’s—But I can recall some of the things she taught me, and how she would 20
try to get—Ohm, here’s the speech teachers. [looking at yearbook] I don’t recognize any of those names. I don’t recognize those names.
HT: She might have—Perhaps she’d left by that [both talking, unclear]
CB: But she was a tall, tall lady, gray-haired. I can see her. I see with one lady, Charlotte Perkins, but Perkins does not ring a bell. She was good and just taught me—I just felt like a student under her, rather than a black student, but go ahead.
HT: Well, okay. Alright, well what did you do after you graduated from Woman’s College? Tell me a little bit about what you’ve been doing since then.
CB: Oh, okay. Boy, I’ve had a very interesting life since then. When I graduated, my first job was as a math teacher for—and I used to get on my students, Why can’t you say mathematics and here I’m saying math—as a teacher for District of Columbia, which at that time, people thought was hard to get. I remember the salary they offered me: five thousand-two hundred dollars. My parents said, I haven’t made that. You go right on to D.C. A lot of—You know, I got a job in Charlotte, a lot of teacher jobs. I had never planned to be a teacher. I planned to be a statistician, and I don’t know where that plan changed in Woman’s College. I didn’t get a lot of career advice in Woman’s College, and I don’t know where that plan changed. I remember—but that had always been my life’s dream, to work for an insurance company as a statistician, and I never got there. But after I got—After I started, I taught for a year, and during the summer—I taught for a year at Anacostia High School in D.C., Anacostia and Sousa, and during the summer, with no big plans, I walked into the Bender Building in Washington, D.C. I can’t remember why in the world I was over there, but IBM was there, and I applied for IBM and they hired me, so I didn’t go back to teaching. So I worked at—I forgot the job title—engineer, systems engineer, designing computer systems and—
HT: [coughs]
[recording paused]
CB: Okay, so my first job was a teacher and then that summer I got on at IBM, and I became a systems engineer, designing systems for the Navy Division of IBM. And, of course, that was very exciting because all the training was in Poughkeepsie, New York, so I traveled a lot, stayed with them, I think, I was still with them when I got married. And from IBM, I went to Goddard Space Flight Center. I’m trying to figure out why I left IBM. I don’t know. Somebody I met said, You ought to go work for Goddard, and by then at IBM, I guess I had picked up the skill of programming, so I went to Goddard as a computer programmer.
HT: That was in the early days of computer programming. 21
CB: That was in the early days; at first, really early days, because I used to wire boards for computers. The four-seven or something. It was really early days, but I had this, I guess, kind of a math background that made it easier for me than for a lot of people, so I did that. So that’s how I got into computers. I worked for IBM and then I went to Goddard Space Flight Center, and I worked there as a programmer, and I’m trying to remember—Then I think I left there to have a child. I have one child, and I had Lisa then. That was in ’67; I know she was born in ’67. So after that what did I do? I can’t remember why—Oh, yes, at Goddard, the same person that went to Bettye Tillman’s funeral with me, his brother worked at Howard University, and Howard University Hospital as a director of their computer programs, and he—After I met his family, his brother urged me to come back and do something for our people. Anyway so that’s where I spent my life; I went to Howard.
HT: To Howard. So, okay, so you’ve been there a long time.
CB: Yes, I went to Howard and I became his—He was the director, and I became the—I went to Howard University Hospital first, and he was the director of the computer program, and I became his assistant. And then they created a department, similar department, at Howard University and I became the director of that. I went to Howard University as director of financial programming, so I was doing computer programs for the financial systems, and I ran that shop for, I don’t know—I left Howard after twenty years, so I did that shop for say five or ten; I don’t remember the time. But after that, I became the bursar of Howard University, and that’s the job I retired from.
HT: The bursar is the same thing as treasurer, right.
CB: Yes, the treasurer for the students. Very gratifying job. So, I did that, and I retired early, in ’72 I believe, and I took a job in Chicago with a computer company called Software, and I lived here in Maryland, and every Monday morning I’d fly out to Chicago and stay all week and fly back on Friday. After retirement, it’s a completely different life, but I enjoyed that, and I did that for a couple of years, and I decided, Well, I’m going to retire, enjoy retirement, and so then I’ve been doing community work, volunteer services for several foundations. I am currently the treasurer for a foundation, for two foundations actually, so I keep books for people. And how I got into that from math, I don’t know, but it’s because it’s computers involved. So I am—So that’s what I do now; so I am a—[telephone rings] And I’ve—Yes, I’m going to come. And I’ve—
[recording paused]
CB: Where were we?
HT: Let’s see, you were talking about working for community foundations. 22
CB: Oh, yes, and then what I’m doing now. And another love that goes back to Woman’s College: when I retired, I joined the [American] Bridge Association. I started—took up duplicate bridge, which is competitive bridge, playing all over the country. I took that up, and way back when, the national association for bridge was called ACBL [American Contract Bridge League], and was traditionally a white group that blacks could not play in, and I work for them now. And so here I am integrating something again, but, of course, it has been done before. But I am a director for a bridge group, for two bridge clubs in Washington, D.C. for ACBL, and I have to tell you: the first day I walked in—I did tell you I am in a black, the national black bridge group, but bridge is bridge, so I have occasionally played at the ACBL. So this job came available and I took the job as a director. They trained me to be a director and I took the job.
HT: Is this volunteer work, or—?
CB: No, they pay me. And the city, District of Columbia pays me to do it for their recreation departments, but I went into the club to do it my first day, and they are all-white, which has not been an issue for me for a long time. I mean it’s in one group and out the other group, I just didn’t get it. But it was a distinct issue for them, and when I walked in as a director, Woman’s College came back to me. I said, The world has not changed. Is this fifty years ago?
HT: Was this fairly recently?
CB: Oh they were—Oh yes, I started this job in November so it was November of 2012—and so I said, “Oh, boy. I can’t do this.” Well, after awhile I’ve come to—I didn’t think I wanted to go back. I said about that day, that my first day on the job was a complete flop because the people were so nasty. I mean, people would walk off: We don’t want you here. I just—I was in a daze. I could not believe this was 2013. I said, “I’ve been here; I’ve done this before. I don’t want to do this again.” And so—
HT: You’re another pioneer.
CB: Yes, so I said, “What is this?” But the head of the recreation department is a black man, so I said, “What is going on here? I don’t need this anymore,” and, you know, just applying for the job, he didn’t have to have a whole lot of stuff, you know. I mean, they’re not paying me top salary, you know, so they didn’t have to have a lot of things, so I said, “What you don’t know,” I said, “I helped to integrate Woman’s College in North Carolina. This just took me back to that.” I said, “I’ve never seen, I just didn’t realize—” He said, “Well, this is D.C. We have a black mayor, and a black president. They’re just sick of us.” [laughter] And he said, “So they’re going back. It’s not about you. Do you know your job?” I said, “Well, yes, I know my job.” “Today was not an example.” I said, I just sat there thinking: “You are retired. You do not have to take this.” You know, you just—I said, “I’m keeping—My husband is gone; I had a sister living but she’s—I’m just trying to entertain myself, and keep my brain going.” As you see, it’s [unclear] and I said, “I don’t—But I don’t need this,” and so he kept talking to me, and I said, “So, you know, you can find somebody else,” and he says, “No, you came highly recommended. I think 23
you ought to try it again.” Well, long story short, I’ve been doing it since November, and I love them and they love me.
HT: That’s great.
CB: It has worked out, and they have apologized so much for that first time. I don’t know what they thought, but we’ve come to see people. Yes, I’m black, and you’re white, but this one you like—If you don’t like me because I’m just not your kind of a person, I can deal with, but give me a chance. And so I have proved that I know the job, and we’re back up to fourteen tables. The first people who—They weren’t going to come, and you know, that kind of stuff. So I’m enjoying doing that now.
HT: Is this all the way in downtown D.C.
CB: No, yes, two of them. I do at two recreation centers, and I have three clubs: one club meets on Mondays and Thursdays, and the other club meets on Friday, and they are all ACBL-sanctioned, and I am a certified ACBL director. So it’s just kind of a full course, and it was full circle, and it was something that I learned at Woman’s College, so I can’t say—I mean I guess people say that about college, period, but certainly my college did not let me down in that area. I have found a social life and a professional life from them.
And I came to appreciate the university and realize that a lot of it was times, just the times, just the history, and so on. As you see, I recommend other people going. I have a girlfriend who has a daughter that graduated from there, and I talked to her about going there, so it’s not something that I’m harboring any anger or anything.
HT: Well, it sound like you’ve been involved in the university a little bit since you left, which is wonderful.
CB: Yes, just a little bit. I mean, I don’t do anything anywhere near JoAnne, and I never would, and she’s closer and that helps, but certainly I’ve, over the years, talked about it. I even tried to send other people there, and I don’t talk about it negatively at all.
HT: Now the chancellor visited, was it November of—must have been 2011. Did you attend that meeting, by any chance? I think your sister [Elizabeth Withers Stroud, Class of 1963] might have been there, and Mrs. [Alice Russ] Littlefield [Class of 1963] was there, and then several other people. It was held somewhere in downtown D.C. I can’t remember exactly where.
CB: They went, yes. I didn’t.
HT: You didn’t get a chance to. Okay.
CB: No.
HT: Well, one of the—I just have one or two more questions. What do you want people to know about your time at Woman’s College, and how it has affected your life? 24
CB: Well, I guess I’ve said it. There were dark, really dark moments, but as a youth, as a child, as a young woman, I certainly didn’t let it get me down, and I’ve came to appreciate my time there. I’ve come to appreciate that I can deal with all sorts of people; that I can, for nationalities, for race, for religion. It taught me tolerance and understanding, and I feel like now I go into any setting, and I’m okay. I may not be okay initially, as with this, but I can work it out. So, I don’t know what—Like everything, there is a history, and history in itself means growth. You go from one place to another, and that’s certainly true of Woman’s College. I think for many other people working there when I was there, they didn’t embrace and nurture the students as they should have, but I forgive them even if I, you know. I feel like it’s a part of the times. I wish the university had fired them so I never would have met them, but I don’t harbor anything, and I certainly recommend it, and I go there now. It’s just certainly a beautiful place, even after you replaced Shaw. They sent me a nice picture. I, of course, made a contribution. They sent me a nice picture of the new building.
HT: Well, Shaw, they actually—They just renovated it, and they added a couple of wings to it so it’s changed a little bit, but it’s still there,
CB: It’s has—Well the picture just looks like they’ve put a whole new building there.
HT: Well, it does look brand new. What they’ve done, they cut a hole in the middle of it to create a breezeway between Walker Avenue and the Quad central, and it’s really quite beautiful, and they’ve added a couple of wings to it, and that sort of thing.
CB: Well, I will even go visit it. When I go with my granddaughter when she goes to A&T, I will visit it.
HT: Is that coming up this fall?
CB: Yes, in fact she goes down Father’s Day weekend, which I don’t think I’ll be able to make, June 16th. But she goes for good on August the 18th or 19th and that’s when I will be there.
HT: You’ll have to come by and the’ll have to give you a special tour.
CB: Oh, okay. In fact, someone else called me and told me; someone else from the university. I wrote her name down.
HT: It wasn’t Miriam Bradley [development officer], was it?
CB: Sounds like it might have been.
HT: Because she’s been in charge of that whole renovation.
CB: Oh, it might have been, and she said, when I come, if I would give her a heads-up, that they would plan a tour for me. 25
HT: It’s worth seeing.
CB: And I would love to see it, yes. So I’m going to—That’s what I plan to do. We’re taking—I don’t know if she has to be there on the nineteenth or we’re going on the eighteenth then, so it will be about the twentieth before I actually get to the college, but I will not come that close and not go there; that’s for sure.
HT: I’ll let Marian know.
CB: Okay.
HT: Okay. Well, I don’t have any more formal questions. Is there anything you’d like to add that we haven’t covered this morning. We’ve covered quite a bit in the last hour and a half or so.
CB: No, but I do thank you for making me think about it again. It was one of the things I had pushed way out of my mind, and now I will go back, and try to say how stupid I was, that I couldn’t come up with this name and that name.
HT: Well, you know—Let me go ahead and—First of all, thank you so much. And I’ll go ahead and turn this off now.
[End of Interview]