| Transcript |
HHA# 00752 Page 1 of 34
Interviewees: Johnson, Deloris “Marie” & Johnson, Napoleon
Interview Date: February 26, 2009
University of Houston 1 Houston History Archives
UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON
ORAL HISTORY OF HOUSTON PROJECT
Interview with: Meeting, Class of 1958, Smith Branch Library (Deloris Johnson,
Napoleon Johnson)
Interviewed by: Debbie Harwell, Carroll Blue, Reed Amadon, Anna Burke
Date: February 26 2009
Transcribed by: Suzanne Mascola
CB: Could you talk a little bit about Mr. William Holland?
DJ: Mr. William S. Holland went to Yates as a teacher first and I have lots of
information on him. But anyway, he started out as a coach at Yates under Professor Ryan
and after Professor Ryan died, then he became principal. And what an awesome
principal he was. The man had integrity. As the old folks would say, he had gumption.
He really stood out in terms of his beliefs and principles and instilling principles in us as
his students. Many people thought he was white and if you would see, you would know
why. But he really, I don't want to say he stayed in conflict with the whites during that
time but he really supported this community and he supported his teachers, he supported
the parents and he supported the students. He went out in every way that he could to get
the best for us and with that, many will tell you that Jack Yates students were prime
students in the day, and many went on to wherever, whatever, in whatever capacity. But
you were under Mr. Holland. His motto was, "You are tomorrow what you were
yesterday, plus the few changes you make today." And we lived with that because that
was the first thing he told us every day, every morning. He was on the microphone with
us every day. Every morning, he gave us words of inspiration and encouragement and he
told us that we needed to prepare ourselves for a day that would come, which is now, and
the crossover that we had into integration from segregation. He said, "You have to be the
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Interviewees: Johnson, Deloris “Marie” & Johnson, Napoleon
Interview Date: February 26, 2009
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best that you can be and you are going to have to be better than others to get the job."
And we knew that, and we experienced that. But Mr. Holland went on, not only
education but with us being in the community and working in the community even in the
parades. I will give you an example of that. A lot of times, in the parades, we would
have to march behind the horses and he said, "No, my students are not going to march
behind horses." He would not let us go in the parades. He was an awesome man. I have
information on him that one of the students wrote, Melvin ______. I think it is about 12
pages that he wrote about Mr. Holland.
CB: Now, is this useful for Mrs. Johnson to talk about?
DH: Yes, because it helps us to learn more than we know already and also I think it
will help us to have better questions when we interview the class members just like you
said, that you weren't very happy with the first interview, that you felt like the questions
didn't dig deep enough.
RA: Well, I think the first interview with you.
DH: Right, not your interview.
RA: No, but I mean, in our mind, the whole idea of preinterviews is to find out what
their specific area was which you were very helpful in doing. But then, when you go
back . . .
DJ: Not to cut you off but, see, when we went to the other place, we had no
preinterviews. The questions were spontaneous and we were on camera right then and
there.
RA: That is not too good.
DJ: No, it was not good. They did not sit down with us at first and just say . . .
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Interviewees: Johnson, Deloris “Marie” & Johnson, Napoleon
Interview Date: February 26, 2009
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CB: It was a different way of doing interviewing. I have got to defend them. It is a
whole different approach. It is less people and they do sound bites and there is some
valuable information in that, too.
DJ: Well, I am saying how I was uncomfortable with it because there were many
things that Thelma and I said, well, we could have told them much more about what life
was after school. They asked you questions and it was like you needed an immediate
answer. It wasn't anything where you could tell the story. I do believe in story telling,
giving the big picture as well as the details.
RA: I thought Beatrice was very interesting, to hear about the way that she talked
about working with the Bakers, the way she talked about her family in Louisiana and
growing up. It adds so much context.
DJ: But there was so much she didn't tell. I wish you could go through that book and
we are having a family reunion meeting on Sunday which is also her birthday. She is
going to be 96. But that book will tell you a lot. And I wish you could see the
documentary that they made for Pastor Thompson who was the patriarch of the family.
But that was not here though, that was in Louisiana. That was not here.
DJ: We must do Pastor Lawson. He worked with Mr. Quentin Mease also during that
time. That is why he is so highly respected - one of the reasons he is so highly respected.
RA: He was sort of the dean of nonviolence, even with Martin Luther King. He was
really the trainer who did all of that. And he didn't start that way. He started very
conservatively and then just said, O.K., it is time to get involved in this.
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Interviewees: Johnson, Deloris “Marie” & Johnson, Napoleon
Interview Date: February 26, 2009
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RA: He is national stature though he was mostly focused here. But he was very much
a part of the national movement. Mease had a different aspect. He was so much
involved in the business part. That was a fascinating part of the whole story.
DJ: [After phone call] She said he [Reverend Lawson] is not doing good.
RA: What does that mean?
DJ: You see that’s the same when we went to interview Chase yesterday. Chase was
not feeling good. We couldn’t do it. It may be, you know Quentin Mease just died. I
don’t know if that took a mental effect on him or what.
RA: Would he not be able to be interviewed then?
DJ: Not right now. But, you know, he is so well-versed in that particular period and
the onset of it. And then, he could tie in the education part because he was right there at
TSU and everything.
RA: What happened to Nesbitt? Is he around?
DJ: I don't know.
RA: He was very instrumental in all of that, too.
DJ: I don't know.
RA: He was the head of TSU.
DJ: Yes, see, when all of that was going on, I was at Hampton. I was in school at
Hampton. I marched up there.
RA: So, you were not here in the early 1960s?
DJ: Except to come home for holidays and whatever. I was here after 1962.
RA: A lot of stuff happened before then.
DJ: Yes.
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Interviewees: Johnson, Deloris “Marie” & Johnson, Napoleon
Interview Date: February 26, 2009
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DH: The woman who was the first African American representative on the school
board? Hattie May?
DJ: White.
DH: Is she still alive?
DJ: Oh no. Her daughters are. She has a daughter and a son and they are still alive.
Her husband just died not long ago.
RA: Is Eldrewey Sterns around?
DJ: You know, I don't know but Reverend Lawson could tell you.
RA: That would be an interesting experience. I am not sure a woman should do it. He
had some real issues with women. He could be very abusive. That is one of his issues
when he went into a psychosis. He was very, very abusive with women. But he would
be a really interesting character to talk to. I would love to talk to Eldrewey.
DJ: Well, you know, when you talk to Reverend Lawson . . .
RA: You will call him?
DH: Well if he is not doing well right now, I am not going to call him right at this
moment. Is that what you are saying?
DJ: That is the office. That is not the home.
DH: Oh, O.K. If you call the office, I don't know who is going to be there, maybe his
daughter or whatever. And if you can't get anybody, they will call me back.
RA: Can you recommend . . . are other students from Yates coming today?
DJ: The Bowmans are supposed to be here. She had asked for the representatives to
come that were meeting with her. Thelma is the other one.
RA: Thelma Robbins Gould?
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Interviewees: Johnson, Deloris “Marie” & Johnson, Napoleon
Interview Date: February 26, 2009
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DJ: Thelma Robbins Gould.
RA: Now, have you all been interviewed on your committee?
DJ: The 3 of us were. Come on, Napoleon.
RA: Oh, he was sitting right next to me. You were in the car right next to me. I am
Reed Amadon.
DH: Debbie Harwell. Nice to meet you. Do you still work with Channel 2 at all?
NJ: No, that was so many years ago. I barely even remember being there. I just
retired from 25 years at Houston Community College in journalism and mass
communication.
RA: Mass communication? My wife is at HCC. She teaches math. She teaches
speech communications at Northline.
DJ: Napoleon would be an interesting person, too, to interview. He was one of the
first black anchormen.
NJ: There were several African Americans on television before I was. I might have
been maybe around the 4th or the 5th but there were others before me.
RA: Now, you were already interviewed though for this project, right?
NJ: I was interviewed in something that Carl Davis set up. It was at HCC.
DJ: That is the one I was talking about.
NJ: What was the question again?
RA: Was Carroll Blue involved in that?
NJ: No or we didn't see Carroll. It was simply through the city.
DH: Well, now, there is a cooperative project between the city and the University of
Houston to do oral history interviews to collect the history of the city.
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Interviewees: Johnson, Deloris “Marie” & Johnson, Napoleon
Interview Date: February 26, 2009
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DJ: They were city workers who interviewed us.
NJ: Right. They work under Carl in the City, the city planning and development
office for the City of Houston.
RA: Do you know what, if we were able to do you two, for instance, one thing you
could do for us would be to write your own questions. We could ask you what you
would want us to ask you so we would get the information from you you want to get to
us.
DH: That you want to get on tape . . .
RA: Yes, I mean, why not? There is no reason for us to come up with it. I mean,
obviously, we could do whatever you need but obviously if you knew the information
you wanted to get out, give us the questions, we will ask you and you answer the
questions specifically. You would be great at it and I am sure you would be. We are
talking about . . . basically, we have been trying to focus on things prior to 1958 or before
and your experiences in the community, what you saw growing up, what was education
like, what was your involvement, what did you see in terms of racial problems, racial
issues, what did you see in terms of the Civil Rights Acts?
DJ: See, that is what I thought we were going to be asked then but we were asked
primarily what our schooling was, right?
NJ: When we were at HCC and the young lady with Carl was asking those kinds of
questions - basically about our school experiences, what kind of classes we had, what
kind of classes did we take.
DH: I think some of the things I would like to know, too, is I would like to know about
how you felt about the Brown decision when it was handed down and the frustration that
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Interviewees: Johnson, Deloris “Marie” & Johnson, Napoleon
Interview Date: February 26, 2009
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you experienced when the Supreme Court said yes and nothing was happening. I would
think that that would be something that . . .
DJ: I thought it was going to be more meat and potatoes like that.
NJ: I am not sure we have answers for that though.
RA: That is a presumptive question in a sense . . . that is the kind of thing. There is
that, there is the issue of the white primaries. There was the issue of the school board
thing that came up. There were unions. Even the thought or concept or awareness of
what happened in 1917 with the riots. Just what was the state of mind of people at that
time?
DJ: We were very young at that time in 1954.
NJ: That was 4 years before we graduated and we were concentrating basically on
getting through high school.
DJ: However, we heard all of the controversy through the media and the
neighborhood and everything and basically, it was fear.
RA: Fear. You were afraid it was going to blow up?
DJ: Yes, we didn't know what was going to happen. And as children, I don't think we
had the big perspective of it other than something was going to happen as far as
segregation was concerned and following that time, we knew different things that were
happening in the community with segregation and how things were segregated. We were
talking about that just the other night. Even in riding the bus. You know, many of us
didn't even ride the bus to school. We walked. But if we had to go to town with our
parents and if we didn't have cars or whatever, we couldn't go and eat at the lunch
counters or whatever, and many of our parents fed us before we left home. And when we
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Interviewees: Johnson, Deloris “Marie” & Johnson, Napoleon
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got there, if you had to buy anything, it had to be at a certain end of the counter and then
you had to leave. You could not sit there and eat it. Surely, our parents would tell us,
well, when you go to town, you are not going to ride, and we took sack lunches with us
and that kind of thing and we had our own food.
RA: Well, that is the kind of thing that would be very, very interesting for people to
know about because, even Beatrice when we interviewed Beatrice, she was much more . .
. She may even have been from a more self-contained generation where it was engrained
that they didn't even think about it.
DJ: You were isolated.
RA: Yes, isolated. And you were facing it all the time.
DJ: We were isolated but we knew that we were going to be able to break out of that
cocoon and that is what Mr. Holland was telling us, to be prepared. When it comes . . . as
Martin Luther King would say, "We are coming to the Promised Land." He told us, "You
have to be ready and you have to be better." That is what we had to do.
DJ: And many of us went on and were the first blacks to leave and go into other
schools and then graduate in our fields from those particular schools. And even some of
the ones before us because we were way in 1954. You still had the 1957, 1956, 1955 and
1954, and there are a lot of good people that you need to interview. In fact, some of the
people went to NASA.
RA: Well, but right now, what we are doing . . . I think the project is ongoing. What
we are doing right now is trying to get somebody from 1958, from your class.
DJ: Another good person would be Judge Robert Anderson. I think he should be one
of the next people you interview.
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Interviewees: Johnson, Deloris “Marie” & Johnson, Napoleon
Interview Date: February 26, 2009
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RA: Well, what do you think, Debra? Do you want to try and do these guys?
DH: Sure, I think that would be fine.
RA: We could meet. You and I could meet. We could agree on the questions. We
would make up the questions. Now, I don't want to tell anybody about this but that is
pretty much . . . the whole point is we want good stuff.
DH: It is on the tape right now, Reed.
RA: O.K., erase it. No, but I am saying, that is not the point. The point is having good
stuff.
DJ: You are not going to make up the questions. We are just going to formulate the
ideas that you want to generate in this interview so we can make sure the interview
fulfills its mission.
RA: There you go. So, we can collaborate on it.
DJ: That's right. It is what I thought should have been done with the others.
What did you think about those interviews? I thought they were too impromptu.
NJ: Well, I think the young lady who did the interview was . . . and I am not sure what
sort of thinking they had done beforehand, but it just seemed like it was a little light.
They weren't deep questions. It was basically like what was school like and I think one
of my answers which might have been kind of flip was that, well, it was high school.
There were cliques. There was the in crowd and frat people who did not always feel like
they were part of something but it was also when you come to our reunions, certainly, in
1958, there were people who remember each other fondly but it was high school. If
you’ve ever been a teenager you have an idea of high school was like.
RA: It has been a while.
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NJ: For all of us. But obviously, it was a special time and a different time because as
we know, it was a segregated time. When the 1954 decision happened, there was no
immediate change here in Houston. There were discussions about it at the school board
and all of that. Mr. Holland, who was our principal and teacher, had been a fighter. We
were certainly aware of that through the years. So, one of the things I remember about
him is that sometimes when we would have assemblies, I remember the pain in his voice
because if he saw students acting in any way that was probably natural to some degree,
with being playful and being . . . I don't want to say devil-may-care but just too much
play and not enough seriousness . . . he would get on the microphone and he would tell us
about how difficult it was going to be and that you are going to have to be twice as good,
work twice as hard and those kinds of things. That was the kind of language that he used.
He was basically saying you need to wake up. You don't have time to act the fool. You
need to get serious about what you are doing. And so, that is what I remember him, to
some degree, is in those assemblies, saying that, you know, we can prepare you but
you've got to be serious about getting prepared.
RA: Were you there when Reverend Lawson came over and talked to the students?
NJ: Yes. Wheeler Avenue, right down the street here. Yes.
RA: So, what was that like?
NJ: Well, I don't remember Reverend Lawson with the clarity that one of my
classmates does and that is Thelma Robins Gould. At our recent reunion back in
November, he was there and he spoke at our luncheon. She recalled how she had . . . she
was the one who introduced him and she made him remember that, "You used to often
come over to Yates and speak to us, and I can remember one occasion where I introduced
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you as a student." So, that was her recollection. I have a memory of that but not really a
great memory.
DJ: Usually, he came on like Wednesdays when we had assembly and he would give
words of encouragement or he would be the main speaker like for American education
week, Texas history - the main educational weeks. I think I have a picture. There is a
picture in the yearbook of him at one of those assemblies.
NJ: There could be. And some of these memories are better than others.
DJ: And then, too, when he was giving us those words of encouragement, he, too, was
speaking in terms of the realm of what was happening and what was coming, and
focusing us to be ready for that and inspiring us to, whatever happened, be encouraged
and have hope. That was the kind of thing that he did.
RA: You know, later at TSU in 1967, you had some pretty serious violence between
the police and the students.
DJ: I heard every bit of that right in my bedroom.
RA: What happened for that to have developed in terms of the leadership of the
Movement and all that sort of thing? Had it gone into a different direction than
nonviolence?
DJ: Now, I can't speak to that because I really don't know. I had just come back at
that particular time. Reverend Lawson can tell you about that.
NJ: What year are we talking about?
RA: That was 1967.
DJ: That is when they had all of that shooting over there and they arrested all of those
students. And somebody else who could tell you about that is Manson Johnson too.
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RA: There were some militant folks that decided that they had to take a stand and
fight.
DJ: He was in the dorm at that time, I know. Reverend Manson Johnson. He is from
Holman Street Baptist Church. He could give you information on that.
RA: Well, that it interesting. It was in the book by Eldrewey Sterns but unluckily it is
not really known.
DJ: Do you know anything about where Eldreway is now?
RA: Well, the thing is, it is really interesting about what you are saying, that you were
in, sort of, here we are students in high school doing high school stuff and having friends
and cliques and playing sports and all this and then you play it back and you realize that it
is an all black high school, that everyone is forced to be in this environment and then at
the same time, you are getting this emphasis on this change that is coming. There is a
real movement towards something unknown and a little bit of fear about it that was kind
of there in the presence of the students minds.
DJ: It was fear but I think it was excitement and anxiety and curiosity all at the same
time. What do you think, Napoleon? Because we left and we went separate places. He
went west and I went east to school.
NJ: We are talking about the fall of 1958.
DJ: I am fall of 1958.
RA: You were spring.
DJ: I graduated in January.
NJ: Right. I wouldn't call that the fall though.
DJ: That is not fall? Winter.
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NJ: I graduated in May or June, I guess, which is the spring.
DJ: We both left in the fall.
NJ: I don't remember anything in particular that was happening in Houston, I mean,
that I was aware of with regard to atmosphere or what was going on different culturally
because, like I said, when 1954 happened, there was no immediate change, there was no
sudden integration. I think I remember reading it in the papers and maybe seeing it on
TV, the beginning of things like, you know, discussions. There was someone who was in
charge of the school board - I can't remember - he was white, tall, and he had been there
forever. I just remember that at some point, they started talking about what we were
going to do in the future. I don't even know the full grasp of it, I just know that there
were no immediate changes. So, by the time we graduated, it was not like there was a
great upheaval. We were doing everything we could do to learn and to graduate on time
and we were writing letters to different colleges to try to go here, there and everywhere. I
recall having gotten accepted at the University of Chicago. It seems like there was one
other place. And then, there was a small college in New Mexico, in a place called Las
Vegas, New Mexico. It was Highlands University.
RA: Did you go there?
NJ: Yes, I went there.
RA: It is beautiful there. I was in New Mexico for quite a while.
NJ: It was up in the mountains. I had never really seen snow. You know how
Houston is. I had never seen any real snow or mountains or anything like that. That is
where I went. But I did notice obviously that if there were tensions, it was primarily
between whites and Hispanics because Hispanics were in the majority at my college. We
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had a few blacks that were mostly athletes from West Virginia on football and other
kinds of scholarships and a few others. A really small number of blacks. It was not like
any sort of tension at all that you might have had in Houston about going here or there.
One of the stories I tell is that I was fearful leaving because it had been drummed into us
for such a long time that you would have to work twice as hard, be twice as good, and I
had this thing in my own mind, am I good enough? And when I came back, I completed
one semester and when I came back in the winter, for the winter semester -- we were on a
quarter system -- when I came back in January, I looked around and a lot of people I had
seen when I came in September, weren't there and I am thinking, maybe I can do this!
So, I finished in 4 years. I think I went one summer, maybe the summer before I
graduated, and went during the summer. But basically, I completed my education in 4
years. I got out of there, came back to Houston briefly and I volunteered for the Army
for 2 years. Vietnam was heating up. So, I did 2 years in the service. I spent most of my
time in Fort Lewis Washington in the Tacoma and Seattle area. I came back to Houston
and started working at NASA where I worked for 7-1/2 years as a technical editor. And I
say all of this saying that having come back, that was like - what was it 1964 . . .
Kennedy had been assassinated the previous year . . . I came back, I went to, it was an
employment agency. I was able to get on at NASA because Lyndon Johnson had said
that I guess available contractors, we had to provide equal opportunities. So, I got on at
NASA at Philco Ford as a matter of fact as a technical editor and writer, and stayed there
7-1/2 years. Began watching TV. I began seeing African Americans on television. I,
once again, thought, well my background was journalism. I was editor of the high school
newspaper when I was at Yates. I thought to myself, maybe I can do that. So, I went
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over and it just sort of progressed from there. There was a guy, he was a film maker. He
did advertising. What else? Commercials, things like that. He had spoken at a program
that I had given, pulled together once. And then, I went to him for a job and he was
saying that he didn't really have anything but he suggested that I try television, so that is
how I wound up going over to Channel 2. He knew somebody there and that was my
introduction to Channel 2. There was a photographer, Ray Miller, who did the Eyes of
Texas. So, he was a photographer for that documentary show that aired every Saturday.
He introduced me to Ray, having been introduced to him by this friend that I knew. So, I
got on the Channel 2. Gave me an audition and sent me out on a story at a time when it
was changing. I am talking about 1971. I went there in maybe May of 1971, and he
hired me eventually. In August, I started going out with the different camera crews and
my actual full workday was in September in 1971. But I went with camera crews to
HISD, covered City Hall, carried equipment, a whole bunch of things to familiarize
myself. I had a journalism degree but television was new to me as well. So the first 5
months maybe as a general assignments reporter. Then, came Education and Medicine is
what I covered. So, I was always over at the Medical Center, always over at HISD, at U
of H - anything that had to do with education.
RA: How long were you with the station?
NJ: I was there 8-1/2 years. 7-1/2 years at NASA, 8-1/2 years at Channel 2. I did 1-
1/2 years with Mayor Jim McConn before Kathy Whitmire came in. We lost the election
and of course everybody brings their own people for a very brief stint. I was one of his
executive assistants, his liaison to the Public Health Department, to the Library, and the
Solid Waste Management Department and he had executive assistants of the various
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areas: the executive assistant to the police, the fire department, he had executive
assistants in charge of protocol and so on. So, I was one of those.
RA: You left the TV station when?
NJ: 1980. April of 1980. I got on at City Hall, I guess it was probably July of 1980.
RA: I just ask. I was going to say that I had never seen you on television but I have
only been here since 1996.
DH: I saw him on television.
RA: I am not saying that I don't believe you, I just wish I had see you on T.V.
DH: I am a native Houstonian. I remember you being on television.
DJ: What school did you go to?
DH: Westbury.
DJ: I supervised there on HISD. A question that I have is about the people that you
want to interview . . .
RA: Now, if you want, we can interview you all again or we can do 3 other people.
NJ: Let me ask you a question. I know that we tried to set up some interviews at
Ryan. It seems like it was around September that I came through and there were delays.
Did you wind up going over there in December to Ryan?
DJ: I didn't go.
NJ: Wasn’t Carl over there with Someone?
DJ: Carl was over there. What they were doing, they were over there taking different
items and scanning. I think the people who were interviewed went to HCC because some
of the old teachers went like Mrs. Churchwell.
RA: To Ryan? Is that what you are saying?
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DJ: Thelma knows about that. I did not know about that.
NJ: The location was Ryan where they were looking for memorabilia.
DJ: Right, they went there. The interviews were done at HCC.
NJ: But it was not specifically the class of 1958 memories which is what you are
looking for, I take it?
RA: Yes.
DJ: Right, and see, that is where we have had some confusion because we were asked
to get the names of people . . . not only our class members but teachers were involved.
And then, community people were involved. So, that is why I just opened up the
question. Give us information on how our total class is going to be involved.
Somewhere along the way, somebody said that all of our classmates were going to be
involved.
DH: That is the goal for the long-term project. For our involvement . . .[end of tape 1,
side 1]
DH: . . . were people who were involved in the school as a teacher and two community
people ________.
DJ: How many teachers?
DH: Only one.
DJ: Community People?
RA: Well, that would have been Mease and Beatrice Green. Now, it is going to be
Lawson.
DH: The second group of 3 would be 3 members of the class of 1958. And that is for
our project right now for this class. Now, Carroll's plan is to continue documenting the
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history of the class of 1958 beyond this semester. Some of us might work on that as we
have time or as part of another class. Her goal also is to be teaching a class eventually on
oral histories and digital editing where she would have a much larger group of students
instead of the 3 of us to work on collecting more interviews. So, the long-term goal is to
document as many members of your class as possible. The immediate goal is to get the
names of 4 more people for us to interview.
RA: So, that is what we've got to do here. So, who will be the 3 that are of the class
that we interview?
DH: Well, we probably should identify 4 members in the event that Reverend Lawson
cannot participate right now. I will give him a call and see if I can work that out but if
not, we probably should have an additional name of a person from your class.
DJ: I think they need to do you Napoleon. You are the class president
NJ: Yes, well that is just a title. I keep thinking when you come up with these kinds
of projects, that there are more people who are more articulate and who will remember
more. I always want to promote Thelma or yourself above me with regards to having a
better memory of how things might have been a little bit different during that time
because once again, my memory is just basically trying to get through school. I
remember Mr. Holland and I remember going to class. I remember my family life. I
don't remember anything in particular. For example, you say here "6 interviews will be
conducted and recorded as the starting point for a broader and ongoing oral and visual
history project. It seeks to incorporate local history into a broader national perspective."
And with regard to people who were active and different things, you know, really more
school life, I think what did I do? I was the editor of the school paper my senior year. I
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attempted to run track for about 5 minutes. I think I might have been . . . I don't even
remember student council. It might have been the history club or something. I just don't
have the memory of, I think, the kinds of things that you are looking for.
DJ: And I can tell you why.
NJ: What is that?
DJ: Because he was a bookworm.
NJ: That is true and I am not afraid to say that I was probably the shyest person in my
class.
DJ: Very much so. You didn't know he could talk until he got on TV.
DH: Well, how did you get to be class president?
NJ: I wondered about that myself.
DH: He had wisdom and integrity.
NJ: I remember about being all about going to classes and some of my classmates
were mostly athletes who happened to be friends of mine. I was not a big athlete but I
had friends . . . I remember once after lunch, we were just sort of standing outside the
building and I am just the kind of person, O.K., I know the bell is going to ring in a
minute, that there is class after lunch, I want to get to class. And so, there were about 4:
Donald Dixon, Reverend Donald Dixon now, was one of them; and another gentleman, I
think it might have been Judas Hastings who was the . . . did Judas turn out to be a
chemist or what?
DJ: He is a chemistry professor at the University of the Pacific.
NJ: But they actually held me. They took me by my arms. I said, "Look, I have to go
to class." They said, "No, you're not going to do. You've never done anything bad.
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We're going to make you late for class today. We are all going to be late together and
you are going to be late with us." And they just did that on purpose.
DJ: Now, you will remember all of that but you can't remember . . .
RA: Those are pretty interesting.
AB: Now, I have a list here of the video interviews completed and your name is on
here.
RA: They talked about that. The things they did, they did not feel very good about it.
DJ: I thought they were trite. What about you?
NJ: Well, I think you guys inserted information that needed to be put in there about
the clubs you were involved in and the social life of the school.
DJ: I don't think it had that flavor of integration, too, that they are trying to put into . .
. it didn't have that flavor.
NJ: It just seemed the surface stuff . . .
DJ: And you know something that you may want to capture, too, that I think is most
interesting and I don't know about you, Napoleon, but Napoleon lived right on the other
side of me on the other side of Elgin and I lived right here. This was the University of
Houston. Both of us were in walking distance, spitting distance, and we both went out of
town and many others. And I know for me, when I graduated, I was accepted at various
universities. My eye was on going to Switzerland to school, however, I was accepted at
U of H, I was accepted at Wellesley, and I was accepted at . . . I am sorry, not Wellesley,
Northwestern and also Hampton. When I read the history of Hampton, I went to
Hampton. I tell everybody I was going across the water but I went to the watering stop in
Hampton and that is where I went to school, but the reason was if I had chosen to go to U
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of H, I couldn't have stayed on campus. I could not have stayed on campus. Those kids
who left and went to the University of Texas when we graduated, they couldn't stay on
campus. That was another place I was supposed to be going. And I said, well, if I can't
stay on campus - you had to live with a black family and go to school. That was back
there in that time. So, I chose not to go to either of them and I went to Hampton. And
here we are in walking distance. Just like the stadium [Robertson Stadium] right here.
This was our high school stadium, right Napoleon? All of our high school, every high
school, had their games here. But when they had the white games, we couldn't go unless
you were on the end, this very end. But, you know, there are stories to tell here and when
you read it . . .
NJ: And you know this stuff, you and Thelma.
DJ: Napoleon doesn't know because he was at home with his head in the books. But
do you see what I am talking about? It seems like I was telling you about Buster Kern
lived right here, I lived over here. We could not go in the white neighborhood around
over here.
RA: Well, on the list that you've got of classmates, which ones would be good to talk
to?
DJ: I didn't even look at the list.
DH: You are going to do Deloris.
AB: I was thinking of doing Edith Holland, the daughter of William Holland.
DJ: Where is she? She is not here.
NJ: She is number 20 on this list.
DJ: Yes, but she is not here, is she?
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RA: She is not in Houston?
NJ: She’s here. I worked with her brother at HCC.
DJ: Jackie Bostic is the great-granddaughter of which Reverend Jack Yates?
DH: Where is she on the list?
DJ: 19.
DH: Do we have a contact?
RA: For Jackie?
DJ: Yes. I will give you Jackie's . . . I will have to get it.
RA: Those 2 would be great. Those are all women but that's O.K.
NJ: I am not sure of the age of Bill Holland who is Edith's brother but I would say he
was a colleague at HCC. He worked in the international department. I have heard him
speak to students before and certainly, he must have some sense of who his father was. I
wondered when I used to pass him in the hallway, what was Mr. Holland like as a father.
He would be knowledgeable, too, if you are able to get both, he and his sister might be a
good interview.
DJ: Would you scratch #30. Holman is dead.
RA: Can I ask you a question? How old is your class? What is the general range of
the people . . .
DJ: The age group?
RA: Yes.
DJ: 68, 69. Going on 70 this year. I will be 70. And that is because, see, our class is
a mixture of . . . we are mid winter, spring and summer graduates because, at that time,
we had like low 12 and high 12. And if you did not graduate in the spring, you would
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graduate in the summer, go to summer school if you were missing a half credit or
something. The next time . . . are we going to meet again?
RA: Well, I don't know about as a group. You and I are.
DJ: Well, you can look at my yearbook and I will show you all the information.
DJ: Are we going to do, you said, Thelma?
NJ: Yes. If you know someone better, but I know you and Thelma would be the 2
people that I would choose who are not afraid to speak and who know stuff.
[LARGE PART OF INTERVIEW HERE - TOO MANY PEOPLE ARE TALKING TO
ACCURATELY DECIPHER. ALSO, DID NOT TRANSCRIBE THE IDLE CHIT-CHAT]
NJ: I will tell you how bad my memory is. My wife accompanied me to the various
reunions we have had through the years. I guess we were probably 15 years out before
we had our first reunion . . .
DJ: And we have had them ever since.
NJ: And we have had them ever since. But my wife accompanied me. She sees
people at the grocery store or photo and says, "Isn't that your classmate?" I say, "I don't
know." My point is that if you want to know anything about the class of 1958 or 1957 or
whatever, talk to Deloris. Deloris knows everybody. Everybody knows that Deloris
knows everybody. I have kidded Deloris a couple of other times, I barely know you
guys. But Deloris knows everybody.
DH: This is a personal question. Did either of you ever go to a record shop in town
called the Jive Five?
DJ: The record shop we went to was King B Record Shop.
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DH: Well, it first was on Alabama and Shepherd and then from 1957 to 1959, it was. . .
DJ: Girl, we could not go down there. We could not cross Main St. We just crossed
Almeda. We went to Weingartens on Almeda.
DH: That is where you would have the sit-in.
DJ: That is right. That is exactly right.
DH: Were you there for that?
DJ: No, I was marching in Virginia. I went to Hampton University and we had the
marches there and I can tell you about the marches there.
NJ: So, from 1958 to 1962, I mean we were basically out of here. We came home for
the summer but otherwise, we were at college.
DJ: We were too poor to come back home for Christmas and Easter. I stayed in
Baltimore with one of my classmates.
NJ: Well, I was closer. I was at least able to come home for Christmas but I did not
really know about what was going on like sit-ins and things like that. Things began to
heat up here when we were basically away. When I came in the summer, I basically just
stayed here in the neighborhood, went to the YMCA right over here on. It has now
closed down.
DJ: Where Quentin Mease was the head of that.
NJ: It was just on this side of TSU. Summers, I would go to the Y and stuff like that.
DJ: I see Verna Watson is on here now. They interviewed her with her mother's
picture, I think. They have her on camera. That is why I need to talk to whoever is doing
all this so I can tell them what has happened.
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DH: So, Carroll got information from you two about who had already been
interviewed? Is that where she got that information?
DH: What about redoing your interview? Are you interested in that or you are not?
RA: You just spent about a half hour telling us about how you didn't know anything
about . . .
NJ: I mean, if you need me, fine, but I would prefer you get in the other people first.
But, I mean, if you need me, of course.
RA: We can get you at some point.
DH: Maybe in the summer because I know Carroll wants to try and continue some of
this during the summer; and in the fall, so if it doesn't happen in this go around.
DJ: Do you want me to give you my gut feeling?
DH: Sure.
DJ: And I am being real truthful. You probably know me by now but I think in light
of what I said at the very beginning, you need to do all of them. You know, it is like we
were singing a song. They asked him the same questions and we gave the same answers.
It wasn't anything to me that was "putting your person into it" except what we interjected,
right?
NJ: Yes.
DJ: It was like where were you at 12 o'clock on February 26? At the library, and we
would ask you. You are going to say the same thing.
RA: I think what Carroll has done for us is she really insisted that we get in a whole
bunch of . . . we had to watch videotapes, we had to look at television series, we would
look at books.
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DJ: Did you look at those interviews?
DH: Not those interviews, no.
DJ: Now, when you do Thelma, you do Thelma with her brother. They are twins.
DH: Who is her brother?
DJ: Thurmon. They are twins. Do them together. She has a cute little picture she
could show you where they were among the twins at school . . . they took pictures of the
twins every year. There were about 20 or 30 sets of twins.
RA: Wow, really? How big was the student population?
DJ: Oh, what was it? Like 1,500.
NJ: It went from 7th grade through 12th. We did not have a middle school, the whole
wing was together. I started in the 7th grade and went through until 12th.
DJ: And remind me to show you the picture of our class.
RA: Oh, that would be great. That is one thing we really need. What about, can you
and I meet on Wednesday and do preliminary questions and then perhaps set up for the
next week for the interview?
DJ: If I can get you in my book.
RA: See if you can get me in. Pencil me in somewhere.
DH: If you all would not mind, if you could email us, like Reed had said earlier, some
things that you think that we should be asking or considering in the questions, if you
could email us some thoughts on that, that would be very helpful.
RA: I think what I would try to do with the preliminary interview with Deloris is
literally make the questions up and then get her a copy of the questions before the
interview. But that is a good idea.
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DH: How many of your class still live in the neighborhood? Or came back to the
neighborhood?
DJ: They always come back to the neighborhood. Can you understand that?
DH: Anna and I, since you are going to meet with Reed or do you want Reed to do it,
give us some hints for what kinds of questions you think would be appropriate to ask?
DJ: I will email you after he and I get them together because I am going to feed off
him.
RA: In your community, were there any people in your community that were part
Native American? There are a lot of African Americans that were part Cherokee or part
Choctaw or part Chickasaw or whatever.
DJ: My grandfather was part Choctaw but not here in Louisiana.
RA: I will tell you, honest to God, you can explore the whole world looking at
indigenous people. I am going to Mongolia in 1 year and I don't know if I will still be
involved in the program but I want to tie Tibet and Mongolia into the Native Americans
of the United States.
DJ: And you know something that I find real interesting: just since we have
graduated and through the reunions and whatever, I now find that so many of my
classmates came from Louisiana, just like we did. In school, I never would have thought
of that.
RA: How long were you in Houston before you started school?
DJ: Oh, I was born here but they say that I have been going back ever since I was 20
years old. But that was one of the main reasons I went into speech therapy, because
when I went to school as a child, I was called geechee because of my accent. I had a
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heavy Louisiana Creole accent. My parents spoke broken Creole. My grandmothers,
they spoke a lot of it around us but they did not per se teach it. We could hear it and pick
it up but we had that flavor. Our language was tied to it so that is the way it came out.
So, my teachers worked with me a lot in school, so much so until I started making
speeches in 6th grade and then I went on through high school - we had no speech
pathologist at that time. They went to the white schools. They would not put them in the
black schools. So, I said, you know, kid aren't going to have to go through what I went
through. I am going to be a speech pathologist. So, I did.
NJ: I don't remember because I went to Blackshear. You didn't go to Blackshear, did
you?
DJ: Yes.
NJ: Oh, you were at Blackshear?
DJ: Ahead of you.
NJ: I don't remember, in the time that I have known you, I do not remembered that
you had any kind of an accent. But I used to look up to you. I never told you that but we
took Mrs. . . who was the English teacher who we were so afraid of and we had to deliver
those soliloquies? We used to talk in the schoolyard, “if you can, don't get in Ms.
Cotton's class.” She was rough.
DJ: Yes, she was rough.
NJ: She was tough. They had to learn Shakespeare soliloquy.
DJ: “Is this a dagger which I see before thee.”
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NJ: I remember that. We were fearful. But I remember you that you always spoke
extremely well. I never knew anything about an accent, I just remember you being well-spoken,
my whole life from high school through now.
DJ: That was because I worked with my teachers in elementary school.
RA: You were probably more severe. My wife was born in Beaumont and she went in
speech therapy. If you talked to my wife, you would have no idea that she had any kind
of accent. If she gets tired, it comes back.
DJ: Or when she gets with her family.
RA: Yes.
DJ: And, you know, this is what I would tell many people at the conventions when we
were talking about black language, when that was a real high fashion in speech
pathology. And I would tell them, "I have 3 different kinds of languages. I have a
language at work, at home, and then with my peers." And that is true. It happens like
that. That is why I went into speech pathology and I went all the way to the state board.
RA: But you were involved when that whole thing about black language was really
coming out. What finally happened with that?
DJ: You know, I think that first started with Covington . . . no, that was before
ebonics . . . with Covington out of Howard University and, oh, I can't think of his name,
but black language took off and we went through the ramifications of it then after that . . .
[end of tape 1, side 2]
DJ: . . . we had gotten into it with black language at first.
RA: Well, they used to say it wasn't a language and then, of course it is. I mean, it's
got a very consistent sentence structure and all . . .
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DJ: Well, I think it has a language like . . . I think all cultures have their own
language. It is a cultural language. And I don't care where you are from. Even within
the city here, we have different languages for various cultures although we are all
speaking English. And it has English tied into it with whatever their language is. You
know, they talk about Tex-Mex a lot. I don't know what it is in the Vietnamese world, in
the Japanese world or any of the Oriental languages. I know when I was in speech
therapy, we were told that there were over 33 dialects in just the Chinese language that
we had here in Houston. And we would have to hire different people with the different
dialects to help us test the language, so it happens. It is interesting. Well, studying
language is studying people.
RA: Yes. That is right. I am in ethnography, studied anthropology first. I can learn
everything about you by the words you use. You probably don't think so.
DJ: I want to know how all of you are involved in this. We don't know anything
about you invaders.
DH: It is public history.
RA: Well, we came to conquer, don't worry about it! We are here, we are going to
take over. Relax.
NJ: So, is Mrs. Blue teaching the class?
RA: Carroll Blue is running a project that our professor, Dr. Melosi, who is in public
history - public history is oral history . . . instead of going 1,000 years behind, we look at
more topical history, more present time. These guys are more pros about it.
DH: Public history is anything that is history outside of the University.
DH: This is like documenting for a museum or an archives.
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DJ: And this is graduate work.
RA: Ph.D., masters, that kind of stuff. We are looking at . . . but it is, in a sense,
looking at history is we are recording stuff now so when it is history, old history, we have
got a lot of evidence and there is a lot of information as we see, primary sources. We
want you to be the primary sources.
DH: I am working on another project, it is a civil rights project in Mississippi. It is
documenting a group of women who are sponsored by the National Council of Negro
Women that came to Jackson during Freedom Summer and worked one-on-one with
middle class women to try and get them to see the light, so to speak, and just in the short
time that I have been working on this project, it is amazing how many of them have
passed. If you don't document . . . if you don't start now and . . .
DJ: Who is the national . . .
DH: Dorothy Hike. I got to meet her. I got to sit in her office and visit with her. It
was one of the greatest moments for me. But anyway, I think last summer, there is also
somebody working on a documentary film and she had been down there in Mississippi
and she interviewed several women not long after the filming, two of them passed and if
she had not been there, those stories would have been lost forever.
DJ: And, you see, this is what I thought you all were trying to do - some kind of
documentary. I gave all those names because I was trying to find people as far back as
we could. Like, one of those ladies on there finished, was at Yates in the 1930s. Ms.
Lilly B. Davis. I have other people like Doris Peavy, Lavonia Bassett - they were all
there in the 1940s.
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RA: The whole point is that after 1958, things really heated up locally. And so, it is
kind of like this preliminary thing - what is going on before the storm?
DH: And I think partly, too, it is because you were the last class to graduate from that
building, plus you just marked your 50th reunion which is a big step. So, I think there
were a number of reasons to begin with.
DJ: You need to hear Reverend Lawson's speech, don't you think, that he gave to us.
DH: How can we do that? Is it recorded?
DJ: Yes, it is recorded. We are trying to get our work together.
NJ: I don't think she took his whole speech. I don't believe. I might be wrong but I
don't think that whole thing is in there.
DJ: Or maybe she did not put it on there.
NJ: Well, it is definitely not on the video tape.
DJ: Maybe we will see if she has that.
NJ: I remember seeing Thelma getting up giving her remembrances of him coming to
the school and how she introduced him, and I saw him sitting at the table while she was
talking and then Wanda who is Ms. Jack Yates, gave some remembrances. I don't
remember seeing Reverend Lawson up in that whole speech. I don't remember that. I
might be wrong but I don't think I saw that.
DH: I will tell you that I know Carroll does want to do a long-term digital
documentary project with your class, with this information that we are gathering.
Another thing that we would like to use it for is the University publishes a magazine
called Houston History.
NJ: Who publishes it?
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DH: The history department, Center for Public History. I work on the magazine also
as part of my graduate work. That is another thing we would like to do with these
interviews that we are collecting from you all and the pictures. We would like to include
those in a magazine issue featuring the class of 1958 talking about what was going on
with integration in the city at the time. So, there are a couple of different projects that
hopefully this information is going to end up there. |
