1 10 3 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/39779/archive/files/d616489210b4e7c4e639185a9019e407.pdf?Expires=1779926400&Signature=uZLtBim3RQNu6OLVprcbPc5uSbL5sigbE6bCncCnCCrFfqkvDcOw%7EsDmWfP5aSVDJQo2rSNtYIOQZpZR4K6uR9HnmmLrIqL5UDwOiju2wfO8aU0dq%7E0CMSEUce0fPcgPrPoaZdhbnIxffYuNtafPcK%7EY74L5wOgBjniDLniE4cXoodffG5H-6qmNSF-yIyP8ZsvMuFlYc2%7Even97JPwqzVWh6yGqW5WamACc8ylOMvAhDQywk2lTHYRZfHO3ceKJibYh2L1uxlLrsa7-MY0S60FBJi%7Ew%7EwUxVgz2uxzD-0RmiHlWaGh4hjxp%7EZAjXwD%7EAMepFD%7EBeyLO-GAmP74acw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 1c5c616592fc08cdd2fc54b32f53ebe1 PDF Text Text TRANSCRIPT— WILIAM DUDLEY GREGORIE Interviewer: MORGAN WILLER Interviewee: WILLIAM DUDLEY GREGORIE Interview date: March 13, 2015 Location: Charleston, S.C. Length: 1 hour, 6 minutes MORGAN WILLER: This is Morgan Willer with the Citadel Oral History Project. Today is March 13th, 2015. I’m here with Councilman Dudley Gregorie talking about his experiences at Burke High School in Charleston, South Carolina. So, entering Burke High School as a freshman, what were your preconceived ideas about the school? DUDLEY GREGORIE: That it was probably the greatest school in the city, or the state, to attend. It was something that I was looking forward to most of my life; most of my family went to Burke. My mother graduated from Burke in 1939. So, it was a family tradition that we go to Burke High School, so I was expecting greatness. MW: Did you have siblings at Burke High School? DG: At the time, I had a brother and a sister at the school. They were a couple years ahead of me. So, I was a little brother at that time at Burke. But Burke was just a wonderful experience for me. I think that it prepared me for where I am today in terms of running for mayor a third time, I had my first elections at Burke High School when I ran in the eleventh grade for student body president. So, I kind of see all that as precursor for where I am today because it definitely let me know a little bit about what goes into an �election. It gave us an opportunity to develop our platforms and planks and go around to various classrooms and campaigns. And even more importantly that year was the time for Burke to have the State President Association and because I was elected that meant that I represented Burke as the President of the State Association of High School Presidents which gave me an opportunity to go to Colonial Williamsburg [Virginia] and attend the meeting of high school student body presidents from all over the world, and to discuss world issues. So again, it was just a precursor for me for where I am today. MW: Can you tell me what that election process was like at Burke? DG: A little different from running for mayor or running for council in that back in those days there was no social media, or anything like that, so we had to of course make all of our signs using stencil board and magic markers, and so we then had to place our signs all around the school. And then it gave us opportunities to give speeches before the entire student body, to have many debates on the issues, and my being in eleventh grade, and the other candidates being seniors, then I was sort off, a little behind at the time. But it was a great experience. One of the candidates was killed. So, it also placed me in a position to learn about death at a very early age. The candidate that was killed was a female, and her name was Sheela Wilkinson, I think it was, and she was really doing a great job as a campaigner, and for some reason I can remember very clearly when the news flashed that she had been shot, and shot in the back of her head in a car, so that kind of put a damper on the entire election process because we had funerals, and learning about death, and what happened to her and why. So, it was a very very telling experience for me. I can’t remember anyone else in the school at that time that had either died or �died so tragically. So all of that was an unbelievable learning experience for me, and not just for me but for everyone else in the school. MW: Would you be willing to tell me what happened and why? DG: We never really knew why. We just knew that she was in a car with some guys who were not necessarily the best people to be involved in. And somehow there were gunshots, and we’re talking about back in 1966, ’65, and she was killed. I cannot recall whether anyone was arrested or anything, all we remember is that she was dead. Being a very close-knit community she only lived a couple blocks from me, we played together, and she was a very very beautiful young lady. So it was very very tragic for her family and of course for her Burke High School family, that she’d been taken away so quickly at such a young age. MW: And how did the Burke community cope with that? DG: We had I would suspect counseling sessions through our guidance program with our guidance counselors to help us understand death, and of course our parents more so than anyone was there for us and helped us through the mourning period. MW: What were your responsibilities as president with that State Association that you were talking about? DG: The first I had to do was learn Robert’s Rules of Order (laughs) because I had to conduct all of the meetings of the student body. I had to deal with issues, school issues, might be lunchroom; you know high school kinds of things. But in addition to President of the Student Body, I was also co-editor of the school newspaper at that time which was called the Parvenue. So it also gave me an opportunity to help and learn how to do and put a newspaper together. That newspaper is no longer in existence, but it gave �us an opportunity to write, to express our views, whether popular or unpopular. It gave us opportunities to talk about teachers that we might have thought were unfair, which oftentimes made us unpopular, but our paper was pretty liberal and the teacher who was over the paper tended to allow us to be open and honest and write accordingly. So for me having that kind of dual responsibility, again I think prepared me for where I am today. MW: And do you have a favorite story you ever wrote? DG: Yes, and I think it was entitled “Where do we go from here?” And I coauthored that with one of my classmates and I think her name was Pamela Hunt and it was just an editorial about after high school what were our expectations, what kinds of things did we want to do and accomplish in life, and it was a pretty good first piece that I had written. And the subject matter was great because it left us a lot of room to sort off expand on our dreams and aspirations. MW: So you’ve already mentioned the Parvenue and student government, were you involved in any other organizations? DG: Burke had at the time an array of social clubs and school clubs, and I can remember being in Student Teachers of America, you name it, there was a club. Theron probably mentioned to you the Marcades, which again, was a group of young men who was all about trying to learn how to be gentlemen, learn how to be entrepreneurs, learn budgeting, learning how-to put-on events, selling tickets, and a lot of rivalry because there were a number of social clubs around. But at a very young age as I look back on it we did things that I thought were remarkable (laughs), like renting County Hall, organizing security, tickets, contracting with the entertainment industry; we were doing all this stuff at fifteen, sixteen years old. So it gave us a can-do spirit, that whatever you �want to do you can. I mean we were kind off ignorant, we didn’t know we weren’t supposed to be doing that at fifteen, but fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, those are the kind of things that we were involved in at a very very early age, and those are some great memories. And those guys will always be my brothers, always my brothers. So, the Marcades was I think a great club, a great club. MW: What were some of those events that you put on? DG: Most of them were events to raise money. I can recall having, and I can’t remember who or what particular band, but we would literally hire a band and we’d put on a big dance party. And sometimes there were hundreds and hundreds of people that would attend, and mostly we broke even (laughs), at least we didn’t have any debts. But I thought that it was a good way for young men to really learn some life lessons, learn how to budget, learn how to leverage limited resources to create what we wanted to create. Not only did we do events like that, we had pep rallies before football games, we ate together, we were brothers forever, and those were happy days, very happy days. We were able to buy sweaters and get the sweaters with the monograms and our names, and all kinds of things to sort off separate us from the rest of the group. Very different than some of the things that are happening today. Gangs? I didn’t even know what that was (laughs). Burke really was a great protector and I think that sometimes to the point where we were a little ignorant about reality sometimes (laughs). But, you know, the basketball games and the football games, track meets, and homecoming parades, you name it. That was a good time, good time in life. MW: And Theron mentioned that you put on a Mardi Gras event, could you tell me more about that? �DG: That’s the Mardi Gras, that’s the event where we actually printed tickets, and hired bands, and all of that stuff. (Recording pause) MW: You’re very popular. (laughs) DG: Well running for mayor, very busy and trying to raise money. MW: It’s a full time job just doing the campaign. DG: And calling old friends who you haven’t spoken to in ten or fifteen years, and trying to ask them for money. Yeah, yeah it’s a full time job. Oh yeah, the Mardi Gras was the— I don’t know how to describe it —but, it was the culmination of everything that we had done in the year leading up to this grand big Mardi Gras party. Not just with our friends from Burke School but all the schools, ICS [Immaculate Conception School], C.A. Brown, all the high schools would come. And we would literally sell hundreds of tickets, hundreds of tickets. And it was always a very successful occasion. Sometimes some of us actually participated in some of the entertainment. We would go with the band on stage and sometimes we would sing some of the popular songs. We just had a great great time. I mean a liquor free, we didn’t know anything about that in those days, not like a lot of the kids today. So it was just a great occasion, a great occasion. MW: What were some of those popular songs that you were singing, do you remember? DG: I think “What Becomes of a Broken Heart” [What Becomes of the Broken Hearted, Jimmy Ruffin, 1967?] was one, James Brown, a number of James Brown songs we sung, some Stevie Wonder stuff, all the popular artists at the time. We would try to �sing them but most of the folks could sing better than me. I always wanted to try and be the lead but when I came down to it I was the back-up singer (laughs). MW: Why do you think this event was so popular among so many people? DG: Because it was a time for different schools, different classes, to actually come together socially. Yes, we had basketball games, and homecoming parties, but all those events were clearly associated with the school. This event was something totally independent from the school. The only association was that we were a club, but the school had no liability at all. Our club assumed all liability, and it was just popular and became an annual thing. We weren’t the first to do it, other clubs who did it graduated and went on, so we were just keeping up with the tradition. MW: So you used the phrase “great protector” earlier to describe Burke’s environment. Can you tell me what made that environment feel so safe, or who? DG: The teachers. The teachers were phenomenal people, phenomenal people. And you know, all of us were not rich kids, middle-income kids. And the teachers were more like our parents away from home. Whatever we would need to know to keep us safe, they would share that with us. And that’s all the way down to our relationships with girls, what you can, what you should do, they gave us life lessons, and we all listened to them. And protector because of the quality of the education they gave us, academically of course, but the life lessons they taught us. Academically our teachers had unbelievable expectations and I think we excelled accordingly. They would not take mediocrity at all, it was not tolerated. And the environment that they created for us, educationally, socially, I think is very rare today. And I think that’s part of the reason why so many of my �classmates are successful people. I think it had to do with what our teachers did to add on to the parenting that we had at home. MW: What were some of those life lessons that they shared with you? DG: (laughs) I can remember, and this is one, I can remember dating a young lady that was much much younger than me, much younger than me. And my teacher at the time was Ms. Mack Williams, and she sat me down and taught me a life lesson (laughs), that I remember to this day. And I think the lesson that she was trying to teach me was you are older than she is, she is only in the ninth grade, do you know if something happened there are certain liabilities? Well no one had ever explained any of that to me before, but here was a teacher who went beyond the academic part and taught me a life lesson, and without that lesson anything could’ve happened, because I adhered to what she said because it made plenty plenty sense. Another life lesson was that sometimes silence is the best wisdom to not go (half-cocked?), and sometimes if you say nothing no one can judge what you know or not know. That’s a great life lesson, a lesson I use today (laughs). And they taught us that early on. At first I got offended but as I thought about it and how important a lesson that was, even today I still use it. And so those are two that really stand out in my mind as great life lessons and lessons that I can use today. MW: Did you have favorite teachers? DG: All of my teachers were special. They had their own specialness, as for a favorite, not really, because they all had their own set of unique characteristics that made them stand out in their own way for me. One teacher, and that was Ms. Hazel, English teacher, she’s still alive today, and I can remember her giving us an assignment and that was to write a story or a play with characters. And we had to use cursive writing and we �had to use a fountain pen. That was a challenge. I can recall staying up all night, trying to create this story, and rewriting and ink spilling on the paper, and the whole shebang. And my mom saying “Dud, don’t you think it’s time for you to go to bed?” But it wasn’t because I needed to finish this. And once I completed it and I went to school the next day and passed my paper in, it was another life lesson. And that life lesson was, the more time you put in it, the better it will turn out. I got the highest score in the class. I had never ever, ever, ever in my English class gotten the highest score on an assignment. So that taught me, the more time you put in it, the better the results. And the fact that she was able as a teacher to recognize that it must have took a long time for this kid to do this (laughs), was extremely rewarding for me, extremely rewarding for me. And you know, I think of teachers as a blessing. Every time I speak correctly, every time I can read, or I can count, I celebrate them because it’s that basic foundation that they placed in all of us that helped us excel today. On tomorrow I’m speaking at a celebration of teachers. It’s called “The Legends,” and I’ve been just thinking about what I say to these teachers who are in their eighties and their nineties, who taught me. And I finally came up with a theme and that theme is “I celebrate you.” I celebrate you because of the foundation you gave me. I celebrate you every time I can read a book, I celebrate you. And that they will all live forever because what they’ve instilled in me, I take and I share with others. So their teachings will be here until the end of time, so I celebrate. And that’s going to be my theme in my speech tomorrow, “I celebrate you as a legend.” For instance, the picture on the wall, Septima Clark who was a teacher, a civil rights leader. One of the first things I did when I came on council was I found out that there was a road called the Crosstown, and that was not the right name. The name was supposed to be the Septima Clark �Parkway. Well the first thing I introduced when I came on council was to change the Crosstown to the Septima Clark Parkway. It took awhile, people still referred to it as the Crosstown, and anytime they do I correct them because hopefully with in the next five, ten years, no one will call it the Crosstown anymore. That it will a true salute to a legend, Septima Clark, who was an unbelievable woman, and unbelievable civil rights person. A teacher who fought for equal wages, and I can go on and on. And I use her as an example because those are the kinds of teachers that we had in those days. So, you know I continue to salute them and celebrate them every time I speak, or read, or add (laughs). MW: Why do you think the Crosstown wasn’t properly named? DG: I have no idea. There is a sort of memorial to her at the corner of President Street, and I guess that’s Spring [St.]. It looks like a gravestone, and when you read it, it says Septima Clark Parkway. And I’m just not sure but I was talking to Jim French, who is the owner of the Chronicle Paper, and we were just talking one day, and he says, “Dudley you know, there’s really no such place as the Crosstown,” and so I googled Crosstown and nothing came up, googled Clark. You got the Clark Expressway, the Mark Clark, and then I think Google showed me something like Clark Parkway. And that was enough for me to say, “hey apparently there’s been an oversight, we need to make this right, we need to take down every sign that says Crosstown and guys, you need to put up the Septima Clark Parkway.” They put up the Septima Clark Parkway signs, they kind off left a Crosstown sign sitting in the bushes, and I said “no, no, no, no, that one has to go too.” So anytime in council meetings, because we have a major drainage project going on now, and anytime it’s referred to the Crosstown, there’s no such place folks, it’s the Septima Clark Parkway. Even the mayor now acknowledges it, “Oh nope! It’s not the �Crosstown, it’s the Septima Clark Parkway.” And I think it’s very very important that these kinds of symbols in commemoration of someone that has contributed to our lives, it’s important to me that becomes a household name, so that instead of Crosstown they say Septima Clark, Septima Clark Parkway. That then gives our children the opportunity to understand what this great woman was about, what this great teacher was about. MW: Were you aware of her when you were in high school? DG: Yes, I’m sure in our studies we did have African American heroes and contributors, I don’t know whether or not she had gotten to a point where she was in those history books. But yes she was discussed. MW: So, what were your interactions like with other students at the school? DG: It was pretty good. I was I guess very talkative, extremely talkative, I think they even voted me most talkative or something like that. Very good rapport with all my classmates, we had a good time together. MW: Did you spend time together outside of school? DG: All the time outside of schools. Schools are so different today. In those days schools were community based, people were not bussed in. And all of our parents knew each other. I was in high school with people like Theron and others where we were cub scouts together, we were boy scouts together, and after school we played football together. We played basketball on the lots together, tennis together, yeah it was endless. We all knew each other, grew up in the same neighborhoods. Our parents knew each other, our parents grew up together. So I would say it was almost twenty-four seven. MW: What was the role of that community for Burke? �DG: I like to think of it as the other parent. I lived on a street called Court Street, it's been most recently changed to Maranda Holmes Street. And I like to think of our parents as porch mothers. As we played dodge ball in the streets, hopscotch, whatever, they were all on the porches watching, OK? Like any hen would protect the chick, but all the hens protected all the chicks whether or not they were their chicks. So it was that kind of synergy in our neighborhoods, at least the neighborhood that I grew up in. Porch mothers. Dad may be at work, but those porch mothers were out. We had strict rules. We had to be in before the nightlights came on. We would gather at the corner sometime, of Court [St.] and Race [St., and we’d sit where former council member Brenda Scott now lives, and all we would do is philosophize. Talk about things that most kids didn’t talk about. Most of the folks on our street, you know even though we were poor, most of the kids went off to college. Some of them have PhDs,’ some of them are lawyers. So I do think that it truly paid off and that it does take the whole community to raise a child. Because if we did anything wrong, by the time we got to the house our parents knew. And our parents knew that whatever parent called also took care of it before we got there. So we got a double whammy (laughs). Punishment, you can’t go out, you know the usual kinds of things. But I think our community was very close knit, a little different than communities are today. All neighbors knew everybody, and if something went wrong it was relayed back to the house (claps hands) pronto, in seconds. MW: Why do you think they were so strict? DG: Because they wanted us to be successful women and men. We would be, in some cases, first generation to go to college to get an education. Many of our parents did menial jobs, day workers, housekeepers, you name it. So they wanted to make sure that �as opportunities open, that when that door opened, we’d be prepared to go through. They didn’t have those opportunities. They had no choices but to do what many of them did to keep us going. And once those doors opened they were the ones who were cooking, and cleaning, and washing to pay our tuition so that we could go to college. So I think that they had the kind of vision for us that perhaps we didn’t realize as a child, but they wanted to make sure that when opportunities were there we were prepared to go through. MW: What did your parents do? DG: My father was a merchant seaman, a world traveler. He was Jewish, converted. As children we were taught Hebrew. We practiced two religions, mom being a Methodist, so we celebrated Jewish holidays plus the Christian holidays. Confusing yes. Confusing as hell (laughs). But because my father was a traveler and he all wanted us to convert to Judaism, my mother’s Methodism prevailed. My mother was a housekeeper. My mother raised many many many children other than her own. She cleaned houses on the Battery. She raised the children of the folks on the Battery. Many of them looked at her as mom. So my mother not only had to be responsible for rearing her own children, she had an unbelievable role in the rearing of many of the children other than her own for the people who employed her, cooking, cleaning, picking up kids from school, taking them out for walks, the whole shebang. So my mother was a pretty hard worker. She would actually sometimes just iron shirts just to help keep food on the table. My mother, well she still is, she’s ninety-four, she’s very strong willed, always wanted to be a doctor, but the opportunities never arose for her. So I think her mantra was always for us to go as high as we could go. And she always taught us that “once you hate, you lose.” And that was something that I thought was profound because as a child you didn’t think about it �that way. She said “No Dud, people will wrong you, but the minute you start to hate, they win, you lose.” And again that’s one of those lessons, life lessons, learned from my mom that has helped me through out my life. My father was not there most of the time because of his jobs, so that left it all on my mom to raise four children, two boys, two girls. MW: She sounds like an incredible woman to do that. DG: She is an unbelievable woman, still to this day. MW: So to reverse that original question, what was the role of Burke for the community? DG: Burke was like a community center, not just Burke, but even our elementary schools. They were the community centers of our neighborhood. I can remember teas and all the fine china and silverware, I mean just really done well. And as a child of course we would go and the PTA was very strong, but it was community centered. It was the place where events were held. The operetta, the plays, those schools always had something for us to do. We had no time to be bad kids because of all the extracurricular kinds of activities they afforded us to participate in. We were always busy; we always had something to do. There might have been a play; you had to study your part. There was always something to do and it was mostly associated with the school. MW: What were some of the most popular events? DG: Well homecoming of course. Debutante balls of course. But I remember more events growing up as a child going to Rhett, like things they don’t even do today, like May Day. And May Day was when there was this huge celebration, you crowned a king and a queen, and you wrapped a maypole. You’re probably not even familiar with this. �MW: Actually my high school had this. It was a tradition starting from the 1950s that we did (laughs). DG: You got it, okay okay. And it was just unbelievable, you know, plaiting the pole, unplaiting the pole. And all kinds of activities. The parks played an important role too. I can remember Ms. Maranda Holmes who was a neighbor who ran the park. There would always be events on the park. The circus at the time was held on Harmon Field. Most people don’t know that. That was an enclosed wall area. So you had the circus, you had the fair, it was very different than today. It was an exciting time, and maybe because we didn’t know any better. I’m glad we didn’t, maybe we wouldn’t have had as much fun. I had a remarkable childhood and growing up in Charleston, and being affiliated with Burke High School and Rhett and Simonton. Those teachers kept us busy, real busy. Yes we had a problem sometimes after school with folks wanting to take your money, and this, that, and the other. But we got through all of that, we got through all of that. MW: So what did homecoming look like, as far as events? DG: Homecoming was parades, floats, I don’t think we had a king at that time, crowing of the queen of the school and everything that led up to that. Because again all of that was done by students. Getting permits from the police department, organizing the parade, putting in all the participants and where you line up, and all that kind of stuff. Big event. And then the crowning of the queen, and then the football game. Just lots of stuff to do. We were busy children, okay? We were very busy (laughs). MW: And you mentioned debutante balls? DG: Yeah. The debutante ball was a ball where young ladies were selected by a committee to be a debutante. All young ladies weren’t selected. Supposedly the crème de �la crème. And a lot of times the debutantes, most of them were teacher’s daughters, professional people’s daughters, and they would also have to select an escort. It was probably the first time we had on tails and tux, the women in long gowns, and waltzing, and all the kinds of things that go with that kind of event. So that was a biggie during junior and senior years, and I enjoyed it. And I was selected to escort a young lady, had a great time. Then there were the proms, that they still do today, and all the decorating associated with that. We were busy (laughs), we were busy. We didn’t have social media at all. We were just busy kids, busy. MW: How was learning to waltz for that ball? DG: Well, we did have dance as a part of the curriculum, and not only did we learn the waltz, we learned cha cha, we learned, what is the? MW: Salsa? DG: We learned a little salsa. But we also learned the, what’s the one that the cowboys do? [Makes arm movements as though doing the jig] You know what I’m talking about. MW: Line dancing? DG: No, we did a lot of line dancing, a lot of line dancing. Square dancing! We had lessons in all those things. We had drama classes, we had speech classes, Burke prepared us. I mean we had speech classes, and drama classes, and etiquette classes, you name it. When we got out of Burke, we were prepared to go into society and things weren’t foreign to us, because at least we were exposed. MW: You mentioned earlier in your interview that you were “ignorant of reality,” to what reality were you referring to there? �DG: There were things going on around us. There were gangs, East Side, West Side, the other side of the track. There were parts of the city we would not go in. We would not go in the East Side because we would be identified as West Side. And sometimes that would cause friction, fights sometimes. But again, when I say ignorant of reality I think we were so shielded from so much. And ignorance is bliss, we were quite blissful. Because we didn’t know about a lot of the negative things of the world. We didn’t know, I mean our parents protected us from “coloreds only,” the discrimination that was occurring in their lives, they shielded us from that and that’s what I meant by “ignorant of reality.” Because they didn’t want us to know about it, they didn’t want us to feel it. They taught us about it, but to actually experience it, they kept us from those places. That’s not to say that sometimes walking home in a group that the white guys would not take raw eggs and throw it at us. We got some of that; we got a lot of that. Or sometimes hazing and called out of your name. We felt that, but we never let any of that cut our stride. It’s not that we didn’t know that it existed, but at the magnitude it existed we didn’t know. I can remember getting on a city bus and we went to the back of the bus. Well one day, white man came and asked my mother to move out of the seat and to move to the back of the bus. And I said, “Mom, you taught us that a man gives a lady a seat, why are you giving this man your seat, mom? You told us that you should be chivalrous to women, he’s not.” And my mother said, “Son, don’t worry about it. Someday you’ll own the bus company and you’ll be able to do whatever you want to do.” That was shielding, okay, me from becoming belligerent, calling attention to us. So that was another life lesson, I mean the way she put it, “Don’t worry about it son, someday you’ll own this company.” And those are things that just stick out in your mind. But I’ll �be the first to say that racism didn’t exist [to me as a child], but racism was pretty rampant back then. But again, our parents shielded us from it all. One memorable occasion was I can remember my brother and I, with my father who was a world traveler, started talking to us about South Africa. And I thought “what are you talking about?” And he was telling us about how people are treated in South Africa, how it’s similar to what’s going on here, but just a bit worse, and how over time that he thinks that this country will change. So even in short pants, five, six, seven years old, I had a father who had been exposed worldly and could tell us about other parts of the world where that wasn’t even an issue, and eventually in our time, that we would see a totally different country. And he’s right, you know, I worked in civil rights for many many years, and I do know that discrimination still exists, it’s just done with a smile now. It’s very different. Discrimination against women, sexual orientation, color, you name it. It still exists in our world today. But again, those life lessons growing up taught me to be a bit tolerant, but it also taught me to work in civil rights and write civil rights policy, and I never would have thought that I would write civil rights policy on a national level that would just not affect me, but would affect the lives of many many people in this country. So those lessons lead me to working in civil rights, going to places like East Texas alone and trying to integrate public housing authorities, to integrate other housing projects or communities. And I mean, I did it. A lot of people don’t know that. I wrote a lot of civil rights policies, I was able to do investigations and find discrimination, and in the recent past when I was the director of HUD [Housing and Urban Development], and not only was I responsible for fair housing and civil rights, I was responsible for all of HUD’s programs. But because of my civil rights background, I was able to make history in terms of having the Secretary of �HUD, which is a cabinet level position, initiated a discriminatory complaint against a real estate company, who we literally was able to capture on camera discrimination occurring. And once that happened, it brought in an ex-governor, it brought in Congressman [Jim] Clyburn, it brought in Mayor [Bob] Coble. It escalated to a month long series of television interviews, and education people on fair housing and their rights. So again, I don’t think any of that would have ever happened to me without those life lessons I learned at Burke, through my community, and through my family. MW: Were you involved in activism of any kind while you were in high school? DG: What kid in the sixties didn’t? Are you kidding? (laughs) MW: I had to ask (laughs). DG: Well high school, you said high school. MW: Or college. DG: High school, no. I was a little young to participate in the sit-ins. My sister who was a couple years older, yes. But mom would not allow me to go to Washington, and be a part of the March on Washington, and hear the “I Have a Dream” speech—my sister did—or participate in any of the sit-ins, or even, be a person to help integrate the schools, just wouldn’t allow me to do that because of my age. College, yes. Washington D.C., yes. I would always march in the African Liberation Parade and that was a big parade to liberate, symbolically, the people of South Africa who were being discriminated against. I marched when people were killed at South Carolina State and we marched on the capital, which was probably one of the most scariest experiences of my life, because as we marched up the Capitol steps, they opened the doors of the Capitol steps, and literally there was an automatic machine gun in our faces. �MW: That’s horrifying. DG: Unbelievably. And we all ran and scattered. It might have been just to scare us, but they had just shot four students at South Carolina State, and we were just demonstrating against those state troopers who had killed family members, they were students. So yes, I was pretty active in undergrad and in grad school during those days, and when Malcolm X was killed, when Kennedy was killed, when Martin Luther King was killed, I was at college, Benedict College. And things go so bad until they literally had to close out school down and have our parents come and get us. Those were some scary times. The burning of cities. It was a tough time. MW: Did you sister tell you about her experiences? DG: Not really. My sister Ellen, she was excited when she came back from the march, and of course she told us about this great speech, and this man who gave the speech, and the multitude of people who were there, yes she did. She did. MW: And you said your mother would not allow you to help with integration. Was it just because of your age? DG: I think it was a part of it, but the folks who integrated the schools here, I think there were some prerequisites. And some of those prerequisites had to do with academic—so that they would not go there and—I was a good B+ student, didn’t test well at all, and I don’t know if that was my mother’s reason but it might have been the reason for the school not pushing me in that direction. But my life would’ve been so different if I had done that. I probably wouldn’t be sitting and talking to you today because I think we are what we are because of the consequences of our experiences, so I don’t think I would be here today, I’d be somewhere else today. �MW: And what were the attitudes of Burke students towards integration? DG: Frightened. We saw what happened in Little Rock, Arkansas. We had televisions and newspapers, and frightening, very frightening, frightening. And understanding that our fellow students like Millicent Brown, and others, they were the true pioneers because they bit the bullet, and made the sacrifice. So we were frightened for them, very frightened for them when they entered those schools, schools where we know were founded on the confederacy. I mean even now as I prepare myself to be, one day, mayor of this city, I am still frightened because I am a descendent of the slaves. We built this city. There’s no telling, what that could do, when it does happen. And I speak of it as happening, because I’m a true believer that when divine order and universal timing comes together, there’s nothing that can stop it. And that’s my feeling in regard to this mayoral race, it’s not about me, personally I’d like to be in the Caribbean somewhere, but if I’m the vessel, so be it. I just have to do all that I can to make it happen. Frightening, not really afraid, cautious, extremely cautious, because there’s just no telling what can happen because we still have zealots out there. But I just move forward. MW: And finally, if you could summarize the one or two most important things that your years at Burke taught you, what would they be? DG: To never take no for an answer, and to move forward until you get the yes, because somewhere there is a yes. To always be prepared, because with preparedness it will enhance your opportunity to achieve. MW: Well those are all the questions I have for you. So is there anything else you’d like to add? �DG: I’d like to say that this project, though oral, and I think oral is a good way to do it too, is going to be a great contribution to the archives of our school. And I am very appreciative of the opportunity. Appreciate. MW: Well I appreciate you talking to me. DG: (laughs) Thank you. End of Recording MLL 2/10/22 � https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/39779/archive/files/629662f36c51f90fb4049dc9ace7b4e4.mp3?Expires=1779926400&Signature=Or3V04%7E%7EUim1zhSqTllAs6sX-kD5cA0M1b1a8ARzWjIIlbSHWAPFxi1kCs92KNqdb76D-aX8DA5Fd9pwbiFof4aM2AFH4T9UY0BgXv5g9FJoRAYd0dJ4ZuMEVe7ohs%7ET61MQ3n5wSOlbvR6WrQHPrgsyb60g7we1Sn6Weoo9QvHoUMuPvi%7EFUveoOAMVJSodmm-XNjkzO1RLmEDeVKXdrD47wFCmEe7vaToS%7EJRWbghJr8nLHYj8lDrEuzjvmCJf1iQlTMrvFzdq3LfGyX85gqsEVO2gVhef0hMO5VDoVQWsiJKLaLIAIcNmDoXi%7EZ50ZEhlOrPXzHIpLgELD45A6g__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 8e13c045c8f8c9f23a86d62697027e5a https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/39779/archive/files/a06808b7bba4a3544d71fb8204660709.jpg?Expires=1779926400&Signature=sDvUjnhsNme0r1r1kdoxfS0Vtftf3s0Yd0uZTRaYe%7E8vYvTs-PKSwnE0ARjmOPam3YuRHYth40kCTU%7EH0C7IJJZgBnuuE9ZmpYoMqmn3jLGkYou-R-T0cO0Vkaz7YCOUAWJvDQn26YKKIKNgIF51ZHbtOa89caKqS6Maof-GgPJMs7oOneMdA9n7hEhJqphA6fb7ns9tauZguW5nX%7EH46Gdj2UEQSJVehYw0tlHTW42ywmSY4YlSkBXCz1ms-4x95jCfF6gIjauk8G8d3aih7z5QnLwVhxA8Mq4TY81Bi4ZyVu%7EMSQwUxBZCcaUZobw72X-ugkn5XtsrO1u1ygvvjw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 8e29f30a63e5d70dc900d8fb2ebe91f7 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories Description An account of the resource The oral histories in this collection were produced by The Charleston Oral History Program at the Citadel. Founded in 2008, The Charleston Oral History Program at the Citadel seeks to deepen understanding of the Lowcountry’s rich history and culture through the gathering and presentation of recorded memories from area residents.<br /><h3>Search Tips</h3> Interviews may be browsed by scrolling to the bottom of this page and selecting "View all items".<br /><br />When using the search bar, we recommend putting quotations around your search term, and selecting the Boolean search option, as illustrated here:<br /><p><img src="https://gdurl.com/aYPj" alt="aYPj" /><br /><br />To view interviews of a specific theme, please see the search tips in each series below.</p> <h3><strong>The Citadel in War and in Peace<br /></strong></h3> With generous support from the <a href="http://www.schumanities.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Humanities Council of South Carolina</a>, The Charleston Oral History Program at the Citadel collected thirty interviews with Citadel alumni regarding their experiences during WWII. Journalist and historian Jack Bass conducted the interviews during the Fall of 2008.They serve as a powerful testament to the veterans' experiences and their critical contributions to the war effort.<br /><br /><em>*To search interviews in this series, use the following terms utilizing the Boolean search option:</em><br /><ul><li>"The Citadel in War and in Peace"</li> <li>"The Citadel in War and in Peace -- World War II"</li> <li>"The Citadel in War and in Peace -- Korean War"</li> <li>"The Citadel in War and in Peace -- Vietnam War"</li> <li>"The Citadel in War and in Peace -- The Second Gulf War"</li> <li>"The Citadel in War and in Peace -- The War in Afghanistan"</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Working Charleston</strong></h3> Working Charleston documents the on and off job experiences of the longshoremen and lawyers, the bartenders and carriage drivers, hospital aides and high tech workers who make Charleston among the nation's prime tourist destinations and vital centers of global trade.<br /><br /><em>*To search interviews in this series, use the following terms utilizing the Boolean search option:</em><br /><ul><li>"Working Charleston"</li> <li>"Charleston City Workers"</li> <li>"Lowcountry Foodways"</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Charleston and the Long Civil Rights Movement</strong></h3> <span><span>These interviews explore how community activism continues to shape modern life in the South.<br /><br /><em>*To search interviews in this series, use the following terms utilizing the Boolean search option:</em><br /></span></span> <ul><li>"Charleston and the Long Civil Rights Movement</li> <li>"Civil rights movement--South Carolina"</li> <li>"African Americans--Civil Rights--South Carolina--Charleston"</li> </ul><a target="_blank" href="https://citadeldigitalarchives.omeka.net/items/show/193" rel="noreferrer noopener"></a> <h3><strong>Las Voces del Lowcountry</strong></h3> <span><span>This project is designed to raise the profile of the Hispanic/Latinos who call the Lowcountry home and to promote a rational and humane conversation regarding immigration, education, and employment policies.<br /><br /><em>*To search interviews in this series, use the following terms utilizing the Boolean search option:<br /></em></span></span> <ul><li>"Las Voces del Lowcountry"</li> <li>"Latin Americans--Southern States"</li> <li>"Hispanic Americans--Southern States"</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Women in World War II</strong></h3> <em>*To search this series, type "Women in World War II" into the search bar, using the Boolean search option.<br /></em> <ul><li>"Women in World War II"</li> <li>"Women--Employment History"</li> <li>"World War, 1939-1945--Participation, female"</li> </ul> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Willer, Morgan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Gregorie, William Dudley Location The location of the interview Charleston, South Carolina Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1 hour, 6 minutes Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Mp3 derivative audio created with Audacity software. Archival masters are wav files. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William Dudley Gregorie, Interview by Morgan Willer, 13 March, 2015 Subject The topic of the resource African Americans--Education--South Carolina--Charleston--History African Americans--Civil rights--South Carolina--Charleston Burke High School, Charleston (S.C.) Description An account of the resource W. Dudley Gregorie was born and raised in Downtown Charleston, South Carolina. In 1967 he graduated from Burke High School. In the interview, Gregorie remembers his experiences at Burke and affirms they prepared him for the positions he held later in life, including running for   Mayor of Charleston. He discusses his efforts as a Charleston Councilman to honor Septima Clark’s legacy by naming a city artery after her.  Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource The Charleston Oral History Program at the Citadel Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Citadel Archives & Museum Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-03-13 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource The Citadel Archives & Museum Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Materials in The Citadel Archives & Museum Digital Collections are intended for educational and research use. The user assumes all responsibility for identifying and satisfying any claimants of copyright. For more information contact The Citadel Archives &amp; Museum, The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, 29409. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mpeg Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Charleston (S.C.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context https://citadeldigitalarchives.omeka.net/items/show/1766 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Charleston and the Long Civil Rights Movement https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/39779/archive/files/2b7604a36560fbfff6754b31eb1acb31.pdf?Expires=1779926400&Signature=H5nDJ59LxBLc6VmKLz0%7ENGdqGsvnEGzFZaxXqsyOG5HyiTK98NQv9Ea96WxwmHPdiOKU2MGgwC-cfUW2ELQ7Bi6epO59qyZy3MzMBFBhZImvYnQwzCmLo47OhhsVVdZt1qPb%7EzmOiL5vScqJk3kQquprR1y35mZkMR3wlK3Zta8OUpUp1GMcGGTOA7BpSwGZedDiC0kFmyPP-TVOxPJVpC0xUJSsSF8TSoOrzcd2cjFvZ6LcsF0kN4EyNSU4cZDHPR8S0VsgqFvy-Ans5rQfGnFOcDieUIgQLhjoZXZdGmkm2wSWCuhR2MqV3XeXFpDcCqBHoW6lkRnO2TggAYcCdw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 45552e7ce587c3cd5e43e85d4b7d7cb1 PDF Text Text TRANSCRIPT – HERBERT FRAZIER Interviewee: HERBERT FRAZIER Interviewer: COURTNEY AKANA Interview Date: March 18, 2015 Location: Charleston Length: 79 minutes COURTNEY AKANA: Okay, it's recording. All right. My name is Courtney Akana. It's March 18th, 2015 and I'm doing this interview with Herb Frazier for the oral history course with Jacqueline Hall. And would you like to state your name? HERBERT FRAZIER: My name's Herb Frazier. CA: And my first question that I would like to ask you is just for you to give me a little bit of your history about your past here in Charleston, your family's history, maybe here in Charleston. HF: Well, for the first fourteen years of my life, I lived at the Ansonborough housing project that was at the east end of Calhoun Street. I was raised by my grandmother, Mabel McNeil Frazier, who came from Cordesville which is in lower Berkeley County. And at some point she came to Charleston and she married my grandfather, my paternal grandfather, Benjamin Frazier, and they had a son, Benjamin Frazier, who was my father. My mother, my biological mother, I never knew her. Her name was Mary Cunningham. So Louise Cunningham was her mother, my grand grandmother, but her name was Mary Cunningham. They were divorced, I think in 1952, �1953, maybe. And I never met my biological mother, I was raised by my stepmother, who I call my mother. My parents, my stepmother and my biological father were married March 1st, 1959. I was eight years old. I remember the wedding. Well, it was at Aunt Carrie's house. My mother, when I say my mother, I'm talking now about my stepmother, my mother’s sister Carrie Prior lived over on, Jasper Street on—I guess that's the central part of the city and across the street from, I think that was used to be Simonton School. It's no longer there on Jasper Street. It's a little short street that runs between, I think Radcliffe [St.] and Morris [St]. I think. It's been a while since I've been on that side of town. And so I lived in Ansonborough in the fifties until the mid-sixties until March of 1965. So my father was in the Navy and, he was transferred to the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo. So I left Charleston when I was thirteen. I turned, no, I'm sorry, I was fourteen, I turned fifteen that year in November. And the first seven years of my schooling, I attended Buist Elementary School on Calhoun Street. And back in those days, you really didn't have a middle school structure. You went from first to seventh grade, the elementary school, and then eighth grade through twelve grade at high school. So, I went to C.A. Brown as an eighth grader, and I was scared to death when I went from middle school to high school. Growing up in Ansonborough it was a very close-knit community, you know. It was a different time in America, different time in Charleston. It was a very tough time for adults. A lot of people had left Charleston looking for opportunities elsewhere, particularly in New York, because in the segregated South, there was not too many opportunities for people of African descent, but being a kid, I mean, I don't know. I guess maybe your youth immune you from all of the harsh realities of life, �whatever period of time in which you live, you know. I sort of kind of knew of segregation, I sort of, kind of knew that I didn't see white people around the neighborhood in which I lived, I didn't see white people at the church that we attended my grandmother and I attended Emanuel AME Church on Calhoun Street. I certainly didn't see whites at Buist Elementary School, but it was not necessarily one of those things that you were troubled by, it was just natural. You saw whites come to the shipyard to work at the shipyard that used to be at the end of Calhoun Street, where Liberty Square, the National Park Service has a museum and boat launch where you catch the boats to go to the Fort Sumter. That used to be a shipyard. And next to it was, and where—what's in that building that used to be the IMAX Theater. I don't know the IMAX Theater is still there, but that used to be as SCE&G power plant. That area was very heavily industrial. And so that was on the fringes of my backyard. And you'd see, white people came down there to work, but you never really felt as though that your life was missing anything as a result of the absence of white people in your classroom or your church or your neighborhood. Because back in those days, and although people think that we were poor, we were rather rich in a number of ways because we had families, we had strong teachers, caring teachers. We had the church and we had the outdoors in which we played. And it was not one of those environments in which people really were, you know, preyed upon. Now. I'm sure people preyed upon other people, but again, I think maybe the youth being young, protected us from all of those harsh realities in the ugly side of life. And like I said, I go back—I ramble—you tell me when you want me—you ask something, redirect me if I'm rambling in too many different directions. But like I said, �when going from that transition from the eighth grade at Buist Elementary School into the ninth grade at C.A. Brown, I remember the older boys over that summer. They said “when you come to school that fall, they were going to beat you up and they going to get you” and all that kind of stuff. I remember being very, very anxious about that first day at C.A. Brown. And in 1963, the fall of 63 C.A. Brown was a relatively new school. I think it was built one it's 1960, 61. CA: Well, it opened in 1962, but it was built a couple years before or from what I read. Yeah. Yeah. HF: So I guess if it opened in 62, I was the got there the second year it was open. And by saying that, that reminds me of something that I remember very vividly and I'm going to skip ahead so I don't forget this because it was one of the greatest disappointments of my life. When I left C.A. Brown in March of 65, I didn't see Charleston or C.A. Brown again until August of 1969, a lot had happened in America. Malcolm X had been assassinated. MLK had been assassinated. There had been riots and Watts in Detroit, other cities, Newark. And we were living on a Naval Base of Guantanamo. And we were looking at all these events from afar. Okay. And so when I came back to C.A. Brown in 69, the Vietnam War was going on. I think the war ended in 1972 America had changed it, or either America had changed or I'd gotten older. And I started to see some of the other ugliness and some of the difficulties of life of being an adult or a young adult. And also I started to see that C.A. Brown in some ways had declined and maybe the discipline had, or the caring or the love of the school had declined, you know. The school was at that point beginning to show its—it wasn't no longer that sparkling brand new school that I remembered. And of course Charleston had �changed because when I got back, like, I guess anybody who leave a community and come back after a number of years—you immediately asked—“well what happened to so, and so, what happened to this person” and, you know, invariably thing was, the answers was, “well, they were in jail or they in drugs or they were killed in Vietnam”, you know? So a lot of the people that I remembered and then some people were still there. Some were still in the community and some had left to go off to college. Well, I left to go off to college and I never lived in Charleston. Like I would just come for holidays and weekends and I would leave. And I would go back to the campus at that time was campus at the University of South Carolina. And then I'd back to Charleston and try to reconnect with some of my old friends and, and of course stay in touch with my family because my parents were living here, they were living on Wadmalaw and they moved after my father retired from the Navy. They moved back to Charleston and they built a house on Wadmalaw. But going back to C.A. Brown, I'm going to roll back to 1960, 1963, August of 63. Some of the teachers I remembered Mr. Brown, I think Mr. Brown was the math teacher. I think that was his name. I might be wrong. Coach Buck, he was a football coach. Coach Robinson, Robert Robinson, he was the basketball coach. And I remember he was tall lanky guy. He was always in the gym in the mornings. And he would tell you don't walk across that gym floor in your street shoes. I mean, you could eat off the floor. It was shiny. It was like a mirror. You could see your reflection on the floor. I'm just thinking of some of the random thoughts. Well, I think perhaps maybe the most dramatic moment in, in my time at C.A. Brown was the day Kennedy was shot and they came �across the PA system to announce that the president had been assassinated. That was a saddest day in everybody's life. CA: And do you remember the, I mean, just the administrator's HF: Reaction to that? I don't remember any specific administrator's reactions per se, but I just could remember that the day. It came across on the PA system that the president had died in Dallas and it was an audible collective moan that you could hear. I mean, it was just the whole school just went, oh, and you could hear it across rippling down the hallway. And everybody was real sad because I remember when John Kennedy was elected president in 1960, I was 10 years old. And I remember seeing his picture on the front page of the News & Courier and thinking that god the country is heading in the right direction. I don't know what direction, if that was the right, it's just, I just have these faint memories because I read the paper. Because my grandmother before she lost her sight, she was an avid reader. She worked crossword puzzles and anytime I would ask her how to spell a word, she wouldn't tell me how to spell a word. She'd throw the dictionary at me, you know? But C.A. Brown was a very, I can't recall any specific incidences, but it was a very caring place. And of course, one person who we all interacted with a lot because I was on the band was George Kenny. Back in those days, the school district had a very, very vibrant music program for children. Depending on the side of town, in which you lived, you would meet at a school after school, after your regular classes, you would meet. For us it was Courtenay's School on the Eastside. And I think Rhett was the place where kids met on the West Side of town and you took music lessons. And now this �started in the elementary grades because at Buist I initially wanted to play the saxophone. My father was a jazz enthusiast. He had stacks of jazz records as tall as me. And he would play jazz. He would play W.C. No that WC Handy was blues, Big Spider Beck, and Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane. And the list goes and Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton and the list goes on and on and on. I can remember him coming from Fox Music House, which used to be down on King Street. He would come home with an album and the album was packaged in a flat bag, yellow brightly colored yellow bag. And that was back in those days. That was pretty cool. You were walking down the street with an album from Fox Music House—you got the latest music. And he would come home and he would play that album. And he used to set—I can remember very vividly— the turntable would be spinning and he would gently set that album down on the turntable and it would begin to spin to, and then he would gently lift that arm, that needle down. And he put that needle on that record and out came that music, that jazz music, and he would cut the lights out in the living room and we would sit there and we would listen to the music because he felt, he felt that music should be enjoyed in the dark. So no other senses would interfere with the audible enjoyment of the music. And so we listened to the music and I'd think about the music and I'd listen. I was very, very interested in playing the saxophone. So when the time came for me to take music lessons, I chose the saxophone, the tenor saxophone, but I wasn't all of that. I wasn't a big guy, you know, I guess I was a little kid. So, I had to carry this tenor saxophone from Buist School on Calhoun Street, all the way to Courtenay to take music lessons. But it wasn't only the saxophone. It wasn't the only thing I was carrying. I still also had to carry my books. So I had all these books �because I'm always amazed. Now I see kids walking around, going from school to home or home to school and they don't have any books. I said, “what are kids’ books?” Because when I was in school, I had books that almost weighed as much as me. So I'm lugging these, this book bag around with these books. And I got this saxophone, this moldy musty mildewy saxophone that had been sitting in this music locker room all summer long that hadn't been clean. And so I couldn't carry that saxophone around. It was too heavy. So, I got a trombone. I started playing the trombone and George Kenny taught us how playing out instruments. And Mr. Kenny is a phenomenal musician and a very gentle man, but yet stern, but persistent yet stern and very talented. Now I would marvel at later on, I entered the band at C.A. Brown and marching band. And Mr. Kenny could play every instrument in the band room from the drums to the flute, to the saxophone, to the brass instruments, you name it, he would pick it up and he would play. And he would demonstrate how the music is supposed to sound. And of course we tried to, you know, he was teaching us also too, how to side read. And one thing that was really, really rigorous with the band, the marching band at C.A. Brown, we had every foot, every home game, and some away games, not all away games, every home game. And we played at the Stoney Field, which is still there on the West Side of town by, the River Dogs’ stadium. We would play the halftime shows. Did you play an instrument? CA: I used to play the flute HF: Did you play in the marching band? CA: No. No. �HF: See, you you've seen marching bands before, right. And you see that a lot of times they play and they had the music and they’re playing. Well, we never played for music. You had to memorize your parts. And every week you had a new show to learn, you know. Not only had new music to learn, but you had new formations to learn on top of that. And somehow we did it. I still don't know how we did it, but we did it. And then we also had grandstand music, you know, we had to play in the grandstand and we had to memorize that too. It's a crazy, crazy, I don't know if kids do it nowadays. My daughters have played on the band too. Well, all three of my daughters played on the bands. My oldest daughter played on the Burke band and I think they memorized the music, but my two youngest daughters played on the West Ashley band and they had music and I told them, I said, “look, when I was at school, we didn't have music, we had the music, but you had to memorize the music and you played it on the field without the music.” So anyway, I skipped ahead and kids got it too easy nowadays, you know. CA: I want to go back just a couple too. Your community Ansonborough is that as is pronounced. HF: Ansonborough, Ansonborough CA: Yeah. You touched briefly on the community and being rich. But I wonder if you could elaborate a little bit more on just how you felt the community around you was. HF: What of the community was caring in the sense that I think people owed— younger people for certain, certainly you respected your elders, you know. We all did what, all, what every kid and every generation did, you know, but at least when I was in �the fifties and the sixties, you didn't let an older person see you do something that you didn't want your parents to see you do; that you didn't want do, that you would not have do in front of your parents. Like maybe say a bad word or curse or whatever, a fight or whatever. You always try to be respectful of the older people. And maybe, I don't know whether not this is anecdotal or an exaggeration. I don't think young people have those same sets of concerns nowadays, as we did, when we, when I was a kid. And of course everybody, most people of my age group will say that the older person had no fear of correcting you if you were wrong and, or saying, quite frankly, “does your mama know you're doing that?” or “I'm gonna tell your mama.” I don't know, to what extent you get that nowadays, that people are sort of, kind of withdrawn, and sort of, kind of, because you don't know how kids are going to react when they they'll get in your face or they kill you. And I don't think older people had that fear, certainly older. Certainly, kids had no fear that somebody is going to kill you. And I've been in, I was in my share of fights when I was a kid, as far as neighbors, neighbors looked at out after the kids. I mean, there were two families when our immediate street or two families on our street who were close to us, they babysat me. Of course you could find babysitters. Now, I don't know if that's any different than what it is today. It was just a sense of community. And I don't know whether that community still have that sense today. I know where I live now. I only know the neighbor to my right. I know her first name last, but the couple to our left, I don't know them. Last name, we speak. I see them in the yard. I certainly don't know the people across the street from me. But I live in a single family. I live in a neighborhood with single family houses. �The project was a little bit more densely packed and you had a lot more children. So you would go from one house to the next, to the next, to the next and, and Christmas time you were always, in the summertime, you were always out playing and Christmas time you were out skating. That was a big, big deal. On the Eastside. If you talk to anybody who grew up on the Eastside of Charleston or the West Side of Charleston in the fifties, ask them, what did you do when you were a kid? And I bet you one of the top three things that they would out of the top three things that they did, one of them would be skating. That was a big deal. There was skating zones set outside by the city of Charleston and Marsh Street where I lived in the borough on Ansonborough, which is— they called “the borough.” People skated all day long from Christmas, all through up until New Year's up until the time you went back to school, and then on the weekends, or when you got back from school, you'd get back in the street and you'd skate, you know. Again I have no scientific evidence. I didn't take any surveys, but this is just a kind of a recollection that neighborhoods were closer knit. And of course I don't—my wife asked me this the other day had I ever because my father and my mother, they grew up doing the depression and they really, really knew what it meant to be hungry. And my wife asked me, my wife, Adrianne Troy Frazier. She asked me the other day, she said, “do you ever have any recollection of being hungry?” None. There was always food. There was always clothes. There was always toys. And before TV there was radio. And if there wasn't the radio on, there were records playing. There was always music in the house. There was always a newspaper. There was always something to read. There was always books and my first book was Moby Dick. Then he gave me Robinson Crusoe to read, you know, and on the bookcase and on bookshelf was �War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. I never picked that up because of it was a little intimidating, but I knew of War and Peace. I knew of Manifest Destiny, Andrew Jackson's Manifest Destiny. I remember that as a kid, my father and my grandmother loved books. So reading was a big part of your childhood. And I told my daddy, it was around when I was about twelve years old. I wanted to be a writer because I wanted to be a lot of things. I wanted to be an astronaut at one time, by the time I got to Guantanamo and knew of the CIA, I wanted to be a CIA agent. But when I was twelve years old, I wanted to be a writer. And I remember daddy got me a typewriter. And I remember it was a toy typewriter. Wasn't a real, real typewriter, but it was a typewriter I had. It was functional, you could type. And I had a typewriter and I used to type stories. Of course I wanted to be a newspaper reporter even before I knew what a newspaper reporter was because my idol newspaper reporter was Superman. I remember for whatever reason, I liked that whole idea of working in a newsroom and typing and writing. And then, I expressed certain whatever, I must have said some things because my Christmas gifts always centered around something that provided some, either creative outlet or a way to explore something. I remember distinctively asking daddy one day. It was sunset, it was in the springtime, it was in the late evening. And we were looking in the Western sky and I asked him, I said, “what is that?” It was a bright object in the sky. And he said, “that's Venus.” And then that Christmas, I got a telescope and I could see Venus closed up. Then I got a microscope and I could look at things under the microscope. And then, there was something else. Oh, then, then there were always books. I remember I got Robinson Crusoe one Christmas. And then, then I got the typewriter one Christmas and I still got the kind of normal kind �of toys that kids got. I got bicycles and got skates, got a wagon, got a football helmet and shoulder pads and a football. Although I look back on it and I've never thought I just thought about it. Although he was in the Navy for twenty three years, rather twenty three years, the military uniform that he got me was a Marine Corps uniform. And so I was a Marine. I was a Jarhead, you know, other day. Because I had that, I don't know. I was about maybe seven, eight, nine years old. My Marine Corps uniform had impact on me because at some point I remember one point in high school, I wanted to join the Marine Corps and be a pilot and go work for the CIA, these childhood fantasies. Because when you grew up in the Cold War and you grew up in, on a naval base in the Cold War at Guantanamo with the constant threat or the constant fear of whether the Cubans are gonna come across the fence line, you think about these things. I know we digress away from, C.A. Brown. All of these things I guess, are connected in some way to C.A. Brown because C.A. Brown was all black. And when we left Charleston, I went from that all black C.A. Brown experience to that predominantly white William T. Sampson High School experience. Or there were just a handful of Black kids in the school when I got to Gitmo in March of 65. CA: So were, was that school segregated? HF: No. William Sampson. Yeah, no, no, no. It was a naval base. It was not segregated. The military wasn't going to to— the US government wouldn't tolerate—and black kids went to school with white kids, but because of the demographics of the base, since there weren't that many black families on the base, there weren't that many Black kids now keep in mind, where the base is. You know where it is? �CA: Well, I've seen the air force base in North Charleston. HF: No, this is Guantanamo. This is Cuba. Yeah. This is Cuba after the Bay of Pigs. So therefore, the naval base is, which is still there, which is always in the news because, because it's a prison, part of it's a prison for enemy combatants, but it's still a little bit of America, military, civilian personnel with their families live on the base. I don't know how many people live there, but it's like a little piece of America on the southeastern tip of Cuba. So we got there, we flew from Norfolk Virginia and took an eight hour flight from Norfolk and landed at the naval base. It was cold in Norfolk that March and we got to get more was probably almost a hundred degrees in March or ninety degrees. Maybe it's very hot in humid, always. My whole world was turned upside down in a sense, but it wasn't a traumatic turn. I mean, emotionally upheaval. It was just, it went from all black to nearly all white with a few, like I said, with a few Black families and with a sprinkling of Cuban families and plus few Jamaicans and a small, small Chinese population. Chinese would work in the laundry, base laundry. CA: What were the teachers like at the base school? HF: Oh, they were cool. They were really nice. Mr. Perry, I believe he was a chemistry teacher. Mr. Granton was an English teacher. I go back and look at those yearbooks and reminisce all the time. And I have some friends from those years, I call them and they call I have friends scattered all over of the United States. When we call, we talk, we talk about GTMO. And of course my father, before he died in December 5th, �2014, just last December. I mean, my, my mother is still alive. She lives on Wadmalaw. We talk about those days at Guantanamo, along with my brothers who still living. We talk, we think of about those days very fondly because living down there was very, it was good duty. I mean, it was very easy, easy lifestyle living at Guantanamo. And then you could get, if you had the time and you had the money, you could get on a military flight and you could go to Haiti. So I remember when I was 17 years old, we got on a flight and we took a day trip to Port Prince. And so I got to see a foreign country, another country outside of the United States. And so without digressing, that sort of sparked my interest in travel coupled with my interest in writing. So, my life, my professional life took that path, travel and writing and using journalism as an avenue, a conduit to travel to explore because I was always, I guess, rather inquisitive asking questions. So that's probably why I got a telescope and I was given books and I was, she tossed me the dictionary and he gave me a microscope and, and he gave me a typewriter. And of course he gave me a trombone, you know, to express my musical interest. Now I never perhaps maybe developed my musical talent if I had any musical talent at all. Because at one point I thought I wanted to be a professional musician, and it didn't. That idea, I think, kind of phased or was phased out after college. You know, I played on the jazz band at USC, which I enjoyed it, but I don't, I don't think I could make a living playing the trombone. CA: CA Brown, your first day was in 1963. You said? Yes. HF: The fall of 63, I guess back in those days, kids didn't go back to school until after Labor Day. So it's yeah. September. Yeah. 63. �CA: Yeah. Do you remember the mood of the campus or on the first day or other than just being fearful? HF: I think there were a lot of cool people. Cool kids. I just remember everybody was dressed sharply, your new school clothes. You would go downtown King Street and get some new clothes you wanted to wear the latest, whatever the latest was at that time. Your shoes had to be shined and cleaned. I remember going to school, I remember in the morning pressing my shirt and my pants to make sure that my pants weren't—my shirt and pants weren't wrinkled, and my shoes were polished. Yeah. You didn't wear you— you didn't wear like sneakers to school. No. You wore dress shoes and you wore pants. You wore a shirt, button shirt. If you had a coat and you had a sweater depending on the weather conditions. So that's how you dressed, going to school. Because we didn't have buses. You wore, you walk from the projects or wherever to your school. And then on the way from school, you might get in a fight, or you might not get in a fight, or you'd stop off at the corner store and get a soda or some cookies, candy. CA: Did you ever get in any fights walking home from school? HF: Yeah, I used to get, I got in a couple fights. I remember a guy named Sapphire, for whatever reason he and I couldn't get along very well and we tussled. But we—I didn't try to, well—I tried to hurt him, but I, he didn't try to hurt me beyond just a couple blows, a couple kicks, but you didn't try to cut somebody or you didn't have a gun to shoot somebody, you know? But I didn't get in that many fights. I got along pretty well with people, I think. Yeah. �CA: Do you remember any fights or anything like that happening on campus? HF: Yeah, there was one fight. I remember that led, I saw some blood, somebody had a box cutter and it happened right outside. Let's see that wasn't the band outside the gym. It happened outside the gym. I don't remember who was fighting, but somebody got cut and I'm sure there as time went on, there were more serious things and that. And that seeing that was kind of shocking. That was extremely shocking. You know, see that, that often, you know, that wasn't everyday fair at C.A. Brown. CA: What was the reaction, do you remember of the teachers or administrators there? HF: Don't remember how they, but they kicked the kids out of school or what happened, you know, you saw those things and then you moved on, you wasn't involved. So CA: If somebody did act out or something like that, do you know sort of what the punishment would've been like, or even just, if you relate to school or you didn't have your homework or HF: I'm sure there was some punishment and some detention or expulsion or suspensions. And I'm thinking back. I don't think I wasn't ever kicked out of school. I wasn't a good student. I might add, I didn't have great, great grades. I didn't for whatever reason, I guess a) I was lazy or b) I was impatient, or combination of all. I didn't make As and Bs, I made Cs and Ds. And my father used to kid me and say “well, I had my doubts about you there for a minute. I didn’t know whether you gonna make it or not,” but I �made it. But getting back to your question about discipline, I can remember, I don't remember very much discipline metered out at C.A. Brown, but I remember there was one kid at William T. Sampson at the naval base who got kicked out, white kid. He just wouldn't come to class, and they kicked him out of school. And then we'd see him working with one of the construction and civilian construction companies on the school. And we were somewhat envious of him. At least I was because he wasn't in the classroom. He was out on the construction site, making money and I'm in the classroom. But you know, that's probably not the place where he should have been at his age. He should have been in the classroom. You know, you can make the money, make the money later on. Some of the kids who were there longer than me, because when I left, I was fourteen years old and I don't remember any major disruptions, something might pop into my memory. But I wrote a column years ago about discipline in the classroom and a school in Charleston County. And I was just, and I sometimes go back to the schools and I don't recall a situation where you disrespected the teacher, or you acted out in the classroom. I'm sure kids acted out. Kids are kids, no matter what generation, but I don't recall it ever being to the extent that it led to someone being kicked out of school. CA: Do you recall ever thinking if you did act out or just knowing that your teachers would then communicate with your parents? HF: Oh yeah. That's the one thing that kept you in line that you didn't want anything getting back to school to home. Rather. I think that perhaps maybe have been more of an awareness, an elementary school. Because you know middle grades, as we know, that's a tough time for uh, twelve, thirteen-year-old, eleven, twelve, thirteen year �olds, particularly boys, you be coming, you're coming into your own. You want to be, you want to grow up faster than, you know, your time. I did get into some trouble in the elementary school. I got in a fight in the schoolyard, me, and this kid, we dragged this one kid around the schoolyard and that got back home when I got a spanking for that. But I used to get more spankings at school I mean at home for lying. For some reason, I had a difficult time telling the truth. And that's interesting for a guy who, spent 34 years of his life as a newspaper reporter. But when I was young, for whatever reason, I tried to bend the truth or not tell out all of what happened for fear perhaps, maybe of that. If I didn't put it all on the table, maybe I could avoid some discipline problems or a spanking. It was more that discipline was more of an issue in elementary school for me than in a high school. Of course I was only at C.A. Brown, 1963, 1964—63, 64, yeah. Two and a half years. So it wasn't a long time, you know? CA: And the mascot of C.A. Brown is the panther, right? HF: Yes. CA: Do you have any recollection of any sort of attachment to that mascot as sort of a Black Panther? HF: No, I didn't see it as a Black Panther symbol. It was just a panther. Because I guess Black Panthers, the Panther Movement. When did it come in the mid to late sixties? Well, it, CA: It, the platform sort of began and in 62 from what I've read 62. �HF: Oh, okay. No, I didn't, I don't think anybody ever associated the C.A. Brown Panthers with the Black Panthers. I remember distinctively. I remember distinctively that the whole Black Power Movement for me became part of my consciousness is when the Mexico, the Olympics in Mexico City in 1968, John Carlos and the other guy— what’s his name. I remember seeing that because I used to get Sports Illustrated Magazine. And I remember seeing that on the cover at Sports Illustrated. And then I started hearing about Malcolm X. Now of course we were at the Naval Base in Guantanamo. So a lot of what we got was sort of filtered through the military news service, armed forces, radio television. But I, I remember we knew we got those stories, the stories of Reverend King, Martin Luther King's assassination got—was on the base television and radio newspapers. And I remember that was the first time I'd heard my father curse. He said “damn!” he pounded his fist. When it came on the television that evening, we're sitting around the table eating dinner and he pounded his fist. He went, “damn!” It shocked me because I never heard him say a bad word. You know? You never cursed at. He never cursed in the house. Of course, I'm sure he did because he was a sailor, you know, sailors, but he—and I think a tear came to his eye because. I think Reverend King represented a lot of hope. People were putting a lot of hope in that movement and it was all in an instant dashed same as with Kennedy's assassination. And then, when I came back to Charleston in August of 69, then that's when I started to get reintegrated or caught up with what had gone on while we were gone relative to the civil rights movement. And more importantly, what had just recently happened in Charleston with the hospital strike in 1969 because it �ended just a few months, a few weeks before I returned to the United States in August of 69, you know? CA: Well going back to, uh, C.A. Brown, do you recall, um, any teachers that sort of were more supportive or encouraging of you to maybe based on your grades encouraged you more into education or push you a little bit harder in, in that like, HF: Well, I'm thinking. George Kenny was very nurturing, he was our band director and I spent obviously a lot of time with him. For whatever reason, the nurturing was more at Buist for me. Rose Randolph was my first and second grade and I guess as a result of her being a member of Emmanuel AME Church, which was right across the street, she had more of an interaction with my grandmother and seeing to it I got what I needed. What I remember distinctively, I think it was Mrs. Randolph who alerted my grandmother, that I needed glasses. So, because I was squinting or I couldn't see the board and, and the word got back home that I needed glasses and we went down to—I think it was Jackson Davenport, which is still on King Street. HF: I think that was a store or there was an optometrist in that spot and in the 1956 and that's when I started wearing glasses. And then, Mr. Brown, I forgot Mr. Brown's first name, he's still alive, he lives in Mount Pleasant, you know, a Black male because there were strong Black males in the school—this is at Buist. I'm sure that there were teachers at C.A. Brown that were nurturing and pushed us or pushed me. But I really don't remember anyone individual with the exception of George Kenny, who was always—he as a music teacher, he was very hands on, with what he needed or what he was trying to give you. Whether or not, and I guess maybe there were lessons, we didn't �know it, the coach, we don't know it at the time that he was teaching life lessons through music. And I guess the biggest life lesson is to be, is to practice, practice and be disciplined and pay attention. You know, you got to be in a band, you got to pay attention, and you got to be disciplined, and you got to practice. And all of those kinds of things carry over, into a successful career as an adult. Yeah. So I would say he would probably fit that model, you know. CA: Would you say that the community was involved in C.A. Brown and vice versa? HF: I don't recall any major things. I do remember that when we had musical events, people turned out. Politically, you know, all those kinds of things were probably kind of removed from us as children. What the School Board, the white School Board did and didn't do, or what the black parents and black administrators and leaders in the communities were demanding on the school board at that time I'd have to go back in the archives and read that. We weren't, there were no overt, not until about maybe 1963, that Charleston began to overtly exercise or call for a removal of, or asking for integrated public accommodations. I remember just vaguely that, you know, by the time I started riding the school, the bus, the public bus, the SCE&G used to run the buses, the utility company, South Carolina Electric and Gas Company provided the public transportation. And you couldn't sit in the front of the bus, but I remember by the time we started riding the bus, I started riding the bus with my grandmother to go places. We could sit at the front of the bus and that wasn't a big deal. So I never really suffered from, or was put upon because of �segregation other than going to all black high school and elementary school. And I just thought that was the way it was, it wasn't a big deal. And then more importantly, when the summer times came, we used to go to the beach. We used go to Atlantic Beach, which is up near North Myrtle Beach. And I told daddy, one time he took me to the beach and we're up at Atlantic Beach. And I looked around, I didn't see any white people. And I said, “Dad white people don’t come to the beach?” We had a good time at the beach, but you never saw any white people at the beach, everybody at the beach were black. I thought that was just the way it was, you know? So again, being a naive kid, you didn't know how the world was ordered around the question and the race and the color of one’s skin. CA: So you don't remember, I guess the mood or anything like that at the school when integration was really pushed in 1963 or even 64? HF: No, no, I don't remember. Because I know in 1963, Millicent Brown and others were going into Rivers [High School] and I've had conversations with Millicent, I think, we were so shielded from that. And quite frankly, I didn't know, even when we left Charleston in March of 1965, that was the month of Selma, you know, whether I'm sure my parents were aware of it, but they never really made us aware of it and what it all meant. And, but I do remember King's assassination being something that was very overtly expressed by my father. Other than that, I was just a normal kid, whether it was in Charleston or at Guantanamo, I was just having a good time going to school, hanging out with my friends, playing baseball, being on the band. So none of those things sort of, kind of touched, I think perhaps, maybe the kids who were a little bit older, maybe the kids �who were in the eighth grade and ninth, tenth grade, they probably were a more aware of those, those events that were going on in Charleston. CA: So in your home, you guys really didn't discuss, maybe those sort of events, integration, or anything like that. HF: No, I remember, well, we did discuss, I guess, as I got older. I remember my father talking about those issues when I got in seventeen, eighteen, nineteen. And of course, his one thing I can hear his one common refrain was “you can't trust Mr. Charlie,” you can't trust the white man, so that's what I grew up with, can't trust the white man— not that you—just be aware, you know? CA: Was there an obvious pride that you remember about C.A. Brown just attending there? HF: Yeah. It was a pride because we always thought we were better than Burke, Oh yeah. It was huge rivalry, we were better than Laing or Bonds-Wilson or Haut Gap. Oh yeah. Yeah. That was definite, you wanted to be the best. I remember guys, you wanted, and even there was a sense of pride when you wanted to represent your school, you wanted to look good on the field marching, you wanted the football team, I'm sure you talked to the athletes. They wanted to be, they wanted to win all the games, you know, but I know that we wanted the best band, while we, our uniforms had to be just— so yeah. It was a definite sense of pride. Yeah. CA: Were there any band competitions that took place or was it just, you guys had performance at the games? �HF: There were always performances at the game. I remember there was all state competition, but that was for individual music proficiency, not band proficiency, like it is now school music proficiency. I don't remember the schools, all the schools coming together for band and competitions. No. Mr. Kenny. And he's still alive. You could ask him that question. Yeah. He would know. Yeah. CA: Did you know Melissa Brown at the time? HF: No, I didn't know. Okay. CA: Did you know anybody else that started to attend, uh, integrated schools or HF: Pushed for that? No. I didn't know all of that until later. And I didn't know that the pastor of the school or the church, Reverend, B. J. Glover, Benjamin Glover was—in the 1963 was leading a group of student to do sit-ins at the lunch counters downtown. I didn't know that. I do remember coming to think of it. It was quite of a dramatic moment. At least for me, we were at Emanuel. I think it was Emanuel and I was still somewhat small. Because I remember I used, I stood on the pulpit, not on I'm sorry, I stood not on the pulpit, in the pew, I had to stand up because I wanted to see what was going on. And what I saw was people, most of the people dressed in dark clothing suits, dark dresses. They were linked arm and arm like this. And they were singing “We Shall Overcome.” And the church was dimly lit and it was one of the most moving moments I'd ever experienced. The church was packed. There were people in the balconies, there were people in just about every pew. And I don't remember what the event was, but it was some big event and people were singing “We Shall Overcome.” And I had to have been �very young because I had to stand up. I had to stand in the pew to see what was going on. So I had to have been maybe, I don't know, nine, ten years old. Yeah. And that memory stuck with me. I wish I could remember. I wish I knew what that event was, but it was something that happened that people were coming together to, for unity to unite and they were singing “We Shall Overcome.” And that was a stirring moment to hear those collective voices sing that, that song, you know. CA: So during school, you weren't really aware of the sit-ins or anything like that was occurring. HF: No, people had the older boys wore their school jackets with their letters depending on the sport, and the girls, just dressed up, it was a big deal to be dressed up with the best fashions or the latest fashions from the department stores on King Street. But not, for whatever reason, that was never really something that I was consciously aware of, except for that moment at Emanuel, except for the moments that my father would come home and he would say “you can't trust Mr. Charlie,” and the fact that sometimes I would notice that there was an absence of white people in the neighborhood. And the only time you'd see white people, the firemen would come around, a police officer would come through or the insurance man would come through collecting the weekly premiums would knock in the door. And of course my father being in the Navy, we used to go to the naval base here in Charleston, get on the bus and grab, go up to the naval base. And then that's when I'd see a lot of white folks there, and the commissary and the cafeteria and the exchange, which is like the exchange, you knows is like a store. That's what you call the exchange in the commissary the food store, you know? So, no, �it’s just, my life was relatively, just a kid, wasn't aware of what was going on. Yeah. But now let me say this. When, after I got older and I came back and I was in college, then I started to vigorously ask people what was going on while I was gone to get caught up on the civil rights movement. And I joined the NAACP student chapter at USC and was sort of on the fringe, not directly involved in the anti-war movement, going with some of the rallies, you know, so CA: Do you remember as a kid knowing that you were gonna attend college? HF: That's an excellent question. That's an excellent question. I tell people all the time, my grandmother said, and she would not say, “if you go to college,” she said, “when you go to college, you're going to Allen.” At the time, Allen was the premier college for the, for the AME church, and still is in Columbia. And it was always drilled in my head that I was going to college. No questions asked no questions about it. You, so yeah, I knew I was gonna college. What I was gonna major in when I was younger. I didn't know. But later on I had some ideas where I wanted to major in either physics or journalism. So I liked the sciences, but I was a poor math student. So, I switched over to journalism to avoid being drafted in Vietnam after I got dropped out of school, flunked out of school. So I switched journalism. Didn't have a math, heavy math requirement in journalism. Yeah. CA: So you came back in 69. How old were you? HF: I was eighteen years old. Yeah. CA: And then did you go directly to �HF: Yeah, well Allen the first year, and then USC. Yeah. CA: Nice. So I guess, let's see. What age did you say you were in 63? HF: It was 63. I was twelve and I turned thirteen at November. Okay. CA: Yeah. From what I remember, that's the year that maybe I think USC started to desegregate or integrate. So were you, was USC on the map for you at all? HF: I don't know if I was aware that there was a University of South Carolina. I don't, you know, because we were aware, at least I was aware of the black schools Benedict and Allen and colleges. Watching college football, if there was really any college football in 1963, I don't think there was college football, collegiate football was deal on television at that point. I just remember my grandmother before she lost her sight. She was an avid baseball fan and she used to watch the World Series and watch baseball games at that time were broadcast during the day. And I would come home and she'd be sitting in the living room, watching the baseball game on television during the daytime. So that was not necessarily something that, now I did know in 1962, 1963, that there was a fan column in the newspaper and it came out every day. Because I was a paper boy, and I'd go down to Columbus Street. I used to sell the afternoon paper at the time was the Evening Post. And I remember of seeing John Kennedy's picture, I remember reading about the Bay of Pigs and the nuclear standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States and thinking, oh my God, the United, the Russians are gonna blow us off the face of the map, knowing that having been to the naval base on regular visits there, knowing that there were nuclear powered submarines at the naval station, the �naval base. So, and that made Charleston a very prime target for the Soviets. And I remember, and then I remember the amazement that, gosh, we're leaving Charleston, but gee, where now we're going to Cuba, the epicenter of the Cold War. Now how, how ironic was that? You know, so I was aware of keenly aware of those geopolitical situations, but to tell you the truth, I wasn't really aware that there was a University of South Carolina. So that wasn't something that really was discussed or something that I picked up in the newspaper. CA: What years did you do the paper HF: Specifically. Oh, when I was twelve, thirteen years old. Yeah. Seven, sixth, seventh and eighth grade. Me and Leon Bryant. We made a pact that we were gonna get paper routes. I think he got one for a little while, but I got, had my paper route. I used to deliver papers on some of the rep businesses on upper King Street and then over, towards Meeting Street and the Eastside. Yeah. CA: Was that the Post & Courier? HF: That was the Evening Post the afternoon paper. I did that after school when I got out of school. CA: Yeah. Okay. Let's see that one. So you didn't know anybody that was actually doing the sit-ins or pro, did you have any contact with any of HF: I know some people now, but I didn't know anybody there. �CA: So you went to USC and you majored in journalism. How long were you at USC? HF: I left there in the spring of 72. CA: And you came back here to Charleston? HF: Yeah, I got a job, internship actually at The News and Courier in April of 1972. CA: And, um, so coming back, I guess in 69, although you do just visited, HF: Well, my parents were living here. Well actually when I came back in 69, my family, my parents and my brothers were still at Guantanamo. They didn't move back to the United States until 1970, 71. So I lived with my aunt who lived on the West Side of town, my grandmother’s sister. And so then if I wasn't in Columbia, I was in there in Charleston until they came back and built a house on Wadmalaw CA: Did you have any family members that then that went to, uh, like integrated schools or anything like that in Charleston? HF: No. No, no. Everybody went to Burke or Simonton and my father went to Simonton. CA: You said you have a brother? HF: Yes. �C.A: And is he older or HF: I’m the oldest. CA: Okay. So then, did he attend Brown or no? HF: No, no. They were little, they were very small. Yeah. CA: So they, I guess, went to school on, uh, at the naval base? And is that why your parents stayed there a little bit longer? HF: No daddy just got a job. He retired from the Navy, had a civilian job stayed a couple extra years. Yeah. CA: Nice. Um, so looking maybe to now present time, or maybe I guess using today's perspective to look back—and you mentioned community and also just the changes that occurred that you felt occurred here in Charleston after you returned—do you think that maybe integration played any sort of role in, I don't want to say in the breakup of community or anything like that, but maybe HF: I know where you're going. And that was a subject. I think what you're saying is to what extent desegregation hurt or helped the black community, right? And my argument is it hurt the black community. And that was one of the things I wanted to study, when got a fellowship in the academic year, 1992, 93, a journalism fellowship in the University of Michigan. And the focus of my study was that question. And I called it “the re-segregation of the black community” and my professors really kind argued me away from that issue. And I said, well, it's not a physical separation. I don't see that the �African American or the black experience in America is so intertwined with America, that you can physically separate yourself from America. HF: You take the Garvey movement of the early nine hundreds When was it? early, 1920, 1910, the Back to Africa Movement. Yeah. And they were in the settlement of the Liberian Colony. Maybe some people, if you look at, I'd skip around, if you think about just people, physically Black people, physically wanting to leave America, you look at Acraa in Ghana. It is, it has according to what I've been told it has the— Now just a little background in journalism and most reporters will tell you that there are three major journalism fellowships in the journalism profession may be more, but at least at the time when I was seeking a fellowship and a fellowship in journalism was an opportunity to get out of the newsroom and focus on a particular subject that you're interested in. And at the time, the Newman Fellowship at Harvard, the Knight Fellowship at Stanford, and the Michigan Fellowship at the University of Michigan. And it's an opportunity for you to get out of the newsroom for an academic year and do whatever you wanted to do whatever you want to do. And so I got, I applied for all three. I got accepted into Stanford and Michigan. I chose Michigan. And the three things I wanted to do was to take, have a trombone tutor so I could improve my trombone, my music proficiency. I wanted a Spanish tutor or take Spanish classes. So, I could say more than “una cerveza por favor y donde esta el baño” and because one of my great regrets as having spent five years at the Naval basic Guantanamo, all I could say “una cerveza por favor y donde esta el baño.” And my third thing, having been away from Charleston and missing that those critical years in the civil rights movement, I did not experience it �myself. So I started, so I took classes on, civil rights movement, civil rights history, and all that kind of thing. And I was doing some reading and social and the social studies department, on African American experience in the United States and my thesis, or my idea was that Black people in America needed to regain or recapture that spirit that held us together during those years of segregation. Now, we were not segregated by choice. We were segregated by force, but in that period of time, we had institutions that did not survive desegregation. So somewhere in the equation, somewhere in this experience in America, there has to be some energy that could be recaptured and repackaged and put back into the Black community, to get people thinking about caring for the kids the way teachers cared for us when we were in school, for neighborhood’s to be more cohesive, the way neighborhoods were when I was a kid. It was a very, for me—I found it a very difficult argument to articulate and support because people misconstrued what I was trying to get across was a physical separation from the United States. And as I was saying earlier, yes, some people decided to leave this country altogether. And you have as best, I've heard, just sort of informally that Acraa in Ghana, there are 50,000 people of African descent, African Americans. The 50,000 expat Americans living in Ghana and in Ghana, the government there, encouraged American migration, Black American migration to Ghana by doing certain things. So, yes, I'd think in some respect we lost in the rush to join America. We lost something and how you get that back, I don't know. And I think there are probably anecdotal or pockets of American society, Black American society in which people are trying to recapture that. And I think you see that that black chart of school movement is one of the ways people are trying to get the Black kids and then get them involved with teachers who really, really care. And I know we �digress, but what I do once a week on Wednesdays, and I didn't do it this Wednesday because I got so many, a lot of things going on, I teach a little writing slash history, course it CDA Charleston Development Academy because I think what would've happened to me, if I was the kid who had a black male figure in my classroom to encourage me to study history and writing. So I do that once a week over CDA, you know, I don't know. And I'm sure the kids and I don't have the opportunity because I'm only there for an hour and a half. And each of these little afterschool programs are very short, but the faculty over there, they say just the presence that they have a black male in the classroom would mean a lot. So we talk about Gullah culture. We talk about Caribbean, the connection between this part of the United States and the Caribbean. We talk about civil rights. I talk, tell them about my experiences of growing up when I was their age growing up on the Eastside of the peninsula. But their experiences are much, much more different than my experiences as a kid, because they have the drug culture, they have the music culture, which is very, very harsh in its language and its lyrics. And they have, and I'm sure that they probably have had people in their families who have been the victims of some of the violence that we've experienced in the Gadsden Green projects where it is. So, yeah, I think we lost something in the rush to join mainstream America. CA: Do you think, and then I'm guessing probably that you think that like movements like the civil rights movement in general or sit in movements and things like that created a unity. �HF: Yeah, it probably created a unity, but I'm sure there was a lot of jealousy and I've heard that there was, I've not studied it in depth, but I'm sure there was a lot of jealousy and we all know that Dr. King was not necessarily well liked by a lot of the black leaders and a lot of these local would you, he would encounter because they saw him as coming in and, and doing his thing and getting all the headlines and then he'd leave and go back someplace else. So, there was no, there was probably some jealousy and that's just function of human nature. And also, I've written about this and I may have said this maybe in a previous oral interview with this program being a person, being a Black reporter, always sort of feel like I was dancing on the edge of a razor because on the one hand you go into the Black community, some people really applaud you for gaining some professional success and going maybe where, where Black people had not been before. But then some people would call you an Uncle Tom for working for the white newspaper. And then if you go into interview or a community in a situation, you have to interview someone white, you hear the N word. So, you know, so it's kind of a double edged sword, you sort of, kind of walk about it wasn't that way in every case. But you had extremes and, and I've experienced both extremes, but most of the experience were quite pleasant and I did it for thirty four years and I really, really enjoyed it. CA: The reason why I ask you about the movements is because I'm curious to know, um, with the recent development of the Black Lives Matter Movement, do you think that in your personal opinion, that there's enough steam and sort of unity there to start maybe a ball rolling in unifying the African American community? �HF: I would hope so, but I hope that it's not necessarily around protesting and saying black lives matter guess black lives matter, but we can make a difference. If we start exercising the right to vote, then that's where you're gonna start to see some change. All these things and these shootings, all so depressing all around the country, you really are so saddened by them. Maybe time you turn on the radio or turn on the TV or pick up a newspaper, it's sort of like a repeated an unarmed black man was shot by police, just, and then, then the situations are different. But I hope that will galvanize people to start, being able to understand that maybe it's at the ballot box, you can start to make a difference in some of these situations. CA: All right. Well, I've actually gone overtime. HF: Oh, you did. Do I get extra? You gonna pay me? I'm just kidding. CA: But the question that I finished off with my last interview, which may or may not, um, work for you since you did not finish attending Charles Brown. But, um, the question is, is what do you feel the legacy of CA Brown High school is? HF: Well, since I didn't finish it, I think the legacy, like any school where you had black teachers, who had been prior to their professional positions as teachers, they knew what it was. They knew what it was going to be necessary, what would have to happen to prepare us for life beyond Ansonborough life beyond whatever neighborhood we lived in. And so I think they came with a sense of purpose, much more beyond that of the days educators, because they lived an experience that they did not want us to live, have to live through. They knew that when we left C.A. Brown, that we would have to go through a, �somewhat of a different crucible because they were working in an all-black environment, but we were gonna have to work in an integrated environment. And just as I said, my integrated environment in the newsroom, well, my newsrooms weren't necessarily all very integrated were mostly white. But when you go out into an integrated community, you meet white and black people, and you're gonna be met differently depending on that individual's attitude towards you. So to be succinct, I think the people, the teachers, the legacy of the teachers, they were preparing students for a much different world than what we are experiencing now. And I think perhaps, maybe unfortunately in America, we might be, we need teachers like that, even now, because I remember when we know everybody was saying, “gosh man, you know, Mr. Obama's, election of presidency in 2012, now we're in a post racial America”. We're not in a post racial America. No, no, no. We're probably in the issue of race has become so politicized and it's become sharper, and the differences. And so, I think teachers of this era going to have to prepare students just like the teachers of that era prepared us at that time to be mindful of the fact of the differences and that we're going to be perceived different and we're going to have to handle ourselves differently. And you know, one of the things my father always used to say, and I'm sure it's a thing that every father at that time told their sons and their daughters “you're gonna have to work twice as hard to get half as much.” And nothing has, hasn't changed. You have to work twice as hard to get half as much, you know? And that's the legacy of C.A Brown. CA: Well thank you very much. I really appreciate you sitting down here and talking with me, enjoyed it. �HF: Good. Okay. End of recording MLL 2/18/2022 � https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/39779/archive/files/acfb3c16d99bf7a6f081bce4295016cc.mp3?Expires=1779926400&Signature=ilC%7EmP%7ESjY670beI7NpKUoucY97zJpHHj7Lb%7E8yqa9qsUHsFo-Sp0jJWral7K9dGOfC5fGSady2yCNxsjYzKgostZlwygCDMvJGTMfYJtdTXRTQTzad4ioD02gvae1wqP4--fMwGm4aNJef7cLsItfSdLSpmo5C4-x99xmR0rf%7EAWyFnTNmB68xx2KCcxtNQkQSPaDxmJxlMNPbgQypGG5o8ITqzDRRa21IpOt8jmdyIWOvUSIYyWiSkljZ4TsCFMBoM-0Yww6mfi3tgq91yu74T7J3uJ6Tj%7E7OWSDL%7EuZSqy61P0gmpStpLhTMrCRQ3vtItcSqtYaQKidXnvpZ7HA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM c571084d3f6787965d9698d6d882a490 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/39779/archive/files/3f91d9a04f2cc9316fd8bc95a99dca0b.png?Expires=1779926400&Signature=G%7Er1nMY4WL0PB9Z%7Ej467InPXkT4qGSrsSebJNWZaDsd%7EheOd4od7TLkTiIpVNKb8pwbSpJGuaUQrEU2IS29kYzGA1iPzngt-vyUqNHsWSgAXGDvdwH2XpJyxLQkagGU%7Enq8CfDCi68LTxMeSbiUeIf3xvZAwym2NWYU3NiYBSfOdjWXnSKGZKJEOQkJ4Gku1KRANWKdWqPxTAw-Wb2R%7E6gqxHDu8x1j5s6swjhGf9FBob6kECHPCJBzPgRW5s69E%7Edojmv4fNp6NDDNyE%7EaKiKp9y36s9Qov8e4efoxynjyi4QRw0s8Otrjn0z7IaMVLmGKUHANn72IaPuzZ4LpgQQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 02c359b48639b962a1edc9dfc9db9bff Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories Description An account of the resource The oral histories in this collection were produced by The Charleston Oral History Program at the Citadel. Founded in 2008, The Charleston Oral History Program at the Citadel seeks to deepen understanding of the Lowcountry’s rich history and culture through the gathering and presentation of recorded memories from area residents.<br /><h3>Search Tips</h3> Interviews may be browsed by scrolling to the bottom of this page and selecting "View all items".<br /><br />When using the search bar, we recommend putting quotations around your search term, and selecting the Boolean search option, as illustrated here:<br /><p><img src="https://gdurl.com/aYPj" alt="aYPj" /><br /><br />To view interviews of a specific theme, please see the search tips in each series below.</p> <h3><strong>The Citadel in War and in Peace<br /></strong></h3> With generous support from the <a href="http://www.schumanities.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Humanities Council of South Carolina</a>, The Charleston Oral History Program at the Citadel collected thirty interviews with Citadel alumni regarding their experiences during WWII. Journalist and historian Jack Bass conducted the interviews during the Fall of 2008.They serve as a powerful testament to the veterans' experiences and their critical contributions to the war effort.<br /><br /><em>*To search interviews in this series, use the following terms utilizing the Boolean search option:</em><br /><ul><li>"The Citadel in War and in Peace"</li> <li>"The Citadel in War and in Peace -- World War II"</li> <li>"The Citadel in War and in Peace -- Korean War"</li> <li>"The Citadel in War and in Peace -- Vietnam War"</li> <li>"The Citadel in War and in Peace -- The Second Gulf War"</li> <li>"The Citadel in War and in Peace -- The War in Afghanistan"</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Working Charleston</strong></h3> Working Charleston documents the on and off job experiences of the longshoremen and lawyers, the bartenders and carriage drivers, hospital aides and high tech workers who make Charleston among the nation's prime tourist destinations and vital centers of global trade.<br /><br /><em>*To search interviews in this series, use the following terms utilizing the Boolean search option:</em><br /><ul><li>"Working Charleston"</li> <li>"Charleston City Workers"</li> <li>"Lowcountry Foodways"</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Charleston and the Long Civil Rights Movement</strong></h3> <span><span>These interviews explore how community activism continues to shape modern life in the South.<br /><br /><em>*To search interviews in this series, use the following terms utilizing the Boolean search option:</em><br /></span></span> <ul><li>"Charleston and the Long Civil Rights Movement</li> <li>"Civil rights movement--South Carolina"</li> <li>"African Americans--Civil Rights--South Carolina--Charleston"</li> </ul><a target="_blank" href="https://citadeldigitalarchives.omeka.net/items/show/193" rel="noreferrer noopener"></a> <h3><strong>Las Voces del Lowcountry</strong></h3> <span><span>This project is designed to raise the profile of the Hispanic/Latinos who call the Lowcountry home and to promote a rational and humane conversation regarding immigration, education, and employment policies.<br /><br /><em>*To search interviews in this series, use the following terms utilizing the Boolean search option:<br /></em></span></span> <ul><li>"Las Voces del Lowcountry"</li> <li>"Latin Americans--Southern States"</li> <li>"Hispanic Americans--Southern States"</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Women in World War II</strong></h3> <em>*To search this series, type "Women in World War II" into the search bar, using the Boolean search option.<br /></em> <ul><li>"Women in World War II"</li> <li>"Women--Employment History"</li> <li>"World War, 1939-1945--Participation, female"</li> </ul> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Akana, Courtney Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Frazier, Herbert Location The location of the interview Charleston, South Carolina Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1 hour, 18 minutes Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Mp3 derivative audio created with Audacity software. Archival masters are wav files. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Herbert Frazier, Interview by Courtney Akana, 18 March, 2015 Subject The topic of the resource African American Journalists African Americans--Education--South Carolina--Charleston--History African Americans--Civil rights--South Carolina--Charleston C.A. Brown High School, Charleston (S.C.) Description An account of the resource Herbert Frazier was born in 1951 in Charleston. This interview focuses on his childhood experiences growing up in the Asonborough Projects and attending Buist Elementary School and C.A. Brown High School. When he was fourteen years old, his family moved to Guantanamo Base, Cuba. Frazier returned to Charleston in 1969 and enrolled in the University of South Carolina. In the interview, Frazier reflects on the long-lasting effects of school desegregation.   Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource The Charleston Oral History Program at The Citadel Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Citadel Archives & Museum Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-03-18 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource The Citadel Archives & Museum Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Materials in The Citadel Archives & Museum Digital Collections are intended for educational and research use. The user assumes all responsibility for identifying and satisfying any claimants of copyright. For more information contact The Citadel Archives &amp; Museum, The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, 29409. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mpeg Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Charleston (S.C.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context https://citadeldigitalarchives.omeka.net/items/show/1765 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Charleston and the Long Civil Rights Movement https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/39779/archive/files/b494a471408c703530202a3a22b56aff.pdf?Expires=1779926400&Signature=wCPnSML0Noqvpk0fGydXcIF7eerIksvmeuF1Et6h3QjR6F-7daHKo55EBCD80mBlfzQqV81c0blQfSJdph0zDp4TXpvH%7ER0f1k-SybJW-gBDBf9Wro2Jeufnb-PAZKuSnGrPq%7E0TM9vTkGK3pZGsZd4qq5wPTQNnZ0UqzCjqa-6ZmrqLfBOlzj9XML44YgzhRJlCXwTYgKyu1deRVjm-7FSgeSE6Z5GZQBnrpvecgwsR1zNjURnwN%7ElZQiMpSRybIMn9--SCrwnBTP2nWOxlW6XRurYY7IkGL3juVSuYyheUSt-Oogobp6UBPLTDOaiDz%7EyD%7E9wMPIBdRtuTksmXaw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 5e6cd038cc598f9a9867a9b98361e9d9 PDF Text Text TRANSCRIPT – MARY EDWARDS Interviewee: MARY EDWARDS Interviewer: COURTNEY AKANA Interview Date: March 9, 2015 Location: Charleston Length: 72 min. MARY EDWARDS: This our first yearbook. COURTNEY AKANA: Oh, wow. Okay. So, before I actually ask any questions, let me, okay, so this is on, so I'm just going to say my name. This is Courtney Akana and I'm interviewing Mary Edwards. Would you like to just state your name? ME: My name is Mary Edwards. CA: Okay, good. So, my question, my first question is actually perfect for this book. What are the years that you had; you went to? ME: I attended C.A. Brown high school. The very first year opened in 1962. Okay. I was an eighth grader at that time. High school was eighth through twelve, that was like a middle school. So, the year the school was built we were the first class 62 through 67. Nice. Yes. CA: Before we really delve more into C.A. Brown, you briefly filled me in on your history here in Charleston. You, just on the record, give me a little bit of your family history and your history here in the city. �Mary Edwards ME: Okay. Well, I was born and raised on Reid Street, which is right here on the Eastside, a few blocks down the street there. Have three, it’s four of us, two brothers and a sister. We were raised by my mother's family, brother, and sisters because our parents died. Yeah. So, it was like one family, one big happy family. It wasn't a sad thing, you know, that they died, I guess when you're young too you don't know that. But we attended Buist Elementary School for three years and then my uncle built us a house on Reid Street. And I remember that like it was just yesterday, even being a child finishing the third grade. I remember we were moving from Ansonborough, the projects downtown off Calhoun Street, to this new cottage that he built us. And it was just so happy. Mr. Julian Devine, who was a city Councilman eventually, and the center over here is named after him, he had a moving company. So, I just remember that big truck coming and packing us up. And hey, in a couple of hours, we were in this new house, which was right in the backyard of my uncle's house. And he had a family with four or five children, and it was four of us. And it was just a good time. The neighborhood was very close. You knew everybody, you know, all the children. I think on our block, there probably was at least twenty-five plus children, and just in a few houses, people had big families. Yeah. But it was good, you know, our church, everything that we needed, it seems like it was here in the community. Our church was not too far on Alexander Street, and we were very active in the church: Sunday school, Baptist Training Union, things of that sort, plays. The church was a vibrant institution, I guess if we call it that. So, everything we needed, basically it seemed we had as kids. �Mary Edwards CA: So, you mentioned the close knittness of the community. And do you think that when Charles A. Brown opened that it was very much a community school? Community was involved in it and vice versa? ME: Definitely. Parents, everybody. It seems C.A. Brown was for everybody. Plus, it had evening school classes for adults for high school, you know, to complete their high school education. That used to be very packed too in the evenings, it was like, but yes, it was everybody. Parents were very involved in just the emphasis on education was just top notch. Our church, we had a lot of educated people, a lot of graduates during the summers. We also went to Morris College for a week as young kids. They had like a retreat where you would go and meet other kids from all over South Carolina. And have classes, workshops, presentations, that kind of stuff. So, the church was very involved. And my cousin, my aunt's daughter had graduated from college, my Sunday school teacher. There was just a lot of people that were educated and we, the education was really important. So yes, that was, that just seemed like the thing to do. CA: What do you recall the mood of the campus when, I mean, do you remember your first day at? ME: I don't think I remember the first day as much, but I do remember we ran to school. We came to school down Drake Street there and would enter that way. The front of the school was actually that way, but this is the way we came. But, you know, school was, you love school. I mean, it was just a really exciting place to be in. Education, as I say, was so important, plus we got a lot of books at home or had a lot of books, magazines, Weekly Reader that came during the summer. So school was inviting. �Mary Edwards Teachers were— it's like they had open arms. There was a lot of discipline, they were in control of the class, but they showed a great respect for the student and vice versa. It was sort of reciprocal. You got your homework, you got your lessons, the class, the teachers had control of the class. That was you know, you were there, there was a bell when that bell rang, nobody was in the hallway, you had to be in class. If you were in the hallway, something was not right. You maybe got there a little late, or maybe you got put out of a class for a reason, but the administrators and educators had a role and we listened to them. CA: What was it like if somebody, do you remember if anybody actually disobeyed or acted out and, and what was the punishment like? ME: I've heard the punishment was probably—well, we didn't get corporal punishment. I don't remember that at all. But you know, you were told to go to the office. I personally don't remember like fights or arguments and things of that. But I've heard, some students would say, and we had lot more male instructors, lots of so they pretty much had more control over boys if they acted out, for example. But I don't know. It's boys who were really smart. That's one of the things I remember. It was just a different thing. Boys, girls, too, but boys really took their education seriously. CA: I want to backtrack just a little bit to your family and your cottage that was built by your uncle. You said what, what did he do for a living? ME: He worked at the navy yard. He was a cook. CA: Oh, wow. �Mary Edwards ME: For thirty years. He went to work at six in the morning. He worked from six until two. So, he drove our road with two of his friends who were also at the navy yard. So, and that's what he did. He cooked and he's still living. He's the last surviving of my parents on their side, my mother's side. He'll be ninety this year. He had five children. In fact, we were his sort of first family, not sort of, we were his first family. That's my mother's brother. And so, we would be one, two, three, the fourth child, which would've been my youngest sister, that's when he had children. But prior to that, he was like a father to us. So, he's an amazing man, because, you know, he was not educated himself, but he served time in the military because their parents died very young. In fact, their parents died a day apart. My grandfather had a horse and buggy fruit a wagon down on the market. And one day the horses got excited and overturned everything and trampled him—not to death—but when my grandmother got the message, she had a heart attack and immediately died. Right. And then he died the next day. So that left five little children and the woman that raised us, my mother's oldest sister that became the matriarch of the family at eighteen years old. She had, you know, sixteen, fourteen, eleven and a six-year-old. And she took care. There were struggles, but she became the head of everything. CA: And in your family, where do you fit? ME: I'm the third child. My older sister is seventy-three. She passed away a couple of months ago. And then my brother is sixty-eight, will be, I'm sixty-six, and I have a sister that's sixty-five. �Mary Edwards CA: Okay. So, when your parents passed away, then your older siblings sort of did the same thing that, ME: Well, we, my aunt by that time—my older sister was eleven when my grandparents, no, no when my mother died, she was eleven. So, she too sort of took that role and she was like a big sister and a mother too. Yes. CA: You mentioned some memory of the school and you and the legacy of education there, and how men and women took their education a little bit more seriously, but do you have more personal memories of your attendance at the school? ME: Oh yeah. Perfect attendance. And coming to school was, like I said, school— you were here every day and school extended during the summers. So, during the summers, you would find us in the library every day. That's when we'd go to the library, get books, read, act out like kids do. So reading was a big thing in our home before, even before school. But education was always something. My aunt the oldest the one that took care of everything when her parents died, her daughter, my first cousin, we all lived together, and she went to college. So, you know, we would visit her in college. And so we had that, I think I remember in the fourth or fifth grade knowing I was going to college. I didn't think I knew anything about how it could get there or what it would cost, but it was already built into us that we would attend college, everybody around us. So, I mean, all the services that we needed you go to the doctor, your minister, your nurse, everybody was in a position to, anything that we needed. We didn't have to really leave the community so much to itself. �Mary Edwards CA: What college was it that you attended? ME: I attended Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina. And I remember when Mrs. Simpson, the counselor, and you knew that you were, if not going to college, what you would be doing. That's one of the things that built these teachers and administrators, you knew everybody had an academic plan, as far as what you were going to do beyond high school, whether it was military or whatever, going to New York or going to at that time to secretarial school or going into nursing or it was going to a community college. You were groomed to do something great. You always felt that—I guess we were in an environment where we didn't have to compete or feel that we were less than. Our parents took care of that, they protected us from all of whatever, because when you're thirteen years old, you are not really sort of, but it was always and it was never a thing of “you were better or worse than,” we were aware, but it wasn't our job. They handled that part. They just made sure that we got what we needed. Your teachers corrected you in a polite way, when you spoke, they just didn't let things, they taught you. It was a well-rounded kind of extension of what you got at home, what you got in the community, what you got in the church. All of it was one, you know ball of enhancements or encouragements and that kind of stuff. CA: And so you were, CA: I mean, your, your parents did shelter you, but were you, do you have recollection, or do you remember being aware of like books or just the economic inequalities of your school and white schools in the area? �Mary Edwards ME: Well, we didn't feel it. We had a brand-new school and I think the feeling of being you know, just going to high school for elementary school, that excitement. So there was not that, at least in our family and most of the families and people on it just seems like they were already doing things. So, we didn't feel that it was not something that was not possible or that our books, our books were books, were fine. In our courses we took chemistry and all the higher-level math and literature, our teachers were diamonds. When I look at it now—they didn't know the treasures that we had here. They just thought it was inferior. They had no idea. And you could, we could compete with any student at any high school, any level. There are times—I was a good speller because I was a reader, I guess we all were, it's sort of in our families, somebody's always in the state national spelling bee. But I'm looking at how things were at Buist, I went here, Columbus Street Elementary at the time, it was named from the fourth of the seventh and then here. But you know, and the teachers were at the elementary level or maybe black and white, but more, more (late?) you've heard of that term. But I don't know because we were in that environment, I don't think it, it was understood that we felt any different, that we felt less than not on the parts. We competed with one another in sports, and we had everything from band, all the sports all the intellectual stuff. It was just plenty of folk. We didn't think we hadn't been to another high school. And when you're thirteen years old, a brand-new high school and you are a big girl now kind of thing. And like I said, my aunt's daughter was valedictorian, and we would go up to Mather College, which was like a school for girls like Ashley Hall but for Black girls. And she was a �Mary Edwards valedictorian there. She was valedictorian at Talladega. She wrote the Alma Mater for (Reid?) School. So, and my aunt's a good writer. I mean, so we didn't I guess— the interaction that we did have with white families they were all respectful. Now my sister, on the other hand, my older sister would tell me stories of how it was really not good. She's like eight, nine years older and how she walked to America Street to church. Our church at the time was at the foot of America Street and how, you know, you'd get racial slurs, and you know, you couldn't walk on the sidewalk, and she has all kinds of stories, but we didn't experience that. I guess my experiences more with other races of all kinds was after I graduated from Benedict and went to graduate school at Pittsburgh, it was like my first. And after I graduated my first, I guess caseload as a social worker, it was like, I was sort of shock because was there were actually poor white families. I had never experienced, you know, was like—And then of course you are a little grown. You hear about civil rights and all kinds of stuff because, but that was like, hmm. And we are in another part of the world and just “for real”? But I guess, because we were always involved in a way to like in voter registration, and even as kids, we did voter registration, everybody voted and as kids, you know, we passed out flyers and pamphlets and just do all those kinds of stuff. So, it was a great experience growing up. And we just feel that we sort of had things I guess my experiences are more, as far as comparing things would be after I got older and started looking back and thinking, hmm. But the experiences themselves were really good. �Mary Edwards CA: And you mentioned sports and sort of organizations. Did you belong to any sports teams or organizations? ME: My sister was the sports one. She played basketball. So, I started travelling, you know, behind her. I was the book worm. I went to the library every day when I was in high school. I was in the library club. So, I was more that and volunteering. We always, as a family, had to volunteer. Volunteering was a part of what we did. So I didn't play sports, but I came to the games—see first runner around from a C.A. Brown. So, I was an attendant of a big parade and that kind of stuff. But my friends, you know, were in the band and everybody did sports. So I was, I was a spectator came to sports CA: And the school chose the black Panther as a mascot. What are your feelings on that sort of imagery? And do you have an idea of the overall feeling the students had regarding the mascot? ME: We were so proud of it. I don't even think that had anything to do with it. I don't know. We just call it the C.A. Brown Panthers and I, I don't know what other people, but the love that we had for this school, which was actually Eastside High School when first so open. I do remember I was talking to Marlina, a neighbor and she works there also. And we started the eighth grade together. She says, Mary, you don't remember when they, we had an assembly—because they were always had an assembly program, an assembly to discuss things—they discussed things with the students. We always felt like a part of whatever was going on. We'd have an assembly to get our opinions. And she was saying you don't remember when we had an assembly when they were going to change the name and blah, blah, blah. And I said that I just don't have any memory. But �Mary Edwards what I do remember is looking at that picture on the wall downstairs of Mr. C.A. Brown, Charles A. Brown and wondering why are they changing the name of our school? That, I remember. And of course, again, you know, he was chairman of the Charleston County Superintendent School Board, and that kind of stuff. Because Eastside High was like, I guess maybe for six months or so. And it was just, I remember I didn't ask any, I didn't ask my aunt or, but I remember thinking, why are they, who is that person and why are they changing the name of our school? But we love the school so much. It, you know, that was a fleeting thing after some time. But the panther was just, we just love that's what today I wore my black and gold. Even today, if there's anything that's going on with C.A. Brown, I mean the turnout is just the, the feeling and the love that still transpires for this institution and what they did for us. The teachers, the principals, the admin, the cafeteria folks, I mean somebody might have another story, but that is my—this just not anything it was all good. It was just a beat. It's like a family. Each year we do a gospel class and last year we had all the teachers to come and it was like thirty-eight teachers that came back. As Howard was a hundred years old and she's still, you know, teaching Calculus, I mean mine's still clear and stuff, but it was just so exciting to see these people. We see them off and on, but it's like they were just, they are the, the school should be named after because they were just phenomenal. You know, some of them were young. I remember there were a few, my older sister's age, which means that they were like nine to twelve years older. So, they were young teachers. And then we had a lot of teachers that were mature, but they were just very professional as teachers, “Ms. Edwards or whatever.” They just, they were just, I don't know. They were great. �Mary Edwards CA: And you had mentioned before that the teachers and the students came up with like an academic plan as far as what they were doing beyond school, but while you were attending school, was there a sense of that the teachers provided the sense that you guys were the next generation and you had to carry on sort of this legacy of education and even civil rights activism or anything, ME: There was a sense that you needed to be the best at what you needed to be. As far as, you know, school and grades were important, report cards, you know, so we worked hard to and perfect attendance. So being absent from school and that kind of stuff was a, a no-no. But yeah, plus, like I said, some of them were sort of young and I'm thinking and coming in and really knowing quite a few people that went to college that you know, it was sort of just expected of you. We didn't get a lot of comparisons or that you need to do. You might have heard that, you know, because of your situation and your race or whatever, you're going to have to be better than, and maybe that's what they use to elevate or to motivate. But that wasn't something that was hammered. It was more like an expectation, and they carried themselves that way. And you wanted to emulate your, you know, your teachers very influential to you. So, you, you know your teacher and your guidance counselors, they knew you and, and they could if you are going on the wrong path or something, they would say, they would get involved. CA: The teachers, did they contact parents and were, I mean, were they involved in the community as well? ME: Most of them lived in the community. That was a big difference. You know, they lived in different places. Mr. Stan at one time lived right here on Columbus Street, �Mary Edwards that second house across from the Cigar Factory you know, dispersed in the neighborhood, their houses may have been nicer or what have, but they were around Mrs. Flowers is still here. She's a retired teacher right in front of, and she can tell you the whole history of all this place here, when the school wasn't here. So, and those who weren't, they were still, they might have been a member of your church or something, but you somehow touch base with them. And when you, again, when you were in school, I think one of the best things is they had control over and, you know, they would call your parents. They meant that. And nobody wanted, not when you got to get off your job to come. No. No. Our parents were, even when my aunt, during the summers, when we were old enough to stay home alone and she was at work, she would call every day. We did not turn on the TV because that was the rule. You don't turn on the TV and have folks in the house when you're without adult supervision. She'd call every day to see the mail, what came in the mail. So that was another thing we learned how to, transact, this bill came or that one open it, tell me what it is. My uncle started like the one that built us, the house. He started writing at a young age, like twenty-five or twenty-six before he started his family. And our family has a history of writing letters for seniors. Those who couldn't write, my mother did it, my sister. And when she left, when I was in the fourth grade, I took that over. So, I would go downtown to a few different people and write letters for them to their families. And they tell me what to say. “Dear Son,” I remember that one in particular and so writing and all of that was a, you know, sort of a constant and then my �Mary Edwards uncle and he's written quite a few books and it's amazing. You don't have to have a college degree. He's written stuff that I can't even, I, I couldn't do it, but I became his dictator, he would pace back and forth, and I would write, and that started like in the fourth or fifth grade. And he has written in like seven or eight books. And had them published. I've assisted him with that. But writing was, it’s a big thing. It's a big thing in our family. CA: What kind of books did he write? ME: They're on Charleston or this area. Civil rights, Gullah, nonfiction, but the history of this city is definitely in it. CA: What was his name? ME: His name is Charles Smalls. CA: And then are you a member of the alumni association at Charles A. Brown? ME: Yes. CA: Okay. And as far as this campus, Trident Tech and the proximity of Charles A. Brown and was the alumni association involved in this school being erected or was there some sort of communication, do you know of between this school and the association ME: In 62? CA: No. I'm sorry. When this, when Trident Tech. �Mary Edwards ME: Oh, I gotcha. I don't think so. That's I moved back here. And you're talking about Trident Tech. No, I don't know. I just know I had been back home maybe a year and I wasn't really involved. I was just getting my first job. I don't know. I don't think so because of the dissension as to, you know, closing the school, there was some really hard feelings about that. I wasn't involved. So I don't think so. Just closing another school, it just seems like the negative comments that you got, you know, people were mad, didn't have control, it was like the same thing happening again. And, but I don't think it was the closing of the school. And then Trident Tech didn't move immediately because when I first got involved with Trident, they were in different locations down on Bull Street, actually they were at Buist Academy at one point. The main campus is fifty years old. So, all of it it's about the same time, but it wasn't this campus, this campus didn't come into play immediately after, you know, school was closed. CA: And you mentioned sort of some of the feeling after the school was being closed. What was your sort of personal feeling when you found out that the school was being closed? ME: I don't, again, real clear on that, but I do just picking up. I'm wondering why, and then thinking about some of the other closures of things and not feeling so, for example, Ansonborough where we lived, and they moved back and said there was CRE site there. And then all of a sudden hearing these townhouses and everything else is built there now, but the reasons you know, I guess my feeling, the reasons given seem to be, you know, just another undercutting of— to develop or do whatever else, because I remember when the auditorium, maybe my thinking a little bit about that when that was �Mary Edwards taken down. I knew lots of families, because in that area Calhoun Street and all that area as children, a lot of Black folks lived in all of those houses. The feeling when that auditorium came down. I know some people that still upset about that because it just dislocated families. And so it was more, I guess just feeling and, and maybe my life, I always said another time I was 30, 28. So I went and just back and getting a job. So, but, and it sort of happened. I lived West Ashley, whatever, but I just, I was new in town again, so I wasn't really involved, but I was like, you know, it just seemed because I would come home fifth year, tenth year anniversaries or class reunion kinds of things because the class has a tremendous following, getting together and just doing meaningful things. But there's something with C.A. Brown people usually come. But yeah, I know a couple of folks they want even talk about that auditorium just like C.A. Brown, just like, but I guess the school being here sort of cushions it a little bit, you know? And it allows us to still maintain our presence and that kind of stuff. CA: Going back a little bit. Do you remember when you were going to school when the civil rights act was passed, do you have any recollection of a feeling or a mood or a change in attitude or anything at the school? ME: I don't particularly at the school as it, maybe in the community. And I was here where we were involved, like in terms of and, and in the church, that's where you got most of your information and leadership, ministers were on the front line when it came to civil rights. It was out, it was always discussed Mr. Devine, Julian Devine was a close member friend of the family. So, he would always, he was always like a political discussion going on in our house, you know? So, we were just sort of kept informed. It �Mary Edwards wasn't in a negative way, but just in a way to you know, like this is our right from a respectful kind of place, but not in a sense of you know, to gone any kind of, it was always in a positive kind of way. And through education, I think that was the way that we saw and a way to elevate, but you know, involvement, speak outs. I remember my sister; I remember the summer of the March on Washington. I must have been fifteen and my sister did not go to New York that summer. She wanted to stay in Charleston with her friends, but I went and my older sister who was very, always very active and things like NAACP and just different organizations at Burke High School. She and her friends and I was thinking the other day, wow. She was only twenty-two, but I remember them getting up early that Brooklyn morning, Saturday morning to go to Washington, you know, and I remember her telling me, well, you know, you're just, I was too young, so I couldn't go. But she had me laughing about wearing these high heel shoes. And nobody told her she should have had uncomfortable shoes and how she was dressed up to kill and all day, she had these shoes that were hurting her, but she was there and she saw Dr. King. And it was just, my sister has always, even when she left here and my brother, they all, they involved in all kinds of Brooklyn politics and pole manager. And it's just sort of a carryover what we did here, you know? But the mood seemed to have been positive in that. I don't remember other than that. CA: And I know you were young, but was there any sort of idea of what integration might do to your school integration of the Charleston area schools? �Mary Edwards ME: Again, I just don't remember that because again, I had experience, in my family on Sundays driving up to South Carolina State to visit someone in college. So, I guess I just aspired to do that, and I didn't really see it from a black, white kind of thing. My auntie worked for the Pearlman's, and they were the nicest judge [Gus H.] Pearlman was a probate judge here. In fact, that was wondering, why did they not name that courthouse down there after him? I mean, they were just a wonderful family. And they treated us as respectfully as we treated their children. So, you know, the interaction that we did have it just seemed like—and there were others that had less education in the community or less exposure, but we seemed to being doing okay for ourselves. So, it really was some the thing that whatever, it just seemed like whatever we needed services, seamstress, shoemakers, meat, cutters, the everyday kinds of things, Black folks were doing it. So it wasn't like and our parents didn't make the distinction of, they're better than, or you are less than it's just that you need to in order to get along or to, you know not too much get along, but in order to you know, elevate, and move up and just live a harmonious life that you may have to do things better, you know? So it made excelling, but we competed among ourselves. We did not compete. There was not a feeling of competing made me once you went to college, if you went, I went to a predominantly Black college. So I guess when that exposure, but going to New York in the summer, I mingled with all kinds of people. I learned how to speak Spanish really well. One summer I got a job at a Spanish bank, Banco Popular de Puerto Rico. And because Ms. Cathy, you know, teachers here were, I did well. I was an AB student, and just the exposure I think was a big thing. So, I �Mary Edwards didn't feel less than. I guess when the reality of what the world feels, then you deal with it. But I felt I had a—I was a shy child, but I was able, I was pretty smart. So, you worked through those things. My sister was the clown, so I, sometimes I was not, “oh, you are Ross' sister”. I didn't have a name kind of thing. And we were close siblings. So I think the exposure stuff with people and be able to travel and to move around. And you know, if you could go to New York and you just didn't, because people would say we don't have our girlfriends, they hated when school was over. Because they know we would be going to New York. We would have nobody to play with during the summertime and all just stay. And it was like we'd started going for two weeks. And then after that, you know, five, thirteen, I staying the whole summer and then getting a job. My first job out of high school I guess to brag a little bit, I took, I knew I was going to college, but I wanted a job. I had to have a job. My sister said I was just obsessed. If I didn't get a job, she would take, I was looking for a job every day. But by the first week you'd have a job, but I took the civil service test and made one hundred. CA: Wow. ME: And I worked at Kings County Hospital for the summer, and I was so afraid because I know I didn't lie on the application. And I just said, I didn't tell them I was going to college, and I knew I'd be going to college. So, but I got the job and then after I left, he actually hired my older sister to work a part-time job in the evening. So, I did a pretty good job. CA: And then you went on to graduate school? �Mary Edwards ME: Yes. CA: And what, what school did you attend and what was your ME: University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work. Okay and community organization, planning and administration, the specific area, but yeah, I did that and I got a scholarship, a full scholarship. At that time, the National Association of Mental Health, they gave lots of scholarships and out of Benedict which was another great experience. I'm not bragging. It was just great education. A part of it too is you have to embrace it. And we had all of those things given to us at a young age, newspapers, books, magazines, we got those, all of that and lots of books and encyclopedias. So, you could sort of educate yourself a little bit, but that association gave scholarship. So, I got a full scholarship, not just me, there are probably twenty other Black students around the country, the state, US, they've got full star scholarships with stipend. So basically your job was to go there and learn. And I was sort of studious. So, in a year and a half, I did that program and got a job and decided to stay. Adjusting to the weather was the biggest thing, but other than that, it was great, great experience. CA: And what do you do here now at Trident Tech? ME: I counsel. I'm a counselor, student services representative academic personal career counseling. I do workshops. I taught for years a course, it's called college skills which is a study skills, time management, and test taking, skill career development. I still do presentations to those classes. But I get a break now. �Mary Edwards CA: And in your work here, are you able to gauge sort of an idea of the continuities and discontinuities and education from when you went to school and students today? ME: The difference you mean? CA: Yeah. ME: Here at Trident. From college. Yeah. It's a little different. It's a little bit more casual. Yeah, a difference. Yeah. So, students, now they have families, they work, so school is not—while it's, it's their goal to get an education or degree, they have so many other things going on. So, they're just not as focused. Some of about fifty percent of them, they're just not as focused because, they got a whole bunch of—we had the luxury of going to school, living somewhere else, had the opportunity to grow, develop and socialize. But students, they come to school, and they go home, you know. We didn't go home. We had a home away from home, so they got all kinds of responsibilities before they graduate, cars and rent. And so, I do a lot of stuff sometimes with budgeting and because they just have all of these things going on, and children, and spouses, and single families. And it's like, it's rough. I mean, it's different in that. I guess our parents did it too in that they had jobs and, but they didn't have the school stuff puts other element in there that just really makes it tough to be a little focused just on the educational part. Something has to give, getting enough sleep or CA: The author that I had told you about Steve Estes, he presented at the Citadel and he had a sort of a chart on the Black population, white population here in Charleston �Mary Edwards and sort of given gentrification and things like that. The Black population was on a decline here in Charleston. And that all factors into like the integration of schools here and sort of economic segregation in the schools and given all of that information. Do you think that integration, this is a deep question. Integration has maybe failed in Charleston or has definite room for improvement? ME: I think it's like a cycle. I don't think it's failed because, but I think we need to now go back to the drawing board a little bit too. We are using the same strategies and sometimes you have to change things a little bit a while. I don't have all the answers. I know we need to change. Sometimes I'm looking at how we are doing things with the new technologies, but we, the actual goal of what we are trying to achieve. And it's just not administrators and teachers and educators have to change. Sometimes we are just looking at the end product, but they have to be willing to change too. And open dialogue because change is going to come, and you don't. So, but we have to approach it. We got to put some new something new infused and the way we are doing things. Because it's just so much that people don't know, sometimes I'm amazed at just people in general students in general, just information that they don't know. And part, they don't have time because of. But it's definitely we are going to have to figure out how to get people to understand that they too play a role in making some of the changes. You're just not on the other end of it, where you, whatever the adjective is, poor Black or uneducated is something you can do because you will be taken advantage of. And so, we have to somehow get that and now I see it just not Black students. I see a decline in white students that this thing is, it's not good for us as a community. Period. Because you know, �Mary Edwards we are using the same and even, folks, they're talking about the students, but some of the administrators don't want to change either. And we need to educate our young adult family population and find ways it doesn't have to be traditional in a classroom, but we need to find ways to educate some of our young parents because that's, what's going to, we need that in order for the student to make the improvement. And we are, you know, we are putting a lot of emphasis on, you know, and it doesn't have to be reading, writing on arithmetic either. It's other things, family related, you get that structure a little more cohesive and just aware of, and get them a little bit more involved at whatever level, everybody can contribute something and, stop, just feeling that, you have the haves and you have nots, because some of them aren't doing so well either they might have the money, but they got some their family stuff isn't together and you need both of it to stress in a community, a home, a school. You need all of that. We are going to have to make some changes and I guess continue doing some of the things we are doing. Something's going to have to change because it's there is a decline it's definitely, you could sense it, you could feel it. And when students don't feel, see we had that feeling of, you could do whatever, not making it seem like something magical, but the power is within you to achieve this or to do this. And this is how we have people to say, this is how, and let me show you. And sometimes, I get the feeling, oh, it's on the computer, just go over there and do it's, it takes more than a computer and turning it on and not having anybody, it's so, and there are so many people afraid. �Mary Edwards They have no idea what that thing piece of machinery is going to do. And so you, you're leaving a whole bunch of folks behind, and we have to figure out how, and we should be able figure it out. That's where the missing link is. I don't think it's so much with the students, but I think it's, we got to come together with, because a lot of times it just seems like a power structure from a money to perspective and it's just missing the point and folks with money and they're still unhappy and things and you can't live in a community. I work a lot in the community. That's just my thing. I live in the community. I work in the community. But I don't see, I see the changes in this community and it's just really exciting. Sometimes I feel sad for some of the people that's losing their property for whatever reason. Some of it is not above ground. Some of it is people have been taking advantage of and we just have to get involved and help people. When I was coming up helping one another was just, that's just the way it was. But now it's, we just have to some of the solutions are simple and it doesn't take a college degree to do it. You know, I look at my uncle who probably has seventh grade and when I first moved back home and it's like all of these different properties, you know, from time to time, he would sell off to do whatever he needed to do. And it's like, “gosh, you don't need a college degree”. You have about ten, eleven houses. And he bought from this sale that sale, educated kids with, bought another house. We just have to I don't know, just focus a little bit more too on just our everyday quality of living in our communities. And because people are just getting left behind. Things are changing so fast and it's like, wow. I saw to keep up like, oh, there's a new house going here and there and there, and who bought �Mary Edwards this house and that one it's like and learning some of the are reasons behind some of this is just stuff that, oh my gosh, we have to figure out some of the practical things, just the everyday practical kinds of things, and partner with just your neighbors. I know my neighbors not that you have to, but you need to have some kind of relationship with and know who they are. And just something that's small is big because it starts a conversation. It just builds from there. CA: So would you say then that the community is a lot more disjointed now than it was when you were growing up? ME: Well, it's different now, it's probably, it's gone from ninety-five percent Black to probably thirty-five and it's hitting thirty really fast. So, it's different, we have students and families, because it's one of the best places to live, where there's streets, where you could walk and push your stroller. It's the location of it. You've got the bridge, you've got churches, you've got restaurants. You, you are close to public transportation. It's just like the best kept secret and other people are taking advantage of it. And we need to figure out how to, and there are a lot of young Black remaining families. That's doing wonderful jobs with their children. And a lot of times, what you hear the negative stuff and the shooting and some of that happens too, but the drugs and I, they know don't pull in front of my house. It's much better now, but it was usually white folks coming in and their Mercedes early in the morning, it's like McDonald's, and this has to stop. And so, I became a part of that, not in a negative way. I'm not going to put myself at harm's way, but yeah, they might be selling it, but they got they just knew people, all these license players y'all come �Mary Edwards here, they now don't stop in front of my house. Yeah. You might be getting a citation, you know? So, like you just have to, and your family, I'm a pickup, I clean the street every day because that's what we did coming up. We were proud of our house and our street, and you clean in front of your door and kept your stuff nice and clean. And you might clean in front of your neighbor's door. And over the past twenty years, it's amazing. It's finally you, sometimes people ask Miss Mary, why you, I'm not used to living like this. When I come out my door, I want to see my flowers and green grass. I don't see all this trash. So yeah, I pick the trash up plus pretty good for your health, for bending, you need it, try it. But to see how that Blake Street to where I live has gone from, how it's clean now. And it's like, that's just really amazing. And some of the houses at style and I started cleaning the lots, you know? And so therefore people don't throw trash. It's very little now. And we like it. I lived down the street from Mr. Simmons and we were good friends and that's, that was his thing. I didn't live on this side of town growing up. So when I moved and bought that house here, which was in total disrepair, but I saw possibility, but it was like a neighbor kind of thing. So, when I moved here, it was different from, I didn't come on this side of town because you had to stay on your streets, you didn't, you obeyed, we did a few bad things, but you didn't leave your street and stuff. So, I was like the new kid on the block when I moved here. So, it was like, oh, she, lady, but so now, new neighbors come, you meet, hey let them know so that your garbage can don't sit on the street all day. Just little things, garbage pick-up is such and such. If you need help from there let them know where things are. Just little things you don't have to be friendly. You don't �Mary Edwards have to have coffee. I don't know that. But you know, it's just amazing now and it's peaceful. It's so quiet at nighttime. It's like, wow. So, change takes a little while. It just doesn't really happen immediately. But there are other changes too. And I see, I try to get to know the kids. I know that that keeps them out of trouble as they know, oh, it goes, Miss Mary, I hear them say that, but I know them. I pay them to do little things to keep them busy, try to keep them out of trouble. If you need somebody to rake your yard and do trash and whatever we go out to eat sometimes and you know, I love to hear the laughter children and children laugh and have fun. And that's what they're supposed to do. So just being a, this is a wonderful neighborhood and all the changes I think, oh gosh, I just get excited about it. Well, some people don't really recognize it, I guess. Cause when you have some people they're just not, that's just the way it is. And that's fine with me as long as they're a good neighbor not to make any judgements, but everybody's not going to do what I do. I want what I want and that's fine. As long as we could live harmoniously, that works. CA: What, just sort of wrapping up a little bit more. What do you think in your opinion is the, legacy of C.A. Brown high school? ME: The legacy would be some of the best education and the product of the students speaks for itself and all the different ways, just not doctors and lawyers is by just those who've actually continue to make their mark, care in the communities and their children. The teachers, I think the school board can do a lot current school board to try to figure out because they seem to have had the model for how to give or lead or educate. �Mary Edwards There's just so many, not because they're in different positions, but there are quite a few folks that just have actually helped to shape Charleston. And they're about to retire. But I think the legacy of the school is really the education and the level of honor and respect that that's carried on that our parents really, and the community and the churches instilled and that's, it was just not the, the school by itself. But it all came from that whole grouping of institutions, the family, the family, the family, the school felt like a family. And you knew everybody, if you had sister and brother like name, so you always had that backup, are you Georgia’s sister? so people protected one another, even in the schools. CA: I read an article about a couple of schools in Florida that had closed all Black schools had closed and it was about integration and one of the comments that one of the woman that was interviewed made was that had she had the choice to go back and go to an all-Black school or go to an integrated school, she would still choose her all Black school. And I mean, what are your thoughts on that? ME: Well, I knew, you know, the first one for this or the first, whatever it was, I guess my awareness then was more of the first black bus driver. And so how they would, come around the neighborhood and we couldn't wait to see them, Hey, because the bus came right down our street. But again just the excitement of going from elementary to high school was, that's what I knew. You know, we caught the Belt Line on Sundays, which was ten cents to go around Colonial Lake. The Belt Line was all downtown. And so that was exciting. The water, we went to the beach a lot. Again, we did some of those things. So, I in retrospect, Jackie Ford was the first she went with Millicent Brown. So, I knew people that were doing those things and, and my cousin Mabel Smalls, who, even �Mary Edwards through high school, went to math in like ninth grade. So, and she was always how this, somebody in the family to talk about how smart she is, she was just an outstanding student. So, I don't know I had those people. So I, I didn't, I don't remember feeling that going to a white school was necessary. That didn't even that wasn't in our household, in our community, in my church. So I didn't that wasn't anything I aspired to do. CA: Nice. Well, I just want to thank you again for you're welcome doing this interview with me and I'm going to go ahead and turn it off. Okay. End of the recording MLL 2/14/2022 � https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/39779/archive/files/254c70c88f96fbf7e1c889bc9d3b98b2.mp3?Expires=1779926400&Signature=KzvveAFpazyp-UvjBLtUj5PzIFj1xV0x464AvhSOvfBZ7vsPAp6DLs5zRPZ8ZlBnMVy24HuVrjDOX3YXnbCAkf7j8mbnmIekU-kffixDNWBUYNVsHZy7CPX0lWqBf2wci1AihW6HFOhfmDWhfBln6XhQoUnc-9SZei1nyci5c08-m2pl9reYttbkyzwUQaAhtmrY2d1FHQmePxZE7gT6VTOcX7voPHaBHPeFRFMqV60ITlLAFeO4Rz7ZCTaYuDjOGZqhTdXXUlpDD1J-hwK3saVC7KUEF0e5TX-ahLK2w%7EMZbFi6JWXfAEfSr%7ET1RstgoJPpuVqNv%7EluHi1lNSmw0A__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM a62730ff94219f3199d4b522e34f06f9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories Description An account of the resource The oral histories in this collection were produced by The Charleston Oral History Program at the Citadel. Founded in 2008, The Charleston Oral History Program at the Citadel seeks to deepen understanding of the Lowcountry’s rich history and culture through the gathering and presentation of recorded memories from area residents.<br /><h3>Search Tips</h3> Interviews may be browsed by scrolling to the bottom of this page and selecting "View all items".<br /><br />When using the search bar, we recommend putting quotations around your search term, and selecting the Boolean search option, as illustrated here:<br /><p><img src="https://gdurl.com/aYPj" alt="aYPj" /><br /><br />To view interviews of a specific theme, please see the search tips in each series below.</p> <h3><strong>The Citadel in War and in Peace<br /></strong></h3> With generous support from the <a href="http://www.schumanities.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Humanities Council of South Carolina</a>, The Charleston Oral History Program at the Citadel collected thirty interviews with Citadel alumni regarding their experiences during WWII. Journalist and historian Jack Bass conducted the interviews during the Fall of 2008.They serve as a powerful testament to the veterans' experiences and their critical contributions to the war effort.<br /><br /><em>*To search interviews in this series, use the following terms utilizing the Boolean search option:</em><br /><ul><li>"The Citadel in War and in Peace"</li> <li>"The Citadel in War and in Peace -- World War II"</li> <li>"The Citadel in War and in Peace -- Korean War"</li> <li>"The Citadel in War and in Peace -- Vietnam War"</li> <li>"The Citadel in War and in Peace -- The Second Gulf War"</li> <li>"The Citadel in War and in Peace -- The War in Afghanistan"</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Working Charleston</strong></h3> Working Charleston documents the on and off job experiences of the longshoremen and lawyers, the bartenders and carriage drivers, hospital aides and high tech workers who make Charleston among the nation's prime tourist destinations and vital centers of global trade.<br /><br /><em>*To search interviews in this series, use the following terms utilizing the Boolean search option:</em><br /><ul><li>"Working Charleston"</li> <li>"Charleston City Workers"</li> <li>"Lowcountry Foodways"</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Charleston and the Long Civil Rights Movement</strong></h3> <span><span>These interviews explore how community activism continues to shape modern life in the South.<br /><br /><em>*To search interviews in this series, use the following terms utilizing the Boolean search option:</em><br /></span></span> <ul><li>"Charleston and the Long Civil Rights Movement</li> <li>"Civil rights movement--South Carolina"</li> <li>"African Americans--Civil Rights--South Carolina--Charleston"</li> </ul><a target="_blank" href="https://citadeldigitalarchives.omeka.net/items/show/193" rel="noreferrer noopener"></a> <h3><strong>Las Voces del Lowcountry</strong></h3> <span><span>This project is designed to raise the profile of the Hispanic/Latinos who call the Lowcountry home and to promote a rational and humane conversation regarding immigration, education, and employment policies.<br /><br /><em>*To search interviews in this series, use the following terms utilizing the Boolean search option:<br /></em></span></span> <ul><li>"Las Voces del Lowcountry"</li> <li>"Latin Americans--Southern States"</li> <li>"Hispanic Americans--Southern States"</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Women in World War II</strong></h3> <em>*To search this series, type "Women in World War II" into the search bar, using the Boolean search option.<br /></em> <ul><li>"Women in World War II"</li> <li>"Women--Employment History"</li> <li>"World War, 1939-1945--Participation, female"</li> </ul> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Akana, Courtney Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Edwards, Mary Location The location of the interview Charleston, South Carolina Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1 hour, 12 minutes Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Mp3 derivative audio created with Audacity software. Archival masters are wav files. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mary Edwards, Interview by Courtney Akana, 9 March, 2015 Subject The topic of the resource Women in higher education African Americans--Education--South Carolina--Charleston--History African Americans--Civil rights--South Carolina--Charleston C.A. Brown High School,Charleston (S.C.) Description An account of the resource Mary Edwards was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1967 she graduated from C.A. Brown High School. In the interview, Edwards talks about her childhood in the Eastside Community, remembers her experiences at C.A. Brown, and discusses school integration. Finally, Edward focuses on her work as a counselor and instructor at Trident Technical College.  Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource The Charleston Oral History Program at The Citadel Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Citadel Archives & Museum Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-03-09 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource The Citadel Archives & Museum Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Materials in The Citadel Archives & Museum Digital Collections are intended for educational and research use. The user assumes all responsibility for identifying and satisfying any claimants of copyright. For more information contact The Citadel Archives & Museum, The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, 29409. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mpeg Language A language of the resource English Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Charleston (S.C.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context https://citadeldigitalarchives.omeka.net/items/show/1764 Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Charleston and the Long Civil Rights Movement