Lou Barnes:



Lou Barnes: [interview starts in the middle of a conversation, some of the people to whom she is referring are unknown] We’d go all the way up the street, you’d see a school, that’s the Townes Building, and they – she and her husband [Dr. Mary M. Townes and her husband] – worked at NCCU, and they donated some money to the school.

Beverly Barnes Evans: Yeah, wasn’t that a million dollars? [LB agrees] Yeah, and they lived down the street, they lived down the street on Otis Street.

LB: Across the street, you will see initials on the front, Lee WL. That was a big [unintelligible].

Interviewer Male: Mhm.

LB: And his daughter is still living there.

IM: Wow.

BBE: Yeah, Andrew Moss (?) and them started uh Fisher Memorial Church on um Fayetteville and uh what is that street? Up there at Hayti, is that Pickett? It’s a little side street, right there before the Hayti Heritage, mhm.

Interviewer Female: Right, I know what she means. So…

BBE: [to LB] Let Maya (?) ask you some questions.

IF: It’s okay [all laugh]

BBE: Well John Hope Franklin used to live on the corner over there and I was a young girl.

IF: That’s really amazing.

BBE: And he used to have, um, his wife used to have uh uh all the kids in the neighborhood over for tea and li’l cookies like crumpets or whatever, and he would talk to the kids about black history. Every Sunday he would give us a little, for about an hour, black history and all that so that we would know, because he was a history professor.

IF: It’s a very small world.

LB: Yeah.

BBE: Plus he was also her teacher at NCCU.

IF: Her teacher?!

BBE: Her history teacher. So she gave him a big 90th birthday party. Uh, who were some of the- I know you had some of the souvenirs from that birthday party you gave him. I don’t know…[leaves room]

LB: They might be on the shelf…But they have a building at Duke [cut off by BBE]

BBE: [reenters room] And these were all made for everybody at the birthday party [all chuckle]. Uh-huh, he was her teacher; so he used to come over all the time and talk about his orchids, you that he moved over at the other house.

LB: He would give uh roses, on my birthday. I said, “I really wish this was an orchid,” he said, “Well, we’ll see what we can do,” he was talking to his son. He said, “You come to my garden with your friends and we’ll plant one (?) and we’ll name it after you.

IF: That’s sweet, that’s really sweet.

LB: Uh-huh, I loved that man (?).

BBE: Tell them more about where you first went to school and how you did the work-study for uh Dr. Shepard’s wife.

LB: James E. Shepard’s wife, named Annie Day, and Annie Day had a building named after her. And my mother was a missionary and they were friends, so when the principal wrote her a letter saying that uh, saying to Dr. Shepard’s house, and you can work in that house and help Annie Day, so that was my first job.

BBE: ‘Cause she was coming down with uh, what was it? Rheumatoid arthritis.

LB: So that’s how I got to get there.

BBE: And her father was a furniture maker for a lot of the furniture.

LB: Day’s [clarifying BBE’s comment above]. And you can find a piano, it’s still in the Shepards’ house. And across the street from it, you’ll see a statue of Dr. Shepard, and down the hill where the tree stump, he fell there. And the bowl [she means the Greek Bowl, behind the James E. Shepard Library today] has information on the classes, every year they would come through the bowl and recognize names.

BBE: Wasn’t that that first senior bowl, where the seniors would come back?

LB: Might have been.

BBE: ‘Cause when you took me over there and we saw one of the um the stones, that said, you know, donated by the class of so-and-so, we ended up seeing her sister’s name on one of the stones, it was that class. And then her class stone is there, but the water has weathered it so her name was missing from that class, it was smooth through that part. Yeah, but the stone is still there saying class of 1944.

IF: So it’s 2016, and the following is part of the Preservation Equity Project [hereafter PEP]. Please say your name.

LB: Lou Suitt Barnes.

IF: And your age?

LB: I was born June 20, 1922 [her current age, as of 7/6/16 is 94].

IF: And where are you today?

LB: I am elated to have company and friends that live here in Durham.

IF: How would you describe your neighborhood?

LB: It’s very busy, uh young people coming in this neighborhood, and they attend school at NCCU, and parking a lot on this street and also parking on campus. So you see them using one car and getting in another car to go to class.

IF: Tell us about your home.

LB: My home is uh open house. Students call me from different places because I still have my telephone number, it hasn’t changed. They call me to find out if I’ve heard from them and give them my number.

BBE: Of the students?

LB: Yeah, of the students.

BBE: Yeah, just had one call yesterday. Former student from South Carolina, called wanting to know if Mama knew the telephone number for somebody from NCCU when they were in school [everyone laughs]. Because she worked there from 1965 until um ’96. Was it ’96 or ’97? One of those, one of those years, I have to look on one of these plaques. Yeah, so there was a lot of students that came through and with her working as a program director in the Student Union building, then she got a chance to interact with the students that were on the student government association and all that. And her job was to bring in the um artists and writers and dancers and all for the entertainment of the students, to have, uh, you know, cultural events, to expose them to culture [all laugh].

BBE: She had Dr. Ben come down, Dr. Ben-Jochannan, the Egyptologist, I think, didn’t he leave his thing over here for you? Where’s that that he gave you when he came here? It was something he had around his neck, what was it? Something from Egypt, an amulet of um, I don’t see it up here; it was up here for a long time.

LB: I took it off, I wore it, and I had it on out at the mall and a lady kept staring at me. And she said, “Is that real?” I said, “Why’d you ask me that? Yes, it’s real.” She said, “Where did you get it from?” I said, “I got it from Dr. Ben.” She said, “Did you know him?” I said, “Yes. I’ve been traveling with my daughter and we have been to 10 (?) places while she and I have been traveling and I’ve had a chance to talk to Dr. Ben.” I said, “I have a book on [or possibly “from”] him.” And she said, “Well I would like to talk to you about it because he is an Egyptologist, and I want you to tell me something about him.” So I did.

BBE: You, you admired his necklace when he came that he had on with the, the sun god, Amun-Ra and something. Yeah, I wouldn’t have took it off, it was hanging up here for a long time with all these New Orleans beads and things [everyone laughs]. But uh yeah, you told him you liked that and he just took it on off and gave it to you.

IF: How long have you been living in the home?

LB: Mm.

BBE: Hm, yeah, let’s um that was uh ’47 when um Daddy built the house. Yeah, he got the, the frame from uh Camp Butner, at that time, after World War II they were tearing down the barracks and all that up at Camp Butner, up Oxford way.

LB: About 18 or 20 miles away.

BBE: Yeah, so they were basically people purchase those barracks for little or nothing, so this was an army barrack. How did he get the frames down here to Durham?

LB: Um, what’s the guy’s name?

BBE: How did they bring it down? On a truck, or…?

LB: I think the way the barrack was built, it had a little breezeway, and the truck driver made the adjustments and the other guy…

BBE: Mhm, so they cut it in half. So yeah, so then his other friends, um Bill Jones that lives around the corner, his father and all, bricked it up. Bill Jones was a good friend, and he was a brick mason, a brick layer, and a plasterer, and uh so all the friends came together like back in the days when communities used to work together to like put up the barn or whatever; and so they all participated in doing the brick work and uh the plastering on this house.

IF: What was it like for you all living and growing up in this neighborhood in its heyday?

BBE: Oh yeah… Well it was wonderful ‘cause Mom was the uh PTA president and the vice president for a number of years when we were in elementary school. So she was in charge of the Cub Scouts and the Boy Scouts, you know, for the boys, and because she was a physical education major, she had them doing forward falls, and cartwheels, and um pyramids, and taking pictures of them, and um all of that, and swimming, and you know, roller skating, and she would also go swimming with us and roller skate in the streets with us. And the boys would make stilts and walk on stilts, and um you know, all of that. In fact, Preston, the youngest son, is still walking on stilts at different African festivals with a uh costume on and uh I don’t know where that picture is, he’s walking on stilts around the corner. He would walk from here to around the corner and everybody in the neighborhood would see him and say, “How did you get way up there?” [all laugh] He would be on 2x4’s, and the other brother was in the soapbox derby, so they were always trying to get those wheels going, so that they could win in the soapbox derby, I think he came in second with the soapbox derby, so um um, and it was a lot going on. And it was a basketball court in the backyard, so all the kids from the neighborhood would meet her. Like when Mama was growing up, her house was a meeting house because it was right beside the old Hillside, where Whitted School is now, so students, her friends would come there, and then their mothers would come and pick them up. So she made our house the same kind of house, with all the kids from the neighborhood coming her to play, and you know, eat, and um just participate in everything that was going on in the neighborhood and everything that was outside in the community, W.D. Hill Recreation Center and all of that, you know. And then mine was the typical ballet, we got pictures of me with my tap shoes on and her tap shoes [all laugh], so you know, she was active. And then the boys were on the City, um, Tennis Team, so they were playing tennis everywhere, with uh Coach Easterland, you know, as uh 6 and 7 year olds. He would stop by every Saturday morning, blow the horn, ‘cause he would have an agreement with the neighbors that had young boys, and he would put them in his station wagon, take them up to Hillside, and make them run for stamina, for stamina, so when they did get to high school, he would have his team already ready [all laugh] with uh the routine and the stamina to uh, to win. So I think it was Ike, Craig Page, uh, John Lucas, you know, all boys that were in the neighborhood and they were winning, they were winning. And when they got to Hillside, you know, he already had his team set up ‘cause he had his boys trained from they were like 6 or 7 years old. Each year he would keep adding who else was new to the neighborhood and turned 6 or 7 years old, he’d get them and uh make an agreement with their parents.

IF: Yeah, he did his own recruiting [all laugh].

BBE: [Loudly] He did his own recruiting and he had a winning team. And I think it was ’65 that that team was called the Pony Express that won the State Championships, ‘cause they would run from Hillside down Lawson Street hill to Roxboro, run all the way out to Cornwallis, and he would be behind them in the car, come on up to Alston Avenue, and then come back by NCCU, come back to uh Hillside; so they could just run, outrun everybody because they were so used to running like that everyday. Mhm.

IF: Did you guys have any special moments that took place in the home?

LB: They played basketball out there. And the lady next door, she had a dog, and the kids would be shooting the ball…

BBE: Um yeah, we, we… [interrupting LB] Well she was in school, she came down from Massachusetts and a little baby, they had a little baby, they were in college over here and they were just renting the house and they bought this huge, um, what was he called? He was a giant Schnauzer, a Schnauzer poodle, so he was huge, tall, real tall, with the poodle in him. So he just took to the boys right away. And uh, he, they would leave the baby in the yard, and he would watch the baby and nobody could go into the yard. But when they played basketball, he would come over and play basketball with them, ‘cause he could jump up and, uh, you know, hit the basketball to go up in the uh basketball hoop, too. So when they finished college, they left the dog with us because they didn’t want to take the dog back to an apartment; he was just used to, you know, and his name was Harambi.

IF: Oh, that’s nice [all laugh].

BBE: Mhm. So he stayed us until he passed, but everybody in the neighborhood knew Harambi as Big Harambi, because he was like a little small pony [all laugh]. But Mama would get out there and play ball with them too, she was very athletic, she could just play anything, any kind of sport.

IF: What has changed the most with the neighborhood? Other than the school.

BBE: All the older people are passing away…

LB: They call me to say so-and-so is passing away in the hospital, go and see ‘em. They just [unintelligible] very serious, and if you want to talk to them, pray with ‘em, you show your face, so… That’s what [unintelligible] to the hospital. And she’s trying to keep me alert. We took a walk; we went downhill, up the hill [all laugh]…

BBE: Yeah, we go across the hill up to the school, to the college.

LB: So they say, “Ms. Barnes, what you been doing today?” “Just trying to keep up with Beverly.” They say, “You walk down there?!” I say, “Yes, I had to walk.” “Well you my neighbor, I just can’t get out the bed.”

BBE: Mhm. Yeah, but um it’s kinda sad when the neighbors have passed away, and then their children that were away, you know, wither sell the house or rent the house, or are not really taking care of their houses and all, and so that just makes the neighborhood change, and so you don’t know as many people as you used to, you know from growing up, it was a close knit neighborhood and all the ladies from the neighborhood were in the flower club and, you know, they would get together and wear little [unintelligible] ball gowns, you know, to a meeting [all laugh]. It was, you know, that kind of uh thing would be going on. She’s got pictures of them with, you know, up the street with everybody had on ball gowns, just going for flower club, and that type of thing. Those days are long gone, you know, people don’t dress as much as they used to, plus clothes were better made back then, you know, in the ‘40s and all, those suits were really good, you know, they were made really tailored, and um, and detailing much more than they are now, so she kept some of the suits that was really tailored nice. Mhm.

IF: What hasn’t changed about the neighborhood?

LB: Younger people, they’re moving back because they're close to the campus and they don’t have [unintelligible], it’s close knit. This morning they had Joan Peckingham (?) on TV and she was talking about doing work over at NCCU and what she was trying to do. And her daddy taught at Hillside, and you had to go to his class because he was, he made everybody remember science, and she is keeping it up now, I was surprised to see her.

BBE: Yeah, they lived down the street with uh genetics and cross breeding and flowers, you know, at his home, growing a lemon tree and all that, it was just wonderful, you know, he really made you just want to love biology and science and all that. You know, from just the making it come alive for you.

LB: And they had uh, a bird, was it a bird? You ringing the doorbell and the bird said, “Joan, there’s somebody at the door.”

BBE: Parrots.

IF: Parrots [all laugh].

BBE: But so far, a lot of the uh, the people in the neighborhood are still, you know, uh nice and uh decent and try to uh keep their houses up, you know, and um there’s no too many that are really bad, um, you know uh where the children just don’t care about the parents’ houses anymore and all. So uh a lot of them are moving back from going away to other states to have their careers and then coming back, fixing up their parents’ homes and then moving back for retirement.

IF: Tell us about your family.

LB: Well, my oldest is Beverly…

BBE: Don’t you want to go on back to your Mama and Daddy? [Laughs] Well your mother ended up, tell ‘em about your Mother… Yeah this is a picture, back in the 1800s, of her parents, here um her mother and that’s um that’s Irene, that’s Zula, and that’s Mary. And so they lived on a farm in um in Granville County, in Creedmoor, so her mother was the only one that her father sent to St. Aug to college to become, at that time, in the late 1800s, you only went to college for two years, so she became a teacher there in Creedmoor, so she was always, and she went to school at the time the Delaney sisters were over at St. Aug, yeah, so yeah, she had um all this culture of it’s not “can I”, it’s “may I”. I just remember as a child she was always correcting your grammar [all laugh] with always being a teacher, and um, instilling um education, you gotta get your education, you know, to make sure you go to school. So when she passed away, her sister Irene was still living, ‘cause she lived to 92, so she moved in with us when she got in her 90s and didn’t want to stay by herself. And so I went off to college and she brought me my first piece of luggage, a Samsonite, to go to school, and you gotta do what your grandmother wanted you to do, and so she was really just instilling all of that idea of uh education and all and culture, ‘cause we um, you all got the piano, one day she surprised you with the piano, they had piano lessons. Yeah, but we didn’t really have any room here to bring the piano once we closed up the house, ‘cause we did bring her sewing machine, the pedal Singer sewing machine, we do have that ‘cause she would sew for everybody in the neighborhood, you know.

LB: I still have that Singer sewing machine where you had to pedal it. She would go downtown, look in the window, and come back and make it.

BBE: [interjects] Which was so nice. Mhm. And she would just draw it out on a brown bag, you know. Just make whatever; especially Easter time, you know, she’d make the clothes for all the kids in the neighborhood. Dusters, you know the little coats that go over top the dresses? Dusters, you had to have dusters to go with your coat [all laugh]. Easter dress with a duster, I remember those dusters, you know [laughter continues]. Yeah, you know, she was very talented and she did a lot. She always had this beautiful flower garden; I think I still have a picture of it somewhere with all the flowers that she had made like an English garden, where you just walk through on a path all through the flowers in the garden in the backyard, but—Mama?

LB: Yes.

BBE: Mhm. Yeah, with the flowers and all, she was just very um a stickler for making sure you got your education and all. And in fact, Inez, it was just the two of you all, Inez was the valedictorian of Hillside when she became a senior. What year did she graduate?

LB: It’s in the book, I forgot…

BBE: ’39, I think, 1939, yeah, we ended up finding, as I was cleaning out boxes, we ended up finding a letter from the principal of Hillside to Dr. Shepard saying that their valedictorian needed a scholarship to come to school and could he provide it from NCCU. And he sent back the reply saying yes we have $75 for your valedictorian to come to NCCU [all laugh]; bought Ms. Inez a suit. I was like, wow, $75 scholarship for school for the valedictorian [laughter continues]. But she was so smart she never studied, she never studied, and uh her whole thing was science and biology so when she did go to NCCU she had a double major and a double minor, Biology and Chemistry and then her minors were in Math and English; so she just did everything. And her sophomore year at NCCU, she was recruited by the government to work on the atomic bomb up in uh, Pennsyl--, first she went to New Jersey, to the Picatinny Arsenal up there outside of Morristown, and then she went to um New Mexico, where they worked on, there was like 1,000 people that worked on the bomb, and that’s what she did.

IF: Was she considered a computer? Uh I was reading something about the history of African American women during that time. They were mathematicians, but they called them computers. And they helped NASA and a lot of these government agencies get these major scientific projects off the ground.

BBE: Yeah, I don’t know, I don’t think so, I think she only worked on that bomb, with chemicals, you know. ‘Cause when she graduated, um, Duke recruited her to work, she was the first African American to work in um the lab, the research lab with Dr. Kempner on the Rice Diet, so she did the research on the rice uh for his book that he was doing, for the book and all. And since uh it was not integrated at the time, she had to remain in like a backroom working, she couldn’t like walk through the hallways or any of that, and um, so, that affected her and um and so she started drinking and all, because you’re isolated, and you’re paid under the table, you’re not paid on the roster roll. So she quit a couple times and every time she quit they would come back, they would come by the house and offer her more money to come back, so she could finish up the research on what they were doing with the Rice Diet, and at that time, Dave Gernway (?), and who used to come to the house? [LB says something too low to hear] Gernway, and Buddy Hackett, it was quite a few celebrities at the time who would come to Durham for that Rice Diet.

LB: Still had a guy from uh California, Mama would talk about Oliver Woodstone (?)…

BBE: Can’t remember who he was? I remember that it was just a lot of ‘em, uh celebrities that used to come, part of that Rice Diet thing, you know. But um she was just too smart for her own wellbeing, because she just lived a real fast life.

IF: How was it like with the family in Durham?

BBE: The family was good, you know, since we had the largest house, the family used to gather here for holidays, you know: Christmas and Thanksgiving. Mama would cook and have all this food and everything, and um, it was um, just a lot of fun with all of the siblings and, you know, the adults would be together but the siblings and all would be together. Especially, it was more boys than it was girls, you know; I was the oldest grandchild, so everybody else were all boys, so you know, they would go in the backyard and play, or go to the, you know, the grandparents’ house on Chautauqua Street, and just um really create some um cars, you know, find some old tires and tack ‘em together with some wood and make cars to go up and down that street, you know, racing all the time, so you know, they had a lot of fun, you know, it was a lot of fun. So the family gatherings were really good.

LB: Soapbox derby.

BBE: Yeah, yeah, that’s what we were talking about, yeah, all of that, soapbox derby. When we were kids, Shirley Caesar used to live next door to Mama [unintelligible], you know, the grandparents’ house, and they used to sing all the time in the summertime, so summertime was really a time where, well all the time nobody checked on their kids, they just let them out in the mornings and long as you came back before that streetlight came on [all laugh], you know, so they just were all over everywhere, you never really knew where they were, whose house they were over or any of that, but people weren’t that concerned about that back then. So that was a more innocent type time [all laugh]. Now, you know, you can’t do that, ‘cause there’s so many predators and all out here now, but there was safety in numbers back then, you never went anywhere by yourself.

IF: Is there—? Can you describe an important or meaningf—, meaningful meal of your favorite dish or recipe?

LB: Hmm…I think it would have to have been liver, because when I was small, my Daddy would go to the store and he would bring some liver, and with that liver you could make liver pudding. It’s still--, when you go the market you can find liver in certain places, and that’s what brings to my mind [all laugh].

IF: I know my grandmother would make me eat it [all laugh].

BBE: Yeah, well wasn’t that because you were 5 years old, 4 or 5 years old? Like they said that you were missing and they didn’t know where you were, and they, when you came back home you had a package of liver, you told the store, the grocery store man, somewhere over by Pickett Street, or was it Field Street or something?

LB: Close to Fayetteville Street.

BBE: Yeah, and you told them you wanted a package of liver on credit, and brought it home for your mother to cook [all laugh]. I remember them telling that story about you doing that when you were 4 or 5 years old. So that was very unusual [all laugh]; yeah ‘cause who likes liver, you know? Mm. I don’t think we ate that much of it here, well we definitely didn’t eat much pork because since Dad was from Clayton, in the country down there, and when we would go and it was hog killing time, that was just so devastating to see them kill those hogs and just split ‘em open, you know, and some of the women would just take out the liver and whatever and put it on one of those hot rocks and it would just cook right there [LB laughs], and, you know, they were just like, “Oh this is nothing, you all, you all can have some!” No, we don’t want any of that! Mhm. So, from that day forward the boys really didn’t care that much about meat [all laugh], and to this day they don’t eat that much meat, you know, they just don’t, don’t particularly like it ‘cause her mother would, that was during the time when people would come by on the trucks selling food and what not, and she would get a chicken and then kill it in the backyard there while we were watching. She would cut off his head and he was just running around like that, and they didn’t want any of that either. So it was hard trying to get them to eat meat as much [LB laughs].

IF: Can you tell us a little bit about your husband?

LB: I met him when he was uh a soldier, and he went to uh overseas and he came back. His Mama and Daddy had opened up a, uh, uh, restaurant, they called it the “Sandwich Shop”, and you would go in and [unintelligible], and he would take the food the people ordered and uh deliver it. And a lady came in and told him, said, “You need to go and take a course, because Mr. Andy (?), who had a funeral home, needs someone to work. And you go and sign up and work with him, and you open up a funeral home, but you need some training.” And that’s what he did, that’s how he got his job.

BBE: Yeah he went to Gupton and Jones in Tennessee, um out there where Meharry Medical School is, uh, to the um, to the funeral school out there. But um when everybody graduated from that, um, funeral director’s uh, uh, program, they went on, since they had to take so much anatomy and all of that, they went on to Meharry Medical School. But he couldn’t go because his parents didn’t have any money for him to go at that time, so he was all about science too, you know. So when he came back, he opened a funeral home with his brother, and it lasted for a while on Alston Avenue until his brother had an aneurysm, and then that just kinda devastated him and took the wind out him, so he gave that up and started um working for the city with uh, was that Urban Renewal? Urban Renewal, yeah it was. And then in ’66, when the city was doing more integrating and uh after the Civil Rights uh had gone on in Durham, they needed some blacks to be the first to uh, you know, be in different positions, and so they asked him, the Durham Committee on Negro Affairs at that time, had asked him to apply for a city inspector’s job, and so he became the first black city inspector for Durham with housing. And um, then um, and then the neighbor across the street was one of the first black detectives and, you know, so it was a lot of people that were put in different slots to be the first one, but they had to endure a lot of um animosity and all of that. So I think Daddy lasted for about 4 years or 5 years, he said the stress was just too much for him, and uh he had uh angina, like the pains leading up a heart attack, and the doctor said you just need to give that up. Because he would turn in reports after going out, visiting houses like in the edge of Orange County and Durham, and like the good ol’ boys would be out there and whatever, and if he told them that the chimney, it was too close to the stud or whatever, “Well, we ain’t never had these problems before when we built houses, and they always let us slide, and you should let us slide too,” [all laugh] and all of that, and he wouldn’t, and when he’d get back his report would be missing, or it would be sabotaged some kind a way. And he said it was just--, he would come home always drinking uh Pepto-Bismol or something, always saying oh I can’t hardly take this job, he, he, he was just miserable, you know, and he had gone to A&T for two years, before the war broke out, so he had that for his background with um, um building houses and all, I don’t know, industrial arts! Industrial arts, that’s what they used to call it back then. Yeah, so, he loved that, but uh, he couldn’t take it, he couldn’t take it. Then he decided he was gonna go back and do the funeral home business, and uh, ‘cause he was already working with Holloway and a couple of other black funeral home guys and um he said that was his first passion, and he always wanted to go back. So he went down to Clayton, where he was from to start building a funeral home from scratch, with uh, with uh my brothers. And they would get the bricks and were doing all that, like uh Uncle Johnny and all of them down there, they would help him with getting the building up, you know. And uh then once he finished it and got it all straightened out, then he wanted Mama to leave and retire from NCCU and sit in that little one horse town [all laugh]. And that’s when they broke up and all, because, you know, she was enjoying NCCU, that was her life with the students and that, and Clayton just didn’t have that [all laugh]. It didn’t have anything, it wasn’t Apex or Garner or Raleigh or any of that, you know, it was just dirtballs and a few little people down there, and everybody sitting, drinking lemonade all day on the porch [all laugh]. It was hot, she said, I, I just can’t go down there, you know. But he was from there, so he could always go back to that kind of life, but she couldn’t do that, and it was a big discussion with the family and all, and that’s what he wanted, that was his passion. Well then, Dad, you go on and follow your passion, Mama enjoys putting on um programs and all for the students. And what could she do? There’s nothing to do down there, you know, there’s, she, you just can’t force someone to go. But at that time, you know, with relationships, you were supposed to follow whatever your husband wanted you to do; so she kinda broke away from that tradition and just became independent. But it was just one of those things, so, but you know we were grown at that time, so it didn’t bother us one way or another, you know, we just knew we couldn’t back down there, and if he wanted to take us down there, there was no way! There was nothing down there but a little Piggly Wiggly Store, and that was it [LB laughs], and we were like uh-uh. Nope, that was terrible. Mhm. And I think there was one factory, the Championship Factory, and everybody, the Champion Factory, and everybody worked at that little factory. And then, you know, you had your farms, and then, you know, you killed hogs and you killed cows and you had beef, and you were out there in those vegetable gardens all day long. So, couldn’t do it, couldn’t do it, yep. We even tried when uh our grandfather, when Papa Barnes had a farm, that was kinda out, kinda out 98 someplace, and he took us out there to help pick vegetables, the string beans and all, [unintelligible], now you take this row, and you take this row, and you take this row. Well where does it stop?! You can’t even see it, you know, at the end. And then, “Oh, y’all are just some of the laziest kids!” And we just, every time I would bend down to pick a string bean, something would fly past my face [all laugh], a dragonfly or a big grasshopper or something. And he was like, their just bugs, and I was like, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t do this [laughter continues]. I was trying, but just couldn’t do it. So I knew we couldn’t go back down there, to the farming and all of that in Clayton. That was just too much. Mhm. So, that’s what happened with, you know, with the relationship and all, but she, she had so many students and friends and um, you know, celebrities that she met. I mean we had Magic Johnson here and um, um who was that? That was uh Stephanie Mills that wanted to take you with her to um uh the Bahamas for her tour. She wanted you, you know, they would all fall in love with Mama and wanted her to go with them or uh, when she brought uh, uh what was his name? Clark from New Jersey, who did uh Lean on Me.

IF: Oh uh Morgan Freeman.

BBE: Yeah, oh no, uh Clark!

IF: Oh the real one!

BBE: Yeah, Joe Louis Clark! When he came down, he came down to speak, and I think his fee was $5,000 to come and speak to the students at NCCU. And he was so impressed with Mom, and then they had the choir to sing and all, that he ended up giving them their check for $5,000 back. So, you know, and then she connected with the uh program director at Duke and UNC, so whenever they would bring, the three of them would bring in somebody to uh be, you know like Spike Lee, to be there at night and over here during the daytime, and the next day here to maximize the time that, you know, whoever was coming in to speak or to perform. And so, she was able to you know, bring a lot of uh writers, and you know, and speakers, and you know, to NCCU and then their books, you know, they would leave their books and all and autograph them, and pictures, take pictures with them. And Mary McLeod Bethune came through when, were you in college when she came through there?

LB: Mhm.

BBE: And she spoke to the students, and what did you do? You helped her…she was a…

LB: It was her birthday, I think. Mary and um, um Ann Atwater, you know that name?

IF: Mhm.

LB: Have you met her?

IF: I have not met her.

BBE: The civil rights, she got some stories to tell of her unlikely friendship [with KKK leader C.P. Ellis], that book mhm. And she loves to have company [at the time of recording, Ms. Atwater was still alive, but sadly she died at Duke Hospital on June 20, 2016], she wants you to come over so she can talk to you, because she’s not able to get around much, but yeah, she wants you to come, yeah. When I was in New Jersey teaching, and I had to do the United Way Read-a-thon thing, and um, they had books there, and they had the Greensboro Sit-In books, and so I said let me read this story to the kids, because they don’t know anything about North Carolina. And I called Mom up to get Ann Atwater’s telephone number, and so I called her and I said I’m reading to the students and I want them to know about how you impacted the Civil Rights Era in Durham and all, so I put her on speakerphone, and she told them about how the Klan, and you know uh, ‘cause he was the Grand Dragon, um, how they at first were enemies and then they became best friends and how had surrounded her in her house one night and uh she came out on the porch with a shotgun, and said, “You might get me, but I’m gonna get that one right there with that tall hat on his head,” that was the Grand Dragon, she said, “I’ma make sure I get him if I don’t get nobody else.” And so, then he told everybody to back up, back up, back away, you know, because they couldn’t stand her because she had such a big mouth and all, you know. And uh, so she told that to the students, and they were like well weren’t you afraid of the Ku Klux Klan? And she said, “Nope, I had a big shotgun in my hand,” [all laugh]. So, you know, [unintelligible conversation], yes, and she can’t wait to go out to California for it [presumably the movie “The Best of Enemies”, starring Taraji P. Henson]. Like, “You need to bring your mother out here so we can just sit and talk sometime, you know I love to talk, tell about what went on back then, and how we became good friends,” and how his kids called her Aunt Ann and ate together and all of that, you know, but she said they both learned about each other’s races from that time period. So we have her telephone number, and she’d be glad to come and talk, for you to come and talk to her.

LB: Yes, I said I can’t help you today, call me up! And the lady that’s taking care of her said she love company. She would love to have you in this movie they’re making, said take some time out and come on and talk to her. Said she’s usually in the restroom, put on some clothes and she’s ready to go, and be in this movie! The Chancellor down here said, “I want you to be at MEAC [Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference].” You know I been to MEAC?

IF: You’ve been everywhere [all laugh].

BBE: Yeah, she was the uh, the um, what were you? The person they chose to represent the school at the uh MEAC, you know. Mhm. So that was two years ago, in Norfolk, with the basketball tournament. So uh yeah we drove up there for that, and then um, oh you got a little um, album, where is that um album, you got so many albums [all laugh], of pictures? Well anyway, so, they lined ‘em up, ‘cause there’s 10 schools in the MEAC, and so each one had a person that represented the school, and um, so, everybody, they called out their names to the middle of the floor during halftime, and um everybody walked, you know, they’d call Florida A&M or whatever the school was, and they’d call the school out, and then they’d read the bio and tell about them, and give them the plaque and take a picture, and then stand over at the sidelines. So NCCU was right after NC A&T, and uh so, there’s was a guy, so he came out, and she was next to the last one, Savannah State was the last one. Well, when it was her time to come out, I’m standing down there, you know, the basketball floor is very shiny and all, ‘cause they got it ready for the basketball game [LB laughs], so everybody else had walked out. Here she comes, she had on her maroon and gray, with a skirt on, she came out like this, dancing, then she did the Eagle Wave all around the place, and turned around, and the guy was reading her bio and then when he got to the end, you know, he said, “And she’s 93 years old!” Then she bowed and she turned this way he say, “And she’s 93 years old!” He could not believe it, that she was doing all of that [laughter throughout]. And it was just so funny, and everybody stood up in the place, and they were doing the Eagle Wave back at her and hollering and screaming, it was deafening! You couldn’t even here, and I’m like oh Lord, this is like a phenomenon going on in here, the whole place was just on their feet doing the Eagle Wave for the NCCU Eagles. Uh-huh, they were on their feet doing the Eagle Wave so after that part was over with and um then she was going back and down the hallway part, people were coming up to her going, “There she is right there, there’s her, there she is, yeah, she’s the Eagle!” And the kids were coming up to her, and when she went back into the room where the other 9 uh honorees were, they were like, “Ms. Barnes you stole the show [all laugh], you brought the house down, you brought the house down, you stole the show!” And she did, I mean it was just so loud, and everybody was clapping and yelling and all, and she’s out there dancing to the middle of the floor!

LB: And the lady had uh, was on a crutch.

BBE: Yeah, the lady behind you from Savannah State, and then you ask her if you can go help her out there, and I said oh Lord [all laugh], she in her 60s and you in your 90s, help somebody, mhm. This is one of the pictures from the, uh that day, out there. Mhm at the basketball game, but they had it all on Facebook, and a whole video, people were videoing her, out there dancing to the middle of the floor.

LB: A young lady was crying, “I don’t want to be an Aggie, I want to be an Eagle.”

IF: Aww.

LB: “Daddy, I want to be an Eagle.”

BBE: Mhm. That was funny.

LB: [She] said, “I want to fly too.”

BBE: Here’s a picture when you were asking about family times, all the family members coming to the house together and, you know, having dinner, uh-huh [in response to an unintelligible reply from IF], over here when we were all growing up, mhm, all the cousins.

IF: Look at, um, Mona…

BBE: Mhm.

IF: And Tonya.

LB: Yeah.

IF: Oh wow…is that my mama?

BBE: That, well we got pictures of your mother, too, yeah, we got all of them.

IF: That is!

LB: [laughs]

BBE: Yeah, coming over to the house…

IF: I am going to [unintelligible]…

BBE: Yeah we got plenty of albums of um during that time period.

IF: Yeah…I was looking at and I pulled up my grandfather’s address on Chautauqua. I don’t know exactly where the house is, but I know it’s not too far from here. Oh that’s him! No, that’s not him, that’s too…he’s not that…

LB: [unintelligible]

IF: I know! You know my grandmother still talks about that.

BBE: Mhm.

IF: [laughs]

BBE: And this was at her 90th birthday party; Chuck Davis came and danced, because she [unintelligible] with Chuck Davis over at NCCU a lot. But she came out dancing, everybody was already seated, Mama came in dancing to Gil Scott’s “Livin’ Her Life Like It’s Golden” [all laugh]. That was the thing, “Livin’ Her Life Like It’s Golden,” that’s Chuck David doing his thing there at the birthday party, mhm, yep, “Livin’ Her Life Like It’s Golden”.

IF: Y’all had a good ol’ time.

LB: Yeah…

BBE: Mhm.

LB: And long ago, you would make big hot biscuits everyday, and I believe your daddy, was it your daddy?

BBE: Her grandfather.

LB: Grandfather!

BBE: Mhm, June.

LB: What did he say about the biscuits?

BBE: Well they all, they all taught the boys how to run through the front door and go into the kitchen and grab a biscuit and stick in it and make a hole and pour the molasses in that hole [all laugh], and then run out the back door. Mhm. Yeah, here’s your mother here, your grandmother. Mhm.

IF: I was just talking to Joy earlier today…

BBE: Mhm. We got a whole lot of pictures open, a whole lot of albums.

IF: We have one picture of all of you all, you’re all dressed up real nice, I don’t know where you guys went, but you all have on your minks and your pearls [all laugh]. Oh there’s my mama.

BBE: Yeah, mhm. Yeah, yeah, mhm. They would be dressed up all the time no matter where they went.

LB: There’s a picture of uh Ernie Barnes (?).

BBE: Yeah, well, his uh his thing is here, Ernie Barnes and this is Willie Nash, from col-, from NCCU. Because when they would be art students over there, Mama would help them get their career started by having an art showing of their work and all. So that, that one in the middle is the one that Willie Nash did, “Little Boy Running in the Wind,” and so she helped him by having an art showing and inviting all the people to see his work and all. So he did this series, some prints about blacks going west during the uh, you know, uh back in the 1800s, he did some researching and he did some paintings about going west, westward. Yeah, so, but any of the arts students, like one of the arts students came to that, you know, and painted her picture, and she’s got a whole lot of those paintings from those arts students that were over there [all laugh], that would come and just, you know, do a lot of paintings and all of that. Yeah, so it’s a lot, it’s a lot that’s just packed up, ‘cause it’s just too much to put up, you know, um, she just saved everything. And then all of her, from our travels and all, you know, we had gotten this basket over in Africa, and then um and this uh this one too, this bag on our heads from Africa where they just carve this big gourd, you know, and a whole lot of little instruments and things brought back. So, everything, you know, she likes being surrounded by all her things, her happy memories, so they’re everywhere.

IF: What was your favorite country that you visited?

LB: Rock of Gibraltar.

IF: How old were you when you went there?

BBE: I think she was in her 70s. What made that your favorite? The monkeys chasing everybody? [all laugh] The tail-less monkeys; they didn’t have tails, they were just big [laughter continues]. You got off the bus and they told you, “Don’t bring any food up there now,” because you have to go up this tall mountain, a rock! And um, they, you don’t want any food! Of course, two people on the bus brought food up there. So when they got off [laughter], and all of a sudden one little monkey jumps out from somewhere, and the next thing you know, all these uh, it was like The Planet of the Apes, you know like how they jumped 10 feet? That’s the way it was! Whoosh, whoosh! Like, oh Lord! And they smell that food, they smell that food. And then they came up and surrounded the lady [laughter continues] in a circle, and she was like oh, oh, oh, oh, and she had the sandwich in her pocketbook. They snatched that pocketbook from her, opened up that pocketbook, and found that sandwich, took it out, and throw that pocketbook back at her!

LB: That’s ‘cause she didn’t listen!

BBE: Yeah, and then went off on the sidelines to eat that food! And we were just amazed, and Lord have mercy! You know, and she was like, “I didn’t think that,” they told you not to bring food, though! And then she said, “I didn’t think that they would do that,” and you know, these animals are intelligent; they’re wild, but they’re intelligent. And then another man had a banana, mhm, in his pocket! And he knew they were after that food, so he just went on and threw that on the other side so that they would run that way [laughter resumes], instead of, they were ready to jump him for that banana! So, you know, but, but that was just very interesting. And then we, uh, they kept saying why don’t you all uh, we did look out over Africa, you know, and we could see the peninsula there and all like that, but after that we were ready to get back on the bus, because it was jus too unnerving with the monkeys jumping out every which way! Because the little babies, you know other people were like oh the little babies are so cute, they won’t hurt you! Yeah, but a mama is somewhere nearby [laughter]! And sure enough, as soon as this lady was like, “Oh no, you need to calm down, these monkeys are fine,” blah blah, and then the next thing you know the lady was like oh, oh, oh. We looked over there by her, and the mama was over there by her, her playing with that baby monkey [LB laughs], and we said oh gosh! I said let’s just get back on the bus, ‘cause our nerves are shot out here with all these monkeys, you know. And you’re like on your own, there wasn’t any, you know, no police, nobody to help you! You know, you was just up there, you know, on top of the rock! So, yeah, we got back on the bus and the other people decided they better get back on the bus too, and when we finally came down, in like a little touring van, getting ready to leave there, the monkeys were jumping on top of the bus and hollering like they were gonna turn that thing over. You know that little van, it was just like The Planet of the Apes, [all laugh], yep, so that was just amazing. But yeah we were glad to get out of there! Yep it was good, it was all good, you know, but I think the most interesting one was went to Brazil to Bahia. Yeah, because that was the Boa Morte Festival, yeah didn’t you think…?

LB: That when we were walking up and down the street?

BBE: Yeah, cobblestone street with the 100 year old lady, yeah she was walking down the street. Let me see if I can find that book [all laugh].

IF: How old were you when you traveled to that country?

LB: I had retired. Mhm.

BBE: This one’s from, um, 2006, when we went to uh Bahia for the festival, and you know, the women wear different colors every night and then you walk through there and you’re celebrating the, uh, I don’t know, one of those Catholic festivals or something, but then they tie it in with one of their own religion, you know, and um, and they spoke Portuguese, but um we had an interpreter, so Mama was able to talk to the lady that was 100 years old. And she was saying that there was a secret society of women that took care of the children of the slaves that were sold off, and they kept the children with them to uh enhance them with the culture and all like that. So, uh, uh, that’s why it’s uh, uh tied in with Africa and all with the uh dancing and uh, you know they weren’t allowed to worship their own religion and all, but they did it in the Catholic Church and so that’s why it’s all intertwined.

LB: And that little girl, she was uh one of the uh babies that the ladies hid, she was in the parade in a street about this wide and I walked with her.

BBE: Yeah, you all goin’ down the street singing “Ave Maria” at 10 o’clock at night [all laugh].

LB: That was some experience, I said, “Did you call my name?” She said, “Mama, Mama, come!”

BBE: Yep, well it was good though, we went to Ms. Bebe’s (?) farm and at least we got a chance to see the cocoa bean, you know the cacao bean, and how big it is, how they, you know, from the tree that it grows on, and then, um, how they, uh, um, take it, and they use a um almost like a butter churn thing to chomp it up and all of that, and they just showed us how they make the chocolate, and how they make the wine from it. And we tasted the wine, and the wine was delicious [all laugh]! You can make wine out of almost anything, you know, when you’re in these different countries all. But it was good, and Ms. Bebe (?), they always took one to Mama because they saw her as the matriarch of the group, you know, no matter where we went, and they would always just put her first. “Mama, Mama come on!” When we were in Africa, everybody was always calling her Mom, you know, and um, yeah, when we went to Goree Island, the last stop before the slaves were sent over to the Americas and all, and the guy knew John Hope Franklin from being there, to uh, you know, to visit the curator of the museum. Yeah, we said we were from Durham and he said, “Do you know John Hope Franklin?” John Hope Franklin?! Yes, we do [all laugh]! Yep, so that was, that was really interesting, that was, that was good, and they told us that Marie Antoinette, queen of France, was born on Goree Island [this must be a confusion of names, as Marie Antoinette was born in Austria], ‘cause she was the product of one of the slave masters and one of the African women, so she was a mulatto, but was more, uh, European looking, and so he [unclear who ‘he’ is] saw her when he came there to inspect the fort, he just immediately fell in love with her, she was so beautiful. Mhm.

LB: And the kids could swim!

BBE: Yeah, ‘cause we had to take the ferry out there to the island, and then, when we got ready to leave, the little kids and all, you know, ‘cause it’s so, so much sun and everything, they were just like blue-black, but pretty, very pretty, and they were swimming out there like fish in the ocean, and they would just dive down and bring us up some shells, a big huge conch shell, you know, for you! So that was, that was amazing to see that, that was amazing. And when we were in a room at the, the fort, in the room where the unruly slaves would be put, and when they couldn’t do anything with them, they would push them out of this open door called the Door of No Return. And when we were in that room, everybody was feeling this wind, coming in and swirling around your head, and everybody was like, did you feel that? Did it feel like somebody was touching you? [LB laughs] Yeah I felt that, too! And then the guy said that those were the spirits of the ancestors that were, you know, housed in that room, but that was really weird. Mhm! So out on Goree, our experience was, our experience was uh fantastic. And we met Stevie Wonder’s, Stevie Wonder’s um – oh this book is so old, it’s almost torn up now – yeah we met um, this is Goree Island, that’s how it was, that’s the fort up there. But um, I think it’s over here…Senegal…and this was the fort and all, and people were still living on the island, they were still living there, on the island, but um Stevie Wonder’s computer guy that does his, all his computer work was over there when we were there to purchase some authentic instruments. This was like, the slaves stayed below and the slave masters stayed above, and those were like the rules, door would not have a door on it, just an opening which opened up to the ocean down below, so, so that was something. And so once we met his, uh, computer guy, who was from Mali, uh he just instantly took to Mama, started calling her Mom, took her, took us to his uh sister’s house for dinner, and um, you know, for us to meet his family that was there, and um then um he was coming back to the States, and at the time we really didn’t believe that he worked with Stevie Wonder, you know, just thought he was somebody trying to shiest you or whatever, [LB laughs], but um then we came back to the States and he said um, “Mama, I’m gonna give you a call for when Stevie comes through that area, I want you to come to see the show.” And sure enough, when he came to Greensboro Coliseum, he called up Mom and said he had tickets for her and a student, an NCCU student, to come and come backstage so they could meet Stevie, and that’s what they did, mhm. They were sitting down front, you know, and he made ‘em comfortable and took ‘em backstage, and they met Stevie and um…

LB: Stevie’s uh brother.

BBE: Now I don’t know, I think it was, I don’t know who all was in that uh entourage in Greensboro, but uh when they were in uh, but Stevie lived in Alpine, New Jersey, so when they came to New Jersey, they sent a car for me to come up there and meet Stevie, and so when I got to his house in Alpine, he had a studio in the house and he was working on um “Hard Time Lover” [all laugh], yep, “Hard Time Lover” in this big beautiful house with a studio there and uh all the equipment and all of that there, you know, and invited us out to California, all of it, it was nice, you know. Gave, gave us the telephone number to the house out there and, and everything! And when we were in California we went there, and we also when to um, um Gamble and uh Huff, their house out there, in um, in Bell Canyon! Bell Canyon, with all his uh Grammys and that on one wall and it was just terrific, it was just terrific, mhm.

IF: Sounds good [all laugh].

BBE: It was, it was just so good, it was just so good. So that was, that was a good experience, so uh you she’s had a lot of uh experiences from the different places, you know. And Australia, they were calling her Mom there, and they were taking, calling, “Come Mom, come Mom, come with us,” they were taking her all around, showing her how to throw a boomerang [all laugh] and showing her all kinds of stuff. I was trying to take pictures, but they were saying they don’t get that many African Americans visiting them in their village in um, uh, where was that? Cairns, Cairns, it might’ve been right outside Cairns, an Aboriginal village. How they, they uh depend on plants for their medicines and all of that, you know, so it was good just showing how, you know, how they cooked what they ate, and those big worms, you know the grubs, mhm.

IF: Did you have one?

BBE: No [all laugh] we didn’t try that, scared of that, get sick or something, you know, our bodies can’t take that kind of stuff. But it was just interesting how they were um so um nice to her, you know, just making sure, she learned how to play the uh didgeridoo, you put the beeswax on here, and it was just all you know, uh, educational you know, basically. I think you might still have in that box over there, on of those, didn’t you show somebody that before, from that village in the uh, the Aboriginal village? I think you just stuck it back down in here after you showed somebody, you showed that guy for an elephant ride in uh Phuket [in Thailand]. So we got ready, we were like okay, we’re gonna go on an elephant ride, and when we got there it was just a basket on top of the elephant, you know to sit in, like a big basket [LB laughs]. And uh, so then… [LB says something too low to catch] Uh-huh, so then we got on the elephant and he went in the river and he didn’t want to come out, and he was just spraying water back on us with his trunk, and we were like, “Oh Lord, we gotta get off of this thing!” [all laugh], and the little boy that was handling it, he kept kicking his ears to make him leave, and he wouldn’t leave the river. And then finally, the elephant decided to come out of the river, ‘cause, you know by that time the river was almost up to the basket, you know, and we gonna drown out here in the middle of nowhere [all laugh]. So, but that, but that was some experience, but it was fun, just uh, just to give the people your measurements, and then they’d say, “What kinda shoe you want?” And they’d make a shoe, some shoes, and bring them back to the hotel the next day, you know, or clothes, bring ‘em back the next day, those beautiful silks and all, so.

LB: They’d even come and dress you up!

BBE: Yeah [all laugh], so that was a lot of fun! So, you know, um, so she’s just been blessed by um being here in the neighborhood, with a lot of um, you know, people, and, and just um calling up celebrities and all, and just having them to come and speak to the students and all of that, so it’s just been great, mhm. Yeah, yeah, yep, it’s been great.

IF: Do you have any questions?

IM: No, no uh thank you so much for sharing all of that.

LB and BBE: Yeah!

IM: I really appreciate it.

BBE: Yeah, but um I’ll definitely call uh Sylvia Sloane and see if she can uh, to get in touch with you all, and Ann Atwater, like I said, she loves to talk about that time period of the um Civil Rights Era and how she got all involved in it, you know, and they just pushed her forward because of her big mouth and all, plus she was a big woman, stout, back then, so she wasn’t intimidated by many people at all! Mhm.

LB: Said, “Ms. Barnes (?), I been hearing so much about you and I can understand. When I come to White Rock, I want you to be with me.” So when NCCU came to White Rock, that’s the church I attend, she was looking for me, she came in, in the front of the church and I came in in the side. She said, “Have you seen Ms. Barnes?” So everybody said, “Ms. Atwater (?) looking for you!” Looking for me? They said, “How you know her?” I said I had a connection [all laugh], they fell out laughing. At Saint Joseph’s Church, Eric Kelly, you know him?

IF: I know who you’re talking about now, yes, mhm.

LB: He told me to pick out anything that was on that table, so I picked out one of his recordings, and he told the [unintelligible], “Your Mama got the highest things on the table” [all laugh].

BBE: And then we had this at um Earl Monroe, um Earl Monroe was inducted into the NCAA Hall of Fame out in Kansas City, so he sent Mom a ticket for he got inducted into the Hall of Fame. Uh, but this is when he, he, uh, when the Bullets honored him in Baltimore. But for the NCAA Hall of Fame, he got a um, what was it, a t-shirt? And they Mama all on the video, ‘cause he’s [or possibly “she’s”] inducted Willis Reed, uh, uh what’s that big boy from uh, uh basketball player, you know, he was, uh, he played for Georgetown? I can’t even think of his name, but anyway, Mama was down here and he way up there in the ceiling, he was sure enough tall [LB laughs]. Yeah, but uh that was a nice experience they had for the people that were inducted. Uh the coach, from uh Louisville, I think he was inducted before the coach that’s there now. They, yeah well May Archibald (?) had been inducted before, but yeah. He was there, so whenever it was Mom’s birthday, they’d always send her something, or when she comes to New York, they make sure that, um, like the last time we were there, they got tickets for her to go to um, “The Trip to Bountiful”, that play, and had backstage passes to meet Vanessa Williams and Cuba Gooding, Jr., and you know Cicely Tyson was in there, and you know, so they just said that they don’t have their moms, and you know, so she’s just everybody’s mom [all laugh]! Everybody’s mom, you know, but this was my little thing while I was teaching, you know, I uh did a uh little uh, my kids were working on doing a satellite, finding people with a satellite in remote places, so I submitted everything they did, and so I got accepted into the Teachers in Space project, for NASA, yeah, so that was in ’92, just before Dr. May Jameson went up. So I got a chance to, they invited me back down for her launch, and they had, you know, workshops and receptions and that before she went up in space, as being the first African American female to go up in space. So that was nice, and you know, I went through that training down there at Langley Air Force Base, I learned how to fly a plane, a Cessna, you know, it was in the summertime, you’d go for 6 weeks, you know, and work the whole time, doing things, you know, getting lost and taking you way out, and doing GPS, finding your way back to the base, and out in Colorado Springs, the United States Space Foundation, we were out there doing that, and uh we got a chance to go to NORAD, where they tracked the satellites all over the world and uh, you know, it was just exciting and all [all laugh]! So, you know, that science background just kinda runs through the family, I think. Yeah, just science and all, but yeah, it was exciting, it was exciting, we were working underwater training to build uh Space Station Freedom uh at the time, that’s what we had to do, but yeah it was like 20 different people on each coast, so that was, that was fun, that was exciting. A lot of hard work, you know, but just talking to the NASA physicists and all of that, and then once you went through the program, you had all their numbers, and like they wanted you to like, uh, do things with your kids to get them interested in science, and if you needed any help they would come out to your school, in fact they put a satellite dish on my school, so that I, we could telecommunicate with them, the computers, and all like that, so it was great, it was great, it was a lot of fun, so that was my highlight of my career [all laugh]. Mom got a chance to meet all those different celebrities and all, and them doing all those things for her, but yeah, I got a chance to meet Dr. May Jameson [laughter drowns out the rest of her sentence], with the science and all, and her experiments with goldfish to see how they would swim in zero gravity, microgravity, you know, up in space. At first they were upside down and all, but then they righted themselves up and so, and they uh, and we were able to get the tomato seeds that had been out in space for six years on a long duration exposure facility, and so our kids had to see how the tomato seeds grew from being, you know, uh in that environment all the time, and they [interview recording cuts off here].

[END OF INTERVIEW]

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