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[0:00]
Well, here, again, I'm about to go off on another tangent. I mentioned the fact that the children were taken over and tutored by Mrs. Weston at the parish school. Where I think it opened me up to date on the school situation. I would have to bring this in right here. And now. You know, I might be a little off on dates, but the story is the same. You know, following the Civil War. For a time there wasn't any public school system for black children. I don't know how this thing got started anyway, I noticed the white children were getting tutoring and teaching and the black ones were unable to have benefits of any education whatsoever. In the public school started and such the black, the black children, it was such inferior quality. That little was done. The I teach them how to read, read a newspaper, read a little bit, write a name and do a little simple figuring. Sometime in the 80s. I'm not so sure about the date really, so what happened. St Luke's Episcopal Church was founded in Tarboro under the Episcopal denomination for their benefit and for the use as a black church. I don't know whether the Reverend Mr. Perry was the first reverend or not anyway, when he came to Tarboro he was a college trained theologian. And in addition to being a priest, in charge of St. Luke's Episcopal Church, he took it upon himself to establish a private school, a training for teaching black children. It was known as the perry school, and was far superior to anything that black kids could be in this area by the way of public education.

[1:52]
Some of very, very bright children came under the influence of Reverend Mr. Perry. And his school flourished in this area. It was a one bright spot in dark Tarboro back in those days. However, when

[2:09]
I got here in 1936, the perry school existed only as a kindergarten type of school. And some of the children were tutored for the first two years of grade school and they were able to go into the public school system in the second or third grade. They were fortunate indeed, and that they had individual attention, and that they were properly trained. And they were very superior, they had superior advantages over the children who started in the Tarboro, the colored Tarboro school system had faced. After the Reverend Mr. Perry's death, his daughter, Mrs. Western, who was the wife of the episcopal director that succeeded Reverend Mr. Perry. Mrs. Western took over the management of the perry school. And fortunately, she was still a conductor in the school when my children came along, so that they were able to be tutored by Mrs. Western through the second grade. And we're able to go into the public school system in the third grade. When they admitted they went into the school system in third grade, they weren't at all handicapped because they had the proper training up to the third grade. But it doesn't mean that my children weren't given advantages that the white children in this area received. This goes without saying that it's it's separate but equal was everything but separate and but equal. Make no mistake about it. However, we did have, we did have that advantage of having some well trained teachers in our public school system. And they [Inaudible] to 10 out of the graduates who are able to enter college and go on to become excellent teachers, preachers, lawyers, and whatever you have. I'm gonna say that they not because the [Inaudible] here, but in spite of the training, in spite of the handicap they were able to make on their own when they got out. As a great advancement from from the third grade up to the eighth grade, the training was fairly well, fairly good, but I dread the thought of having to send my children to high school. The black high school in Tarboro. I knew that if they had to go there, they would be handicapped when the time came for them to go to college. I did enjoy the relationship with the kids from the time the that they were born up until they finished eighth grade. I have already related how Helen's sort of forced me into building a swimming pool out in the country for the kids. After I built a pool first I just had a little shed at one end of the pool with two rooms. One room for dressing and undressing another room that has the paraphernalia that we use to keep the pool going. Well, after about two summers, in that, you know, with that outlet I built what I call it a recreation house out there. I have a large living room, I built a large living room, and a pretty large kitchen and had a patio there was tiled tiled, floor patio and put a barbecue grill, under the patio. And all spring and summer up until the fall up into the fall, when the weather began to get too. I would see patients during the morning office hours. And I would go out, take the kids out the whole family out in the afternoon around 3pm. And we would all have a swim. And we will fix dinner and eat dinner out in the country. I'd take a short nap, bring them back to town to the house and then have to go down and have a night office hour. You know I have a lot of fun like that the children had a lot of friends that ran and played in the woods, to learn to love woods, wild things wildlife, they saw the wildlife. And they saw the senior side of farming as well as the senior side of life. Tenant farmers had to undergo as well as the bright side that in other words they saw how to have nicelives, and it was able to leave this house at that time of their life. When they got up around seventh grade, I began to worry about what we would do and what will happen when they finished eighth grade. It just so happened that my wife knew a very fine lady in Washington who had befriended my wife's family through their trying period. I could tell the story is very short. My wife's mother died when my wife Helen was about I guess about eight or nine years old. She had a brother older than she was she had a sister younger and her brother was a baby whose family when their mother died. Well, there was this nice lady, Mrs. Boyd who had who had been in Washington for many years and had a government job. So it happened that Mrs. Boyd lived in that apartment above my wife's people and when my wife's mother died Mrs. Boyd just came down and took over. She was mad that she had an issue but she loved children. And she came right down the stairs and took over really raising these, mothering these children. She helped my father, my wife's father raise a family up until they were almost adults before he was married again. Mrs. Boyd had said she was a very aggressive lady. She loved children, she had no children of her own and she adopted a little girl and her job is done a position within the government she made a lot of people and she met some people who found out that she was raising an intelligent little girl and they suggested that they might be able to help Mrs. Boyd get into a good school and they recommended the Putney School in Putney, Vermont. Mrs. Boyd made application to put her daughter Denise, her adopted daughter Denise into the Putney School and the child was accepted as a Denise was just about what you might call a genius. She was smart, industrious, has it very, very intelligent. She made a good record at Putney. In fact she made such a good record when she left she got a full scholarship to college. And following that she got a Fulbright Scholarship to study in France, in France in England I believe. I asked Mrs. Boyd about getting our children in school, she recommended our children to the authorities at the Putney School we made application and the children both Helen and Milton were accepted into Putney School. After finishing eighth grade Tarboro colored school children were enrolled in Putney, the Putney School was very expensive proposition however, we were able to get some scholarship aid with two children in school and family practice among the poorest of poor people

and try to make a hospital go at the same time you know I have my hands full. However I don't regret having spent a penny of it

because I feel it there's no way on earth with our children have had the opportunity to have training, the context, and the experiences that they were able to obtain at the Putney School. The Putney School is located a few miles from the Putney village in southern Vermont. It is located on a huge farm known as the E L M L E A farm. I guess it got its name from the huge elm elm trees that died at the campus.

Most of the children that enrolled in Putney were from New England families and urban families in New York in the larger cities. They never had been exposed to farm life however they were out there

[10:27]
in these foothills. They were green all summer until it would snow in the winter. They've learned to live together and work together. Oh yeah, they had to work with every child regardless of whether they had money or not. That's their job to do. They had job training and on the job training, and the job. They could select their own job, whether it was feeding the calves or picking up the eggs or cuffing horses or milking the cows and whatnot. They had each child, each child enrolled in primary school had a job to do at all times. As to the curriculum and teaching staff, nothing but the best was good enough for Putney. During the winter, children were taken on hikes in the woods, lunches in the woods, they'd learn survival in the woods. We're taking a weekend, midweek ski trips, they had a very excellent music department, they were exposed to the very best of music, excellent art teachers. They can learn to care of horses, they can take horseback riding, I can tell you all about it. But I think I'd have Helen put this part in there to tell you more about Putney. Anyway, Helen and Milton were admitted to Putney Schools, by the school. During the same year, Helen had been receiving piano training, she was receiving piano lessons at home. She can tell you her piano lessons at Putney. Now, she developed a desire to major in dance, of course Milton by that time was when he left Tarboro, as he finished eighth grade, he had decided that he wanted to be a doctor. When he got to Putney, he became interested in sculpturing. He was encouraged to pursue studies in sculpturing. And he did some very worthwhile work in fract, his work was so worthwhile that at one time, he may decide to become an artist. It worried me a little bit but I decided whatever he wanted to be with that was exactly what he was going to be. Because I didn't, I wouldn't do any further efforts to influence him one direction or the other. I'll let him decide himself that he wants to be a physician. And when he went left home and went to Putney, that's what it was. That's what it had to be. Helen wanted to study dance. After they finished prep school at Putney, Helen was advised to go to Bard College of Annandale on the Hudson. Milton enrolled at Tufts University as a pre med student. I guess I can take Milton off of here and then we go pick up Helen and Carol on our test finished. Now Milton was advised by this advisor suggested that he go to Tufts University if he wanted a pre med course for the [Inaudible]. Accordingly as he finished his prep school he was enrolled in at Tufts University undergraduate school as a pre med student. We loaded up the station wagon and drove on into Boston and out to Medford and to Tufts. I was very greatly impressed by the atmosphere of campus. I thought the campus had been quietly beautiful. Of course, you know that. There was a coed school Jackson College connected with Tufts University. And bro appeared, I call him bro, appeared to be very happy when he got to the school. We went to the office and he was enrolled. I'll never forget the day that we left to go up on the campus and we said our goodbyes and the last I saw him was his back at the end of the administration building. I took a picture and later made a slide of him as he came up to the administration buildings I had a thought when I made the slide I said well there goes my boy, I guess he'll come back a man. Bro had a little difficulty when he first got to Putney. As all freshmen do when they get to college, they go to college with the idea unless they're for one they go to it with the idea that college will just be an extension of prep school or high school. And when it gets to pull and wake on it, I sort of looked around and take a second thought about this thing and see that they're really in for trouble. And they got to get down to work and get down to work as hard as possible in order to stay there. And I tried to tell Milton about this thing I said now look here, boy you're going to college now you're going to have to buckle down to it. It's not going to be like high school, oh, well, I'll make it I'm not worried about that.

[15:08]
You really got to go to work. Well about two weeks after, bro got to Tufts, we got a letter saying everything was fine. He was enjoying himself.

[15:18]
He said the work was hard, but he was sticking right to it. And he knew he was getting along all right. But however, if his face test, he began to complain that he just didn't seem to be getting along. Right? His marks weren't so good, they also seem to be the trouble. So Well, whenever they give me a test, I always miss upon a test, I said how do you mess up? Well some little, there might be some little detail that I forget to put in. And then I'm marked zero for that particular piece work because I forgot to put in a detail. But it just so happened that they put in it, or children had individual attention from the teachers. They didn't put so much emphasis on given tests and examinations. In his lessons, they stated they were working all the time, they could see what they could do. However, when they left the Putney School and went to college, with so much emphasis most emphasis is put on test. And as much as there are so many most students as teachers don't have the individual contact with each student that they had in prep school, they have to put so much importance on tests and examinations, that those kids who are not accustomed to taking tests and examinations have a very rough time for the first year I might say. That is the only the only adverse criticism that I have for the Putney School, they do not prepare their students, or they did not prepare their students to cope with the conditions that they find in college. So far as the emphasis on tests and examinations was concerned. Now Bro had a pretty rough for the first year in that he could not immediately get accustomed to taking care of the details that would make a difference between a zero and a passing mark on a paper. The result was that at the end of his freshman year, he was barely making passing marks. But he was a little bit discouraged. And you know, because with calculus, chemistry and physics, language, English all piling in together, and just barely making a passing mark and being accustomed to getting along fine at Putney, he was a little discouraged on the way home from their training and made it dad I think I might change my major, I think I'd like to do something else. Wait a minute now Bro, you said you want to stay to medicine? Yeah, I said. Well, you might find it a little tough, but we can't stop right now. You just got to buckle down to it, I told you you were going to have it tight and tough and you will have to get down instead a little harder. He said I had such a hard time doing my freshman year, I say well, you should do better during your sophomore year, we just can't think about changing right now.

[18:04]
Well, during the summer, bro got interested in this crossroads African, African group.

[18:12]
That is the tough students a group of test students, a group of students not just tough students, but a select group of students were sent to one of the one of the developing countries in Africa in order to help the developing countries overcome their deficiencies in whatever you might have. So this crossroads Africa group was selected as one of the members of Crossroads Africa. They went to, I have to get the name of two countries they went to anyway. Right bro had done very well in French at Putney. And as much as he was almost fluent speaking French, he was selected as one of the group to go to the French speaking African countries. There was an experience to be remembered by him for many of the they spent two months I believe in Africa. Living and working with the natives, helping them to build a school. And one of the life of things that I remember back to Crossroads Africa trip that when a guy were to come back to this country, they were wanting to buy souvenirs and objects to bring back with them and bro had decided that he would sell his surplus clothes and buy some souvenirs to bring back home to us. But on his way away from Africa, he went to a leper colony. And he saw there lepers in such wretched conditions that he took all the thing that he was about to sell, all the clothes he was about to sell to buy gifts for us and donate it to donated clothing to the inmates of African of a leper colony. And among the pictures he brought back was one over one of the Catholic nuns holding the clothing that he had given the patients. Well he went into his second year at Tufts and he was working scholastic, scholastically he had made a lot of improvement. However, he was still a little bit discouraged at Christmas holidays, he made it back and said dad I think I'm going to, I think I've changed my major and go into foreign service. I say now bro you have always been, as you said, you want to be a doctor. Well, I would like to be a doctor, but it's a little tough. I say well you go back and tough it out, because we're not going to have this change right in the middle of spring. Well in the second in the second semester, he found his way around, he got on solid footing and his grades improved. They improved a certain extent that he didn't have to study all day and overnight, now he will begin to look around for recreational activities. As you know, there are very few black students at Tufts. And therefore, this is a little bit away from Boston. He didn't have much of a social life. He didn't like that at all, he didn't like it to a certain extent that he said, if he had to stay at Tufts with no social life, no contact with outsiders, he's gonna go to school, this will get to be a little bit. You know, that's how we got on the live and didn't want to stop right then and there. So I thought about Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Say, bro he's just a black boy. He's strictly one of us. And he always wanted to remain one of us. And when he got out there where he didn't have contact with the rest of the black folks. He definitely gave up. School is fine, classes are fine. But in the afternoons, that's when the last bell rings and we get go, we get to leave the classroom, they'd say I'll see you tomorrow, I'd see you tomorrow Milton, and they'd go off their way. And I go on off, sit in my room by myself. I just won't have it and that's it. I don't like it at all. By that time I thought about Morehouse College. And like my good medical classmates. Dr. JB has lived in Alabama and who was on the Board of Trustees at Morehouse College in Atlanta. Now, Morehouse College is the black school. It's in Atlanta, Georgia. But it is a very excellent school. It's highly rated. And the graduates of Morehouse do well as far as they go. In fact, I've mentioned to say about 1/5 of the black physicians in the United States are very graduates of Morehouse College, in addition to Morehouse in Atlanta, there's Spelman College, which is a strictly girls college, Atlanta University, which is co-educational and Clark University which is co-educational. I called bro just before Thanksgiving just before Thanksgiving and told him you have a Thanksgiving holiday. Meet me at and come out to Atlanta, and Thanksgiving morning. I think we can get there just about noon and we'll go up have dinner with Dr. Harris, but you can look around Morehouse and see what you think that place. Sure enough we went down to Morehouse, arrived at Dr. Harris's house just before they sat down to dinner now there was a doctor in South Carolina that taught that when he taught physiology at Meharry. Yeah. And he had two sons who had finished Morehouse and we were doing both graduate at Atlanta University. This doctor Dr. Chisholm and his two sons were also having dinner with Dr. Harris and Mrs. Harris. We came in and just in time for dinner, and we had dinner, and the two Chisholm boys took bro out and then on off, come on bro we'll show you the town. We show you our house and everything else. They showed him their house they showed him Spelman. And saw all the beautiful black girls at Spelman. They went by Atlanta University. He looked around as well. Now you see now this is what I call social cotact. I didn't see it. Well. We had dinner and we sat around and talked. I didn't see him until about 12 o'clock that night they came in. I said bro, what about? He said Dad, I'm ready to come on back here just as soon as I go and pack my trunks and get things out. I said well you hadn't talked to anyone at Morehouse yet. Well, the next morning, we went down to talk to the dean, asked him what about having been really admitted. He said oh yes he said well. Next semester, he can come here. See, bro finished two years at Tufts. And up to Thanksgiving for this junior year. But he came on down to Morehouse. He got an examination of that physical examination at Tufts and went right on into Morehouse College. He did very well. He did excellent down there because he was among his fans. He was doing what he wants to do. He had a social outlet. And they had very excellent teachers. And he was just as happy as a rabbit in a garden patch. He finished his junior year at Morehouse, finished senior year at Morehouse. However, he had all his requirements for the bachelor's degree, except for Humanities. He needed some more English and he needed some Bible studies. Well bro had already made an application for the University of North Carolina Medical School and an application at Meharry. We're going to the University of North Carolina Medical School for an interview. See, I thought about University of North Carolina because it was near home, went up for an interview. And he told me the doctor there that was a fancy interview here. The doctor told him well according to your qualifications, your grades and everything. You're entirely acceptable for the University of North Carolina Medical School, but I'll tell you young man, we've already accepted one black student from America for next year's freshman class. But if you apply next year, we'll be sure that you can get in, you know, in other words they were taking only one black student for each class, back then in the year or the year. Well you see, the quota system was still going on, the quota of one black and all white at the University of North Carolina Medical School at that time, it's

[25:57]
changed now. But at that time, that's what it was. That's exactly what we were told. His application from Meharry came through. But he wasn't granted his degree because he hadn't gotten up on his humanity. That is his English and his Bible, but bro had decided he was going to Meharry anyway. I said well now if you get into this year, you may not be able to get in next year. So I say, well, the bachelor's degree don't mean too much anyway. All you got to do is you get in and do your work. It doesn't. It doesn't matter too much about that. Although I would take that he's to have him go into medical school without his bachelor's degree. He was accepted at Meharry. And he went on into that to study medicine. With his background at Tufts, and later at Morehouse, he had no trouble whatsoever studying medicine at Meharry. In fact, he was at the end of his freshman year, he was at one of the one of the highest averages of his class. I don't know whether it was third or fourth, somewhere like it somewhere in there. But you see bro when he was down there, he was a likable fella. And he can make it anywhere. When he comes to make it with people. Of course, it's hard to make it with Professors, you got to put it down. I don't care where you are. But he did very well at Meharry his freshman year. And he was lucky enough to get work for a place somewhere after freshman year of medicine. He was lucky enough to get a position with the Department of [Inaudible] in Washington. He was on some research project where they had to they were using white rats and mice and whatnot. But I was glad for him to have that experience. For several years before bro went into the medical school, I had been encouraging third and fourth year medical students to come out and spend the summer with me in my way, I was glad to have some fellas from Meharry to come out and work with me. And Bro knew about this arrangement that I had and when he went back to school, he and some other fellows got together and initiated that preceptorship program even around and solicited money from good friends to help the junior and senior medical students to work with general practitioners or surgeons or what have you, whichever specialty you wanted to work in during the summer for six weeks. And during the time that the student worked with the doctor of his choice, he was given a stipend of $125 a week. The program was off to a good start. And then on the second year, bro's sophomore year, he worked with me. But in his message it was his program even working with his daddy, he wasn't getting paid anything. It was alright we had a good time and had a good chance to whip his head with new stuff. And I haven't and I come out with something that I've learned a long time ago that had been dropped from textbooks. That's the only way I could stump these second year medical students. By the at the end of his sophomore year. I had him with me and I also had the union medical student from Howard and a general class, who by the way, you want to throw that out in front of the state of medicine. We also had I also had a junior medical student from Meharry by the name of P Y E T T Pyett. He was from someplace up in Pennsylvania, very interesting fella. He had done his study in the Marines. And after getting out of service he had he had gone on his own, he had done pre med work and gone to Meharry. And at this time he was a rising senior at Meharry. Very interesting. Very smart, very cooperative and eager to learn. I was glad to have those two fellas, I was glad to have any student, it kept me sharp. It did me more good than it did them. However they stated that it was a chance to work with patients. Not in the clinic, not on the supervision of professors and instructors. They felt free. They were able to do more. And they were able to gain by victory. I could whip their head all day long. And they knew it wouldn't be anything against them at the end of the year, at the end of the week, at the end of the month. And we had a very, we had a fine time, we really enjoyed this relationship. And I gave them plenty of work to do, bro went on and finished his medicine, he decided to intern at Howard Hospital in Nashville. He liked it around there at his internship. He went into surgical residency at Howard Hospital. I wanted him to go elsewhere, because I thought that in the end it doesn't matter where you've been, it's all he same. However he wants to remain at the hospital and I'm glad that he did. I'm glad he'd done, I let him do anything that he wants to do just so long as he does something. At the present time he's a resident of surgery. And at the time I'm writing this thing. He's on affiliation at the Mound Bayou Mississippi Community Hospital, where he's getting plenty of experience. He had his sights set on being a chest surgeon now. The one time he thought about cardiovascular surgery, but I'm glad I was able to get him off that track because it's fine, especially to know, but at this day and time I know at least 5000 residents taking cardiovascular surgery in the United States. And you know there's not going to be so many centers that do that thing. It's gonna be a long hard pull to get to the top in that field. With only a few centers doing that kind of work. I feel that he would be spending his time much better if he specialized in chest surgery after he finished his general surgery internship. I think we go, I think we see eye to eye on that proposition. Well, that's the way it is now, as it goes now bro is doing surgical surgical residency now in Mississippi of Mound Bayou Community Hospital, working day and working me and having a ball. Now I go back and pick up Helen from the time that we were, that they were in Putney. I do that tomorrow night. Oops, oops. This 1:17 a.m., good night all. Well let me change the subject to

[32:32]
[Inaudible]

[32:41]
recommended Bard college up at Annandale on the Hudson River. We went up to and looked around. I was most pleased with the school, environment, and the general atmosphere the place. Helen made application for Bard College and she was accepted and she enrolled in college she matriculated with a major dance, she always knew she wanted to dance. And a minor of English. We can backtrack a little bit and say that when she was at Putney, her last two years at Putney, she began to develop joint pains. She complained about not so very much stiffness, but joints. And I didn't pay too much attention to at that time because she kept going she kept on dancing. However, she had been at Bard College for about a year, the stiffness of this arthritis stiffness begins to develop into severe pain, morning stiffness, pain. And later on during the day she joint pains began to interfere with her dance. She got pretty sickly one time. And she went to the physician, school physician and he made a diagnostic diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis rheumatic arthritis. She was hospitalized for a couple of weeks and got a little better. And she went on to finish the year. The second year, as the symptoms became more severe and she became you know, she spent a lot of she lost a lot of time in school because of severe pain and has been in the hospital one or two times. She finally made it to the end of the year. She was really determined at that time that she really did have arthritis rheumatoid arthritis and rheumatic arthritis and we thought it best for her to leave but and severe climate and come south she didn't want to do it at all. However we prevailed on to transfer to Fisk University of Nashville, Tennessee. At that time the rheumatoid arthritis rheumatic arthritis was so crippling that she had to give up the idea of majoring in dance and she concentrated her efforts on English as a major, she spent the last two years at Fisk and she did very well she finished as an honor student at Fisk. By that time however she became so crippled up I'd thought it'd be better for her to rest up at home and see what we could do for her there. She got a little better. After resting up a year home, she decided to having worked on the school paper at Fisk and whatnot. And then edit the school paper one school paper there. She decided she liked a writing career, a magazine career. She tried very hard to read all around Washington, DC, tried very hard to have an interview with different places trying to get on the editorial staff of magazine, tabloids, newspapers, etc. But she had no success in it. I thought of some studies in some field came up and after mulling over the different careers that she might be interested in, it finally came out the idea of getting a master's in library science.

[36:13]
One of the few recognized certified schools of library science is located at Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia. By having some friends, she got a scholarship and was admitted to the School of Library Sciences in Atlanta. After a year in school she graduated getting a master's degree in library science with honors. Her arthritis wasn't quite so bad at that time, she was offered a position at the Atlanta City Library. She was also offered a position at Federal City College in Washington DC. Between the two she decided she'd rather be in Washington and took the position at Federal City College. She was doing all right in her position, hey, we'll continue to make inroads on further inroads. She got to a place where she could hardly walk. And they finally had to give up her position at Federal City College. Now she has a big struggle again trying to overcome this, this arthritis, first at Howard Hospital in Nashville but, in spite of all different modalities of treatment administers her condition continued to deteriorate. We were fortunate in being able to get her admitted to National Institute of Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. And as much as her condition didn't respond to any of the type of treatment that was administered the top of rheumatologists and investigators went over her checked out and they finally decided after the reason she responded so poorly to treatment was that she had developed the childhood type of rheumatoid rheumatoid arthritis along with the adult type of rheumatoid arthritis, it seems as though the worst features of both diseases or both types of arthritis were at work, and Helen, her joints begin with to deteriorate, she becomes so she became so disabled that it was later found necessary to operate on one of her hips. So that she'd be able to move about and walk, then her knees began to give us so much trouble, it was necessary to do operations on both of her knees. Well she had three operations to relieve her of the intense pain that she was suffering, however she was still disabled. And an operation was done on her hand, her right hand in an effort to get a thing is in such a position as to be able to right well the hand operation was not near as successful as the operation on her hip and knee, shoulders were giving her trouble, her shoulders and the elbows were given the trouble but she continued to fight this thing. And we are hopeful that she'd be able to be rehabilitated to the extent that she be able to she will be able to take care of herself. At the present time she is continuing her writings and making every effort to become self sufficient in her everyday life, to date. After this time Carol, had not definitely decided what she wants to do. So she's still experiment experiment, experimenting in an effort to find out exactly what she would like to do in life. Now let's get back to Tarboro. We'll say the time is just about 1942. And I had been in Tarboro six years. In that time, I had had developed a very large practice, been divorced, remarried. And we had three children. We were extremely interested in our children. They were such nice little things. And I began to wonder just how we've gone about educating these these children in a place like Tarboro. I like the town, I knew my services were needed. I liked the people and I like the idea of giving service at this place. However, there were certain drawbacks to the situation, which I found myself in Tarboro, it seems to me that if they went ahead went on ahead with they will become a little bit intolerable, in that we had we you know, we were faced with that separate but unequal school system that remained virtually unchanged. While everything, everywhere was changing from day to day, as I say we were changing in town, but no changing school system, no changing leadership in this area. And you see, I was considered an outsider. And I was one of those folks who was supposed to be seen and not heard when it came when it came to civic affairs. The leaders back in that day and time were well respected, revered. And in most cases, the trusting poorly informed, listless people of area carry out the instructions of the self appointed leaders without question. In other words we had we were in an era of changing time, but no change in leadership. There were so many changes needed and do at this time. But with the type of leadership that Tarboro was cursed with, I mean black leadership, the outlook as far as progress and improvement was concerned with was very bleak at this time, you see, these leaders of that era had been in control for many years. And the people look to their school teachers and ministers. And the few black businessman who had managed to make some progress in spite of the odds against them stacked up against them. And these self appointed, self sustaining leaders of necessity, were the so called Uncle Tom type as they so called, because they were not, they may not have been motivated by a blind devotion to the white man in power. But they were motivated, they had to take that type of task in order to obtain the needed improvements in the black man. They had to make it appear that they were subservient to and fundamentally awakened in the interest of the white man, by allowing a little basic improvement, and a lot of the Negro to actually come through. While at the same time, they were leaving the black brothers to believe that they were working solely in the interest of black people. Not all leaders with [Inaudible], not all black leaders were [Inaudible] to the detriment of black man. But many, in the most strategically helpful positions were to be found in that category. Thus, whenever one of us would come along with an idea, suggestion for improving our life, we would be discouraged by being reminded that they are the current leaders who knew better how to help the white folks and that they didn't appreciate our interference. Here we come along time to upset all the good racial relations, by asking for things that you knew the white man was not going to give you. A case in point, was busing of the black children. These kids would walk anywhere from one to five miles to school. While white children were riding buses. We suggested that the school board would petition to furnish buses for black children, we suggest we also set up a petition be permitted to be presented to the school board asking for buses to be provided. Good leaders shouted down idea of a petition to the school board, they just let us look and suggested however, we don't think anything's gonna come of it, but at least we can. If it satisfies and shuts your big mouth, we will go up and suggest it to the school board. Well, one of our good leaders presented the suggestion to school board, not our petition just a suggestion, along with presenting the suggestion that's buses be provided, the school board the same leader, apologetic that they did that they knew he knew that this thing was sort of tight, pretty tight at that time, money was tight, and then he didn't think to just say to the County School Board would be able to purchase a school bus for the negroes at that time. Furthermore, the leader said well, our children have been walking to and from school for all these years, they can continue to walk on a little longer until things get better and furthermore, walking four or five miles twice a day with their children and made them stronger. I know this may seem sort of foreign, terrible to him to see me writing this sort of stuff now, but that's just the way it was that day and time. And whenever any, any suggestion was made to improve the separate but what they called so, so called equals schools. This suggestion were discouraged from a school board at that time it was such an ache that it was pretty hard to get to the board and presented petitions at or everything had to go through certain leaders who are at the outset. But they didn't accept any changes that might in any way, antagonize a white school board to the detriment of the leaders or the petitioners. They didn't give a darn about the children all they were looking about were their own skin types. You know when they start to organize PTAs was about that time. Well the black PTAs had a pretty hard way to go. Lots of teachers are dead set against well PTA that the parents were going to come in and try to run the schools. And everything we've made every everything we'd done was discouraged that the development and the functioning of PTAs to the extent that sometimes on the nights we were supposed to meet, I recall they would go and find the doors to the school locked look up, look at the janitor, he would send them to somebody else for the keys, the teacher would then refer them, to send them to another teacher for keys. In other words,

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they would just ask me about school, our school was in many instances, and sometimes they have to have PTA meetings in the homes. Of course, now, you know, very few of the teachers attended. Most of the teachers were really discouraged from attending the PTA meetings, and there was definitely one side of the fair where the past had grievances I shouldn't have went it didn't get anywhere any further than that. And talking to one of the janitors about the business he was said doc, I wouldn't mind opening the school. Alright, just do so you could come on in and have a meeting. But seeing my boss told me to get lost on that night and take the keys with me. Unquote, I asked his ministers, there were only two ministers who were pastoring churches in his area who lived in the town. One was the A M E Z Minister, he lived in a town but that conference changed him every year. So it seemed as though if they got a good minister that had some civic interest, and some interest in civic affairs, he didn't stay here very long, one or two years and he was moving on someplace else. The other resident Minister pastor was the episcopal minister, priest in charge of the only Episcopal Church in town. He was a very fine gentleman, but he had very little interest in civic affairs. And consequently, we had no leadership from the insofar as the clergy was concerned, the other ministers, as I say, who was not living in town would come in and preach a sermon, collect their money go back where they came from, not giving a anytime a thought to the problems involved in the problems that plagued the people in this area. Now only the A M E Z church, African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and Episcopal Church had services every Sunday. The other churches had services on alternate Sundays, every other Sunday, church had service only once a month. So you can see why the pastors of these other churches weren't interested in what was going on. I saw this thing coming on as my children were growing up, what are we going to do about sending them to school and whatnot. If it hadn't been for Mrs. Western and her private school, our children wouldn't have had any decent starting school at all. And as I've already said, a lot of kids left Tarboro and this area went out to college and they come in successful. But most of them became very successful not because of the fact that they lived in and were born and raised in Tarboro, in which school in Tarboro. But this, despite the fact that they were handicapped by having had to attend the separate but unequal school system here. And when they got to college, they had to overcome almost insurmountable odds. Okay, take for instance, the matter of science, the biology department had one microscope I believe as I understand they had one microscope and the kids would take turns looking at a flower under the microscope. And the chemistry students would watch their teacher perform an experiment. They didn't have any laboratory, the teacher performed experiment. The student had to describe it, and write it up in a notebook just as a way they did the experiment themselves. Same thing went on with physics. They gave the taught physics one year and next year, elementary physics they had initiated elementary chemistry. In other words, if a kid wanted to go forward and anything in a scientific career, he left the high school with a smattering, either a smattering of chemistry or physics, but never smattering of both of both subjects. Leaving Tarboro High School entering college with such a handicap, you had to almost be a genius in order to appear average, along with the other college students who had received the benefits of a good basic high school training. In fact, it really was accustomed to pass the kids along from one grade to another. And as a consequence, many of them finish high school who are unable to read at all.