Bernadette Whitsett Hammond

PHYLLIS LEFFLER:    [00:00:00] Today is March 21, 2023.  I am Phyllis Leffler here at the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society to interview Bernadette Whitsett Hammond.  And with me is Lorenzo Dickerson, who is our videographer but will also be posing some questions of his own if he has -- so, thank you for being here.  Thank you for doing this today.

BERNADETTE WHITSETT HAMMOND:     [00:00:26] You’re welcome.

PL:  [00:00:27] I want to start out with a very straightforward, simple question just for the record.  Can you give us your date of birth?

BWH: [00:00:36] May 17, 1955.

PL:  [00:00:41] And where, specifically, did you grow up in Charlottesville?

BWH: [00:00:46] I grew up in the 10th and Page Street area. I grew up on, actually, 805 Page Street. (laughs) It was my lifelong home in terms of my childhood.

PL:  [00:01:00] We’ve spoken to a number of other people who grew up in that area specifically.  Bobby King, who I bet you know, and -- can’t remember some of the others, but --

BWH: [00:01:12] Garwin DeBerry.

PL:  [00:01:13] -- in any case -- so, can you describe to us your neighborhood, and as a child growing up, and the kinds of activities you were involved in, and, if you went to church, the church that you belonged to, and just generally what your neighborhood was like and what you think the primary influences were on you growing up.

BWH: [00:01:36] Okay.  My neighborhood was a very warm and caring neighborhood.  Everyone knew everyone, and all the parents looked out for one another’s children.  I was in a very special situation in that I grew up in my grandmother’s home with my mother and aunt as well.  Across [00:02:00] the street, catty-corner to my home, was my other aunt, one of my mother’s other sisters, the Paiges.  So, I had lots of family right on the street on which I grew up.  It truly was my case that it took a village.  Everybody supported one another.  Everybody would feel comfortable reprimanding a child if the child was doing wrong, or, even more so importantly, congratulating a child when you’ve heard about an accomplishment.  So, everyone was very well connected.  Mostly everyone attended a church.  The church that I attended and I continue to attend to this day is Ebenezer Baptist Church.  My great grandmother, Mary Nelson Lewis, was one of the founders of Ebenezer Baptist Church, so we’re continuing that legacy [00:03:00] there.

PL:  [00:03:03] And you went to church every Sunday?

BWH: [00:03:05] Oh, yes.  You went every Sunday.

PL:  [00:03:08] And dressed up?

BWH: [00:03:09] If you didn’t go to church, you didn’t go anywhere else that day.  A lot of children, in the afternoons, would like to go to the movies.  And so, if you were not feeling well enough to go to church, you certainly weren’t going anywhere else.  But, yes, we would dress up in our finest clothes.  And Easter Sundays were special Sundays because everyone would get a new outfit for church to wear on that particular day.  So, yes, we would wear our finest to church.

PL:  [00:03:40] So, it sounds like you grew up in a sort of maternal dominated (laughs) environment.

BWH: [00:03:46] Oh, yes.

PL:  [00:03:47] Is that true?

BWH: [00:03:48] Yes, very much so.  I remember my grandfather.  He died when I was about 10 years old.  And so, my longer relationship was with my [00:04:00] grandmother, but my grandfather was a wonderful gentleman.  His name was Joseph Brannock Lightfoot.  He was a plasterer, and he was a very quiet and mellow gentleman.  And neighbors would tell us stories about him because he had seven daughters.  My mother was one of them.  And how he managed in that household (laughs) with all those females, we’re just amazed at it. But I guess it took that kind of quiet, easygoing manner to deal with all of those women in that home.  But my neighbors would tell me, whenever there was a party for my mother’s age group, the children growing up at that time, the neighbors would say, ”Well, check with Mr. Lightfoot.  If he’s going, we know he’s going to be accompanying his daughters.  You can go with them.”  So, (laughs) he was … the more the merrier.  They would all go to functions and bring neighborhood kids with them [00:05:00]  because he was going to go and stay the entire time until it was over because he had to watch out for those girls.

PL:  [00:05:07] What activities were you involved in growing up?

BWH: [00:05:10] Oh, in terms of just the neighborhood, we did typical things.  Played hopscotch.  One of my very close cousins and I would make mud pies, and we would do one two three stoplight.  That was a (laughs) really popular game.  We would even create our own toys.  We made skateboards.  We did roller skating.  And those were just kind of neighborhood things.  But, in terms of my education, we were involved in playing instruments.  I played the piano and the clarinet.  All of my siblings did, and cousins as well. Music was very important.  Being involved in arts was very important.  We would [00:06:00]  be in concerts.  We’d sing in the choirs out our churches.  So, yes, we had a variety of activities in which we were involved.

PL:  [00:06:07] And you took lessons on both instruments? You had private lessons?

BWH: [00:06:10] Yeah, I took private piano lessons from Mr. Robert Smith.  He was a well-known musician in the area.  I think he was the former organist of the University Baptist Church.  My sister and my cousin Ramona took from him as well.  He was one of the first, I would say, white musicians who offered to teach African American children.  He would teach lessons at the old Zion Union Baptist Church across the street from Jefferson [School], and children would be allowed to go over there, take a half an hour lesson, [00:07:00] and return back to school.  So, yes, that was something I didn’t have to do because I had a piano in my home, so he would come to my home, or we’d come to his office down here in the downtown area.  In terms of the clarinet, we learned that through the school.  Mr. Cage, Calvin Cage was my first band instructor, so I learned the clarinet through him.

PL:  [00:07:27] So, how many siblings did --?

BWH: [00:07:30] I have a brother and a sister, and I’m the oldest.

PL:  [00:07:32] You’re the oldest.  So, you would have been the first to experience some of these changes we’re going to come to talk about.

BWH: [00:07:39] Yes.

PL:  [00:07:40] And what were the occupations of your parents?

BWH: [00:07:44] Well, my parents were divorced, and my father was a military gentleman.  He traveled quite a bit.  In fact, he retired as a colonel in the military.  (pause) [00:08:00] Well, he was a colonel in the military, and he was an endodontic surgeon.  He would do root canals, that type of work.  He was on the faculty at Howard University.  And then, he retired from there.  That was when he retired.  He retired from Howard University.  My mother was a lifelong educator.  She started teaching in the segregated schools, Jefferson.  And then, when the schools integrated, she was assigned to Clark Elementary School, and I think I told you that story because the Belmont area had a reputation at that time of not being very open to African (laughs) American people.  They were considered somewhat discriminatory, so, when my mother was assigned to a school right in that neighborhood, my brother, sister, and I [00:09:00] were frantic. We cried, and cried, and cried because we were fearful.  We didn’t know how she would be received at that school.  And, to make that long story short, she went there.  She had a wonderful career there.  Children ended up just treating her very lovely.  It was an example of having to get to know a person before you judge them.  You don’t look at the skin or color.  Get to know the person.  And her students just really loved her.  So, she had a very positive experience there.  After she taught, she went back to school.  She got her master’s from the University of Virginia in guidance and counseling, and she was a guidance counselor at Lane High School and finished her career as a guidance counselor at Charlottesville High School.

PL:  [00:09:53] Would you remember what years she went to UVA to get that master’s?

BWH: [00:09:57] Oh, my goodness, now.  [00:10:00] I would say probably the mid-’70s, I would say.

PL:  [00:10:07] She --

BWH: [00:10:08] It was before I graduated.  No, so I’ll say the late ’60s because it was before I graduated from high school, she had gotten her master’s.  Mm-hmm.

PL:  [00:10:19] So, she was probably still something of a trailblazer --

BWH: [00:10:24] Yes, I would --

PL:  [00:10:25] -- to do that.

BWH: [00:10:25] -- think so.  I think about that today.  I don’t know how she managed it with three children, except for the fact that we had a very supportive family, and we did live with my grandmother and my aunt, her older sister.  So, lots of support.  Mm-hmm.

PL:  [00:10:42] And can you tell me what schools you attended growing up?

BWH: [00:10:46] I attended Jefferson Elementary School. And then, when the schools were desegregated, McGuffey Elementary School was one of the ones in my district.  I was [00:11:00] assigned to there, went there for just the fifth grade.  Then, they decided to turn Jefferson into the all sixth grade school, and I went there. That was during the time when they were still building Walker and Buford.  They hadn’t completed the building of those two schools.  Then, after going there for the all sixth grade school at Jefferson, Walker and Buford were open, and I was in the neighborhood that was assigned to Walker, and it was considered a junior high school at that time, and that was for seventh and eighth graders.  And then, I left there to go to Lane High School from the ninth through the twelfth grades.

PL:  [00:11:38] Can you describe what those schooling experiences were like, both at Jefferson and at McGuffey?

BWH: [00:11:48] Well, Jefferson was a big family.  Again, most of the African American community knew one another, so it was like a big family.  You did have your [00:12:00] closer friends, of course, that you interacted with more regularly.  When we went to McGuffey, that was when schools had been desegregated, and there were very few white students assigned to McGuffey, and that was based on neighborhoods, I’m sure.  So, it didn’t seem too different in terms of the student population, but there were quite a few white teachers there.  I don’t recall any particular negative experience.  I do think that African American students were somewhat hesitant. They didn’t know how they would be treated.  But that was just a year there.  And then, we went to Jefferson, and that was very integrated because all sixth graders in the entire city were attending there.  [00:13:00] And that was, for me, I think, first time I really sort of realized not everybody was going to be treated the same.  I can remember some very nice white teachers there, and I can remember some that weren’t so kind.  So, we navigated through that year, and I think people had gotten a little more adjusted by the time I got to Walker.  I think Walker had a really good mix of African American Black teachers and white teachers, so we did see people with whom we can identify and who were there to support us.

PL:  [00:13:39] What do you mean when you said there were some not so kind teachers?

BWH: [00:13:42] Well, teachers kind of --

PL:  [00:13:44] Do you remember any particular experiences that made you feel they were not kind?

BWH: [00:13:49] I would say maybe you asking to go to the restroom and they ignore you.  And then, a white student asks, and, ”Oh, yeah, So-and-so.”  [00:14:00] It was as if you could not be trusted, and the white child could be trusted.  Or even looking at grades, things that you felt you did well on, and you didn’t get a good grade, and you would talk to other people and find out, well, I got a similar answer there, (laughs) and you got a higher grade.  So, there was just a sense of difference that you would experience.

PL:  [00:14:25] Did you ever challenge any of those grades that you were concerned about, or --?

BWH: [00:14:30] Well, I may not have challenged it.  I would talk to my mother, and she would have looked into it.  Yes.

PL:  [00:14:38] So, she would have gone up to the school or --

BWH: [00:14:40] She would have talked to the teacher first. In fact, I’m from a long history of that happening.  I have older cousins where my relatives had to be very active in pursuing what they felt was right and looking at [00:15:00] possible injustice or discrimination against children.  So, I’m from a long background of that.  So, we didn’t sit back.

PL:  [00:15:06] That’s great.  That’s good for you.  So, let me just ask, when did you get involved with band?  When did that start happening for you?

BWT: [00:15:21] At Jefferson Elementary School.

PL:  [00:15:22] At Jefferson Elementary.  So, they had a band.

BWT: [00:15:25] Yes.  Mm-hmm.

PL:  [00:15:26] And that’s where you first started learning to play the clarinet.

BWT: [00:15:29] Yes.  Mm-hmm.

PL:  [00:15:30] Uh-huh.  So, when we talked earlier, you said you had been looking forward to going to Burley.

BWT: [00:15:38] Yes.  I think most Black students were because the school was just so popular, and we looked up to our older relatives and friends in the neighborhood, and they would all talk so positively about their experiences there.  [00:16:00] And, you know, Burley was known for their football team, as well as their band, and that was exciting.  So, yes, I think all of us really -- we just didn’t think that we would not be going there.  And then, things did change, and it turned out that we ended up going to Lane High School.

PL:  [00:16:19] As a child, did you go to football games, or --?

BWH: [00:16:22] Occasionally.  Never unaccompanied.  Mom or uncle, somebody was going to be there with us.  But, occasionally, we would go.  We were very supportive of Garwin DeBerry, who was one of the standout players at --

PL:  [00:16:39] And a cousin, yes?

BWH: [00:16:40] -- Burley, and my cousin, my first cousin. We grew up together in the same household.  His mother and my mother, sisters, and she -- Mrs. DeBerry -- Aunt Hattie, we called her -- had her three children in the home.  And then, my mom had her three children, and we grew up together like brothers and sisters.  [00:17:00] So, yes, we would go to games to support him because he really was quite a player in that day and time.  Mm-hmm.

PL:  [00:17:11] I believe you entered Lane in ’69.

BWH: [00:17:15] Yes.  ’69, ’70, ’71 -- yes, I graduated in ’73.  Mm-hmm.

PL:  [00:17:19]So, before we get into that, Garwin DeBerry told us the story about his having gone to Lane, and then asked to transfer back to Burley because he had not been able to play football.  Was he in your household at that time --

BWH: [00:17:41] Oh, yes.

PL:  [00:17:42] -- as well?  So, you knew that story.

BWH: [00:17:44] Mm-hmm.  And I knew all about meetings with the superintendent, and teachers, and, I mean, yes, I was privy to all of that, what was going on.  Didn’t quite understand it at the level, of course, [00:18:00] the adults did, and, of course, Garwin, who was actually going through it, but, yes, we were very aware something significant was going on.

PL:  [00:18:08] For sure.  But, by the time all of that happened, (pause) you probably knew by then that you wouldn’t be going to Burley, right?  Because Burley closes --

BWH: [00:18:28] Well, it hadn’t closed.  It didn’t close until, I think, ’62, ’63.

PL:  [00:18:35] Oh, no, no.  It was later than that.  It was later. 

BWH: When did it -- ’70?

LORENZO DICKERSON:  [00:18:39] Sixty-seven.

BWH: [00:18:41] Sixty-seven.  Uh-huh. Yes.  So, we were still thinking that, and it’s like, for the fact that he transferred back, it seemed like, well, there -- it’s still going to be there. The school’s still going to be there, and you’re going to have an option.  But that [00:19:00] wasn’t the case.  And, as I was saying, we didn’t understand all the dynamics that were going on, but, when Garwin was able to transfer back to Burley, it was as if, oh, well, this school will still be here.  We weren’t understanding that that school’s just going to be phased out.

PL:  [00:19:17] And, as I understand it, it just happened quite suddenly.

BWH: [00:19:19] It did.

PL:  [00:19:20] Just, the decision was made.  There would be no more Burley, and all the students would go to Lane as a result of -- or Albemarle High School, depending upon --

BWH: [00:19:29] Yes, where you lived.

PL:  [00:19:29] -- whether you lived in the city or the county. So, tell me about Lane and what that was like for you.

BWH: [00:19:39] Well, I would say there were good, and there were some positive and negative experiences there.  I think they could have been worse.  There were students who paved the way for us initially, like the Martins, and [00:20:00] even Garwin, the Paiges, people who had gone there and kind of gotten the ball rolling in terms of integration and that Black and white students would be attending school together.  So, there was the understanding.  Still, you did have people who were resistant to that.  I had teachers who -- I look back on it now.  I would not have wanted to have had them because they were not fair, and, I mean, and they didn’t really make it -- it wasn’t something that they hid.  They were just openly discriminatory.  There were teachers who, on the other hand, that were not.  And, for Lane to be the size of the school that it was, it had very few African American teachers.  I just think about it, and I can hardly remember [00:21:00] that many.  There just were not many Black teachers there during my time.

PL:  [00:21:06] You --

BWH: [00:21:06] I would say that, in terms of, again, we’d run into problems with grading, not being called on, per se, in class.  All of those little factors were still occurring. But my mother was the guidance counselor there, so that kind of protected me to a certain extent because people knew that.  Teachers knew that.  And they also knew, although my mother was a very quiet, mild-mannered -- really a lovely person, if I must say so myself, you weren’t going to mistreat her child and she not address that.

PL:  [00:21:52] There were very few African American teachers, but one of those teachers was Esther Vassar.

BWH: [00:21:58] Oh, yes.

PL:  [00:22:00] So, can you talk a little bit her?

BWH: [00:22:01] Oh, she was wonderful.  She was like, (laughs) I would say, a breath of fresh air. We had never had a Black teacher to come in who dressed in African garb, and she wore the headpieces, and it was like, ”Where did this wonderful lady come from?”  She presented herself as the queen she was, and she was very active in including Black students in all aspects of the school.  You know, making sure that we got involved in these programs, whatever, because, a lot of times, parents didn’t really know, who weren’t that on top of things, what their students could be involved in.  For example, the Ecology Club.  They had an Ecology Club.  There were kids who never would have thought of participating in that, and she might have said, ”Well, why don’t you get involved in that and consider that?”  So, she was very [00:23:00] much a promoter of us.  She brought Black studies to the school, and that was not anything we’d had before.  She just was a very positive influence, and, unfortunately, I think there were a lot of people who didn’t like the fact that she was as active in and really stood her ground and spoke her mind.  I don’t think a lot of people regarded that very highly.  And so, she did encounter quite a few challenges when she was at Lane High School, but, yes, she was just a wonderful, wonderful individual to have as an instructor and as a role model.

PL:  [00:23:50] Were you in her classes?

BWH: [00:23:53] I was in one of her classes, yes.  Well, she was an excellent instructor.  And you had to be [00:24:00] an upper grade to take her class.  Mm-hmm.

PL:  [00:24:03] What do you remember about this play that got put on, I think that she wrote or wrote in conjunction with students and that led --

BWH: [00:24:15] That was --

PL:  [00:24:06] -- at the end, to --?

BWH: [00:24:17] Oh, okay.  I understand.  I recall that, but that was a young -- I think I was in my sophomore year when this happened, and I wasn’t in it, but, of course, I attended the production. And it was a Black history play that she had spearheaded, and the students -- especially, I would say, the upper level students, the juniors and the seniors -- were very excited about doing something like that.  They’d not been involved in anything like that before.  And I don’t recall anything controversial about it.  However, it was viewed that way by some of the white staff [00:25:00] and white students.  I do recall, at the end, which is traditional for African American people to sing the Negro National Hymn, Anthem.  And, at the end, that was part of that program, that we were to stand and sing that, and some white students walked out, and that enraged a lot of the Black students because we were never allowed to walk out of the auditorium until we were dismissed.  And it appeared that they were able to walk out, and no repercussions and whatever.  So, what happened as a result of that, the Black students protested, and they took over the whole auditorium, and they stayed in the auditorium, I think, at least a week.

PL:  [00:25:42] A week?

BWH: [00:25:43] I think it was about a week before this -- oh, you know, this was a major issue.  This was a major issue in town, and all kinds of -- Mr. Eugene Williams, Reverend Mitchell, all of these people got involved in this [00:26:00] because they had to figure out how they were going to resolve this problem because it was just very -- it was a major incident.

PL:  [00:26:10] So, students didn’t go to class --

BWH: [00:26:12] [Right?].

PL:  [00:26:12] -- while they were -- and they left at the end of the day, and came back, and walked into the auditorium?  They didn’t stay overnight, I’m assuming.

BWH: [00:26:18] No, didn’t stay overnight, but did not go to class all day.  And I felt a lot of pressure as a student whose mother worked there, and I can recall this very clearly.  Knowing what happened was wrong, that that should not have been allowed, the students should not have been allowed to walk out, and, if they did walk out, there should have been some type of repercussions for them.  So, I went to my mother, along with several of my best friends who were in that picture (laughs) that you showed me, and I said, ”Mom, I just don’t know what to do.  I don’t feel that [00:27:00] this was right.  I want to support.”  And so, my mother said to me, ”You follow your heart.”  So, I went to my algebra teacher, Mr. [Farmwell? Formwalt??], and I said to him, ”I’m sorry, Mr. Farmwell.  I will not be in your class today.”  Got my books.  All my girlfriends did the same thing.  They went to their teachers.  And we went in, and sat in the auditorium, and participated in the protest as well.

PL:  [00:27:24] And were there repercussions for you for having --

BWH: [00:27:27] No.

PL:  [00:27:27] -- done that?

BWH: [00:27:29] They resolved it that no repercussions would occur once the situation was resolved, that we were allowed to make up our work and everything.  So...

PL:  [00:27:39] What do you remember about the principal of Lane High School?

BWH: [00:27:42] I’m trying to remember.  I think it was Mr. Huegel. I always remembered him to be a nice gentleman.  I know that he would never have wanted to happen what did happen, and I think he [00:28:00] was very active in trying to seek a acceptable solution to the problem, but I just remembered him to be a fine gentleman.

PL:  [00:28:11] Do you remember any other African American teachers at the school?

BWH: [00:28:16] Let’s see.  Who else did I interact with?  There were others, but I’m just not recalling.  There was a gentleman.  I think his last name was Mr. Stanley, and he was a younger guy, and I think he taught English.  I did not have him.  There were a couple of others, but I’m just not remembering all their names because I didn’t have them.  All of my teachers were white.  Yes.

PL:  [00:28:49] I know you worked in the newspaper, on the Lane Times, and that you became the editor of the paper one year.

BWH: [00:29:00] After dropping out of band, (laughs) I had to find something else to do.  I said, ”Oh, I like journalism, so I’ll go ahead and work towards it.”  Never had any idea that I’d actually become the editor, but that did happen.  Mm-hmm.

PL:  [00:29:13] And one of the teachers that we have interviewed was Julia Shields.

BWH: [00:29:19] Oh, I remember her well.

PL:  [00:29:20] So --

BWH: [00:29:20] She was a sponsor of the newspaper.

PL:  [00:29:22] Did you work directly with her --

BWH: [00:29:24] Yes.

PL:  [00:29:25] -- on the newspaper staff?

BWH: [00:29:26] Yes.  And she was my English teacher as well.  She taught advanced English classes.  Mm-hmm.

PL:  [00:29:33] And you never had any problems of any sort on the newspaper staff?  Were there people who were trying to control what you wrote or encouraging you in one direction or another?

BWH: [00:29:44] Well, I would say that, of course, everything had to go through her, and then she had to answer to people above her.  And there were some issues.  I do believe that she ran into some roadblocks, but [00:30:00] nothing that just seemed blatant to me.  But then, I wasn’t in the hierarchy of the discussions of some of those, so she might tell you something a little different that she had to really push on some cases for things to get in the newspaper, but, all in all, I think it went relatively well.  I don’t recall running into any major issues when I was on the newspaper staff.

PL:  [00:30:28] Tell us your band story.

BWH: [00:30:30] (laughs) Okay.  Well --

PL:  [00:30:34] Thank you.  (laughter)

BWH: [00:30:38] As I said, I started off playing the clarinet when was in elementary school at Jefferson and played the clarinet through McGuffey, Jefferson, Walker, and it was just the expectation that I would continue in the band when I got to Lane High School.  [00:31:00] And I kind of knew the history of the band at Lane because I had a cousin who attended Lane High School, Adolphus Paige, who was one of my cousins who didn’t go back to Burley.  He stayed at Lane, and he endured a lot of mistreatment.  There are some horror stories there that he could tell you. But, in any event, he was not allowed to perform with the band.  He could be in the band, but he could not perform with the band.  So, my aunt and uncle -- Aunt Helen, Uncle Dee -- they were at the school board office, talking with the superintendent, fighting the good fight about that.  So, I knew there were issues, and it was the same band director there when all this was going on who was also there when I came along. And I had hoped that things had gotten [00:32:00] somewhat better, and they had gotten somewhat better, but the band was the type of system where you had to practice regularly, get points for practicing regularly, and you had chairs, and you would play, I guess, probably once a week or once a mo-- and you would be situated in a seat.  If you were the best, you’d be the first chair, whatever.  Well, the Black students who were in -- I will say in the band during my time, none of them were going to be first chair.  That just was not going to happen.  And, after kind of seeing that and realizing that was not going to be a very positive experience for me, I begged my mother, ”Could I drop out of band?”  And she knew the history.  Also knew other parents who were having issues [00:33:00] with this same situation, and she said, ”Yes.”  And I said, ”Well, I’d like to get involved with the newspaper.”  And so, I ended my last two years of high school working with the Lane Times.

PL:  [00:33:12] And were you involved in other things besides the newspaper at the school?

BWH: [00:33:15] Oh, yes.  Let’s see.  I did track (laughs) for a little while.  That wasn’t long-lived.  But let’s see.  I was in all kinds of different clubs after school.  I was one of those people who got involved with the (laughs) Ecology Club as a result of . . . and they took a trip to the Florida Everglades, and I was able to accompany them on that trip.  But just kind of not too much over -- in terms of spreading yourself too thin because I also did piano on the outside.  We had recitals [00:34:00] for piano, and then I was very involved with my church, activities there.  So, I would say probably the newspaper and the Ecology Club, and then we had some -- I was involved with the French Club as well.  So, yes.

PL:  [00:34:16] Did your mother tell you stories about her experience at the school?  Did she experience any resistance in any way as a guidance counselor?

BWH: [00:34:29] Well, yes.  She would have parents who say they didn’t want her to be their child’s guidance counselor.  So, that was not surprising to her because, you know, in the climate at the time, that type of feeling was still -- it wasn’t prevalent, but she still ran into those issues, and they would trade off with different guidance counselors when those situations [00:35:00] came up.  But, on the other hand, there were African American students who begged to have my mother to be their guidance counselor because she saw a lot of our students being discouraged from trying to pursue higher education, and there is a gentleman.  To this day, he would tell me this story.  James Bryant.  And he would tell me how he had gone to his guidance counselor, a white guidance counselor, and she had told him he wasn’t college material.  And he said, ”Your mother came into the office, and she saw me crying outside on the benches, and she said, ’James, what’s wrong?’” And he said, ”My guidance counselor told me I’m not college material.  I could never go to college.”  She said, ”You come in here.  We’re going to sit down and talk about this.  You definitely are college material.”  So, he changed guidance counselors, went to my mother, [00:36:00] and the rest (laughs) is history because he’s very accomplished.  He’s currently on the school board here in the city of Charlottesville.  But, yes, those types of stories -- unfortunately, they’re out there.

PL:  [00:36:12] He told us that same story, so --

BWH: [00:36:14] He did?

PL:  [00:36:15] On tape.  So, he has corroborated your story perfectly, I think right down to the details. (pause) You also mentioned that there were, you thought, decisions made about who were the top students at graduation. So, could you tell us that story?

BWH: [00:36:41] Well, and I don’t have any verification of that. I was just hearing this from some of the adults who were working in the schools at the time.  And there was always the policy of having the top 20 students recognized [00:37:00] in their senior year at graduation.  And what they had previously done the years before I got to be -- became a senior was that, if you had the same grade point average as another student, you would hold the same place.  For example, if you had a 3.75, and you were falling number five, and the next person was a 3.7-- both of you would hold that position as five. Though, the year that I became a senior, they changed the policy, and they -- if you were 3.75, you would no -- the second person with 3.75 would -- rather than be five five, you’d be five six. And they would do it alphabetical. Whoever had the last (laughs) name that was earlier in the alphabet would be the first of that number, and then the second person would be the person who had -- [00:38:00] the alphabet that was behind that one.  So, when I came along, I would have tied for 17.  But, because they changed it, it dropped me out of the top 20.

PL:  [00:38:15] The last name started with a W. (laughs)

BWH: [00:38:16] Yes, W too.  And that just was something that they had never done before, and we don’t know why that change occurred, but there was discussion, and I heard people -- teachers, in fact -- talking about that, that they were not pleased about that because no African American students were recognized.  So, those types of things happened, but you didn’t let it dissuade you.  You just kept going, and I had my eye on college at that point in time.  Where was I going to go?  What was I going to do?  So, those were much more pressing and important issues for me.

PL:  [00:39:00] Who was your guidance counselor?

BWH: [00:39:01] My mother.  (laughter) No, she wasn’t my -- Mrs. Garrett was my guidance counselor.  Mm-hmm.  She --

PL:  [00:39:08] Because your mother couldn’t --

BWH: [00:39:09] Yeah, [she just said?] (laughs) -- yeah, they did not.  No. But she was at home, (laughs) telling me what I should be doing and everything.

PL:  [00:39:16] And did you feel like your guidance counselor supported your interest in going to college?

BWH: [00:39:21] Yes, uh-huh, because, you know, my mother was working right in the office with them, and she had a collegial relationship with everyone there.  So, yes. And then, I always had her as backup. If there were any questions, I could say, ”Well, Mom, what do you think?”  So, yes.  I think I always felt very supported.  Mm-hmm.

PL:  [00:39:41] When this project started, we called it ”Race & Sports,” and our intention was to look at the ways in which sports affected the desegregation [00:40:00] process.  And we’ve now broadened our focus a little bit.  We’re now calling our project ”No Playbook” to reflect the fact that there -- well, let me ask you, do you feel like you had any preparation for going to Lane in terms of people talking to you about what you were likely to experience there or trying to prepare you for a world that would be either desegregated or integrated?  Were there administrators, teachers, who did anything in the school?

BWH: [00:40:40] I don’t recall that.  In fact, even in my home life, we didn’t dwell on race.  I think everybody was just so focused on just nurturing us and making us strong individuals.  We knew there were issues [00:41:00] out there.  You couldn’t help but see the TV or hear these stories, but there was no formal preparation for desegregation.

PL:  [00:41:11] So, no discussions in your home about -- obviously, you would have been one year old when the (laughs) Brown decision came down, but no general discussions around the dinner table of what was happening within schools, and --?

BWH: [00:41:24] Well, I would say, in terms of what my older cousins were experiencing, we would hear those conversations, but it wasn’t like you were sat down and said, ”Well, this is going to happen.  Be prepared for this,” or whatever.  The environment and atmosphere was that we knew it was going to be a struggle.  We just knew that.  And we were just going to do the best we can, and we also knew we had plenty of support in the home environment.

PL:  [00:41:55] Do you have any sense of what the [00:42:00] impact of sports was on the changes that came, either in terms of how neighborhoods functioned and communities functioned or what you saw within the high school itself, or were you too far removed from that?

BWH: [00:42:20] I wouldn’t say I was too far removed from it, but I wasn’t directly focused on that because I really wasn’t an athlete, but I know the stories I heard, and I do think sports was a good bridge for people in terms of race relationships because the goal there is, if you have a team, you want to win.  It doesn’t matter if you Black, white, pink, or purple.  If you’re on the same team, and you can help win, I think that that’s what people look at.  So, I think it was a good [00:43:00] bridge for improving race relations, and I think, as a result of that, that kind of transferred over to other situations as well.

PL:  [00:43:11] I gather you were in many of the advanced classes that the high school offered.  Is that true?

BWH: [00:43:18] Mm-hmm.

PL:  [00:43:19] So, how many Black students would have been in your classes?

BWH: [00:43:24] I was often the only one.  And there’re a couple of my good friends who would have been the only one too.  There were not many.

PL:  [00:43:35] And how did that affect you?

BWH: [00:43:40] I was there to learn, and I have to say there were some very nice white students that I had the opportunity to meet during my time at Lane, and I hear from some of them even to this day.  So, there were some good friendships made between Black and [00:44:00] white students that last to this day.  So, when I was in class, I was aware that I was the only Black student, and I think, to some degree, some of the white students may have been told to, ”Make sure you’re kind.  You know how she must be feeling.  She is the only student of color in your class.”  And I just remember people being, for the most part, in my classes, pretty easy to get along with.  And, when it was time for a break or whatever, I would find my friends who were around, and they were looking for me.  But, yes, I do think that there may have been some tension there, but there were many students in those classes who were trying to just get along and make sure that I was okay.

PL:  [00:44:54] Did you socialize with any of those --

BWH: [00:44:56] Oh, yes.

PL:  [00:44:57] -- after school?

BWH: [00:44:58] Yes.  Sometimes, [00:45:00] we had sleepovers over some of the students’ homes, and we’d go to, maybe, eat on the weekends.  So, yes.  Definitely by my senior year, things were much better than when I first entered Lane.

PL:  [00:45:15] What can you tell us about the environment in the cafeteria?

BWH: [00:45:18] Segregated.  (laughs) Yes.  Most of the Black students ate together, and that was their time to catch up with what’s been going on in the community and everything like that.  Every now and then, you might see somebody of a different race sitting with someone, maybe discussing an assignment or if you’re working on a project together, but it was mainly segregated, the lunch setting. Mm-hmm.

PL:  [00:45:46] What made you decide to go to Vassar?

BWH: [00:45:51] That’s an interesting question.  (laughs) I will say [00:46:00] I had a cousin who lived across the street from me.  My favorite was one of my favorite girl cousins.  She just recently passed.  Went to Radcliffe.  And I said, ”Oh, Ramona’s going mighty far away.”  I said, ”Why is she going all the way up to Massachusetts?”  And she said, ”Oh, I just wanted to see another environment, go up to the north and see what it was like,” and she did have family on her father’s side that lived in the Boston area, so she was going to have some family up there.  So, I just took out the college book one day, and the list [I’ll go?].  I said, ”Let me just look though here,” and I looked at a couple of them, and I came across Vassar.  It had the history of being an a all-girl school, but, by the time I got there, it had just become co-ed.  So, I looked at some of the majors, and I was very interested in psychology.  They had a strong psychology program and everything. And [00:47:00] I said, ”Mom, I think I like this one.”  I looked at UVA.  I looked at Wellesley as well.  And my second was Wellesley.  Vassar and Wellesley were my two top choices.  So, my mother took me up for a tour, and Wellesley was very nice.  I liked the campus and everything.  But, when I got on the campus of Vassar, they had a Black house.  They had students to come and greet me, and just embrace me, and tell me their experiences there.  They didn’t sugarcoat it.  They said, ”It’s difficult up here, but we’ve got your back.  We’re all here, supporting one another.”  And I just felt so welcome there, and the campus was beautiful. So, when I looked at that, they had a great program in psychology and everything -- I knew it was a little far away, but I said, ”I want to go there.”  So, that’s where I was [00:48:00] accepted, and I was able to go there.  But the funny thing about it is, after my first semester, I packed up everything and said I was coming home.  I was so homesick.  I just had never been away like that from my family.  So, I packed up everything.  So, after my first semester, I was so homesick, and I said, ”Oh, I just cannot be this far away from home,” and I was missing all my good friends and everything. So, I packed everything up.  I notified the school I wasn’t coming back. And my mother, you know, parents -- father too -- they were very disappointed.  But little did I know the dean had told my mother, ”Don’t worry about it. She’s going to come back.”  So, I made arrangements to take all my exams at UVA because we took exams after Christmas then.  And, when I got home for Christmas, all my friends were talking about going somewhere with their new [00:49:00] friends at schools, Virginia State, UVA.  I was like, ”No one’s going to be here.”  (laughs) So, I said, ”Well, I guess I’m going back (laughs) to school.”  And I did.  It was just that getting me over the hump that, ”Look, okay.  You got to be more independent.  You got to find your own way.”  So, I went on back, and I had no difficulties after that. Unpacked.  Went back, unpacked (laughs) everything that I put in storage and everything, and went on back there, and I really enjoyed it.  Mm-hmm.

PL:  [00:49:33] That’s wonderful.  And what did you do career-wise?

BWH: [00:49:37] Recently retired school psychologist.

PL:  [00:49:39] So, you spent your lives in schools after that, dealing with students and their needs.

BWH: [00:49:44] Yes.  For me, I felt that was my calling.  I loved children, and I knew they were a captive audience in the school. And I also knew the needs were so great, just even for [00:50:00] a child to come and just talk to somebody and kind of share with you what was going on.  Also, in terms of looking at special services for children. Sometimes, our children were misidentified, and I just felt that that was an area where I could be assistance in helping parents go through the special education process and explaining to them what it actually meant once your child has a certain identification. And I just felt that it was a place where I could be helpful.

PL:  [00:50:35] Did you come back to Charlottesville to do that work?

BWH: [00:50:38] Not initially.  I was in Providence, Rhode Island for about seven years.  Then, I went to Richmond.  I worked in Richmond for a couple years, and I came back to Charlottesville.  And I was really fortunate because getting a position as a school psychologist in Charlottesville was very challenging because you had the University of Virginia, and that’s where [00:51:00] I got my degree in school psychology.  They had a very competitive program, and a lot of the students would remain here and get positions in the school systems.  So, I just happened to come at a good time, and I was the only African American school psychologist my entire career.

PL:  [00:51:19] What schools were you in?

BWH: [00:51:20] Oh, all of them.  By the time I finished, I had been to every school.

PL:  [00:51:24] Every Charlottesville local school?

BWH: [00:51:26] Yes, and also some of the private schools because the way the system works is that, if a child goes to a private school but the parent resides in the city of Charlottesville, we had to service the child at their school.

PL:  [00:51:43] Again, when we spoke initially on the phone, you said that your experiences with those early years of desegregation here [00:52:00] helped you to navigate.  I think those were the words you said.  They helped you to navigate and mold you to who you are today.  I think that’s a direct quote.  Can you expand on that a bit?  What do you mean, they helped you to navigate and mold you?

BWH: [00:52:16] Well, I think that the experiences helped me to kind of figure out what I may confront in life, and not just talking from a perspective of race, but just life in general, and I think it helped me to kind of see, ”Okay, I can either harbor some animosity related to situations, or just move past it.”  Because I think, if you allow negative experiences to define you, you never reach your potential.  So, a lot of things, I kind of wait and say, ”No, is this worth focusing on and being -- [00:53:00] feeling overlooked or mistreated if it’s going to prevent you from moving forward and achieving goals?”  So, [that’s kind of?] used that as a gauge of how I kind of went through life, and I do feel that I just didn’t have time for the negativity.  You get to a point where you just say, ”Well, that’s not going to define me, and it’s not going to be something that’s going to keep me from achieving the goals I’ve set for myself.

PL:  [00:53:33] Did you have role models who helped you to see it that way?

BWH: [00:53:35] Oh, my mother.  My mother was one of my biggest role models, and I will say her sisters. Her six sisters and my grandmother. My grandmother was a character. She was very strong-willed and determined.  And so, I come from that type of lineage, and [00:54:00] it just was with me.  It has remained with me.  You can do everything in a very kind and, I guess, unsuspecting way. You don’t have to make a big fuss about things.  Just do what you feel is the right thing to do.  And that’s how I just try to operate.  Try to function that way.  (pause)

PL:  [00:54:29] Lorenzo, do you want to pick up, and --?

LORENZO DICKERSON:  [00:54:33] Sure.  I have a couple.  I was curious.  You mentioned going to movies on Sundays, and I’m just curious as to which theaters you may have gone to.

BWH: [00:54:45] Well, really, the theater would have been the Paramount, and that was segregated, and Blacks had to go through the side door up into the balcony.  And [00:55:00] that was just the way it was during that time.  We did have an experience, my girlfriends and I, which -- we weren’t allowed to go to a lot of things, but we were allowed to go to this particular movie, and everybody was going to be going to it, and I don’t even remember which movie it was.  But it was about six of us, and we went, and there were lot of kids cutting up in this area in front of us, and they kept throwing things down off the balcony into the white section, which, you know.  And the gentleman, who’s a white usher, came up and asked us to leave, and we were just stunned because we didn’t know -- we hadn’t done anything. So, we left, and we walked up to Mr. Inge’s store.  His granddaughter was with us.  And we told him what happened.  He marched [00:56:00] us right back down there, spoke with the manager, spoke with the usher, and got us free tickets for a week.  So, he said, ”Oh, no.”  And so, that was another experience that you just keep going.  You don’t accept when you know something’s wrong.  You don’t accept it.  You just have to address it.  And we were so frightened because we said, “[Oh, what is it?].”  ”Nope.  Come on. We’re going back.”  He took us right back, marched us down West Main Street, down to the Paramount, and met with the manager and that usher, and got us free tickets.

LD:  [00:56:41] Wow.  (laughs)

PL:  [00:56:44] What do you remember about Vinegar Hill?

BWH: [00:56:47] Well, my great grandmother and two of her daughters lived in Vinegar Hill, and I do remember there were some beautiful old homes in that area.  There [00:57:00] were some very impoverished homes as well.  My great grandmother and her daughter lived in a two-story one, a very beautiful older home.  One of her daughters lived right next door to her in one of the really beautiful homes there. And I can remember going there, and you had to jump across a little creek in order to get to the area that my relatives lived.  But I would go with my mother because that was their grandmother -- I thought it was a real community.  I don’t have any negative memories of it.  It was a place that you could walk, and, for us, it was a little walk -- considered a little walk down there.  But it was a bustling community.  Every kind of business that you could imagine was there, and we would support those businesses, [00:58:00] and I just thought it was a very -- festive in terms of a lot of hustling and busting.  There just was a lot of activity going on in Vinegar Hill.  And, as I said, a really nice community of people.

LD:  [00:58:20] And who would you say your best friends were, and even standout elders in the community at the time?

BWH: [00:58:31] Okay.  I would say standout elders would be, I would say, my mother because she just was so supportive and with us through everything.  My uncle [Charles Johnson.  He had the local funeral home, used to be Johnson Brothers.  He married one of my mother’s sisters.  My uncle Adolphus Paige.  He was [00:59:00] Dr. Benegal Paige’s dad.  Because my parents were divorced, he would often do father-daughter things with us, my sister and I.  So, he was a really positive role model in my life.  My older cousins, Garwin DeBerry, Zelda Mitchell DeBerry, Adolphus Paige. There was the son.  And Benegal.  He would take us to things.  We would have to have older cousins take us to some things if we wanted to go, and he would be one of our chaperones a lot of time, Dr. Paige.  In terms of my friends, Jo Ann Inge Holme. Mr. Inge, who had Inge’s grocery store, was her grandfather.  And we would go up there, and they lived in that store.  They had a little apartment there, so we would go and visit, and we would love it because [01:00:00] we always could get treats and things (laughs) because they had the store beneath them.  [Alva Mason?].  She was one of my good friends.  Both of her parents were teachers in the area.  Clarice Jones.  She’s a Torian now.  Clarice Jones Torian.  Her father was football coach at Burley High School.  And then, I’ll say Diane Brown Townes.  She and I grew up right around the corner from each other.  I was on Page Street, and she was on 9th Street.  Our backyards almost hit each other, and we would play together a lot.  So, they were, I would say, some of my best friends growing up.

LD:  [01:00:50] I think that’s all I had.

PL:  [01:00:52] Do you go to Lane High School reunions?

BWH: [01:00:55] I went to the very first one, but I haven’t been [01:01:00] to any lately.  I don’t think they’re advertised that well, and I have talked to people who have been telling me about class ones that they have gone to, but our class has not had one recently.  But they did, I would say, probably about six, seven years ago, had an all-Lane one, and a lot of my friends did attend that, but I did not.  My mother had just passed --

PL:  [01:01:26] Oh, I’m sorry.

BWH: [01:01:27] -- and I just was not up for that.  But they said it was quite an attendance and a real mixture of Black and white students who attended that.

PL:  [01:01:37] Interesting.  Well, thank you very much.  Is there anything you’d like to add?  Is there anything I haven’t asked that you think is important to talk about those years of schooling through high school?

BWH: [01:01:53] Well, I would just say that -- this is for any and everybody -- that your [01:02:00] life experiences make you who you are. So, I look at my life, and I think about it, and I say, ”Woah, I went through that.  I went through --”  And it’s just like you don’t stop and think about it when you’re going through it, but, yes, you’ve really experienced a lot, good or bad, and, through all of that, you’ve accomplished a lot, and all of that helps define you as a person. So, I’ll just say that.

PL:  [01:02:28] You seem like a very philosophical person to me in some ways.  I just ask, kind of looking to today, do you think we’re in a better place?

BWH: [01:02:43] It doesn’t appear to be.  When I hear the news, I do get a little discouraged, but I just think that we just cannot allow ourselves to go back.  People, if it’s necessary, they’re going to have to take up the mantle, and start [01:03:00] pushing, and actually speaking out.  So, I’m just hoping that people will never allow ourselves -- we, as a people, as humanity, to allow ourselves to be pushed back into those days.  I’m just praying that that won’t happen.

PL:  [01:03:19] Well, I surely agree with you.  Thank you, again --

BWH: [01:03:22] Oh, you’re welcome.

PL:  [01:03:23] -- very much for taking the time to do this.

BWH: [01:03:24] Thank you for having me.

END OF AUDIO FILE