Clare Rannigan

GEORGE GILLIAM: Okay, this is George Gilliam, and we’re getting prepared to do an interview of Clare Rannigan.  Clare has signed a consent form, allowing us to use the material in this interview as basically as we see fit.  The date of the interview is June 14th, 2022. [Extraneous material redacted.] Clare, could you tell me your date of birth?

CLARE RANNIGAN: [00:00:37] July 23rd, 1950.

GG:  [00:00:39] And where were you born?

CR:  [00:00:40] Radford, Virginia.

GG:  [00:00:43] And how did you get to Charlottesville and Albemarle?  When did you --

CR:  [00:00:48] My dad changed his -- he decided to go back to college to get his master’s and then his doctorate.  So we moved back when I was seven.  That would’ve been 1957.  [00:01:00] We moved to Charlottesville.

GG:  [00:01:02] And what did your parents do once moved here?

CR:  [00:01:07] Well, my dad was in school.  He got his master’s and then his doctorate and my mother supported him.  (laughs) So she went to work and he went to school.

GG:  [00:01:21] And what profession is he in?  Was he in.

CR:  [00:01:25] He was in speech pathology and audiology.  He was actually the first graduate from the University of Virginia and was offered a faculty position once he got his doctorate.  So he was Chairman of the Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, and then it became language disorders.  And I’m not sure if they’ve changed the name now, but you get the gist.

GG:  [00:01:46] But he worked with people who had difficulty speaking.

CR:  [00:01:50] He did, he did.  And oversaw the audiology with people who were deaf or had hearing issues.  He oversaw that as well.

GG:  [00:01:59] So [00:02:00] where in the Charlottesville Albemarle metropolitan area did you all live?

CR:  [00:02:08] When we moved back, we lived at Copeley Hill and not the new Copeley Hill, it was the old Copeley Hill.  Those were officers’ barracks, I believe.  And then we moved to Mimosa Drive, which was faculty housing and so we lived in or right around.  And then I guess when I was 17, we moved out to the Earlysville area.  My parents built a house and we moved out.

GG:  [00:02:38] And your father continued on the faculty?

CR:  [00:02:41] He did until he retired.

GG:  [00:02:44] And did you have siblings?

CR:  [00:02:47] I did and do.  I have a brother who’s 15 months younger than I am and a sister who’s five and a half years younger than I.

GG:  [00:02:55] Now I want to ask you about the schools that you attended and --

CR:  [00:03:00] Okay.

GG:  [00:03:01] -- as closely as you can remember, what years you were there.  Where did you go for your primary grades?

CR:  [00:03:11] Well, I was in a different town.  For kindergarten, first, and second grade, we lived in Harrisonburg.  And then we moved here.  As soon as we moved here, all the schools closed because of the resistance to integration.  So I went the first half of third grade to a house that turned into Robert E. Lee.  After, you know, schools were integrated, there were a lot of people who didn’t want to be integrated, so they formed this school, but that was the foundation for that school.  So I went there for the first semester and then second semester I was in Venable Elementary [00:04:00] School.  I --

GG:  [00:04:02] And then that reopened in February.

CR:  [00:04:06] Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Exactly.  That’s when I started in a normal school, a real school.  And I went to Venable through seventh grade.  Then I went to Charlottesville High School, which was Lane at the time.  Lane High School.  I was there for one year and then I transferred because I was able to.  We lived in faculty housing and the university owned all the land that the faculty housing was on.  So I could go to either school and I switched to Albemarle.

GG:  [00:04:50] And so do you remember what year that would’ve been?

CR:  [00:04:54] Probably 1963.  Wait a minute.  [00:05:00] ’64?  No.  ’64 is when I would’ve gone to Albemarle.  ’63 would’ve been when I started eighth grade at Lane.

GG:  [00:05:11] So from 1964 until you graduated, you were at the county school?

CR:  [00:05:18] I was.  Albemarle High School.

GG:  [00:05:23] And what year did you graduate from Albemarle County High School?

CR:  [00:05:29] 1968.

GG:  [00:05:30] 1968.

CR:  [00:05:31] Mm-hmm.

GG:  [00:05:32] So you were there for the first year after Burley High School had closed.

CR:  [00:05:41] Right?  They closed in 1967.  Okay.  Yeah.  For a year.

GG:  [00:05:51] Did you have friends who had to make the choice before the schools were integrated -- [00:06:00] who had to make the choice between city or county schools?

CR:  [00:06:06] I didn’t.  I didn’t know anybody else who lived on university property or in university had housing.  So no, I really didn’t.

GG:  [00:06:22] Did you have a sense of neighborhood?

CR:  [00:06:25] Where I lived? 

GG:  [00:06:26] Yes. 

CR:  [00:06:27] Oh, yeah, because we were surrounded by university people and their kids and I was the oldest, so I got to babysit everybody.

GG:  [00:06:33] (laughs)

CR:  [00:06:34] Make money.  Great.

GG:  [00:06:38] Did you have friends who before 1967 had chosen to go to Burley rather than the city or county?

CR:  [00:06:54] I didn’t.  I did not.

GG:  [00:06:57] Did you have any friends who went to Rock [00:07:00] Hill Academy?

CR:  [00:07:03] There were people I was aware of, but not friends.  Not really friends. 

GG:  [00:07:10] Okay.  So --

ANNIE VALENTINE:    [00:07:11] You didn’t know anybody who switched from Scottsville High School to Albemarle High School your senior year?  Because Scottsville High School closed in ’67 also, and they also folded into Albemarle.  Do you remember anybody coming in from Scottsville?

CR:  [00:07:25] I don’t know that I -- maybe I knew someone.  I don’t think I knew, but I was certainly aware because there was a sizable influx.  So there were a lot of people I didn’t know, I hadn’t seen before who came in and I assumed they probably came from most of them from Scottsville.

GG:  [00:07:45] Before 1967 -- in other words, during your sophomore, junior years, were you aware of the [00:08:00] fact that Virginia had been resisting desegregation of the schools, but that was now being challenged?

CR:  [00:08:10] I was.  Yeah, I was aware.

GG:  [00:08:15] How did you become aware?  Was this discussed in the home, in school?

CR:  [00:08:21] Well, it was discussed in the news, so I was aware of that.  My mother was very staunch anti-racist, so we did -- there weren’t long discussions, but we did have some discussions.  My dad was not as stringent as she was.  I mean, I’m not saying he was a racist or an open racist, but my mom was very much the opposite of that.  And so yeah, I had conversations with my mom.

GG:  [00:09:00] So you were aware of the tensions.  Were tensions building up during that time when desegregation seemed to be dying a quiet death?

CR:  [00:09:12] No, actually, I wasn’t.  I mean, you know, I was so self-absorbed, I think.  I don’t think I realized, or maybe I was shielded from it.

GG:  [00:09:26] What activities did you participate in after school?

CR:  [00:09:33] I rode horses and that was pretty much it.  I was in a few clubs in school, but I had to go home and fix dinner for my family, so I didn’t get to drive in -- I didn’t have a car, but I didn’t get to do all the cool things that the kids did socially after school.

GG:  [00:09:58] I think the [00:10:00] yearbooks indicated that you were involved with the drama club --

CR:  [00:10:05]

GG:  [00:10:06] -- thespian group, French club, Spanish club.

CR:  [00:10:11] I just joined any club, ’cause it would look good on my resume.  (laughs) No, for real, for some of them like French and Spanish, but yeah, I was.  That’s probably about it.

GG:  [00:10:26] You were apparently listed as being on the Youth Council.  What would that have been --

CR:  [00:10:34] I have no idea.  (laughs) No idea what that would’ve been.  Sorry.

GG:  [00:10:40] Did any of those clubs that you were participating in, did any of them have Black members?

CR:  [00:10:48] I don’t remember one.

GG:  [00:10:50] Okay.  So up until your last year, you were not in school with many Black kids.

CR:  [00:11:00] Right, right.  Yeah, not many.  When I was in elementary school -- that’s going further back than what’s going on, but the classes were smaller.  So when school was integrated in February, I certainly knew more Black kids then, because the classes were smaller and you know, we interacted.  But once you get into the high school system, not everybody has the same schedule, you know?  So you’re dispersed.  I did have a few friends, but not a lot.

GG:  [00:11:41] So when did you become aware that massive resistance was going to end and that Burley would be closing and its students would be dispersed?

CR:  [00:11:54] I would probably, I don’t know.  I had to have been maybe a sophomore, [00:12:00] maybe the end of sophomore year.

GG:  [00:12:04] At that point, you think you knew that it was --

CR:  [00:12:07] Well, yeah.  I knew that the schools were going to be combined.

GG:  [00:12:11] And how did your friends react to that?

CR:  [00:12:18] I don’t remember my friends being reactive.  You know, it was just going to happen, there were just going to be kids.  I think there probably were more kids in the city from Burley than there were county kids.  And so I don’t think anybody that I knew personally that I was in a friendship with was opposed to it or felt, you know, anything other than maybe curious.

GG:  [00:12:52] So in the fall of 1967, which was after [00:13:00] Burley had closed and its students were divided between the city and county schools in some way, you were at Albemarle County High School at that point.  How were the Black kids accepted?  Starting in the fall of ’67?

CR:  [00:13:26] There were so few compared to the school.  There were like two thousand people, and there were just so few, I don’t remember any -- I wasn’t present when there was any sort of overt racism expressed, verbally or physically.  There probably was, but I just -- I didn’t hear it.

GG:  [00:13:54] Did the school system, either in the spring before or the [00:14:00] summer before, do anything to prepare students for this change?

CR:  [00:14:06] I don’t remember a thing.  All I remember was there were kids who were coming and that was it.  There was no sort of preparation or nothing like that, no.  No assemblies or no homeroom class teachers say anything.

GG:  [00:14:34] Did you have any interactions or know Eugene Williams?

CR:  [00:14:41] I don’t think so.  I don’t think so.

GG:  [00:14:44] How about Henry Mitchell?

CR:  [00:14:48] Henry Mitchell.  No.

GG:  [00:14:50] Okay.  Were you aware of [00:15:00] mounting tensions during the year?  Once people sort of said, “Okay, we’ve now got a bunch of whites and we’ve got some Blacks.”  Were you aware of any tension between the groups?

CR:  [00:15:16] I wasn’t.  There had to have been, but I wasn’t aware.  I wasn’t aware.

GG:  [00:15:23] Did friends of yours, some take that opportunity to decide to go to Rock Hill?

CR:  [00:15:33] I don’t know of anybody who went to Rock Hill who didn’t go to Rock Hill during the very beginning of integration, when I was in elementary school.  Then kids went, but I was new in town, so I didn’t know them, and I’d only was in class with them for, you know, a few months.

GG:  [00:16:00] Some of the people we’ve talked to had a heightened sensitivity perhaps, but, you know, remembered things quite a bit differently than you did.  Did you feel like you were sheltered?  Did you purposely stay away from conversations or activities that would cause you to --

CR:  [00:16:27] No, I don’t think I was sheltered, certainly not by friends or by my parents.  No, I think I just wasn’t aware.

GG:  [00:16:40] You were one of the lucky ones.

CR:  [00:16:42] I guess I was.  That would’ve been compounded, you know, the horrible thing that is high school.  (laughter) You know?  I mean, it would’ve just made it all the worse, so I guess I’m grateful.  I hope I wasn’t insensitive to it.  I just don’t remember.

GG:  [00:17:00] And where did you go to college after?

CR:  [00:17:06] Well, when I was a junior and senior, I was taking classes at the University of Virginia.  But when I went off to college, I went to Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.

GG:  [00:17:18] So that may account in part for your not being as aware of some others of rising tensions, ’cause you were over at UVA.

CR:  [00:17:28] Mm-hmm.  Yeah, I was.  I was where women hadn’t been admitted, so it was like being almost another race, ’cause I was often the only female.  And I could go because my dad was on faculty and they have a deal where they have to educate the sons and daughters of faculty.  If they can, you know, if they meet the standards.

GG:  [00:17:58] So even though there were very few [00:18:00] women at UVA at that point, you were among the lucky ones there also.

CR:  [00:18:07] Well, I was, but I was that much younger because if you were a woman at UVA, you had to be in your third year.  First two years, women couldn’t go.

GG:  [00:18:18] I wonder why that was.

CR:  [00:18:21]  I don’t know.  I really don’t.  Or you could be in the nursing school.   If you were in -- that was different.  Nursing school or you could transfer in as a third year.  I have no idea.

GG:  [00:18:40] Had Albemarle High School made any efforts, during that first year, to provide any sort of leadership?

CR:  [00:18:53] I don’t think they did.  I think just from where I am now, it seems like these kids were just [00:19:00] dropped into the stew.  You know, into the pot.  ’Cause I don’t remember hearing anything about support groups or -- I don’t know.  I just don’t remember hearing about it organized.

GG:  [00:19:18] Well, that’s certainly understandable in the light of the fact that you were at the university for --

CR:  [00:19:22] Yeah.  So maybe it was happening while I was going off, you know, hoping the boys would ask me out.  (laughter) Which they didn’t, but -- (laughter)

GG:  [00:19:32] What did you do that was geared to attract boys to ask you out?

CR:  [00:19:39] Whatever it was I was doing, it wasn’t working.  (laughter) I did not have a successful dating career in high school.

GG:  [00:19:53] Since you didn’t see great faults, so [00:20:00] I can’t ask you, what did you think might have been done differently that would’ve minimized tensions, pressures.  Were you aware of anybody who thought there should be things done to ease the transition?

CR:  [00:20:22] I don’t know.  I mean, I can think now obviously.  Hindsight.  But at the time, I have no memory of anybody saying we should do something differently.  We should, you know, welcome these people.

GG:  [00:20:36] What do you see looking back as the legacy of the whole massive resistance mess?

CR:  [00:20:55] I don’t know that it brought the individual [00:21:00], the races -- I mean, in theory, it sounds like a good idea, you know.  The separate but equal thing is just not right, I don’t think.  But I think maybe the idea didn’t pan out the way the people who authored it planned for it to pan out.  Perhaps in retrospect at the time I wasn’t aware enough to know, but it just seems like a horrible thing to have done.  I think the legacy is that a community was destroyed and not assimilated in a way that the new people coming in from Burley would make them want to be a part of the culture.

GG:  [00:21:58] Again, [00:22:00] looking back, what would you have done differently?

CR:  [00:22:06] Well, I brought my yearbook and there were so few Black faces in there.  The me now going back, I think I would’ve not been so shy and introverted and I would’ve maybe tried to establish some kind of friendly relationship.  I did have some Black friends in high school, but I think I might have made it more of an effort.  How horrible to be dropped in, you know, all of a sudden.  That picture of Ruby Bridges with the policemen holding -- that just breaks my heart.  And even though these kids were older, still there’s that child, you know, stepping down into who knows what kind of hostile territory might be there.  [00:23:00] So I think I would like to have been more welcoming and I guess that’s it.

GG:  [00:23:12] Were you an active church goer?

CR:  [00:23:16] I was forced to be, yes.

GG:  [00:23:19] (laughs) And what were you forced to do, religion-wise?

CR:  [00:23:24] My parents were Methodist, and so I went to the Methodist church.  We had to go to Sunday school and church, and my mom was real excited about religion.  So I guess I was maybe in eighth grade or ninth grade, I switched over, and they allowed me to do it, which was to the Episcopal church and that’s where I finished up my career in religion.

GG:  [00:23:56] Well, that’s what Henry Mitchell was.  He was [00:24:00] an Episcopal minister.  But he took a very active role.  I mean, he was Black and he --

CR:  [00:24:08] In this community he did?

GG:  [00:24:10] Mm-hmm.  And he took, I would say, quite aggressive steps and I think he did a lot of good.

CR:  [00:24:20] Right.  I wonder which church he was at.  The one on…

GG:  [00:24:27] Down on the bottom of the hill.

CR:  [00:24:29] On the bottom of the hill, yes.  It’s like an African-American Episcopal -- AMEC or whatever it is.  Yeah, yeah.  No, I went to the one at the university.  I went to St. Paul’s.

GG:  [00:24:46] Annie, do you have questions?

AV:  [00:24:48] You said that your mom was an active anti-racist.

CR:  [00:24:52] Well, she wasn’t political about it, but just yes, she was.  Within herself.

AV:  [00:24:58] I was sort of going to [00:25:00] ask you if you know if she was involved with, I think that Charlottesville Council of Human Relations was really active during that period.

CR:  [00:25:07] She was not involved with that.

AV:  [00:25:10] How did she show her beliefs actively in any sort of ways?  Do you remember her doing anything in the neighborhood or doing anything with friends or --?

CR:  [00:25:20] No, I don’t think she had time.  I think she was working and putting my dad through school and paying off grad school and all of this stuff.  But you know, I was aware of it because of conversations that we had about her family.  And so yeah, it was just talking with her.  This is horrible, really horrible, but we were -- I don’t know, I can’t remember how old I was -- but we were not allowed to say the N-word [00:26:00] at all.  So of course at some point I wanted to say it and I said it in front of someone who was a friend, a Black friend.  And that was the end of our friendship.  I was so horrified.  I went home and told my mother what I’d done, and she burst into tears.  She was so disappointed in me.  And I mean, I wasn’t supposed to, I just didn’t know why I wanted to see what it felt like to say that, but boy, did it make an impression on me.  And around that we had a lot of discussions.

AV:  [00:26:41] Do you remember some of the names of some of your Black friends, especially at Albemarle High School?  Did you know someone named Pat Fleshman or Patricia Fleshman?

CR:  [00:26:50] Oh, yeah.  I think we had classes together.  There was a guy named Ronnie Douglas and Ronnie was really [00:27:00] fun.  He was just so out there.  He was wonderful.  I had a crush on a guy named Sterling Howard, was it?  But he wasn’t into white girls.  (laughter) Or this white girl.

GG:  [00:27:15] (laughs)

AV:  [00:27:16] There was a Sterling Durrett who was the first Black player to integrate the varsity football team.  Could it have been --

CR:  [00:27:22] Sterling Durrett -- I don’t think his name was Durrett.  I think it was Howard.  I’m not sure, but no, I don’t think I knew him.

AV:  [00:27:32] If you have any contact information or suggestions for us about how to get in touch with people, we would love your help.

CR:  [00:27:38] Oh, okay.  I’ll look back through the yearbooks again and refresh my memory and see if I can come up with somebody.

AV:  [00:27:46] Thank you.

CR:  [00:27:46] You’re welcome.

GG:  [00:27:49] Lorenzo.

LORENZO DICKERSON:  [00:27:51] I think I just had one question.  Actually, I was just curious as to what drove you to the decision to switch high schools?

CR:  [00:27:59] I hated [00:28:00] Lane High School so much because socially, I just didn’t fit in.  I just wasn’t -- I don’t know.  And I was very unhappy there and my parents were aware of it.  And then we figured out I didn’t have to go there because we lived in faculty housing, which was on university property, and all university property, at least at that time, was considered county, no matter where it was situated within the city limits or outside.  So I had the option to go to Albemarle and took it.

LD:  [00:28:41] I think today UVA is still considered --

CR:  [00:28:44] County.

LD:  [00:28:45] Yeah.  I think from what I’ve heard, UVA lobbied to make that happen.  For some beneficial reason, (inaudible) considered county instead of city, but I’m not sure.

CR:  [00:28:58] Well, it would give them [00:29:00] room to expand.  Because if you’re expanding out into the county, you’re still in the county, you don’t have that district hanger or different tax bases or something like that, I would think.

GG:  [00:29:11] Well, the big argument was who’s gonna pay the tax on all the university buildings.

CR:  [00:29:17] Right.  And the city didn’t want to, wisely.

GG:  [00:29:22] Yeah, they didn’t want to lose that source of revenue.  So they signed a master contract that details who gets which pot of tax money.

AV:  [00:29:34] If you’re willing, can you tell us a little bit more about what the culture was like at Lane that year that you were there, and compare that to how it was or what you remember going to Albemarle?  Just so we have an idea of what it was like socially.

CR:  [00:29:48] Well, for some socially, I think it was fine.  If you had an older sibling who was already there, you were in.  And if you didn’t, [00:30:00] then it was kind of tough.  I just never felt like I belonged.  I didn’t feel like there was any group that welcomed me.  I had one girlfriend there, one friend I made and that was it.  And we made that we both rode horses.  So that was what the basis of the friendship was.  I think that the football team was so big, figured so heavily because they had the nation’s winning streak.  And these were just sort of like these high school demigods.  And you know, I was an awkward looking eighth grader and there was just nothing, there was just no sort of niche for me to fit into or at least that I thought, so [00:31:00] I just felt really lonely there, and kind of an outcast.  I tried to fit in by, you know, trying to be a cheerleader and I failed, really failed at that publicly in front of a lot of people during tryouts when I forgot my cheer.  Yeah, I felt like I was a round hole or in a bunch of square pegs or something.  It just didn’t fit.  So I didn’t know that Albemarle would be a fit and it probably wasn’t a huge fit, but I had a large acquaintance and friendship base there.  There were more kids that I knew whose parents were connected to the university.  And there’s something about that.  You know, if you were a faculty kid, I guess, like being a military kid.  [00:32:00] There was just some kind of nebulous sameness or, you know, familiarity there.  So there were more kids, there were kids at Albemarle that I knew from having had to go to Sunday school and church.  And then from just some other activities outside of school that I did.  So I preferred Albemarle.  I would’ve preferred not to go to school (laughs) at all --

GG:  [00:32:28] (laughs)

CR:  [00:32:29] -- but that wasn’t an option, so.

AV:  [00:32:33] Thank you.

CR:  [00:32:34] You’re welcome.

GG:  [00:32:27] Anything?

LD:  [00:32:38] Don’t think I have anything else left.

GG:  [00:32:41] What did we miss?

CR:  [00:32:44] I can’t think of anything that you’ve missed.  I wish I had better answers for some of these things.

GG:  [00:32:50] The answers were honest answers.

CR:  [00:32:51] Well, no, but yeah, I wish I’d been aware of some tension and I’d done something heroic.  (laughter)

GG:  [00:33:00] Well, thank you very much.

CR:  [00:33:01] Oh, you are so very welcome.  Thanks for including me. 

GG:  [00:33:04] Thank you. 

CR:  [00:33:05] I can’t wait to see this.  I mean the whole thing, the project.

[Extraneous material redacted.]

CR:  [00:37:49] Did you come up in your talks with kids who went to Lane, a woman named Sandra Wicks?

[Extraneous material redacted.]

CR:  [00:38:18] How about Allegra McCullough?  Did you ever know –

[Extraneous material redacted.]

But Sandra Wicks and Allegro McCullough are two of the women I remember.

AV:  [00:38:54] Thank you.

GG:  [00:38:57] Annie found a letter, [00:39:00] a series of letters between Garwin DeBerry, parents, mother and the school administrative people, saying he wanted to transfer into Lane.  So they let him do that.  Two years later, he’s

[Extraneous material redacted.]

GG:  [00:40:04]  So DeBerry transfers to Lane, but two years later, there’s correspondence back and forth.  They won’t let him play football.  They wouldn’t let him play his trumpet.

CR:  [00:40:20] God.

GG:  [00:40:21] He wanted to do music as well as play football and study, and his ambition was high and they just wouldn’t let him do any of this stuff.  So found a letter from the mother saying he wants to go back to Burley.

CR:  [00:40:44] And he did.

GG:  [00:40:45] He did.

CR:  [00:40:47] Did he go back for his last year or for two years? Or --

AV:  [00:40:50] I think three.

CR:  [00:40:51] Oh, good. 

GG:  [00:40:52] That’s right.

CR:  [00:40:53] Good for him.

AV:  [00:40:54] It was like you said, when you went to Lane for eighth grade.  I think he went to Lane for eighth grade and ninth grade.

CR:  [00:40:59] Right, right.  [00:41:00] And he’s ahead of me.

AV:  [00:41:02] Yes.

CR:  [00:41:03] I went to Lane when half of the day was at McGuffey and the other half was at Lane.  So it was hard unless you had contacts via, you know, like older siblings.  It was really hard to get any sense of community ’cause you were pulled out of the big school and in the smaller thing.   It was not -- well, I guess they did the best with what they had.  But it didn’t seem very well thought out.

GG:  [00:41:34] Well, you know the picture of this kid who was, what, 10, 11, 12 years old being just totally frustrated in what he wanted to do.

CR:  [00:41:47] And to be shut down for no good reason.  Did they ever give his mother a reason why he couldn’t play football or the trumpet or --?

GG:  [00:41:59] Do you remember offhand?  [00:42:00] Whether they gave a reason?

AV:  [00:42:04] I don’t think so.  I think they just said we’re not allowing Black students to play.

CR:  [00:42:10] Oh, so they did at least come out and admit that.  I mean, it was obvious, but --

GG:  [00:42:15] They sort of blamed it on -- they said, “We have found that other schools will not give us a game if we have a Black player.”

CR:  [00:42:27] That’s…

GG:  [00:42:28] And they would go to play an away game.  They’d get on the bus, come back.  They would stop for McDonald burgers or something.  And the Black players were not allowed to go in.

CR:  [00:42:44] Now I do remember that.  Well, I remember -- have you interviewed Kent Merrit?

GG:  [00:42:50] Oh, yeah.

CR:  [00:42:50] Kent was great.

GG:  [00:42:53] Kent is great.

CR:  [00:42:55] He was in my brother’s class.  He was, I think, a year behind me maybe?

GG:  [00:42:59] He was class [00:43:00] president.

CR:  [00:43:01] He played football.  Either he played football with my husband at the university or Bob coached him.  Bob was on the coaching staff the year after he left. 

GG:  [00:43:13] Oh, was he?

CR:  [00:43:14] So he may have coached Kent if he didn’t play with him.  He said he was so fast.  Really fast.

GG:  [00:43:22] I heard the story, which he has not confirmed to me, that one time he had outrun the defense of the other team so badly that he turned and ran backwards and they still couldn’t catch him.

CR:  [00:43:40] That’s probably true.

GG:  [00:43:41] It probably is.

CR:  [00:43:42] I mean, I was at Venable with him and even then nobody could catch him.  You know, you were halfway through, you were at the 50-yard line and he’d already crossed the 100.  (laughter) And he was a great guy too.  I just remember he was more my brother’s friend.

AV:  [00:44:08] Something that we’ve been thinking about doing that -- we need to wait until COVID’s in a good place, but -- is just having all of our interviewees in one room and doing something special.  That could be --

CR:  [00:44:18] Oh, that would be fun.

AV:  [00:44:19] So that we could meet --

CR:  [00:44:20] That would be really fun.

GG:  [00:44:23] I am sure that we will do something like that when we finish.

CR:  [00:44:27] It would be interesting.  Interesting to see.  Well, I’ll ask my brother too, if he knows of anybody else that he could recommend.  Because he was at the, you know, at the same time and he had different friends.

 

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