Jimmy Hollins

LORENZO DICKERSON:  [00:00:20] Whenever you’re ready.

JIMMY HOLLINS: [00:00:21] Now, Phyllis, you want me to look at you or look at the camera?

LORENZO DICKERSON:  [00:00:23] You can look at Phyllis, that’s fine.

JH:  [00:00:24] I can look at Phyllis, okay.

PHYLLIS LEFFLER:    [00:00:27] So, today is September 3rd.  I am Phyllis Leffler.  I am

[Extraneous material redacted.]

interviewing Jimmy Hollins for our Albemarle-Charlottesville Historical Society Race and Sports project.  And thank you so much for doing this today. 

JH:  [00:00:52] You’re welcome, Phyllis.  I don’t know what I can tell you. 

PL:  [00:00:55] There’s a lot you’re going to be able to tell us.  I feel very comfortable saying [00:01:00] that up front.  I know that you’ve played for Burley High School between 1961 and ’65 on the Burley Bears, is that correct? 

JH:  [00:01:12] That’s right. 

PL:  [00:01:14] And our project is really about the process of desegregating high school and college sports and how that affected communities.  But I think it’s really important to get the perspective of someone from the Burley community side of it, that was not actually part of the desegregation efforts.  And before we get into that I’d really like to start out for you to just tell us whatever you think is important to tell us a little bit about growing up in Charlottesville in the 1950s.  So, I know you were three [00:02:00] in 1950, so you don’t know much from then, but as the ’50s evolved into the ’60s, what was it like for you growing up in Charlottesville?

JH:  [00:02:11] Well, I grew up in Charlottesville.  I grew up over on West Street, which is, I guess from here, is about three blocks from here.  Actually, my daughter lives in the house I was raised in, raised up in.  And it was an integrated neighborhood.  We had whites and Black on that street.  Actually, the whole street, from the upper section close to 10th Street, you had [Bowles Market?], [00:03:00] you had another store which was owned by a white family on the corner.  Then, you came down to my section, which was the middle section.  You had Taylor’s Store, which was there for a long time.  And then on the other end was completely Black.  But my section, we had white families in that area right there.

PL:  [00:03:34] And were the white families actually living in that neighborhood, or just had...?

JH:  [00:03:38] No, they lived there.  The Crickenbergers, Mr. North, who used to have a store down on Preston Avenue, and then John Taylor and his family, he had the store there, but he lived in the house next to his store.  [00:04:00]

PL:  [00:04:01] And so, what was that like?  Was that comfortable? 

JH:  [00:04:07] Yeah, it was comfortable.  We used to patronize his store over there for some things.  We played with the Crickenbergers’ kids growing up for a while.  Then, once we got to high school, they got to high school, we ventured out, we went different ways. 

PL:  [00:04:38] You played in the neighborhood together, but you didn’t go to school tighter.

JH:  [00:04:42] No, we didn’t go to school.  They went to Venable, and I went to Jefferson Elementary School.

PL:  [00:04:48] Do you remember that being odd, at all, or was it just the way it was?

JH:  [00:04:52] That’s just the way it was.

PL:  [00:04:56] So, you played together in the neighborhood, and then [00:05:00] you had different educational spaces. 

JH:  [00:05:01] Yeah.

PL:  [00:05:02] I know you would have been too young to remember this, but do you remember any reaction in your neighborhood community by your parents, maybe things they said later on about the Brown decision?

JH:  [00:05:21] Not really.  Not really, no.  Just remember vaguely hearing the news.  They would talk about it on the news, but they never said anything about it.

PL:  [00:05:33] Never said anything about that.

JH:  [00:05:34] No. 

PL:  [00:05:36] And so, you’ve talked a little bit about what your community was like.  Tell me about going to school at Jefferson.  What was that like, as a school?

JH:  [00:05:47] Well, going to Jefferson Elementary School, all my friends went to school there at Jefferson.  And that was a wide area of people, [00:06:00] all over town that went to Jefferson Elementary School.  No matter where you lived, if you were Black, you went to Jefferson Elementary School.

PL:  [00:06:15] So, when you say wide area, you mean a wide diversity, socioeconomically?

JH:  [00:06:22] Yeah, yeah.  Whether you lived, let’s say, down by Trinity Church, we had some kids that lived down there by Trinity Church, which was the Woodfolks, those kids went to Jefferson.  If you lived over off of Sixth Street, they went to Jefferson.  Every area in Charlottesville, if you were Black, you went to Jefferson Elementary School.  That was the only school for Blacks to go to elementary school.

PL:  [00:06:57] What was the impact of having people [00:07:00] from all over the city come together?

JH:  [00:07:02] There was no impact.  You went to school.  Well, you had to go to school.  So, that’s where you went, was to Jefferson.  And you were all friends no matter what side of town you on, you went to school there at Jefferson.  You were friends. 

PL:  [00:07:24] Do you remember going to other African American students’ homes in other parts of the city?  Would you be taken there by family members?

JH:  [00:07:33] Not too often, no.

PL:  [00:07:35] Just, at the end of the school day, you came home and you played with kids in your own neighborhood? 

JH:  [00:07:39] Yeah.  Because we didn’t have a car until in the late ’50s.  That’s when we got a car.

PL:  [00:07:53] So, how’d you get around?  By bus?  Walking.

JH:  [00:07:56] Walking, yeah.

PL:  [00:07:58] Was there a bus service [00:08:00] then in this community?

JH:  [00:08:00] There was some type of bus service, yeah, but I never used it.  And I’m trying to think, my mother didn’t use it.  But later on, my father used to work for McGregor Motors, and they used to let him, occasionally, use cars.  If he asked them to use a car, he could use one. 

PL:  [00:08:29] So, the Brown decision was based on the claim that having separate schools meant having unequal schools.  Did you ever feel like your school was unequal in any way?

JH:  [00:08:48] No, I never did.  Because I always felt that our teachers gave us what we need.  They make sure we learned what we needed to learn.  [00:09:00] If you were weak in a subject, they worked with you till you got it.  And that’s the way I felt.

PL:  [00:09:13] I’ve heard this story many, many times from many different people in different places about the kind of commitment by teachers to kids in those classrooms. 

JH:  [00:09:27] I remember when I was -- Emma Tinsley -- she’s deceased now, and she was my fifth-grade teacher, doing math fractions.  For a while, I had problems doing them.  She told me it wasn’t no excuse.  She put me up by her desk.  She said, “You’re going to get this.”  She said, “You can add, subtract, and multiply.”  She says, “No excuse.  You’re just not thinking.”  And [00:10:00] I got them.  After going up by her desk two days I had them.  So, she made sure I was able to get them.

PL:  [00:10:07] That’s a great story.  So, when did you first get involved in sports?

JH:  [00:10:16] I used to play, they had a little different, like Jackie Robinson Little League.  I played Jackie Robinson Little League Baseball, like a lot of other kids around, they played Jackie Robinson Little League Baseball.  They had what they called recreation basketball.  I played that.  And you played it till you reach a certain age and then they didn’t have anything else.  And Jackie Robinson Baseball, you could play that until you were about 12 years old.  And then after that if you wanted to, [00:11:00] you could play Junior League Baseball.  But I didn’t play Junior League Baseball.  So, my brother, my oldest brother, he’s deceased, too, Percy, he told me when I came to high school I was going to have to play football.  I had a choice, I could play football or quit school.  Well, quitting school was not an option.  I wasn’t going to quit school.  I couldn’t quit school.  If I did, I’d be dead.  So, I went out for football.  I wasn’t very good, but he taught me a lot.

PL:  [00:11:45] I want to go back just for a second.  These leagues that you played on, these were segregated leagues?

JH:  [00:11:54] Jackie Robinson Little League Baseball?  Yes.  Yeah.

PL:  [00:11:58] And [00:12:00] so, you got involved in football only in high school.  So, why did your brother tell you that you have to play football?

JH:  [00:12:07] If you knew my brother (laughs) you would see why he said that.  No, you never met him.  But he’s deceased now.  But I used to play in the band when I was at Jefferson.  And I think it was when I was in the seventh grade, we were invited to play over at Burley for halftime, and I got to see a game.  So, that’s when I said I wanted to do that. 

PL:  [00:12:46] What did you play?  What instrument did you play?

JH:  [00:12:48] I played the clarinet. 

PL:  [00:12:51] Do you ever play anymore?

JH:  [00:12:53] No, I haven’t played since I left Burley.  [00:13:00]

PL:  [00:13:01] So, could anybody go out for the football team at Burley?  Or you had to try out and be accepted?  Could anyone play?

JH:  [00:13:09] This is what happened.  Now, in schools, they have -- Burley never had a JV football team until I want to say around 1962.  But schools now, they have ninth grade and they have JV football teams, but Burley, JV started in 1962.  But in ’61 when I went out for football, Coach Jones had a spring practice which was totally illegal in those days.  [00:14:00] And I went out.  And I wasn’t very good.  I didn’t know what I was doing.  And my brother was on the team.  My brother weighed, I guess, over 250 pounds, him and that line of McKinley, [Brack?], and [Bridge?], and there were some more guys.  And they took pity on me.  (laughs) But at the same time they taught me a lot of stuff.  And summer practice, it felt like it was in 90-degree heat.  And I made the team, but I never got to play.  But I tell you, Robert Banks, Marvin Townsend, George King, and myself, it was four of us.  We were [00:15:00] on the team.  And George, I believe, he played.  He got to play a lot.  But the rest of us, we did not.

PL:  [00:15:13] You were on the team, but you weren’t playing?

JH:  [00:15:17] No.  No, we were benchwarmers.  We were practice dummies.  But it was fun.  You got to see the games.  At practice, you learn from practicing.  And you took your lumps.  And that’s what happened.

PL:  [00:15:47] If I could just go back for a little bit, maybe?

JH:  [00:15:50] Sure.

PL:  [00:15:50] In 1959, after schools having been closed, they were then opened up again by court order.  [00:16:00] And there were some kids that went from Jefferson School to Lane High School right away.  I mean, very few.  But by 1961, my understanding -- you can correct me if I’m wrong -- is that there would have been more opportunity for kids who had graduated from Jefferson to go straight to Lane.  But you and your family did not make this decision.  Can you tell me about that?

JH:  [00:16:37] No, my mother said no, she didn’t want me to go.  No, she told me she didn’t want me to go and I didn’t want to go.  I wanted to go to Burley. 

PL:  [00:16:48] And can you tell me why your mother didn’t want you to go?

JH:  [00:16:51] She said she didn’t want to go to jail for killing somebody down there for messing with me.  And she meant that.  [00:17:00] She really did.  She meant that.

PL:  [00:17:02] So, she was concerned about what it would have been like for you to go to Lane.

JH:  [00:17:07] Yeah.  And most of the kids that went to Lane, today, those kids, some of them, when they have class reunions, a lot of those kids don’t go to those class reunions.  They said they were not treated very nicely when they were down there.  So, they don’t go. 

PL:  [00:17:35] Did you know kids from Jefferson who did go to Lane during those years?

JH:  [00:17:40] Oh, yeah. 

PL:  [00:17:42] You probably know all of them, right?

JH:  [00:17:44] Well, I know Garwin DeBerry went down there, but he came back to Burley.  His cousin, Adolphus Page, went down to Lane, but he stayed.  He graduated from Lane. 

PL:  [00:17:58] Do you know where he is?  [00:18:00]

JH:  [00:18:02] I think he lives on Page Street.

PL:  [00:18:03] Oh, he lives here in town. 

JH:  [00:18:07] And his cousin.  Now, I don’t know, she may be related to him.  What is her name?  She used to be a teacher over at Charlottesville High School.  Price.  Price.  Her last name is Price.  She used to teach, not Teresa [Price], Teresa’s stepdaughter, because she married to Teresa’s father.  I think her name is Karen, but we are good friends.  She went to Lane.  She stayed at Lane and graduated from Lane.

PL:  [00:18:56] Tell me about the spirit at Burley High School in the years you were there.  [00:19:00]

JH:  [00:19:02] Nothing like it.  It was great spirit.  It was like a family atmosphere.

PL:  [00:19:14] In sports, and in other ways as well?

JH:  [00:19:19] Yeah.  Sports, you couldn’t beat that.

PL:  [00:19:22] So, when you say family atmosphere, can you tell us a little more about that?

JH:  [00:19:26] Just like going to a family reunion.  The only thing you would see everybody all the time, but if you go to a family reunion, there’s people you haven’t seen in a while, but that, you would see them all the time but it’s just like being at a family reunion, every day.

PL:  [00:19:54] Do you have favorite teachers that you still remember from those years?

JH:  [00:19:59] I remember most of my teachers.  [00:20:00] Ms. Wright, Lois Porter, Mr. McDaniels, Coach Greene. 

PL:  [00:20:13] So, Coach Greene was the coach of the football team?

JH:  [00:20:17] Coach Greene was my Phys Ed teacher.  And he was Coach my first year there, and second year.  But in 1963, Coach Greene, he left in the summer of ’63.  He’s originally from Washington DC, and when we came back in September of ’63, Coach Greene did not come back.  He stayed [00:21:00] in DC.  Later years, we found out after we invited him back for the unveiling of the plaque with his name and thing on there, he told us that his former principal, Mr. Penn, had always told him that he would eventually get him back to Phelps High School to teach and coach there.  And that’s what he did.  But Mr. Penn was killed.  On his way back from National Guard Duty, he was killed.  Ku [00:22:00] Klux Klan guy killed him.

PL:  [00:22:02] Really?

JH:  [00:22:02] Yes.  And that’s a true story.

PL:  [00:22:10] And that would have been in the ’60s?

JH:  [00:22:12] Yes.

PL:  [00:22:18] Who was your coach?  Who was the coach at Burley?

JH:  [00:22:22] Well, Burley, they had two head football coaches.  Coach Smith was from ’51 to ’60.  Clarence Jones was from ’60 to ’67.  Now, Coach Smith coached everything.  But now, when Coach Greene came in ’57, Coach Greene [00:23:00] was the assistant football coach.  And when Coach Greene, he became the head basketball coach.

PL:  [00:23:09] Coach Greene did?

JH:  [00:23:11] Yeah.  And then, when Coach Smith left -- well, let me put it this way.  He took over the basketball team totally when Coach Smith left, and he became the athletic director in 1960.  Coach Smith was the head coach and athletic director for everything over there at Burley when he left Jefferson and came to Burley.

PL:  [00:23:46] So, do you feel like at Burley there was a special role that sports played in terms of building a sense of a community spirit, or did it just infuse [00:24:00] the whole school and it wasn’t really related to sports?  Did sports have a special function in the community itself? 

JH:  [00:24:07] Well, I think sports has a special part in all communities that you have sports teams, whether it be high school, or college sports plays a big part of it.  Especially if you have a program that is a winning program, it plays a tremendous part in that community, because everybody likes winning.  Now, if it’s a program that’s losing, nobody wants to be bothered.

PL:  [00:24:57] So, tell me about the community engagement in sports.  [00:25:00] Tell me about what games were like and who came out for them, and what that whole...

JH:  [00:25:08] Are you talking about at Burley?

PL:  [00:25:10] Yeah.

JH:  [00:25:11] At Burley, there never was an empty seat.  The stadium never was empty.  It was always full.  From the time Burley open and started playing football till they’d closed the doors on it, they only have two losing seasons in football.  Coach Smith was 1958 and Coach Jones was 1965.  Why that was, I don’t know but each one of them only had two losing seasons.  But there wasn’t anything like it.

PL:  [00:25:53] So, what was the night of the week when the games would be played?  Was it Friday night, Thursday night?

JH:  [00:25:58] Friday nights.  [00:26:00] Friday nights. 

PL:  [00:26:01] Every Friday night? 

JH:  [00:26:02] Every Friday night.  Now, William Redd told me -- now, this was before my time, but William Redd told me that because Burley was winning and Lane was not winning, everybody wanted to come over to Burley.  What they had to do, Burley and Lane played on a Friday night.  They would have where Burley would play on Thursdays, and Lane would play on Fridays just so people would go to Lane’s games because they weren’t winning and they wanted people to come to the stadium.  Now, that’s what William told me.  And William has told me a lot of things and everything he’s told me has always been true.  But that’s what he told me would happen.

PL:  [00:26:57] What years would that have been?  [00:27:00]

JH:  [00:27:00] Back in the ’50s. 

PL:  [00:27:01] In the ’50s.

JH:  [00:27:02] Back in the ’50s. 

PL:  [00:27:06] Now, that’s so interesting to me, because you’re describing a situation in which communities are, by and large, very segregated.  But white kids and white families will come to Burley to watch a football game.

JH:  [00:27:26] Yeah, they would stand on the outside of the fence and watch the game.

PL:  [00:27:28] They wouldn’t come inside?

JH:  [00:27:31] Sometimes they would come in.  But now, let me tell you, remember, University was losing, Lane was losing, Albemarle was losing, and sometime in the ’60s, they had a Rock Hill Academy here.  They were losing.  So, it was only one team that [00:28:00] was winning in football in Charlottesville, and that was Burley.  So, everybody wants to be a part of a winner. 

PL:  [00:28:10] So, you’re talking about the ’50s.  Is it also true in the ’60s?

JH:  [00:28:13] Yes.  Well, Lane didn’t start winning until sometime in the ’60s, whether it was ’62 or ’63. 

PL:  [00:28:21] Sixty-three, I think, is when they started their winning streak.

JH:  [00:28:25] Yeah, that’s the year that the Woodfolk twins went down, George King was there, Paul Scott was there, and some others.  Well, actually George King and the Woodfolk twins went to Lane in ’62, but they couldn’t play sports.  They had to wait a year to play.  And that’s the year that they won their first state championship, was that ’63 year. 

PL:  [00:29:00] Do you understand why they had to wait a year?  What that was about?

JH:  [00:29:04] No.  Some people said because the schools in Richmond would not play them if they had Black kids on the teams.  So, I don’t know the real reason.  I don’t know.  But that’s what they said.

PL:  [00:29:21] I’m wondering, also, if there was...

JH:  [00:29:22] What did Theodose tell you?

PL:  [00:29:25] He said it was a decision made above him, for sure.  And I don’t think he was too clear about whether that was a decision made at the superintendents’ level, at the state level, but that there was this at least a year of ineligibility for the Black kids who came over.  But who decided that, I’d like to know more [00:30:00] about that.  You, I think, you told me the other day when we spoke that there were different leagues, right? 

JH:  [00:30:10] Well, yeah.  Because there were 115 Black high schools in the state of Virginia.  They played in the VIA [Virginia Interscholastic Association], and the white schools played in the Virginia High School league, which were two separate leagues.  They started that merger in 1969, I think, and it was completed in 1967 [sic].  I’m sorry, it was completed in 1971, when they started to -- Burley probably was one of the earlier schools to close, and they closed in ’67.  [00:31:00] So, when that merger of the VIA and the Virginia High School league was completed was sometime around ’71 and the Black high schools started to close up.  Some of them in Richmond, like Maggie Walker, they merged with other schools, Armstrong, Kennedy.  It was Marshall Walker for a while.  And then, they eventually closed Maggie Walker up altogether.  Now, they reopened it as a governor’s school, [00:32:00] so who knows.  But out of all of those 115 Black high schools that were in the state of Virginia, there are only three remaining that are still working high schools today that are in the VHSL.  That’s Armstrong, Booker T. Washington in Norfolk, and IC Norcom. Those are all that’s left out of that VIA schools.

PL:  [00:32:28] How do you feel about that?

JH:  [00:32:31] Well, actually, it’s a shame and I think that they did it wrong.  It was done completely wrong, I think.  They closed all of the Black schools and forced those kids into the white schools.  I think they did it wrong.  They should have sent some kids to the Black schools, and some kids to the white schools.  But they did it completely wrong.

PL:  [00:32:59] And you feel like [00:33:00] they did it wrong on the state level? 

JH:  [00:33:04] Yeah.  And I think something happened to the kids, that these kids will never, ever recover from. 

PL:  [00:33:17] The kids whose schools were closed?

JH:  [00:33:23] Well, I think these kids may be getting a good education but there’s a lot that they missed out on.

PL:  [00:33:32] Tell me what you feel they’re missing out on.

JH:  [00:33:34] I think they are missing out on a lot of the history of what was in these Black high schools that they will never ever get back, never learn. 

PL:  [00:33:52] So, it’s learning about one’s roots, and heritage, right?

JH:  [00:33:56] Yeah.  That, too.  [00:34:00] They just won’t.

PL:  [00:34:07] So, if we could just go back to the Burley and Lane teams, do you remember a time when there was real competition between Burley and Lane?  Or did they just work in different spheres?

JH:  [00:34:19] We just worked differently.  I don’t know if we ever had the same spirit as Lane did.  I didn’t go to a Lane game until after Burley closed.  And let’s see, I think that was sometime around late 1967, or ’68, I think that’s when that was. 

PL:  [00:34:45] Right, Burley closed in ’67.

JH:  [00:34:48] Yeah, but I came back here in late ’67.  And honestly, I never thought Burley would close.  When I came back from South Carolina and [00:35:00] they told me Burley was closed, it was a big shock.  I never thought it would close.  But it did.

PL:  [00:35:09] What were you doing in...?

JH:  [00:35:10] I went to trade school in South Carolina.  But it was a shock.  I never thought it would close.

PL:  [00:35:20] Do you remember what the community reaction would like when Burley closed?

JH:  [00:35:23] No, because I wasn’t here.

PL:  [00:35:25] But you probably talked to people, (inaudible).

JH:  [00:35:29] When I got back, I came back, it was late June or July and Burley was already closed.  And there wasn’t much said about it being closed.  I just know that a lot of people, a lot of teachers like Coach Jones, my coach, he never did get another coaching job, a head coaching job.  [00:36:00] Coach Moore, he became head basketball coach out at Albemarle, but he was assistant football coach out there.  Coach Jones never did get a coaching job.  Some teachers never got another teaching job.  And that’s sad.  Real sad. 

PL:  [00:36:30] Did that cause some of those people to leave Charlottesville?

JH:  [00:36:35] Leave Charlottesville, some had to retire, yeah. 

PL:  [00:36:43] So, basically, people just were forced to accept the fact that Burley had closed and move on?  What you’re saying is the consequences were [pretty fast moving?].

JH:  [00:36:57] Yeah. 

PL:  [00:36:58] That’s very sad.  [00:37:00] That’s very sad.  And now, were you aware of issues that Black students who went to Lane faced during your years, ’61 to ’65?

JH:  [00:37:14] No.

PL:  [00:37:16] You weren’t aware of it. 

JH:  [00:37:18] I was in my own element over here. 

PL:  [00:37:23] We know, of course, maybe, it was really before ’61, but we know Garwin DeBerry left Lane to go back.

JH:  [00:37:35] Yeah, and I know why he left Lane and came back to Burley, and that was because he wanted to follow in Coach Smith’s footsteps and be a football coach, or a coach.  Well, by them not letting him play sports at Lane when he was down there, [00:38:00] so his mother wrote a letter to the superintendent asking them to transfer him back, and they did.  So, he came back in ’62.  That led us up in the Special Collections up at UVA.  And so, he came back and he played at Burley in ’62.  But when the [Woodfolk]twins and George King went down there, they couldn’t play.  They had to wait a year, then they played in ’63.  And they won the state championship.  Burley won the Western District championship in ’63.  And I really don’t think that was right, that they should sit out a year, but that’s just something that [00:39:00] happened, they did. 

PL:  [00:39:03] So, I’m here today with two other people.  I haven’t introduced them yet on camera, but one of them is Lorenzo Dickerson, who you know well, and the other is my colleague, George Gilliam. 

JH:  [00:39:18] Yeah, I’ve heard of him.

PL:  [00:39:21] He’s worked on Massive Resistance, a film on Massive Resistance for PBS years and years ago.  So, I’m just going to invite, if George or Lorenzo to add any particular questions they have to the mix right now.  Lorenzo, do you have questions?

LORENZO DICKERSON:  [00:39:40] I have a few.  I was curious if you can talk a little bit about the Burley name change after it closed, and the changing of the colors.

JH:  [00:39:53] Well, Lorenzo, that part [00:40:00] -- when they closed Burley...

PL:  [00:40:11] What year?  Can we put a year?

JH:  [00:40:12] Sixty-seven, 1967, they did a change for Jack Jouett annex over there.  And that’s when -- it took me a while, but I didn’t know until recently where the colors went, but it was 2000 and something, they had Dr. [Bernard] Hairston, it was a program over there, he had united the Burley high alumnus [00:41:00] with the middle school alumni and they had turned the name back to Burley Middle School.  And he had a blue sweater and a gold sweater.  And that’s when I figured that the colors were completely different.  But I never found out what happened to the colors until recently, which was totally wrong.  The school board gave Burley’s colors, kelly green and old gold, to Jack Jouett.  And that wasn’t supposed to happen.  What they should have did with those colors was, they should have retired those colors, and they could have put them in Special Collection(s) up at University.  And when they gave Burley [00:42:00] its name back to Burley Middle School, they could have unretired those colors. Excuse me, I got ahead of myself.  They could have wrote a brief history once they retired them on Burley and retired those colors.  When they went back to Jackson P. Burley Middle School, they could have unretired those colors and gave them back to Burley Middle School, or they could have went with different colors.  But to give them away like that, that’s totally wrong.  You don’t give no school colors away.  When they do away with military units, they don’t do away with those colors, they retire those colors, write a brief history, and put them in a school.  So, that was totally wrong.  And I’m trying to get those colors back.

PL:  [00:42:59] They’re kelly green and what?  [00:43:00]

JH:  [00:43:02] Kelly green and old gold.

PL:  [00:43:04] Old gold, I see. 

LD:  [00:43:09] So, what was it like being at the transition from Jefferson School in the city, to coming to Burley, and then being with county kids and kids from all over?

JH:  [00:43:20] Well, when you’re in the seventh grade, what they used to do over at Jefferson, in the spring of the year, they would always bring you over to Burley for a whole day, and let you go around through the school.  And you’d know pretty much about the school.  If you were in the band, you would be over here in the summer, anyway, with Mr. Samson trying out for the band.  [00:44:00] You didn’t just come and automatically be in the band, you had to try out for the band.  I don’t know of anybody that did the tryout and didn’t make it.  But you might have heard William Redd say he didn’t want to be in school with the county kids, coming from the city.  But those kids were just like anybody else.  You just meet different people and they’re your friends.  You make friends with them, and you just got city friends and county friends.  So, that’s the way I looked at it.

PL:  [00:44:48] What was it about the county that made some city kids not want to be there?

JH:  [00:44:55] To some people, they were different.  [00:45:00] They rode a bus.  City kids didn’t ride a bus.  You walked to school.  Don’t care where you lived in the city, you walked to school.  Now these kids in the city, they ride a bus.  When we were in school, we didn’t have a bus to ride.  If you didn’t have a car or your parents let you drive to school, you had to walk to school, rain, sleet, or hail, you walked to school.

PL:  [00:45:26] Did the city kids feel tougher, or superior?

JH:  [00:45:31] I can’t tell you whether they felt tougher or superior or not, but it’s just a fact that you walked to school, you’re different.  They felt different.  And some of them said some city kids thought they were better than county kids because of the way they dressed. 

PL:  [00:45:52] Were the county kids poor?

JH:  [00:45:55] I can’t say they were poor.  I can’t say that.

PL:  [00:45:59] The style.  [00:46:00]

LD:  [00:46:05] Did you walk to Jefferson?

JH:  [00:46:07] Everywhere.  Because I only lived maybe three blocks from Jefferson.  I’d walk Eighth Street through the jail yard and around Brown Street and on in.

LD:  [00:46:20] I was going to ask you which way you took.

JH:  [00:46:22] Yeah, Eighth Street, then I’d cut through the jail yard, and that’s the city yard.  We used to call it the jail yard, and on in. 

PL:  [00:46:35] Did you walk with other kids?

JH:  [00:46:38] Sometimes.  Sometimes. 

PL:  [00:46:40] And sometimes with your brother?

JH:  [00:46:42] No.  No, he was always older. 

LD:  [00:47:00] The mid ’60s, that’s ’63, ’64, a lot of things were happening.  Dr. King comes to UVA, and March on Washington and things like that.  What was the climate?  Do you remember what the climate was, mostly?

JH:  [00:47:17] I know Dr. King came here.  And he was up at the University of Virginia.  But I didn’t hang out or go up to the University of Virginia, Lorenzo, too often.  The only time I can remember going to the University of Virginia was to get my shots to go to school.  And that was when I was real young.  That’s the only time I can remember going up there.  A lot of kids used to go out and go to the football games.  I did not.  I worked.  I used to work at a place called The Blair House, [00:48:00] and I would go.  When they played a game, I would go out to The Blair House to make me some money. 

LD:  [00:48:08] Did you ever go to the Inge’s Store on Main Street?

JH:  [00:48:13] Inge’s Store?  Once in a while.  Once in a while, but they tore it down, which I think they shouldn’t have never tore it down.  There should have been a historical landmark right there on Commercial Street across from Jefferson School.  It used to be called Scott Dean’s.  They never should have tore that down.  They served hot dogs and hamburgers and stuff where Black people could go in and get them hot dogs and hamburgers right there.  Used to visit that place.  [00:49:00]

LD:  [00:49:01] I think that was about it. 

PL:  [00:49:03] George, you’ve got any questions here?

GEORGE GILLIAM:     [00:49:05] Yeah, I have a few clarifications, not quite a question.  The school bus situation was actually worse than you described.  There was a network of busses that served this area, but they were all privately owned.  They were owned by the guy who had (inaudible).  He would take kids to school, but it’d cost 25 cents each way.  And in the 1950s, 25 cents was a lot of money.  Fifty cents a day.  So when I was on the City Council that decided, “We’re going to get school busses,” and bought out the bus company, and (inaudible) [00:50:00] the city paying, and then got school busses.  That was one of those little changes that doesn’t affect everybody, but those that are affected (inaudible).

JH:  [00:50:14] Well, what year was that, George?

GG:  [00:50:17] It was around the year ’72, ’76.

JH:  [00:50:20] Oh, okay.  That was long after we went to school.  Yeah, because we had to walk everywhere.  I walked to school, Jefferson, then over here.  And of course, these kids now, they got it lucky.  They got it a lot better than what we had it.

GG:  [00:50:42] I recall there was a debate over should it be called Lane or CHS, the new building.  That was during (inaudible).  People who were Lane graduates (inaudible).  The question that [00:51:00] I had stems from your description of what happened during the time of desegregation.  They’re criticizing Biden now.  They’re saying, “Well, it’s good to get out of Afghanistan, but the way he ran the operation to close it down was terrible.”  I’m wondering if that’s really what you were saying.  Do you think, ultimately, desegregating schools was worth doing at some point, but wasn’t done very well?

JH:  [00:51:36] It wasn’t.  But let me tell you, George, I don’t care how they had left Afghanistan, there was going to be some complaints.  Because I went to Vietnam.  I was out before the war ended over there, [00:52:00] and the same thing happened in Vietnam that happened over in Afghanistan.  When the Americans left, those South Vietnamese soldiers, they threw those weapons down and ran, and the North just walked in and took all of that stuff.  And that’s exactly what happened to those Afghan soldiers.  They just threw those weapons down and ran.  And it was 20 years wasted.  Yeah.  So, he said, “The buck stops here.”  He couldn’t have done anything any better.

GG:  [00:52:46] I don’t know if anybody’s got a suggestion except to say maybe they could have begun slower, left more troops on the ground, but anyway.  (inaudible)

JH:  [00:52:56] Trump had pulled out a [00:53:00] whole lot of troops.  He pulled out a whole lot of troops.

GG:  [00:53:06] You can’t say it can’t be done.

JH:  [00:53:10] Right, yeah.

PL:  [00:53:10] But George’s question, really, goes back to, do you think desegregation ultimately was a good thing, or do you not?  I wasn’t really sure where you were going with that.

JH:  [00:53:21] I’m thinking what they did, and the way they did it, they closed up all of the Black high schools and elementary schools.  And I think they shouldn’t have closed them all up.  They should have closed up some and closed up some of the White schools, and put Black kids in the white schools, and White kids in the Black schools.  That’s the way it should have been done, like that.  I just don’t think they should have closed all of the Black schools up like that the way they did it.  [00:54:00] Of course, it’s afterthought, now. 

PL:  [00:54:09] I guess one question is, would White kids have gone to the Black schools, or would they have simply fled?

JH:  [00:54:18] Where would they have fled to?

PL:  [00:54:20] Private academies, like Rock Hill.

JH:  [00:54:23] Rock Hill was gone.  I can’t think of what year they closed up.

GG:  [00:54:32] It was ’77, wasn’t it? 

LD:  [00:54:34] It was illegal, Rock Hill.  They were using public funds for their private academy (inaudible) closed.

JH:  [00:54:42] Yeah.  And when they closed up the schools here, the governor closed up the [00:55:00] schools, you know other states was sitting and watching that to see how well that was going to work.  If it had worked, the other states were going to do the same thing.  We had teachers that came from Farmville to Burley to work because those Farmville schools had closed up for so long.

PL:  [00:55:19] Four and a half years, I think, right?

JH:  [00:55:23] Yeah.  And after Burley closed, let’s see, Ms. Venable went back, Ms. Rollins went back, and Ms. Frazier might have went back, but Mr. Griffin didn’t go back.  He retired here.  But they went back. 

PL:  [00:55:50] They went back to what?

JH:  [00:55:51] Farmville.

PL:  [00:55:52] Oh, to Farmville.

JH:  [00:55:53] Yes.  After Burley closed, they went back.  Ms. Venable became principal at the school [00:56:00] in Farmville. 

GG:  [00:56:04] After 20 years, the Farmville school system, public school system, were four percent white.  That’s it.  (inaudible) they tried to do [plumbing?] they said, “Well, 55 percent of the county’s budget goes to schools.”  So, they lowered the tax rate, and 55 percent was gone.  Then they said, “We don’t have any money to go to the schools.  Can’t do it.”  (inaudible) a very unusual situation.  So, I agree with you.  [00:57:00] I think there were a lot of things that could have been done a lot better.

JH:  [00:57:06] Yeah.

LD:  [00:57:06] The difference between desegregation versus actual integration.  When Dr. Patrice Grimes was at UVA, before she retired, she called it “valued segregated schools.”  And she talked about how, when schools were desegregated, students lost that sense of community, and those teachers knowing them well, and knowing their parents, and being able to call home and that sort of thing. 

JH:  [00:57:40] Yeah.

PL:  [00:57:43] Before we end today, other questions might come up, but I know you’re on record, and on camera, with Lorenzo talking about this work that you’ve done with Burley, but maybe you could just say a little bit about [00:58:00] why you invested yourself so heavily in this creation of the Burley Varsity Club and the memories associated with it.

JH:  [00:58:13] Well, Phyllis, one of my sidekicks, George Lindsey, we played side-by-side on the football team in ’64.  We were at ACAC and we got to talking.  And we talked about doing something, but we didn’t know what we wanted to do.  So, we just kept talking and talking.  And finally, we came up with creating this Burley Varsity Club.  [00:59:00] And we talked to Donald Byers, we talked to a couple of people, and a couple of them, they were so busy, they didn’t have time to do anything.  So, we talked to another guy, his name was Beverly McCullough, he passed away a couple of years ago on us.  And so, we met one February out at Golden Corral.  Do you remember Golden Corral? 

PL:  [00:59:30] Sure.

JH:  [00:59:31] We met out there, we had breakfast, and we talked.  And we formed the club.  We came up with the idea, the first thing we wanted to do was to have a cookout on the Fourth of July, to reunite -- yeah, that’s what he’s doing.  [01:00:00]

 

LD:  There’s a dumpster, I believe.

PL:  [01:00:02] Let’s give him a minute so you won’t be drowned out, because this is important. 

JH:  [01:00:09] Here comes the fire truck, now.  Oh, he stopped down there somewhere. 

(pause)

JH:  [01:00:28] You know, the funny thing, that guy out there telling cars to stop or come through?  People forget, they will run right on by him.  They won’t pay any attention.  And I’ve never seen people like that before in my life.  And the school bus will be there, stopped with their arm out, and they will blow or run on by him.

PL:  [01:00:52] That’s terrible.  Do you see accidents right on the corner?

JH:  [01:00:58] Close.  Close.  [01:01:00] They make U-turns and all of that. 

PL:  [01:01:09] How long have you lived here?

JH:  [01:01:12] I lived here about 20 some years. 

PL:  [01:01:17] After you retired?

JH:  [01:01:20] Yeah, after I retired.  But I lived, for a while, out in the county on the SPCA Road.

PL:  [01:01:31] I don't know where that is. 

JH:  [01:01:33] Off of Royal Road. 

(pause)

LD:  [01:01:54] You said you grew up on West Street?

JH:  [01:01:56] Yeah. 

LD:  [01:01:59] You being so [01:02:00] dedicated to Burley, did you want to move into Rose Hill neighborhood, or it just happened that way?

JH:  [01:02:09] It just happened that way. 

PL:  [01:02:13] Just a good property for sale?

JH:  [01:02:16] No, what happened, I was living on the SPCA Road and this house came up for sale and I was looking for investment property, and I bought this.  And I had it rented out for a while.  And then, I sold that place on the SPCA Road and I said, “You know what?  I’m going to stop renting this, and I’m going to come in and move over here.”  But I have to do some work.  I had put some money into this and redo this.  [01:03:00] So, I moved here.

PL:  [01:03:01] It’s certainly convenient.

JH:  [01:03:03] It is. 

PL:  [01:03:06] All right, can we finish the story or do you want to wait? 

(pause)

JH:  [01:03:17] I think he’s still putting that dumpster up on that. 

PL:  [01:03:27] All right, so we just want you to put on the record why you became so invested in this project.

JH:  [01:03:32] Well, I think I had said we started with a cookout on the Fourth of July to reunite all of the former athletes.  And we did that.  And then, we were looking for something else to do.  We didn’t want to just do that and then stop.  And then, Dr.{Bernard] Hairston had that program over there, [01:04:00] and we were looking around, and they had the trophies on a shelf over there, on the Lugo Hallway, and people putting their hands all over it.  So, I said, “We need to do a trophy case so we can get these trophies into a trophy case,” because those trophies are old.  They don’t make trophies like that anymore.  So, Sherman White, he’s deceased now, the late Sherman White, he told me what I needed to do was to get a 501c3.  And so, we sent off for the papers [01:05:00] to look at it, and we all shook our heads about doing that work.  So, he took us to see -- and George might know him -- you know Dayton Hall?  He took us down to see Dayton Hall and his father...

GG:  [01:05:19] He was very involved with the rescue squad.

JH:  [01:05:23] Yes, down at Timberlake’s Drugstore.  And I talked to Dayton about it, and Dayton said, “Yes.  You’ve got 100 dollars?”  I said, “Yeah.”  So, so we gave him 100 dollars, what you call that fee?

GG:  [01:05:42] A filing fee?

JH:  [01:05:42] No, no, no.  You always got to give a lawyer retainer.  So, I gave him that, and Dayton did the work for us and we got that.  So, then, [01:06:00] I guess it was 2008, Charlie said, “Well, you can always go ahead and start raising, and telling people it’s pending.”  So, that’s what we did.  And we raised money to have the trophy case built and all of that.  And that’s how we got started.  But the only thing we regret was the fact that Coach Jones died before we really got started because he would have been a great help to us with the people and the things that he knew.  He could have been a great help to us.  But I think we did okay for the things that we have done since we started.  I think 2007, 2008 are [01:07:00] the time we’ve been around.  I think we did okay. 

PL:  [01:07:05] I think I read someplace that you said that you really saw this as a way to give back to the community. 

JH:  [01:07:13] Yes.

PL:  [01:07:17] To the community you feel nurtured you and helped raise you up.  Is that...? 

JH:  [01:07:25] Yeah, they did. 

PL:  [01:07:31] Thank you.  This has been great.  We may come back to you before we’re done.  This is just the start.  Coach Theodose was this morning, you this afternoon, we’ve got a lot more people to talk to, but we sure wanted...

JH:  [01:07:50] Now, you’re going to have to talk to George King.

PL:  [01:07:53] Of course.  We know that. 

JH:  [01:07:55] Yeah.  Do you know [01:08:00] -- and you probably don’t know this, George King lettered in football at Burley.  He lettered in football at Lane.  He lettered in lacrosse and wrestling at UVA. 

GG:  [01:08:19] He covered a lot (inaudible)

JH:  [01:08:22] Well, hey.  You know, George is a phenomenal guy.  Phenomenal guy.

PL:  [01:08:27] Maybe we need to reach out to him as soon as possible. 

LD:  [01:08:36] You mentioned Marvin Townsend before.  He’s still around?

JH:  [01:08:38] Yes, Marvin lives across the mountain, though, Palmyra.

 

END OF AUDIO FILE