Desegregation
Desegregation
“This is not right. But no one prepared us for that.”
Garwin DeBerry
“I got a locker to myself. Why would I care?”
Phylissa Mitchell
“I had never been in a situation before where I was the only Black in the classroom.”
Corlis Turner Anderson
“I never told my mother. I felt like it was my burden at that age to carry.”
Corlis Turner Anderson
“The only reason you’re here is because the governor said we have to do this.”
Corlis Turner Anderson
“We had a really good squad that year.”
Corlis Turner Anderson
“Did integration help, or did it hurt? That’s something you really have to think about.”
Corlis Turner Anderson
“I can’t say anybody was really happy about it.”
Phylissa Mitchell
“The purpose of athletics is to teach young people the lesson of working hard to achieve a goal.”
Phylissa Mitchell
Julia Shields
“Now, do I have to show you everything in black and white?”
Julia Shields
Julia Shields
“I do think athletics helped.”
Julia Shields
“It was just a long process to get more representation.”
Julia Shields
“I went and marched with them the next day.”
Vincent Kinney
“Separate and equal wasn’t working.”
Vincent Kinney
“Adults put us through that, and none of us should have had to sacrifice.”
Vincent Kinney
“You could go to any school you wanted — just choose and shut up — go!”
Steve Helvin
Kent Merritt
“UVA had no Black football players. And then here I come and others.”
Kent Merritt
“It was bigger than a football field.”
Kent Merritt
Kent Merritt
“We just recognize that we’re a part of that history.”
Kent Merritt
“I don’t know what could have been done better, but it should’ve been done better.”
Kent Merritt
“We were the first family in Charlottesville to integrate a neighborhood back in ’65.”
Kent Merritt
“The conventional wisdom at the time was that the white school had better facilities.”
Kent Merritt
“A lot of it was based on fear and hatred.”
Kent Merritt
“They were in charge of everything at Burley before, and now they have nothing.”
Kent Merritt
Kent Merritt
“Things were pretty separate back then.”
Kent Merritt
David Sloan
“Student athletes socializing and hanging out together. I don’t recall that when I was at Lane.”
David Sloan
“I don’t mean no harm or disrespect, but the band at Lane just sucked.”
James Bryant
George Foussekis
“So they were gradually, you know, bringing transfers in from Burley, which I think was smart.”
George Foussekis
“You’re the best player, you play. That’s the way it should be.”
George Foussekis
“As I’ve gotten older, I realized what they were going through.”
George Foussekis
“Lane was a wonderful school, but it was falling down compared to Burley.”
Dickie Tayloe
Dickie Tayloe
“It just wasn’t no discussion. That was the school I was going to.”
Charles Alexander
“I was considered a threat to the Virginia school system.”
Charles Alexander
“If this thing is going to work, then we had to be not as good as, but we had to be better.”
Frankie Allen
“First day you go to lunch, and you sit there, and you’re sitting there by yourself.”
Frankie Allen
“Is he good enough to be on the team?”
Frankie Allen
“Eighth grade was awful because you couldn’t play sports.”
Frankie Allen
“And it was an integrated neighborhood.”
Jimmy Hollins
“It was done completely wrong, I think.”
Jimmy Hollins
“There was nothing going on here. There was no reason to come to Scottsville after dark.”
Tom Stargell
Tom Stargell
“High school was a tougher place back in those times.”
Tom Stargell
“Honestly, what was said was woefully, poorly done. I mean, there was no fight.”
Tom Stargell
Tom Stargell
Tom Stargell
Lloyd Snook
“There was a lot of ugliness going on. And that was just reality.”
Lloyd Snook
Lloyd Snook
“We were all there all the time. And it was a very positive bonding experience in that way.”
Lloyd Snook
“It was very traumatic for the poor kids that were there.”
Steve Runkle
“It was when movement was going on, going up the steps, and you had this going on, stuff like that.”
Steve Runkle
Steve Runkle
Steve Runkle
“He was not interested in tokens.”
Jim Blackburn
“I don’t recall any really interactions, either positive or negative.”
Jim Blackburn
Jim Blackburn
“Sports can be really on the vanguard of positive racial relations.”
Jim Blackburn
Rod Gentry
“If there were no sports, I think the integration that occurred would have been way more painful.”
Rod Gentry
“When there was a football game everybody was focused on cheering for the team.”
Rod Gentry
“It really disrupted and destroyed school life for a semester.”
Peyton Humphrey
“I think just from where I am now, it seems like these kids were just dropped into the stew.”
Clare Rannigan
“I think the legacy is that a community was destroyed.”
Clare Rannigan
“It was really hard to get any sense of community.”
Clare Rannigan
“I remember I just wanted to go to school.”
Robert King
“I was leaving all of my Black friends and I was leaving the teachers.”
Robert King
“We had a fairly large Black team.”
Robert King
“We had to move on and do things right. Integrate schools.”
Robert King
“There was no preparation that I remember.”
Robert King
“But what’s embarrassing, I didn’t put myself in their place.”
Andy Minton
“When they closed down Burley, I cried, I mean literally cried.”
Veronica Jones
“We all wanted to be their best friends.”
Byrd Leavell
“The whole is greater than the sum of the parts, clearly.”
Byrd Leavell
“And that was a very difficult time for integration.”
Byrd Leavell
“I think it worked itself out over a few years.”
Byrd Leavell
“The situation won’t change overnight.”
Byrd Leavell
“We tried to help out, but we weren’t feeling the brunt of it all.”
Byrd Leavell
“I didn’t know white people had the same birthdays as Black people.”
Darlene Quarles Robinson
“To see that I was just as human, I was just a person, just like they were.”
Darlene Quarles Robinson
Darlene Quarles Robinson
Tommy Theodose
“I was disappointed, because I wanted them to play for me, and the administration turned them down.”
Tommy Theodose
Tommy Theodose
“And far as the Black and White kids playing, they got along great.”
Tommy Theodose
“Didn’t know it then, but clearly it was racism that was a part of that.”
David Sloan
“The Blacks had the churches that they attended and the Whites had churches they attended.”
Donald Byers
“The change from Greenbrier to Jefferson widened the range of people that I had encountered.”
Chip German
“Now it’s together, and let’s try to do a little bit on the equal part.”
Chip German
“I don’t remember the football games as being especially hostile.”
Chip German
“It was the only integrated team in the state.”
Brock Strickler
“It was a good experience for me personally.”
Brock Strickler
“I am proud of what we had done.”
Brock Strickler
“The boys’ rooms were dens of iniquity.”
Wade Tremblay
Wade Tremblay
“Let’s put our arms around them. We’re all friends now.”
Wade Tremblay
“They became real good friends of mine.”
David Wyant
“That’s a tough transition for all.”
David Wyant
Larry Kent
Larry Kent
“They’d rather shut down than change.”
Mark and Nancy Tramontin
“Very few people showed up so we were snitching as much food as we possibly could.”
Mark and Nancy Tramontin
Mark and Nancy Tramontin
Bernadette Whitsett Hammond
“It was an example of having to get to know a person before you judge them.”
Bernadette Whitsett Hammond
Bernadette Whitsett Hammond
“There just were not many Black teachers there during my time.”
Bernadette Whitsett Hammond
“That was a eye-opener because there were White kids there that were roughly the same size as me.”
Nathaniel Garland
“When you got a part to be on that team, your blood runs red just like theirs do.”
Nathaniel Garland
Nathaniel Garland
“You’ve done something bad. That’s taboo.”
Nathaniel Garland
Roland and Ronald Woodfolk
“When we went to Lane, the nurturing part was not there.”