Veronica Jones

PHYLLIS LEFFLER:    [00:00:00] Today is Thursday, November 18th, 2021.  We are at the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society with Miss Veronica Jones.  I am Phyllis Leffler, conducting the interview today.  With me is Lorenzo Dickerson, who is operating the camera, he may also be asking some questions.  So thank you so much for agreeing to do this with us.  We really appreciate it. 

VERONICA JONES:     [00:00:26] Thank you for asking me. 

PL:  [00:00:28] And I’m just going to start off with some very basic questions, like the most basic one, can you tell us your date of birth? 

VJ:  [00:00:38] Okay.  Well, my name is Veronica Jones, and I’m known as Ronnie.  And so people call me Victoria, some people call me Coach, some people call me Miss Jones, some people call me Soror, some people call me Captain.  I answer to about everything.  My birthday was October 15th, 1954.  [00:01:00] Which I just had a birthday, and I’m 67 years old. 

PL:  [00:01:05] Congratulations.

VJ:  [00:01:06] And proud of it.  (laughs)

PL:  [00:01:07] Congratulations, absolutely.  And tell us a little bit about where you grew up.  I’m really interested in knowing what neighborhood you grew up in, what your neighborhood was like. 

VJ:  [00:01:18] Okay.

PL:  [00:01:18] You know, some of the people you remember as being really important in those growing up years.

VJ:  [00:01:23] I grew up on Page Street, and then Ten and a Half Street, and then Elsom Street, and then Anderson Street.  The neighborhood on Ten and a Half Street and Page, to me it was like one big happy family.  We felt comfortable with one another, we could go into each other’s house without knocking.  My house was the neighborhood house here kids would hang out at.  My mother and my aunt, they did hair, [00:02:00] so we always had people at our house.  I grew up with a brother, two uncles, our granddaddy, grandmother, and we also had one of my brother’s friends that stayed with us.  Now, we grew up in, the first place we grew up in, it was three rooms.  It was a bedroom upstairs, which was the boys’ bedroom, with a kitchen, we had the living room, and the living room was a bedroom/living room.  And our bathroom was outside, and we had one of the types of bathrooms where you had to stand up, because I was short, I had to stand up on something and bring the seat down, and the chain to flush it.  I was scared to death of it, because I thought I was going to fall down in it.  We didn’t have a tub, so we used a big tub thing.  And because I was the only girl in the family, I got to get the fresh water.  [00:03:00] We played all kinds of sports together, basketball, they went to Washington Park.  But the rest of the games, kickball, volleyball, softball, dodgeball, hide and seek, we did it in the neighborhood, we did it at the end of Page Street, which is a dead end.  We did most of the sports activity in front of my house, because as I said my house was the kids’ house, and we -- if you wasn’t playing, you was sitting on my porch.  My grandmother had two gardens, flower gardens.  And if any of those balls went into that flower garden, I couldn’t even go in there and get it out.  And we had to wait until she get it, and she would wait two or three days before she’d go in there and get it for us.  But many times, she always had a hot pot of water on the stove, so if any one of us went into the flower bed, she would throw the water on us!  But she was fun. 

 

[00:04:00] My grandma had two gardens in the neighborhood, and I was the one that would go to help her in the gardens.  I said Grandma, why do you have two gardens?  She said, “I have one for the neighborhood, and I have one for the family.”  I said, why, “Because if I don’t have one, then the neighbors going to come to our garden.”  I said okay, that makes sense.  So we would pull corn and, you know, beans, and potatoes, and put it in the basket, and put it on the corner, and neighbors would come and get it. 

PL:  [00:04:36] That’s wonderful.

VJ:  [00:04:37] I was raised with chickens.  Because I was the only girl in the family, and that was in the house, didn’t nobody mess with me, because I had a brother, and I had uncles.  And I really could hold my own anyway, but that was the case then.  My grandmother, [00:05:00] her job was she used to iron clothes for white families.  My mother was a nanny for two little white boys, and their parents was doctors at UVA.  Dr. Fiveashes, both of them was a doctor.  And they would, whenever school started, they would give our mother extra money so she could buy clothes and shoes for me to go to school.  If we didn’t have that much food in the house, Dr. Fiveashes would give mom money for that also.  But it wasn’t all that much, because we had the garden, you know, we might have string beans, and fried potatoes, and black eyed peas, but we might have no meat on the thing, but it was okay. 

PL:  [00:05:50] Could you, just can I interrupt for one minute?  What is this doctor’s name that you’re --

VJ:  [00:05:55] Fiveashes. 

PL:  [00:05:56] Do you know how to spell it? 

VJ:  [00:05:57] F-I-V-E-A-S-H-E-S.  [00:06:00] They in Virginia Beach now, and that’s all I know, they in Virginia Beach. 

PL:  [00:06:06] Okay, thank you.  And --

VJ:  [00:06:08] My first job, I was a teenager, I was a nanny also, to two little white boys.  The mother would pick me up on Sunday and bring me back on Friday.  And they lived on a farm.  And I was responsible for feeding them, and washing their clothes, and --

PL:  [00:06:30] This was during the summer? 

VJ:  [00:06:31] Yeah, during the summer, during the summer.  And the best milk, straight from the cow, cold, we had a good time with that.  They had a swimming pool, and I would take them to the swimming pool.  And the father was there, but he didn’t bother us, you know?  Also again, that’s another family, they helped take care of me.  I was a little, I considered myself a little poor girl, but still rich.  [00:07:00] You know, there wasn’t nothing that I wanted and I didn’t get.  Either I’d get it from my grandmother, my mother, or my uncles, or you know, family, or friends in the neighborhood.

PL:  [00:07:14] Can I just ask you, if we go back a little bit, where did you go to elementary school?

VJ:  [00:07:19] I went to elementary school in Jefferson Elementary School.  I went to kindergarten, which was located behind [End?] Market, right across from Jefferson School.  First through third.  And then I went, fourth grade I went to McGuffey Elementary School, and that’s when schools were integrated, when I went to the fourth grade.  And in the fifth grade, I went to Venable, and sixth, seventh, and -- in sixth grade, I went back to Jefferson, because they had two sections, because there was too many sixth graders.  And I was in the morning section, thank the Lord.  And then I went to high school, [00:08:00] I mean middle school I went to Walker.  How they split that up, they had Walker and Buford.  On Ten and a Half Street, the left side went to Buford, and the right side went to Walker.  And there was only like three or four of us that was on that side that went to Walker.  So needless to say, when I went to Walker, in the classes there was only one or two Blacks in the class, which didn’t bother me.  If anybody said anything negative, or thought any negative about me, they wouldn’t tell me nor show me, so I didn’t have that problem.  Then for the high school, I went to Lane High School.  And that’s when I started participating in basketball and softball.  A friend of mine is Brenda [Soror?], we best friends, the coach met us in the hallway and said, “What are you two girls doing after school?”  We said, “Nothing.”  And she said, “Why don’t you come out tomorrow and [00:09:00] try out for basketball?”  We said, “Okay.”  So we went and tried out for the basketball team, I ended up being the post guard for the team the four years I was at Lane.  Brenda was a strong forward/center, we were the only two, for at least the first two years, the only two Blacks on the team.  So --

PL:  [00:09:00] How did this teacher, how did this coach know that you were involved in basketball?  Do you have any idea? 

VJ:  [00:09:28] Well she was the PE teacher, she was a PE teacher, okay?  And she saw us in the gym.

PL:  [00:09:35] I see.

VJ:  [00:09:35] Right.  And so, Miss McDaniel, that’s her name, Coach Miss McDaniel, she took us on and whatever I need, like if I needed tennis shoes at the beginning of the season, she would buy my tennis shoes for me.  In the school, the other PE teacher [00:10:00] she put me [out?] her class, because she was doing some things inappropriate, so I called her down on it, and she went to the principal and she says, as long as Veronica’s in my class, I’m not going to teach.  So Coach McDaniel, Coach McDaniel put me in her office during that class period, so I ended up grading papers and typing tests for her.  Racist thing, the only racist problem I had was that one year we was playing Albemarle High School, at Albemarle.  And this Black girl was running down the court with the basketball --

PL:  [00:10:39] At Albemarle? 

VJ:  [00:10:41] Albemarle, mm-hmm.

PL:  [00:10:40] She was Black and on the Albemarle team?

VJ:  [00:10:42] Yeah she’s Black, right.  And Miss McDaniel stood up and said, “Stop that nigger!”  So when she said that, Brenda and I stopped and looked at her, and about that time, the whole building stopped, spectators, teams, and everything.  [00:11:00] So Miss McDaniel had to apologize to us, to the other team, to the officials, and to the whole gym.  Well, we decided, me and Brenda decided we’d start throwing chairs in the gym, they calmed us down.  So we decided not to go back on the team.  So we missed practice for three or four days, and then she finally came up to us and said, “I’m very sorry, can y’all please come back?”  So we came back.  But in doing that, Miss McDaniel ended up being one of my mentors.  Like I said --

PL:  [00:11:37] How so?

VJ:  [00:11:37] -- she took me in her class when the other teacher put me out.  She asked me what did I want to do, and I said I want to go to college, and she said, well go to the library and get applications, and find the address, and everything, and she sat me down and helped me fill out my applications, and the finance paper, and [00:12:00] my mother signed it, and I sent it on.  But here’s the thing that I’m saying about this.  Not one of the guidance teacher called me in during the 11th or 12th grade and said Ronnie, what you going to do with yourself?  So if it wasn’t for Miss McDaniel, I would not have been in college. 

PL:  [00:12:22] So you think that guidance teacher assumed you would not go to college, is that the other one? 

VJ:  [00:12:27] Correct.  You said that, I didn’t.  Correct.  Correct. 

PL:  [00:12:29] Well James Bryant, James Bryant told us the same thing, so (inaudible).

VJ:  [00:12:34] Yeah, so during graduation, I walked across the stage, they said “Veronica Jones, and she’s going to Norfolk State College,” and I just looked at the guidance counselors, and walk on across the stage.  Let me go back to middle school, sixth grade.  A teacher [00:13:00] threw an eraser at me, across my ear, so I picked up the eraser and I said, I forgot her name, I said, “Did you throw this eraser at me?”  She said, “Yes.”  She was white, and I was Black.  I said, “No you didn’t throw this eraser at me, did you?”  She said, “Yes.”  So I went up to the front, I picked her up, put her over my shoulder, and put her in the closet, and stood behind the closet and dared anybody to move.  Well somebody decided to get out and go.  So the principal came, and he said -- or it was she, she said, “Veronica, you need to let that teacher out of there.”  I said, “I’m not, she need to apologize, she threw an eraser at me, and I wasn’t the only student that was talking, or out of their seat.”  So, I let her out.  So by that time, we had a parents meeting.  My mother came.  The principal had wrote out, filled out the application [00:14:00] to send me to a girls’ school, (inaudible) school.  And she told my mother, well Veronica is trying to run this school.  So Mom was getting ready to sign, I said, “Mom, don’t sign that.  Ask her if I’m running the school, what is she doing?”  She didn’t said nothing.  Now I said, “She’s not running the school because she’s spending some of her time back there in the nurse’s office with Mr. So and so.” 

PL:  [00:14:29] So is this at Jefferson School, I’m sorry, at Walker?

VJ:  [00:14:30] That was the sixth grade.

PL:  [00:14:32] Walker?  No, Jefferson. 

VJ:  [00:14:33] No, sixth grade was at Jefferson School.

PL:  [00:14:35] It was at Jefferson. 

VJ:  [00:14:35] Right.

PL:  [00:14:36] Why did she throw the eraser at you? 

VJ:  [00:14:37] Because I was out of my seat!  Along with the other, we had just come back from lunch.  And other kids was out of their seat, too.  I don’t know what she was thinking.  Also in the sixth grade, no, in Walker, in the seventh grade, I was walking down the hallway after school, and this white teacher said, “Veronica, where you going, what you doing in this hallway?”  [00:15:00] And I looked at her and I said, “Why are you asking me where I’m going?  Them two white students just passed you, and you didn’t say anything to them.”  In the meantime, I felt somebody grab my collar, and they said nope, she sit me in her classroom, sit at a desk, and she got this close to me and said, “You sit here and you’re doing exactly what they want you to do, and you don’t move until you tell me what you’re going to do with yourself.”  I said, “Miss Lugo, you ought to be glad I like you, because you put your hands on me like that,” now I said, “I respect you and like you, so I didn’t do anything.”  I sat down --

PL:  [00:15:38] This was Alicia Lugo who did this?

VJ:  [00:15:40] Alicia Lugo.  So I looked around, and looked in the classroom, and it was decorated neat, and she was teaching history.  I said well, you got an interesting classroom in here.  Said, “Miss Lugo, what you doing?”  She said, “I’m grading papers.”  I said, “Okay, I decided what I want to do.”  She said, “What?”  Water.  [00:16:00] I said, “I want to be just like you, I want to be a teacher.”  She said, “Ronnie, if you want to be a teacher, you’re going to have to straighten up your attitude and you’re going to have to go to college.”  I said, “But I want to teach health and PE, why I got to go to college, you know?”  She said, “You got to go to college,” I said, “Okay.”  So, when I got at Lane, I didn’t have any racial problems on the softball and basketball team.  We also played sports at the city’s recreation, they had softball out at McIntire Park.  Again, we the only two Blacks on the softball team, and they had like 10 different female teams, and we was the only two Blacks on this particular team.  She played first and I played second.  The coaches [00:17:00] would buy our cleats, buy our glove, come pick us up for practice, when we went out of town, paid for the hotel, they fed us.  I had no problem.  One of my white male softball coaches, you know what he did?  He bought me a typewriter.  Manual typewriter, when I was in school.  And I put it in my bedroom, didn’t have a dresser, I mean didn’t have a desk, but I had a dresser, and I was short so I sat on a stool, and my uncles drew the typewriter on a board, cardboard, and I would stand up there, and I learned how to type right.  So, when I started going to school, Mama said, “What you doing?”  I was practicing.  She said, “What you doing?”  I said, “I’m going to college.”  She said, “You’re going to college?”  She said, “I don’t have no money.”  And I said, “Mom you know them papers you signed [00:18:00] a long time ago?  Those are finance papers.  I’m good.”  She said, “Okay.”  So this white coach picked me up, took me to college, for four years, and he would come and get me after, for each holiday, bring me back to college for four years. 

PL:  [00:18:22] What’s the name of the coach? 

VJ:  [00:18:23] Coach Ross.  He’s deceased now.  He’s deceased now.  And also, he taught me the game really of softball.  Whenever we had practice, he would come get me 30 minutes or an hour before regular practice, and he would practice with me at every position except for pitching and catching.  I told him I wasn’t going to do those two positions. 

PL:  [00:18:50] So it sounds like you had coaches who really believed in you, and --

VJ:  [00:18:54] Yes, Miss Lugo, Miss Lugo and all of my coaches.  Miss McDaniel, and [00:19:00] I had Coach Ben, I mean Bill, he supported us, and Coach Ross.  Yes. 

PL:  [00:19:06] So tell the story, if you will, about Alicia Lugo when you were in middle school, because you told me on the phone about how, about this, what was called the sort of tracking issue --

VJ:  [00:19:20] Oh, oh no! 

PL:  [00:19:21] I think that’s the --

VJ:  [00:19:22] Miss Lugo, when I went into the military -- after college, I went into the military for 10 and a half years, and then I came home and the, one of my friends called me on the phone and she said, “Ronnie have you seen the documentary that Miss Lugo did?”  I said, “No.”  She said, “Well, she mentioned your name, Veronica Jones, and she mentioned Frankie Carr.  And she said that you all had, they was tracking you two.”  And then I realized that they put us in the lower classes, the learning --

PL:  [00:20:00] Was this at Walker, or in a different school? 

VJ:  [00:20:02] This was in Walker.  All right?  They put us at the -- no, this was elementary school, too.  Elementary school, too.  They put us in the lower classes.  So when I got up to the fifth grade at Venable, the English teacher said, “Veronica, why you in this class?”  I said, “I been in this class since kindergarten.”  She said, “But you shouldn’t be in this class.”  I didn’t know what she was talking about.  So next thing I know, I was taking some tests, so results came back, she put me in the A/B group.  And the kids that I went to elementary school, you know, they kind of like, one of them numbers.  And I informed them, don’t you ever look at me that way.  I says, because some of y’all parents is the reason why I was down in them other classes in elementary school.  [00:21:00] And so Miss Lugo said, “Veronica Jones went into the military, now she’s a teacher, Franklin Carr is a heart doctor, cardiologist doctor.”  He’s deceased now.  So what she was saying is, you track these two individuals, and I guess she said, not degraded, but you hindered their learning abilities.  And see my only problem is, I had a speech problem.  And because of my speech problem, they put me in the learning program.  And finally my mother said, she came in, she said there’s nothing wrong with my daughter’s mind, she has a speech problem.  So I took speech classes from kindergarten to the eighth grade.  And even though I had that speech problem, I did not let that stop me from being successful in what I wanted to do, due to my Miss Lugo, Miss McDaniel, my grandmother, and them, saying -- and my uncles saying, Veronica, or Ronnie, [00:22:00] you can do whatever you want to do that you can put your mind to.

PL:  [00:22:03] So it sounds like you had the capacity to stand up for yourself --

VJ:  [00:22:10] Yes. 

PL:  [00:22:10] -- but, I mean I just want you to comment on this, but at the same time, there were people around you who were making assumptions about you based on race and there were some, I would almost say racists in the school, but then there were also some people who were there to support all students and help you in the ways you needed help.  Is that fair?

VJ:  [00:22:36] Yeah.  I felt the racist problem, not just with the white students, but also with the Black students. 

PL:  [00:22:43] Tell me about that. 

VJ:  [00:22:45] Because like I said, I had a speech problem.  So when I said, like for example, for school, I said “stool."  For brown, I used to say -- no, not brown, for ground, for brown, I used to say “ground.”  [00:23:00] A student name might be Corey, but I ended up calling him Troy.  It’s called homophone, or homograph.  When you mix your words up.  No.  So of course, my Black friends would laugh at me, and I would laugh with them.  You know, but in the back of my mind I said I know I can be somebody.  And I did!  And I did.

PL:  [00:23:29] You sure did.  So when you were growing up, did you or your family members ever talk about the Brown decision --

VJ:  [00:23:36] Brown v. Board -- no.

PL:  [00:23:37] -- and the massive resistance that was going on in Charlottesville to --

VJ:  [00:23:40] No.  No. 

PL:  [00:23:43] It was not, you think people just weren’t --

VJ:  [00:23:45] I didn’t learn about that until I really went to college.  I really went to college.  Now I knew in the fourth grade when they integrated the school, but nobody really talked to me, told me why, [00:24:00] or whatever.  Because my family didn’t go to -- my two uncles went to military, and went to college, but my grandmother and mother didn’t go to college.  So they didn’t instill that in me to go to college, I did -- my two uncles, one of my uncles is my favorite uncle, and he’s the one that really helped me and motivated me that I wanted to do something.  He really told me that I had to go into the military, but I like to do the opposite.  When you tell me not to do something, then I’m going to do it.  So I went into the military.  Yes. 

PL:  [00:24:28] And when you were at Lane, were you aware of any of the racial tensions in the school that were going on? 

VJ:  [00:24:33] Oh yes, one time during the Black history program, they asked everybody to stand up, they going to sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”  So everybody was standing up, and I was down in the front row, and I looked around, and some of the white teachers had stood up, and they opened their doors to let -- white teachers opened their door and let white students out.  So we [00:25:00] protested.  I think it was in the auditorium for a week, two weeks, whatever, we didn’t go to any classes.  We came to school, we didn’t go to any classes, we didn’t go to lunch, or nothing.  And they had to come back and apologize with us.  But meantime, when me and Brenda was in that auditorium, we looked at each other and said okay, so some of our white friends would come and they’ll knock on the door and say, “Can we speak to Ronnie and Brenda?”  So we would come up to the hallway and they said, “Are you all mad at us?”  I said, “No, we’re not mad at you two.”  But I said, “This is something that we have to do as a Black race.”  And they said, “Oh, okay.” 

PL:  [00:25:43] We heard that story, or a version of it, from Corlis as well. 

VJ:  [00:25:47] Right, right, Corlis, yes, yes.

PL:  [00:25:49] So you remember that to this day.

VJ:  [00:25:50] Yeah I remember that, yes, yes.  Yeah.

PL:  [00:25:53] And as a sort of powerful example of disrespect, I would say, right? 

VJ:  [00:25:57] Yes!  And you know what, we also, [00:26:00] Brenda and I also took it upon ourselves, and we started looking out for kids that was being bullied.  Whether they were white or Black.  And this is some of the things we used to do, one of the things we used to do.  If it was a boy or -- boy for example, right, they were harassing say a handicapped kid or something.  During lunch time, we’d see him go into the boy’s bathroom, right?  And then we would run to the boys’ bathroom and cut out the lights and take care of it.  Girls, too.  (laughs) So we got caught one time, it was in the girls’ bathroom.  And we started swinging, because in the dark, they don’t know who’s swinging, right?  So we started swinging, and next thing we know the lights went on.  Principal said, “Brenda and Ronnie, come here.  Go to the office.”  Okay.  [00:27:00] So they asked why did we do that, and we used to tell them, we look out for the kids that was being harassed. 

PL:  [00:27:09] And the principal accepted that?

VJ:  [00:27:12] Well we went home for a couple days.  But, you know, we went home for a couple days, yeah.  Yeah.

PL:  [00:27:17] And when you were playing on -- so what teams did you play in high school?  What sports did you play? 

VJ:  [00:27:23] I played basketball my four years, I played softball my four years, and we only had, because the girls didn’t play that many sports, and Black girls definitely didn’t play into the sports.  So we only had one team, varsity team.  And I participated during the track meets, I didn’t have to come to practice, because I had softball practice.  So the coach would say Ronnie, don’t worry about it, when we have a meet we want you to come.  And so I would go to the meet and run 50-yard dash, 100-yard dash, 440 relay, whatever, right?  And the hurdles, I used to tell the coach, [00:28:00] why you have me running the hurdles?  I’m 5’1”.  So he said, “Because you’re fast.”  So I’m running the hurdles and going over, and that one would fall down, and that one would fall down.  But, I was an athlete.  And as the coaches, they used to call us the Jockettes. 

PL:  [00:28:19] You would have been on one of the first girls’ teams, because there weren’t girls’ teams sports.

VJ:  [00:28:24] Right, right.  We -- between Miss McDaniel and the parents, they took care of us on those teams, as far as buying uniform, we did fundraising, and we bought our uniforms and tennis shoes and all that, yes.  Parents would help transport us to the different schools.  Another thing I had thought in the high school, it was at Lane, right?  And I was given the ball this time, and the other coach said, “Stop her.”  Well, [00:29:00] two guards, white, one slapped me in the face this side, the other one slapped me in this face.  Now, you know, if I calmed down, they weren’t really slapping me, they were slapping at the ball, because I was so short, I was down there with the ball, right?  But when they slapped me, I dropped that ball, I was ready!  Miss McDaniel and the [principal?] and the audience came running on the floor and they had to pick me up and put me in the locker room and lock the door.  Because I was ready to, but anyway.  So, that was one, one issue there.  But yeah, I was hot that day.

PL:  [00:29:44] So when you played other teams, I mean there’s that example, but were there actually any racial incidents? 

VJ:  [00:29:52] Not that I know of, no.  What --

PL:  [00:29:54] Not that you’re aware of.  And you traveled, did you travel to other --? 

VJ:  [00:29:55] You got to realize, me and Brenda, my mind was playing softball, playing basketball.  [00:30:00] We didn’t care about anything else that was around us?  And like, when we played in the recreation league, and we would go to different towns, in this one particular town, we weren’t allowed to go into the restaurant because we were Black.  Right?  So we had to sit on the bus.  So, our team members, they went in there and they got the food, and they got our food, and came back and ate on the bus with us. 

PL:  [00:30:26] This is in the 1970s?

VJ:  [00:30:28] Yes! 

PL:  [00:30:28] You weren’t allowed to go into restaurants? 

VJ:  [00:30:29] No.

PL:  [00:30:29] I thought that had ended by the late ’60s.

VJ:  [00:30:32] This was down, Alabama, somewhere.  Anyway, we would -- we couldn’t go into --

PL:  [00:30:35] Oh you traveled out of state on the team? 

VJ:  [00:30:36] Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. 

PL:  [00:30:39] So this was the Lane team?

VJ:  [00:30:42] No this was the recreation team.

PL:  [00:30:42] Oh, recreation.

VJ:  [00:30:43] I started playing in high school and recreation. 

PL:  [00:30:45] And the recreation team was like a city team?  Is that right? 

VJ:  [00:30:47] City school, yup, city school, yup. 

PL:  [00:30:48] And you traveled to other states.

VJ:  [00:30:50] Travel, yes ma’am. 

PL:  [00:30:52] Wow, that’s interesting.  I never knew that.

VJ:  [00:30:54] We was on one team where Roy Wheeler Company they sponsored us.  [00:31:00] We had our own private bus, we had two different uniforms, we had the same color bag, (inaudible) bag for our uniforms.  And our hotels was paid for, and our meals was paid for. 

PL:  [00:31:19] But you couldn’t, you couldn’t use the restrooms in the (overlapping dialogue; inaudible). 

VJ:  [00:31:22] Right, right, when I went to college, when I went to college I played basketball, I didn’t play softball because they didn’t have a softball team.  But I played basketball in college.

PL:  [00:31:31] All four years?

VJ:  [00:31:33] Yes, I was a walk-on. 

PL:  [00:31:34] Oh, wonderful.

VJ:  [00:31:36] I was a walk-on at Norfolk State.  And when I say walk-on, there was two seniors and one junior point guard that was on the team, and I had, and I wanted to be a point guard, and I had to out beat those three.

PL:  [00:31:53] Why did you choose Norfolk State as your college?

VJ:  [00:31:56] I really wanted to go to Wilberforce, Ohio, and [00:32:00] Debbie Ryan had talked to me some, but I just didn’t have the money.  Nor really the grades.  So, (inaudible). 

PL:  [00:32:08] And why, why did you want to go there?

VJ:  [00:32:10] What, UVA? 

PL:  [00:32:11] To, I thought you said to Wilberforce, no?

VJ:  [00:32:14] Because when I read my, I did my history background, they had the best, I mean they had a good --

PL:  [00:32:19] Best team.

VJ:  [00:32:19] -- health and PE department.

PL:  [00:32:20] And Debbie wanted you to come to UVA? 

VJ:  [00:32:23] Well Debbie -- yeah, she talked to me about -- [anyways?].  My friend Debbie Brown wanted me to go to Longwood College, and I told her I wasn’t going to Longwood College, because that’s an all-girls school.  But I ended up going to Norfolk State.  Walked onto the basketball team, and you know, I’m the type, I had to do my homework, you know, and I would observe those three to see where they was weak at, where they was strong at.  The two coaches would give us plays, you know, different plays, and I would go home and I was writing them plays down, [00:33:00] and write each person’s position, what they had to do, and this was during trials.  And when they came one day they said, who know all the plays?  And then I looked around, and my hand was the only one that was up.  Coach [Moorhead?] said, “Veronica, you know all of the plays?”  I said, “Yes, sir.”  “You know, everybody’s position?”  I said, “Yes, sir.”  He said, “Well I’m going to put five people up here, and I want you to walk one play, and walk everybody’s position,” and I did that.  And of course I was moved into number one point guard for the rest of the year.  And I had defense.  My team, my background was defense.  Defense and point guard.  One of my dreams is I wanted to coach the Lakers.  But I haven’t got that yet, but it’s still a dream.  I wanted to coach the Lakers, so. 

PL:  [00:33:57] And then after college, you said [00:34:00] you went into the military.

VJ:  [00:34:01] After college, I went into the military, yes.

PL:  [00:34:04] And then, but you must have majored in phys. Ed. 

VJ:  [00:34:08] I majored in health and physical education. 

PL:  [00:34:09] And then --

VJ:  [00:34:09] You see I’m writing a book, so a lot of this is information going to be in my book, but, okay. 

PL:  [00:34:15] But then when you, what schools did you teach in when you came back?

VJ:  [00:34:20] When I came back, there were no teaching positions open for health and PE.  So I worked at UVA as a guard, security guard.  And then I moved up to, that was a grade four.  And then I moved up to health unit coordinator, HUC.  And then I moved to administrative assistant to a clinic that was, I had to open, the clinic had just started, and I had to set it up from ground up, as administrative assistant, that was a grade six.  So they really wanted to interview me, because I was there for two or three years, and I moved up from a grade four to a grade six, and I told the lady, I said, “You don’t want to interview me.”  She said, “Why?”  [00:35:00] I said, “Well when I came here to fill out my application at human resources,” I said, “my resume was like four or five pages.”  And I said, “If human resources was doing their homework and they read my application, they should have said, oh she don’t need to be a grade four, she need to apply for grade six, grade seven.”  But I said, “If a white person had submitted that same resume, they would have did that.”  And she said, “You know what?  You’re probably right.”  I said, “No I’m not the one you want to interview, because I’ll make you [very look bad?].” 

PL:  [00:35:38] So then, you did teach physical ed. at some point, or?

VJ:  [00:35:40] Oh okay, so I did UVA for like, my first, I guess, five years.  But at the same time that I was working at UVA, I was substitute teaching at the Albemarle school system.  I don’t know, for some reason the Charlottesville public schools didn’t call me to [00:36:00] sub.  That was their loss, not mine.  So, my first teaching job -- oh, then I left the hospital, and then I started working for Albemarle human resources.  I’d been there for about four months, and then I told the manager that I had a job in Buckingham.  And I’ll never forget it, the superintendent told her, said, “Well if Veronica is going to Buckingham to teach health and PE, why are we letting her go away to Buckingham?”  I said, “Y’all too late, I’m going to Buckingham.”  So I went to Buckingham and taught health and physical education, then I did, I returned to ed. for two years, and I did four years, then I came back and taught at Buford Middle School.  The principal was Dr. Daniels, I think she’s from New York.  And Dr. Daniels said, “Ronnie where you been?”  And I told her the history, I said I’ve been here.  And she said, “We overlooked you like that?”  I said, “Yes, y’all did,” but I said, “think about it.  [00:37:00] You’re not from Charlottesville.  You’re from New York.”  I said, “It took a person out of state to give me a teaching job in Charlottesville, where I was raised and born at.”  And so I taught at Buford for 18 years. 

PL:  [00:37:16] Wow. 

VJ:  [00:37:18] And I coach the basketball team.  First I started the ninth grade team, then I moved up to assistant coach for the varsity team, and then I coach varsity softball. 

PL:  [00:37:29] Wow.  Wow. 

VJ:  [00:37:31] Now you see why I’m writing a book? 

PL:  [00:37:34] Yeah.  But before you -- I understand why you’re writing a book, there is a lot there, a tremendous amount there.  While you were at Buford, clearly you had a supportive principal.  Did you feel like anybody was --

VJ:  [00:37:49] Racist, anything? 

PL:  [00:37:50] Yeah. 

VJ:  [00:37:51] No. 

PL:  [00:37:52] No.  Times have moved on, apparently, right? 

VJ:  [00:37:54] Well let me, let me, I’m going to tell you this.  The principal one time [00:38:00] stopped me in the hallway, and he said, “Veronica, you walk around this school like it’s yours.”  I said, “Well sir, it is mine.”  I respect you (inaudible) I was way younger, older than him, but I still call him sir because he was the principal.  I said, “Well it is mine, sir.”  So he looked at me, and I said, “When I signed that contract, it says teacher.  And there’s about 600 and something kids here, and they all mine, regardless if I teach them in my classroom.”  And I said, “I go into the different classes during my free time, and I talk to kids, and I tell the teacher all the time, if you got a problem with a student, get out your classroom, come down to the gym, walk around the track with them.  Or walk around the gym with them, and talk to them.”  So he said, “Well you know, you got a point.”  I said, “These are all my kids, regardless.” 

PL:  [00:39:00] Yeah. 

VJ:  [00:39:02] And they felt that way.  And also again, I supported them.  I told all of them, especially my ESL students, my special education students, if any of these kids bully you, you come and see me.  And then I told my students also, if you got a problem with another student, another teacher, you come and see me.  Don’t try to fight that battle, because you’re not going to win.  You’re going to end up going to the office.  I said, you tell me, and I’ll go to that teacher, and I’ll talk to that teacher one on one, and then if we need you to come and talk to the teacher together, we’ll do that.  And if I can’t help you that way, then I will see you to guidance, and guidance will help you.  And then if guidance don’t help, then you go to the principal.  If that doesn’t help, then you have your parents come in.  That was my philosophy. 

PL:  [00:39:54] Well it sounds like all your life long, you’ve really stood up for yourself --

VJ:  [00:39:58] Yes, and I’m still doing it. 

PL:  [00:40:00] Who do you think was responsible for that kind of nurturing for you? 

VJ:  [00:40:06] My mother and grandmother.  Yeah.  And people know Cynthia Jones, but she’s Cynthia [Strait?] now, she’s my cousin, she was my mentor, too.  Yeah.  She was everything that I wasn’t.  She’d cook, she sews, you know?  She was an A-student in the school.  And she was a dancer, and she could sing.  I can’t sing, and I can’t dance.  So she did those things, and she said, “Ronnie, but I always wanted to play sports too, but I can’t,” so I did the sports for her.  So, yeah.

PL:  [00:40:41] Wonderful.  You want to ask any further questions? 

LORENZO DICKERSON:  [00:40:45] Sure.  You touched on it briefly earlier for a quick second, but I was curious, did your parents attend school in Charlotteville as well?

VJ:  [00:40:56] My mother dropped out in the seventh grade.  [00:41:00] She had me, she had my older brother when she was 14, and had me when she was 15.  So she didn’t finish school.  My grandmother didn’t finish school.  The only people, like I said, the only people that was my, I guess you say mentor, was my two uncles, they went to school, high school, they played sports, and then they went into the military.  And my favorite uncle went to college, and I followed him in college, so. 

LD:  [00:41:30] And what high school and college did he attend? 

VJ:  [00:41:31] He went to Burley, and when they closed down Burley, I cried, I mean literally cried, because all my life I’m hearing stories from my uncles and aunts about Burley.  Burley this, and Burley this that.  And I went to the football games and stuff.  And when they closed the school I said oh, I won’t get to go to Burley.  So, yeah. 

LD:  [00:41:55] I was going to ask you about that, about not being able to go to Burley.

VJ:  [00:41:56] Yeah, that was -- yes, that was, that was very [00:42:00] devastating to me, to not go to Burley.  Yeah.  I’m glad they kept the name and the middle school, I’m glad they kept the name and stuff, Burley (inaudible), yes. 

PL:  [00:42:11] So Burley closed in the end of ’68, so it would have been like a year, is that right?

LD:  [00:42:18] Sixty-seven.  Well ’67 was the last class. 

VJ:  [00:42:22] Right. 

PL:  [00:42:23] Right.  So two years before you went to high school.

VJ:  [00:42:25] Right.  My uncle, last group was Burley.  He was the last class of Burley, yes.  Then he played football, he --

PL:  [00:42:35] Did you go to the games at Burley?

VJ:  [00:42:37] Oh yes! 

PL:  [00:42:37] You went, you used to go to the games as a child? 

VJ:  [00:42:39] Yes!  The whole family did.  We all went there to support my two uncles.  Well, here’s the thing.  My older uncles, Lacey Jones and [Open Eye?] Jones, played on the football team, the Jones boys.  And then later on my Uncle Butchy and Uncle Popcorn [00:43:00] played on the football team.  So they was the Jones boys, too.  And the coach was Coach Jones.  Yes. 

PL:  [00:43:08] Was the coach part of your family?  No, just the same name. 

VJ:  [00:43:09] No.  No, no, he wasn’t related to us.  No. 

PL:  [00:43:12] Yeah.  Right.  Well we’ve certainly heard stories about Burley was --

VJ:  [00:43:16] Yes, yes, yes, yeah. 

PL:  [00:43:16] -- to the community as a whole.

VJ:  [00:43:18] Right.  And I want to say this, I really think that when they first integrated the school, that first group of African-American kids, I think they kind of opened up the tunnel for us, so we came behind them, a lot of the racists wasn’t there.  That’s how I feel about it.  Yeah. 

PL:  [00:43:42] Yeah.  And in the long run, do you think integrating the schools was a good thing? 

VJ:  [00:43:46] For me it was!  Think about it.  (laughs) For me it was. 

PL:  [00:43:52] Well when you say think about it, what --

VJ:  [00:43:53] Because I was, they were tracking me, and -- because I was, you know, under poverty or whatever, they [00:44:00] put me in the classes with the kids, I’ll say it this way, the kids was making Cs, Ds, and Fs, didn’t even really care.  And I didn’t get moved up until they integrated the school in the fifth grade.  It took a white teacher to recognize me, that I didn’t need to be in that group. 

PL:  [00:44:22] It took a white teacher to recognize it?

VJ:  [00:44:23] She was an English teacher, yes, white English teacher. 

PL:  [00:44:23] Okay.  I thought you had earlier said it was Alicia Lugo who had done that for you. 

VJ:  [00:44:29] No, she was at Walker. 

PL:  [00:44:31] Okay, so --

VJ:  [00:44:31] This one was at Venable, this white teacher was at Venable.

PL:  [00:44:35] Do you remember her name?

VJ:  [00:44:35] No, ma’am.  (laughs)

PL:  [00:44:38] We could find it out, I’m sure. 

VJ:  [00:44:38] No ma’am, I forgot her name, yes.  Yeah. 

PL:  [00:44:41] Right, right. 

LD:  [00:44:44] And do you remember anything, I guess you would have been about 11 years old when Vinegar Hill was demolished, do you remember that time? 

VJ:  [00:44:53] No.  I only know that from my family talking about it, but no.  No.  I was protected, [00:45:00] you know, they protected me, because I was the only girl in the family, and my grandma said you need to leave her alone.  Yeah. 

LD:  [00:45:08] Are you any relation to Roxanne Jones?

VJ:  [00:45:10] Yes, Roxanne’s granddaddy and my granddaddy were brothers.  Yes.  Yeah.  Yeah. 

LD:  [00:45:19] I think that’s all that I have.  Yeah.

PL:  [00:45:22] Okay, is there something we’ve left out about these --

VJ:  [00:45:25] No ma’am. 

PL:  [00:45:26] -- about your sports years or high school years?

VJ:  [00:45:27] I appreciate James Bryant and Corlis recommending my name, because you know a lot of times, things be happening, don’t nobody ask for my opinion, or what I’ve gone through, so this is the first --

PL:  [00:45:39] Absolutely. 

VJ:  [00:45:39] -- opportunity I had to express what I have gone through. 

PL:  [00:45:44] I’m so glad.  I’m so glad we’ve been able to --

VJ:  [00:45:44] Thank you.  Thank you.  Some hardship there, but I did it. 

PL:  [00:45:48] And yes, absolutely.  And --

VJ:  [00:45:51] You know, and in my book I’m saying now, here’s a poor little rich girl that has gone [00:46:00] Germany, Wiesbaden, Berlin, and these 10 different states in the United States of America.  Jumped out a helicopter, jumped out an airplane, participated in marathons, swimming, running, biking, and all of that. 

PL:  [00:46:27] So was, do you feel the military was good for you?

VJ:  [00:46:29] Oh most definitely.  But, the colonel that was my sponsor, he said, “Cadet Jones, I don’t know if you’re going to suit being in the military.”  I said, “Why is that, sir?”  “Because you don’t like to take orders.”  I said, “Okay, I’m going to watch it.  I’m going to watch myself.”  Now because I was very athletic, I joined the Rangers, and the Rangers [00:47:00] all boys.  And I was the only girl that joined them.  So we was at, [call was?] like, five o’clock in the morning, swimming, running, and whatever.  And because I was that athletic, I went to boot camp in junior, I was a junior in college.  And so when I graduated as a senior, I was one of the ones that brought 15 cadets into graduation, walked up on the stage with them, put them at attention and at ease, and we got promoted to second lieutenant.  My mother was so proud.  And I was proud of myself, but you know.  Yeah. 

PL:  [00:47:42] That’s --

LD:  [00:47:42] So you started your military career while you were in college?

VJ:  [00:47:46] Right, right, I was in college, yes, yes, yes. 

PL:  [00:47:48] Was that ROTC? 

VJ:  [00:47:48] ROTC, yes.  In fact none of my friends knew I was in ROTC until my junior year, and I had to wear the uniform.  So when I wore the uniform, I walked in, they like, [00:48:00] we didn’t know you was in -- I said, you right.  Because you weren’t up at five o’clock in the morning.  So let me tell you about the college, too.  When I went to college, right, Coach Ross, we went to the dorms, and the lady asked what was my name.  I said, Veronica Jones.  She looked and she said, “Oh yeah, we have you on the list, but we don’t have a room for you because you didn’t send $50 deposit.”  I said, “I didn’t know nothing about no $50 deposit.”  I said, “I knew I had the money to come to college.”  So I come out, and I’m just crying, so I call my Uncle Popcorn, and I said, “Uncle Popcorn, I don’t have nowhere to stay!”  He said, “Where you at?”  I said, “I’m at the dorms.”  And see he went to college, and he also worked at the hospital as a janitor!  And he worked his self up.  So he found me a place with this family, husband and wife, and to get there, I had to take two buses.  Excuse me.  [00:49:00] (coughs) And I had to take the two buses, and I had to go through the worst neighborhood in Norfolk.  The street that was the worst neighborhood had Black stores, Black owners.  And they’d be sitting out by their store.  And my street, I was on B Avenue, so B Avenue, there were dogs, and I’m scared to death of dogs, were then.  So I said, now how am I going to get these dogs used to me?  So I would cook bacon, sausage, and put it in this sandwich bag for them.  I would get off on the bus stop, before I get to my point, and sit down and talk to the people that owned the stores.  So after about five or six months, they took up for me.  They took care of me.  The dogs, the dogs start coming at the stores and waiting for me.  And my grandma always taught me, [00:50:00] wherever you go, find a church, and the church people will take care of you.  And I’ve done that, I did that.  And still doing it.  In fact my last chapter in my book, it’s -- I found God again, that’s my last chapter.  Because I’m retired now. 

PL:  [00:50:20] What church do you go to now?

VJ:  [00:50:22] I go to Christian Faith Assembly Church in Durham, North Carolina.  I do the Zoom.  Yeah.  But I got baptized at First Baptist Church again.  When I went to First Baptist Church, I was the only one in the family that went to church, because I asked my mom [who lived on?] Alston Street.  I said, “Mom, why y’all don’t go to church?”  She said, “I don’t know.”  She said, “Do you want to go to church?”  I said, “Yeah!”  She said, “Well I’ll make sure you have clothes for the church.”  So I started dressing, going to the church, sitting in the back, and pastor, I think it was Only, and his wife, they finally came to me, they said, “Who are you?”  [00:51:00] I said, “My name is Veronica Jones.”  “Well, who are your parents?”  I said, “We live right down on Elsom Street, I live with my mom and grandmother.”  They said, “Oh, okay.”  Again, you know, for four years what they did, they would send me Christmas cards and birthday cards that had money in it, for the four years that I was in college. 

PL:  [00:51:20] Oh, how nice.

VJ:  [00:51:22] Yes. 

LD:  [00:51:23] That definitely sounds like Charlottesville --

VJ:  [00:51:24] So I’m like, they say, you know, what they said, a village, run -- the village raise the child?  Well I’m the one where the village raised the child.  So. 

PL:  [00:51:35] And we’ve heard that term before, too, about the village, and Charlottesville clearly --

VJ:  [00:51:37] You heard that term?  Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.  Yeah. 

PL:  [00:51:43] -- was that village for so many people.  It’s a wonderful part of the larger story. 

VJ:  [00:51:48] Right.  And it wasn’t that I wasn’t getting love and attention in my home, because I was!  But I was curious, and I would go to other people houses and meet them, and sit down and they’d fix me a plate and everything, [00:52:00] (inaudible).  And sometimes people called my mom and said, “Would you please tell your daughter to go home?”  I said, “Mom, I’m coming home, I’m coming home.”  Sometimes I didn’t. 

PL:  [00:52:13] Well thank you so much.

VJ:  [00:52:14] Thank you. 

PL:  [00:52:15] Do you have more? 

LD:  [00:52:15] No.  No, I’m done.

PL:  [00:52:17] Yes, it’s wonderful, really wonderful.  Thank you for sharing your story.

VJ:  [00:52:19] No problem. 

 

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