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Oral History Transcript 16-0002
Interviewee: Gwendolyn Tolliver Nickens (GN)
Interviewer: Zachary Hottel (ZH)
Subject: Integration, Segregation, Shenandoah County Public Schools (VA)
2-15-2016
ZH: This is Zach Hottel with the Shenandoah County Library Archives interviewing Gwen
Nickens about integration in Shenandoah County. I am going to let her giver her name and
address if you would.
GN: My name is Gwendolyn, everybody has called me Gwen, Tolliver was my maiden name
and of course that was the name I had in school with integration. Now I am married to Nickens,
so now I am Gwendolyn Tolliver Nickens. I live in Winchester VA and my husband and I have
been there now for about 34-35 years. Woodstock was my home. That is where I was born and
raised. My parents were Theodore Tolliver better known as Jim Tolliver, and my mother was
Mary Jane better known as Janie Tolliver. I went to school there and I was the first one to
integrate schools and attend Central High School. That was several years ago, in fact, it was
1962 and I graduated in 1966. So that is kind of a brief history of my background.
ZH: So I guess maybe we could just start out in your own words about how did it come to be that
you were the first to integrate Central High School and how that all began.
GN: My elementary background involves a one room school with one teacher who taught seven
grades. She was the backbone of what I am for the simple fact. Her name was Genevieve R.
McClain. She was a West Virginia native. That was where she lived. She lived in Woodstock
here in a private home of one of the local people. She was our teacher. She was quite a unique,
special lady. Very professional. She handled seven grades in one room. People when they think
about that now it is unbelievable. The rapport, the discipline, and the control that she had was
just unbelievable. We sat in rows of course. It was not a very large attendance even though it
involved Woodstock, Mount Jackson, and part of New Market. So the children from Mount
Jackson and New Market were bused down the road and those of us who lived here had of course
had the opportunity to be right here. But we all went to school there. We were in rows where the
younger children, the first graders, were in the front and then as you progressed in your
schooling year you were sent further to the back of the school. It was heated by a wood-burning
pot-bellied stove. We had of course our desks and one very long table in the very back where we
would meet for our classes. Around the back of the school was our library. It was not very large
but there books there that we could check out or we could read. But again this lady had such
control over us. The classes also progressed in that order. The first ones, the little ones were the
first to go to their classes. Then the older ones proceeded. We had not only reading, writing, and
arithmetic, but she also covered geography and science. We were, like I said, we were allowed
to use the library for our history and of course she would have us come up and do a lot of
individualizing with us, different days for different age groups. When our class time came, we
met at this long table in the back of our school and we sat down and went through our lessons.
When we had tests we would do it from our desks. When I think back on it, it just seemed so
�routine and normal. You learned from the moment you went to her, what she expected of you
and not only did she teach us the basics in our studies she also interjected socialization, being
able to get up and do recitations, sing music. In the morning we would the Pledge of Allegiance,
some type of Bible verse and we would be able to relate our day before. All of this was done like
I said so uniquely. But it was handled and by the end of the day everything that was planned to
be done was done. Then kind of as a little extra thing on the side for extra time since she lived
and did not have to travel she would have us stay if you were interested in learning the basics of
cooking. She was involved. I was a Girl Scout with a local group here in Woodstock, and she got
involved with that with us girls. She stressed to the young men about being a man and all of the
things that go along with that, how to respect ladies. I mean this woman was just unbelievable. It
is due to her and the support of my parents and other people of the community along with the
local Black pastor who allowed us to use the church when we had special events. We had
spelling bees. We learned how to make spaghetti, basic food dishes. We learned how to make
homemade ice cream. We even had an old crank ice cream freezer. She acquainted us with that.
So this lady laid the groundwork for who I am today along with the assistance of all the other
people. We got along well. If there any disputes she handled them and she knew she had the full
support of most of the parents and definitely mine. So whatever she said you tried to do. In fact
my father quoted to my brother who was older than I, “If Mrs. McClain tells you to go out and
climb that tree then you go out and try, give it your best effort." It wasn't any question. But after I
finished that there were only three of us in my graduating class. That is how small most of the
classes were. All girls. When we finished school right away, what the normal process was,
because my brother who graduated several years before I did, was you were bused from
Woodstock to Winchester where the closest Black high school was. That was Douglas High
School in Winchester, Virginia. My brother went there, in fact when he got old enough he got his
driver's license and he drove the school bus that transported the Black children from Woodstock.
He would stop in Strasburg and in Stephens City and get those and took them on to Winchester.
That is where he went to high school. Well when it came time for me to go to high school my
mother had a relative who lived in Washington D.C. who had had several major back operations
and she just needed someone to be in her apartment with her to kind of assist her. She had
different nurses and other people but she had got to the point where she felt all she really needed
was an extra set of hands. So she approached my mom and said "Now Gwen is finishing
elementary school, would you think she would come down and stay with me for a year or so?",
and mom said "Well I will ask her", so Mom approached me and I agreed to do that. It was like
ok where will she go to school. Well of course I graduated from the 7th grade so that meant I
would be going in to the 8th grade. So her looking into the situation and where she lived in
Washington, the nearest junior school in the city that I would go to was Francis Junior High
School in Georgetown which was right on the edge of D.C. and to Georgetown. So that was
where I would go and we went and got it set up. When I moved in with her that summer, when I
started school I went to Francis Junior High in Georgetown. I went there for the full year that I
lived with her. It was quite an experience for me to come from a little country one-room school
and go into a junior high city school. It was overwhelming but I adjusted. I made friends. Of
course there were those who made fun of me because of not only the way I talked but the way I
walked, the way I dressed, I kind of stood out but after awhile they accepted me and everything
worked out. So I went to Francis Junior High for my 8th grade year. Near the middle of that year
my mother started really missing me and they would come down and visit and of course vacation
days at school I was able to come home. So she set me down and said "I really miss you, I think
�you should come home". I said, " I have enjoyed being in Washington but I would like to come
home". She said,"Well I have got a plan and I have got to ask you how you feel about it". Now
my mother was the one that was kind of leading this. My father was in the background, he did
not say a whole lot. But at least he gave his support. She said," Rather than go to Douglas I
would like to see you stay right here in Woodstock and go to Central. We have a perfectly good
high school right here there is not reason for that. There is only one thing, no one else goes there,
you would be the first one. Do you have a problem or an issue with that?" I said, "No, none".
She said, "Are you sure?" I said, “I am positive if it means that I get to come home." So she very
bravely and boldly went and talked to the school superintendent to inform him first that she and
my father would be enrolling me to start Central the next school year. It kind of took him back
and he said,"You are going to do what?" and she said, "Yes, Jim (my father) and I have lived in
this community for years and in fact my father was born here in Woodstock and in fact he
worked for several of the well-known families as a young man. He ended up being an auto
mechanic and worked for the local Chevrolet dealer. I have been married to him and we have
raised our children. I have worked for a lot of people in the community. They all know Jim & I
and this our daughter, the last one. and we want her to be at home to go to school." He said, " Do
what you think is best but this is kind of going to be difficult." She said," Gwen is ready and we
are going to take it for what it is worth". She enrolled me that summer and when the time came
for me to start school of course there were some people that were very skeptical even in my own
race. They told my parents they were making a mistake. They did not feel it was the time. Again
they all approached me and asked me if I was scared. I said no. I got enough in me that I was
going to make the best of it and it is going to work out. When the day came for me to start my
mother was a nervous wreck. Of course all the mother fears," Have I made a mistake?"
And of course we had a few telephone calls, "Don't send that 'you know what' out here, if you do
it is going to be a problem, we are going to hurt her". And of course my mother got more and
more nervous. Finally the day I was to go they were going to send a bus to pick me up and then
they decided no we are not going to take a chance we are going to send a private car and let the
car take her. I was all ready and then my mother said at the last minute, " I don't think she should
go and my father who was at work at the garage, he had come home and he looked at her and he
said," No, we have come this far. Gwen wants to do it. It is going to be all right." So she
reluctantly let me get in that car and when we drove up at Central to go in. Of course the
newpaper was there, and a lot of parents and their children, the staff most of them came out. The
principal came out and escorted me in to school. They introduced me to all the necessary people.
They gave me my schedule. They assigned one of the local students who would be in my class to
be kind of my guide to be with me that day like my buddy. I learned my way around school and I
knew what classes I had to attend. They put me in with, when I say the children who were like
the doctors, the lawyers, the department store owners. They put me in with those children rather
than the children who were from the country. What they had done was they had talked with those
students and they all said, "Oh yes, my dad knows her dad. They come out to our house or her
mom comes in our store. They knew my family. They were glad, oh yeah, they were glad to have
Gwen. Excited about it. So they put me in with them and so there was not any issue there at all.
Different people ask me what happened in school and it was like no one approached me any
more but there were a lot of little comments made in the hallway or on the stairwell or once in a
while some of them in the cafeteria. But these children that I was in with, there was always one
or two of them with me. They would, especially the boys, they would say, “You touch her you
are going to answer to me, she deserves to be here as well as you & I, let her alone". Within a
�couple of week’s time it was like every day practice. There were a few looks, but that went on
for a while, but never any incident, no confrontation, nothing like that. And within time it was
like I was one of the group. So that year went very well and I got involved in sports and other
activities. I have always liked to sing, so got in Glee singing group. And all of those things were
only plusses. I guess you could as a matter of fact I proved myself that I could do what they do. I
was willing to learn. All of my teachers were very supportive, and complimentary, how proud
they were to have me. When we got to the part in government or in my senior year or in the early
years of history when we talked about slavery they would kind of "how is she going to take it?",
but hey that is all part of it, I was proud of the fact that I was different from you but we are all in
this together. My teacher said that is so great and maybe there are some things that you can tell
us that are not in this book. Like what we are doing here. I was blessed to have good
grandparents. My mom's parents lived in Mount Jackson. My grandfather was a farmer and I had
that experience knowing what that was like. My grandmother would sit down and tell us things
so I had that knowledge. My father's parents lived here in Woodstock and they were things that
they told me that they had experienced in life. So I did have some things that I could share with
them from my history and background. It just went real smooth. So by the next year after the
other Black people in the community saw how smooth it was going, it kind of encouraged them
and more started coming. Then finally they did away with the need to even go to Winchester and
it was just protocol. So it kind of fell right in to place and it has been all right ever since as far as
I know.
ZH: Now I am curious a little bit about, you said you mother was the real driving force behind
you. Was that you think a personal decision on her part or what do think drove her to that?
GN: I think it was more that 'Mother Thing'. I think she wanted me home and having
experienced the commute and having to deal with my brother who went to Douglas. She had
nothing against Douglas and my mother was the kind of mother like more should be who
checked in with the school periodically. She was not the stay at home, hands-off mother; she was
very much involved the whole time my brother was there. The best way for her to get there, she
made her plans; she would ride the bus there. And of course when my brother drove, she got to
see how he did then and how proud she was that he was able to handle that as well as be in
school. But she had a personal interest on his progress. My brother was very athletic and he
loved football. She supported him at that but she also wanted those academics to come in play.
And the best way to find out was she would go to classes with him and then talk with the
teachers. When my time came, I think it was the actual having me home, when she had an
actual hands-on, more being able to be there. Because when I came to Central, she came there
periodically. A good parent does that. She didn't do it out of fear or to make my brother or I
embarrassed even though she did embarrass my brother, you can imagine, a young man who is a
junior or senior in high school and there is momma but they understood and the teacher really
because they knew that parental guidance & support was there. She wanted to know and if he
wasn't doing and the same thing with me and then you don't play football for a year because the
academic part of it. Back then both my parents not completing school, my father did not go very
far at all. He dropped out like most young boys do. But my father had a given intellect that a lot
of people, he read a lot. He put himself through a mail communication course. But he loved that
kind of stuff. He was always was good with his hands, being a mechanic. He had very high
abilities that he unfortunately never got to use but it was there. My mother went I think she told
�me to 9th grade. She too had to come home, she was in the city living with relatives, because she
lived in Mount Jackson in the country but her mother got ill and she was one of the ones who
was able to come and take care of Mom so she had to drop out of school. Her education kind of
went to a limit and they both wanted my brother and me to have more.
ZH: So you think it was more of a practical reason for you to go to school than it was for some
other reason.
GN: Practical as well as I was going to get what I needed. Douglas was perfectly all right. It was
different. I used to go. It was quite interesting for me to go to my brother's class. There was a lot
given but there was a lot that was missed. My brother got the basics but there wasn't anything
really for him to excel in. The teachers were qualified but my mother knew there was more. It
had been done and it was the normal practice for everybody to go there. She wanted to break
that mold and provide for me. She looked and saw in me, thanks to Mrs. McClain again, her and
other people in my community that it was there that I could do more and the possibility of even
college. It was more practical, supportive, wanting me home type of thing.
ZH: And you definitely think Central gave you more than you would have gotten if you had gone
to Douglas.
GN: Absolutely.
ZH: Now I guess backing up a little bit I had a couple questions. First you said you were in Girl
Scouts. I had not thought about this until you said this. Were the Girl Scout troops segregated?
GH: Yes, by the time I got there. The leader of the Girl Scouts when I was in it was the wife of
the Administrator of the High School. She was the one who had the time. She picked it up. She
had been one for years when he moved here to take that job. She encouraged young girls which
most of those people that were involved in those scout organizations did. She even reached out to
my school in my community. She made personal visits and extended the invitation for us little
girls to get involved. It was due to her that over half of my school the girls joined. It was another
from someone caring coming from an area where it was not as common to have segregation
where there was more integration. She knew the capability was there and she extended the
invitation. I just loved it. I fell right into it. The handwork, the volunteer work, being able to earn
the badges and to do all that. She was very supportive. She reached out. It wasn't that we had to
hunt her out. She actually came out to us through the school superintendent and my teacher. She
approached her and talked to her one on one first, "Mrs. McClain, I like to come to your school if
you allow me and talk to your girls about the Girl Scouts". And of course my teacher was very -"Yes indeed, let's give these young ladies everything we possibly can". So that is kind of how
that went.
ZH: Now do you think there were other people in the white community like her that were
supportive of integration?
�GN: Oh yes! Like I said most of the people that were doctors, lawyers, store owners,
organization leaders, ministers, most of them knew my father and knew where he came from.
Knew what he was.
They were very supportive. It was like FINALLY when it came out. You are doing this. It should
have been done a long time ago Jim, I mean you have three children. Two of them, me and my
brother. My sister died way before she was able to. She died at eleven years old. She had been
sick most of her life. It was my brother, my sister Shirley, and I was the baby. So my brother and
I were the two when she passed. I was only five years old when she passed. They encouraged my
father and mother and they were really glad when this happened. They were very supportive.
Yes, do this. That is where they belong. You are part of this community. You have lived here all
your life. I can' say that I know of anyone that didn't. They never told me of the ones that didn't.
Because most of the people that knew my father and grew to know my mother after years of
being in the area were very supportive.
ZH: So you think that personal connection had a part to play.
GN: Oh yes. How can you support someone when you don't really know them? I mean that gives
the foundation of being able to say I know what this person can do; I know what this person is. I
have lived with this person, I have seen their work. I have worked with them. Yes, I really do.
There was a lot. Just like I said there was not any problem at all. A few but they were soon put
down or told "Hey leave it alone". Then after a while it was like I said just like every day.
ZH: You think definitely the economic standing of people affected the way they viewed
integration.
GN: Absolutely. Absolutely. If you are exposed, if you are told that it is all part of life, and
people even in my own race, some in the people in my own community were not real happy or
receptive. They would say "What are you doing? You are going to mess up things; you are going
to cause problems". But that comes from not truly understanding or being given the fact that,
Hey, you deserve it too. If you come up in a status where I need to stay where I am, I can't cross
that line than that is the way you are going to be in my opinion. If you are a better, I won't use
the word class, but if you come up with a different understanding and in those homes they were
told we are all equal. Jim and Janie's kids are just like you kids. They deserve it just as well as
you do. Let them prove themselves. You don't judge someone simply because of the color of
their skin. That doesn't make them any different. They are just like us. You cut them they bleed
just like we do. It was the people that were the better and most of them like I said it was what
they were given from their experiences in life. They had traveled or they had even had the
experiences of going to schools where there was integration or being around or associated, or
even the fact that some of them had Black ladies or men working for them. Because my father
worked for a well-known family when he was a young man. The gentleman was a judge and his
wife was a well-to-do aristocratic lady. But they brought their children up with my dad and they
loved my dad just like he was a brother to the kids or an extended son. They treated him the
same even though he worked for them. The kids growing up loved Dad. "Oh Jim, I mean what
will we do without you if you are not here. Come on be a part". That was the kind of relationship
they had, so when they grew up and went out they were better prepared when other Blacks
approached them. It was like "Oh yeah our Jim you know. We don't even see him that way. So
�that I think the advantage of that comes from. They never put you down, they never belittled you.
They never said they are only good for this or they are only good for that. It was like "yes they
are equal".
ZH: You are in the African-American community in Woodstock. The leadership, I kind of got
the impression from the research, that there was never any, I guess apart from some isolated
incidents where they were pushing for integration.
GN: No
ZH: That some of that even came from the outside. I found evidence of the NAACP pushing for
some integration in Shenandoah County from Winchester from the chapter there. Do you think
you find that to be true?
GN: Yes. It was status quo for the older Black people in the community. You stay over here.
That is what you do. You don't cross that line. But my mother being an independent, strong
Black woman, she said “You’re not talking to me. This is my child. This is my decision. You are
not my leader. I have been given my own mind. I respect you for who you are but if that is where
you want to stay, then God Bless you. But me and my mine will not. It did not go over real well.
First of all, my mother was an outsider in the community anyhow. My father married her from
Mount Jackson so it was already touch and go with the relationship with bringing someone from
outside. A lot of people have that narrow-minded concept, you stay within. After she got here,
like I said, she became independent, she went to work, she kept her house, and she raised us. She
didn't associate on the side, she went to church. It was like, golly this woman is different. But
that was just her and a lot of them had a hard time, especially the older ones. Now the younger
ones they saw how it went and they were able to experience it little by little. It was like 'Oh, this
is how it is". You had that where as far as leaders, my mom told several of the older people,
“Maybe you think you are a leader or maybe you are theirs, but you are not mine. I don't answer
to no one but God".
ZH: There is more to integration in Shenandoah County than the school. I have done the research
as to when the pools integrated and the theaters integrated. Do you have any experiences related
to those things?
GN: Those are not things that I really pushed. Kind of went along with the program to a certain
degree. I didn't do sit-ins or demonstrations. I didn't do a lot of swimming because I am not a
swimmer, unfortunately I regret that now. But the movie theater it was just common practice
when we went in we went to the balcony the upper lever. To be very honest I preferred being on
the upper level anyway. So that was not a big deal. I didn't personally put a whole lot into that.
That was things that came along later. Magestic once it was done. Even the local pharmacy
couldn't go in and get a soda or whatever. Didn't push that a lot. It happened. Once it happened it
was fine. But mine basically was just school.
ZH: I am sure you experienced a lot of the segregation of society like the restaurants. Could you
maybe talk a little bit about that? What things were segregated in Woodstock and a little bit of
your experience?
�GN: Pretty much the movie theater like you said. And once they did build the swimming pool.
Like I said the local Walton & Smoot pharmacy, going in and sitting at the fountain. But you
know I don't remember it being a big problem anywhere. I really don't. Again most of the local
Black people were well enough known that most would go. Those who wanted to would go and
those who stayed away, stayed sway. I personally, like I said, my father now the only one thing I
can remember we would go up to Mac's Truck Center, I don't even know if it is still up there on
Route 11, we would go in there. The Blacks had to go around to the back and go in a side door
that was right there at the kitchen. They had a booth there and that is where the Blacks went.
They didn't go in the front door into the dining area. I can remember going there with my
parents. But that was just normal practice. My father didn't push the issue of gong in the front
door. I grew up not knowing any different. But once it did change, I had gotten older, and I heard
people talk about, "guess what we aren't going around to that back door any more we are going
right in the front". But other than that, like I said, it wasn’t big issue to me, I was perfectly
satisfied where I was. It was just the ability to go to school freely and that opened me up then to
me more association with the white children to maybe not do so much in the community but to
go in their homes, to go on trips together and do that kind of thing. That was more exciting to me
than actually pushing the issue.
ZH: The junior high school you talked about you went to Francis Junior High School--was that
an integrated school?
GN: Oh yes. In Georgetown.
ZH: Do you think that made you more prepared to go to an integrated school?
GN: Certainly helped. If nothing else it built my self-confidence. Because that was a unique
experience for a little country girl, like I said earlier, from a one-room school with seven grades
to go to a city school and be exposed to all of the different cultures, different races, different
styles of teaching, more fast-paced. I mean the whole thing, it truly helped prepare me.
ZH: I am interested in the difference between what would have been the typical white student
experience here and the typical African-American student. So coming from the AfricanAmerican school in Woodstock, do you think if you had gone straight in to Central would you
have had a different experience than the white students who had gone to a different school?
GN: I don't think so.
ZH: So you don't think the education that you had gotten in elementary school was that much
different than the others?
GN: No. It laid the basics. Reading, writing, and arithmetic as the old folks say, they are the
three ground players. She interjected that and along with it things that I really liked, history,
science, geography that was just injected in. But laying the basics so I was able to go in and pick
up a textbook and start from scratch. As long as I knew I had the help with that teacher. And like
I said, all of them were very encouraging and helpful. But no I don't think, it maybe would have
�been a little bit as far as my self-confidence, but I never denied myself. I was never afraid. When
they asked me if I was ok. I said yes, I don't have any problem with that. I don't have anything to
be ashamed of. I am willing to learn and that is what school is for. If I get behind, or I feel that I
am not meeting expectations, hopefully I will have someone to go to wherever I am. That has
always has been my thought. No you are not going to get everything right off the bat, I tell my
grandchildren that. The last one is graduating from high school this year. But you can do it.
There is no such thing as "I can't". Yes you can. It might take you a little bit longer or you might
need a little help. But I have always, my dad, like I said, did not have much schooling but was
self-taught in so many things. He was one of those kind who could sit you down and reason with
you thru intellect and talking with you and raising his voice and being very disciplinary. In my
household my mother was the disciplinarian and believe me you did not want to mess with Miss
Janie. But my father was always the one that could reason with you. My father explained to me
about death when my sister died. And you know you don't forget those kinds of things. It has
been a part of me and I appreciate that. He made me understand. There were a lot of little habits
and things that I had that were not right. He would sit me down and explain to me why what I
was doing was not good for me or anyone else or dangerous or what I could do. And those are
things that are like WOW! He instilled in me there is nothing that you can't do. But if by chance
there is something then don't worry about it because maybe it isn't your thing. You try something
else. Try something else.
ZH: Find your thing.
GN: Yes. And along with that as I said earlier, there was the faith issue. You go to Sunday
School and Church and you learn about Jesus. You don't leave him out. So I credit my
community, my parents, and Mrs. McClain. Our morning ritual, Bible study of some sort, a Bible
verse, the Pledge of Allegiance and then what you got out of the day before.
ZH: So you think your faith and maybe the church really helped you when it came to integrating
the school.
GN: Absolutely. Absolutely. Very much so.
ZH: I am curious; you talked a little bit about the superintendent of the school. I know you were
not the one talking to them but overall do you think they were opposed to integration and if they
were do you think they would have eventually integrated the schools themselves if they had not
been pushed.
GN: It really was such a shock. I mean this is not something that well I am getting a little bit that
maybe they are thinking about it or someone talked to them about it and come and prepared me. I
mean Mom just approached him "cold turkey", right out of the blue," I am doing it". "What?" I
think it was more the shock of it. The timing of it I don't think had a whole lot to do with it.
Because eventually you know it was going to happen. Eventually all things come to an end. But I
just didn't think, Well I got thru with Skip with Jim & Janie, now all they have is Gwen. I don't
think they expected necessarily from my mom and dad. I mean they gave no inclination of it
even though they were independent people, going about their business. They did their jobs and
all that. But it was just the "Now, under my?". But once it happened they were very supportive.
�Another thing about him was when Mom did go, she called his home to talk to him. She said "I
want to do this one on one. I am not going to do this publicly yet". He was in bed sick. His wife
said the day she was to go,"Do you think we better call and tell her not to come?" He said, “No
let her come. I feel better". I don't think it was anything big but he was sick. He had been at
home sick for a few days. So when Mom went she said maybe I should come back but his wife
said no he said he would talk with you. So I don't know what he expected. But he was receptive
to her when she went in. She told him I hope you feel better but I just wanted to come and tell
you first. He said, "What is that Mrs. Tolliver?". She told him what. He said, "You are going to
do what?” Because looking back on it now, little stories that Mom told me, after I finished
elementary school, they kept the process of the segregated schools for awhile. It lasted a little
longer at the school where I was because they had to expand to a larger place. The Black
children ended up going to one of the old white schools while they built the new one. When the
teacher was not feeling well they had to find a substitute. Several times they approached my
mom. "Mrs. Tolliver, would you be willing to go out and just sit with the children for a day or so
until the teacher gets back? And just be there and maybe go over a few things with them or listen
to them read? And she said she would do that. Well Mom got involved in the school as someone
that they knew they could count on to call to go and just sit there. She ended getting more
involved with the children because she came away knowing some of them were not where they
should be in their education and she commented. But that is just the way she was. And I think
maybe he thought that maybe she was coming to talk to him about a student at school. And then
she told him," No, I am coming to tell you we are going to enroll Gwen at Central for the coming
year."
ZH: The research I have found is right until you went to Central; they were planning on building
new Black schools in Woodstock and Strasburg.
GN: Yes. Yes. Leave status quo, the way status quo. No ones doing anything about. We will
leave sleeping dogs lie. It is working out so far. Nobody in the white community was really
pushing for it. In fact a lot of times you think, well they are happy so leave them them alone if
you don't really sit down and talk to someone. Most of the Black community was satisfied and
happy.
ZH: Well really that is pretty much all I had. Is there anything else you would like to add?
GN: I have talked to several that followed after me and none of them had any issues. Everybody
got along. Right to today. Friendships were made. I still did up until a few years ago we had our
annual class reunions. It was always so good to see all of them. A lot of them grew up in the
community close, their parents and my parents. Of course, a lot of them are gone now. I got to
know them one on one. We shared with one another. I started a little bit earlier in my life than a
lot of them. A lot of them had an opportunity to go right from high school to college. I got
married. So I had a completely different lifestyle. I had a daughter. Then after I had my daughter
I went back to school. So I started a lot earlier than a lot of them. So at the class reunions I would
talk about my daughter and getting older and her school experiences and they were just starting
to have their children. I have been blessed and in the last couple I would talk about my first
grandchild. It was like, "What? Mine is just barely getting in to high school and you already have
a grandchild?". Yes, but I started earlier. So it has always been good. No issues or problems.
�ZH: And that is pretty much what I have gotten from everybody else, they said there were no
issues or problems.
GN: Yes.
�
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Zachary Hottel
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Gwendolyn Tolliver Nickens
Location
The location of the interview
Consulate Healthcare, Woodstock Virginia
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
Oral History Transcript 16-0002
Interviewee: Gwendolyn Tolliver Nickens (GN)
Interviewer: Zachary Hottel (ZH)
Subject: Integration, Segregation, Shenandoah County Public Schools (VA)
2-15-2016
ZH: This is Zach Hottel with the Shenandoah County Library Archives interviewing Gwen Nickens about integration in Shenandoah County. I am going to let her giver her name and address if you would.
GN: My name is Gwendolyn, everybody has called me Gwen, Tolliver was my maiden name and of course that was the name I had in school with integration. Now I am married to Nickens, so now I am Gwendolyn Tolliver Nickens. I live in Winchester VA and my husband and I have been there now for about 34-35 years. Woodstock was my home. That is where I was born and raised. My parents were Theodore Tolliver better known as Jim Tolliver, and my mother was Mary Jane better known as Janie Tolliver. I went to school there and I was the first one to integrate schools and attend Central High School. That was several years ago, in fact, it was 1962 and I graduated in 1966. So that is kind of a brief history of my background.
ZH: So I guess maybe we could just start out in your own words about how did it come to be that you were the first to integrate Central High School and how that all began.
GN: My elementary background involves a one room school with one teacher who taught seven grades. She was the backbone of what I am for the simple fact. Her name was Genevieve R. McClain. She was a West Virginia native. That was where she lived. She lived in Woodstock here in a private home of one of the local people. She was our teacher. She was quite a unique, special lady. Very professional. She handled seven grades in one room. People when they think about that now it is unbelievable. The rapport, the discipline, and the control that she had was just unbelievable. We sat in rows of course. It was not a very large attendance even though it involved Woodstock, Mount Jackson, and part of New Market. So the children from Mount Jackson and New Market were bused down the road and those of us who lived here had of course had the opportunity to be right here. But we all went to school there. We were in rows where the younger children, the first graders, were in the front and then as you progressed in your schooling year you were sent further to the back of the school. It was heated by a wood-burning pot-bellied stove. We had of course our desks and one very long table in the very back where we would meet for our classes. Around the back of the school was our library. It was not very large but there books there that we could check out or we could read. But again this lady had such control over us. The classes also progressed in that order. The first ones, the little ones were the first to go to their classes. Then the older ones proceeded. We had not only reading, writing, and arithmetic, but she also covered geography and science. We were, like I said, we were allowed to use the library for our history and of course she would have us come up and do a lot of individualizing with us, different days for different age groups. When our class time came, we met at this long table in the back of our school and we sat down and went through our lessons. When we had tests we would do it from our desks. When I think back on it, it just seemed so routine and normal. You learned from the moment you went to her, what she expected of you and not only did she teach us the basics in our studies she also interjected socialization, being able to get up and do recitations, sing music. In the morning we would the Pledge of Allegiance, some type of Bible verse and we would be able to relate our day before. All of this was done like I said so uniquely. But it was handled and by the end of the day everything that was planned to be done was done. Then kind of as a little extra thing on the side for extra time since she lived and did not have to travel she would have us stay if you were interested in learning the basics of cooking. She was involved. I was a Girl Scout with a local group here in Woodstock, and she got involved with that with us girls. She stressed to the young men about being a man and all of the things that go along with that, how to respect ladies. I mean this woman was just unbelievable. It is due to her and the support of my parents and other people of the community along with the local Black pastor who allowed us to use the church when we had special events. We had spelling bees. We learned how to make spaghetti, basic food dishes. We learned how to make homemade ice cream. We even had an old crank ice cream freezer. She acquainted us with that. So this lady laid the groundwork for who I am today along with the assistance of all the other people. We got along well. If there any disputes she handled them and she knew she had the full support of most of the parents and definitely mine. So whatever she said you tried to do. In fact my father quoted to my brother who was older than I, “If Mrs. McClain tells you to go out and climb that tree then you go out and try, give it your best effort." It wasn't any question. But after I finished that there were only three of us in my graduating class. That is how small most of the classes were. All girls. When we finished school right away, what the normal process was, because my brother who graduated several years before I did, was you were bused from Woodstock to Winchester where the closest Black high school was. That was Douglas High School in Winchester, Virginia. My brother went there, in fact when he got old enough he got his driver's license and he drove the school bus that transported the Black children from Woodstock. He would stop in Strasburg and in Stephens City and get those and took them on to Winchester. That is where he went to high school. Well when it came time for me to go to high school my mother had a relative who lived in Washington D.C. who had had several major back operations and she just needed someone to be in her apartment with her to kind of assist her. She had different nurses and other people but she had got to the point where she felt all she really needed was an extra set of hands. So she approached my mom and said "Now Gwen is finishing elementary school, would you think she would come down and stay with me for a year or so?", and mom said "Well I will ask her", so Mom approached me and I agreed to do that. It was like ok where will she go to school. Well of course I graduated from the 7th grade so that meant I would be going in to the 8th grade. So her looking into the situation and where she lived in Washington, the nearest junior school in the city that I would go to was Francis Junior High School in Georgetown which was right on the edge of D.C. and to Georgetown. So that was where I would go and we went and got it set up. When I moved in with her that summer, when I started school I went to Francis Junior High in Georgetown. I went there for the full year that I lived with her. It was quite an experience for me to come from a little country one-room school and go into a junior high city school. It was overwhelming but I adjusted. I made friends. Of course there were those who made fun of me because of not only the way I talked but the way I walked, the way I dressed, I kind of stood out but after awhile they accepted me and everything worked out. So I went to Francis Junior High for my 8th grade year. Near the middle of that year my mother started really missing me and they would come down and visit and of course vacation days at school I was able to come home. So she set me down and said "I really miss you, I think you should come home". I said, " I have enjoyed being in Washington but I would like to come home". She said,"Well I have got a plan and I have got to ask you how you feel about it". Now my mother was the one that was kind of leading this. My father was in the background, he did not say a whole lot. But at least he gave his support. She said," Rather than go to Douglas I would like to see you stay right here in Woodstock and go to Central. We have a perfectly good high school right here there is not reason for that. There is only one thing, no one else goes there, you would be the first one. Do you have a problem or an issue with that?" I said, "No, none". She said, "Are you sure?" I said, “I am positive if it means that I get to come home." So she very bravely and boldly went and talked to the school superintendent to inform him first that she and my father would be enrolling me to start Central the next school year. It kind of took him back and he said,"You are going to do what?" and she said, "Yes, Jim (my father) and I have lived in this community for years and in fact my father was born here in Woodstock and in fact he worked for several of the well-known families as a young man. He ended up being an auto mechanic and worked for the local Chevrolet dealer. I have been married to him and we have raised our children. I have worked for a lot of people in the community. They all know Jim & I and this our daughter, the last one. and we want her to be at home to go to school." He said, " Do what you think is best but this is kind of going to be difficult." She said," Gwen is ready and we are going to take it for what it is worth". She enrolled me that summer and when the time came for me to start school of course there were some people that were very skeptical even in my own race. They told my parents they were making a mistake. They did not feel it was the time. Again they all approached me and asked me if I was scared. I said no. I got enough in me that I was going to make the best of it and it is going to work out. When the day came for me to start my mother was a nervous wreck. Of course all the mother fears," Have I made a mistake?"
And of course we had a few telephone calls, "Don't send that 'you know what' out here, if you do it is going to be a problem, we are going to hurt her". And of course my mother got more and more nervous. Finally the day I was to go they were going to send a bus to pick me up and then they decided no we are not going to take a chance we are going to send a private car and let the car take her. I was all ready and then my mother said at the last minute, " I don't think she should go and my father who was at work at the garage, he had come home and he looked at her and he said," No, we have come this far. Gwen wants to do it. It is going to be all right." So she reluctantly let me get in that car and when we drove up at Central to go in. Of course the newpaper was there, and a lot of parents and their children, the staff most of them came out. The principal came out and escorted me in to school. They introduced me to all the necessary people. They gave me my schedule. They assigned one of the local students who would be in my class to be kind of my guide to be with me that day like my buddy. I learned my way around school and I knew what classes I had to attend. They put me in with, when I say the children who were like the doctors, the lawyers, the department store owners. They put me in with those children rather than the children who were from the country. What they had done was they had talked with those students and they all said, "Oh yes, my dad knows her dad. They come out to our house or her mom comes in our store. They knew my family. They were glad, oh yeah, they were glad to have Gwen. Excited about it. So they put me in with them and so there was not any issue there at all. Different people ask me what happened in school and it was like no one approached me any more but there were a lot of little comments made in the hallway or on the stairwell or once in a while some of them in the cafeteria. But these children that I was in with, there was always one or two of them with me. They would, especially the boys, they would say, “You touch her you are going to answer to me, she deserves to be here as well as you & I, let her alone". Within a couple of week’s time it was like every day practice. There were a few looks, but that went on for a while, but never any incident, no confrontation, nothing like that. And within time it was like I was one of the group. So that year went very well and I got involved in sports and other activities. I have always liked to sing, so got in Glee singing group. And all of those things were only plusses. I guess you could as a matter of fact I proved myself that I could do what they do. I was willing to learn. All of my teachers were very supportive, and complimentary, how proud they were to have me. When we got to the part in government or in my senior year or in the early years of history when we talked about slavery they would kind of "how is she going to take it?", but hey that is all part of it, I was proud of the fact that I was different from you but we are all in this together. My teacher said that is so great and maybe there are some things that you can tell us that are not in this book. Like what we are doing here. I was blessed to have good grandparents. My mom's parents lived in Mount Jackson. My grandfather was a farmer and I had that experience knowing what that was like. My grandmother would sit down and tell us things so I had that knowledge. My father's parents lived here in Woodstock and they were things that they told me that they had experienced in life. So I did have some things that I could share with them from my history and background. It just went real smooth. So by the next year after the other Black people in the community saw how smooth it was going, it kind of encouraged them and more started coming. Then finally they did away with the need to even go to Winchester and it was just protocol. So it kind of fell right in to place and it has been all right ever since as far as I know.
ZH: Now I am curious a little bit about, you said you mother was the real driving force behind you. Was that you think a personal decision on her part or what do think drove her to that?
GN: I think it was more that 'Mother Thing'. I think she wanted me home and having experienced the commute and having to deal with my brother who went to Douglas. She had nothing against Douglas and my mother was the kind of mother like more should be who checked in with the school periodically. She was not the stay at home, hands-off mother; she was very much involved the whole time my brother was there. The best way for her to get there, she made her plans; she would ride the bus there. And of course when my brother drove, she got to see how he did then and how proud she was that he was able to handle that as well as be in school. But she had a personal interest on his progress. My brother was very athletic and he loved football. She supported him at that but she also wanted those academics to come in play. And the best way to find out was she would go to classes with him and then talk with the teachers. When my time came, I think it was the actual having me home, when she had an actual hands-on, more being able to be there. Because when I came to Central, she came there periodically. A good parent does that. She didn't do it out of fear or to make my brother or I embarrassed even though she did embarrass my brother, you can imagine, a young man who is a junior or senior in high school and there is momma but they understood and the teacher really because they knew that parental guidance & support was there. She wanted to know and if he wasn't doing and the same thing with me and then you don't play football for a year because the academic part of it. Back then both my parents not completing school, my father did not go very far at all. He dropped out like most young boys do. But my father had a given intellect that a lot of people, he read a lot. He put himself through a mail communication course. But he loved that kind of stuff. He was always was good with his hands, being a mechanic. He had very high abilities that he unfortunately never got to use but it was there. My mother went I think she told me to 9th grade. She too had to come home, she was in the city living with relatives, because she lived in Mount Jackson in the country but her mother got ill and she was one of the ones who was able to come and take care of Mom so she had to drop out of school. Her education kind of went to a limit and they both wanted my brother and me to have more.
ZH: So you think it was more of a practical reason for you to go to school than it was for some other reason.
GN: Practical as well as I was going to get what I needed. Douglas was perfectly all right. It was different. I used to go. It was quite interesting for me to go to my brother's class. There was a lot given but there was a lot that was missed. My brother got the basics but there wasn't anything really for him to excel in. The teachers were qualified but my mother knew there was more. It had been done and it was the normal practice for everybody to go there. She wanted to break that mold and provide for me. She looked and saw in me, thanks to Mrs. McClain again, her and other people in my community that it was there that I could do more and the possibility of even college. It was more practical, supportive, wanting me home type of thing.
ZH: And you definitely think Central gave you more than you would have gotten if you had gone to Douglas.
GN: Absolutely.
ZH: Now I guess backing up a little bit I had a couple questions. First you said you were in Girl Scouts. I had not thought about this until you said this. Were the Girl Scout troops segregated?
GH: Yes, by the time I got there. The leader of the Girl Scouts when I was in it was the wife of the Administrator of the High School. She was the one who had the time. She picked it up. She had been one for years when he moved here to take that job. She encouraged young girls which most of those people that were involved in those scout organizations did. She even reached out to my school in my community. She made personal visits and extended the invitation for us little girls to get involved. It was due to her that over half of my school the girls joined. It was another from someone caring coming from an area where it was not as common to have segregation where there was more integration. She knew the capability was there and she extended the invitation. I just loved it. I fell right into it. The handwork, the volunteer work, being able to earn the badges and to do all that. She was very supportive. She reached out. It wasn't that we had to hunt her out. She actually came out to us through the school superintendent and my teacher. She approached her and talked to her one on one first, "Mrs. McClain, I like to come to your school if you allow me and talk to your girls about the Girl Scouts". And of course my teacher was very --"Yes indeed, let's give these young ladies everything we possibly can". So that is kind of how that went.
ZH: Now do you think there were other people in the white community like her that were supportive of integration?
GN: Oh yes! Like I said most of the people that were doctors, lawyers, store owners, organization leaders, ministers, most of them knew my father and knew where he came from. Knew what he was.
They were very supportive. It was like FINALLY when it came out. You are doing this. It should have been done a long time ago Jim, I mean you have three children. Two of them, me and my brother. My sister died way before she was able to. She died at eleven years old. She had been sick most of her life. It was my brother, my sister Shirley, and I was the baby. So my brother and I were the two when she passed. I was only five years old when she passed. They encouraged my father and mother and they were really glad when this happened. They were very supportive. Yes, do this. That is where they belong. You are part of this community. You have lived here all your life. I can' say that I know of anyone that didn't. They never told me of the ones that didn't. Because most of the people that knew my father and grew to know my mother after years of being in the area were very supportive.
ZH: So you think that personal connection had a part to play.
GN: Oh yes. How can you support someone when you don't really know them? I mean that gives the foundation of being able to say I know what this person can do; I know what this person is. I have lived with this person, I have seen their work. I have worked with them. Yes, I really do. There was a lot. Just like I said there was not any problem at all. A few but they were soon put down or told "Hey leave it alone". Then after a while it was like I said just like every day.
ZH: You think definitely the economic standing of people affected the way they viewed integration.
GN: Absolutely. Absolutely. If you are exposed, if you are told that it is all part of life, and people even in my own race, some in the people in my own community were not real happy or receptive. They would say "What are you doing? You are going to mess up things; you are going to cause problems". But that comes from not truly understanding or being given the fact that, Hey, you deserve it too. If you come up in a status where I need to stay where I am, I can't cross that line than that is the way you are going to be in my opinion. If you are a better, I won't use the word class, but if you come up with a different understanding and in those homes they were told we are all equal. Jim and Janie's kids are just like you kids. They deserve it just as well as you do. Let them prove themselves. You don't judge someone simply because of the color of their skin. That doesn't make them any different. They are just like us. You cut them they bleed just like we do. It was the people that were the better and most of them like I said it was what they were given from their experiences in life. They had traveled or they had even had the experiences of going to schools where there was integration or being around or associated, or even the fact that some of them had Black ladies or men working for them. Because my father worked for a well-known family when he was a young man. The gentleman was a judge and his wife was a well-to-do aristocratic lady. But they brought their children up with my dad and they loved my dad just like he was a brother to the kids or an extended son. They treated him the same even though he worked for them. The kids growing up loved Dad. "Oh Jim, I mean what will we do without you if you are not here. Come on be a part". That was the kind of relationship they had, so when they grew up and went out they were better prepared when other Blacks approached them. It was like "Oh yeah our Jim you know. We don't even see him that way. So that I think the advantage of that comes from. They never put you down, they never belittled you. They never said they are only good for this or they are only good for that. It was like "yes they are equal".
ZH: You are in the African-American community in Woodstock. The leadership, I kind of got the impression from the research, that there was never any, I guess apart from some isolated incidents where they were pushing for integration.
GN: No
ZH: That some of that even came from the outside. I found evidence of the NAACP pushing for some integration in Shenandoah County from Winchester from the chapter there. Do you think you find that to be true?
GN: Yes. It was status quo for the older Black people in the community. You stay over here. That is what you do. You don't cross that line. But my mother being an independent, strong Black woman, she said “You’re not talking to me. This is my child. This is my decision. You are not my leader. I have been given my own mind. I respect you for who you are but if that is where you want to stay, then God Bless you. But me and my mine will not. It did not go over real well. First of all, my mother was an outsider in the community anyhow. My father married her from Mount Jackson so it was already touch and go with the relationship with bringing someone from outside. A lot of people have that narrow-minded concept, you stay within. After she got here, like I said, she became independent, she went to work, she kept her house, and she raised us. She didn't associate on the side, she went to church. It was like, golly this woman is different. But that was just her and a lot of them had a hard time, especially the older ones. Now the younger ones they saw how it went and they were able to experience it little by little. It was like 'Oh, this is how it is". You had that where as far as leaders, my mom told several of the older people, “Maybe you think you are a leader or maybe you are theirs, but you are not mine. I don't answer to no one but God".
ZH: There is more to integration in Shenandoah County than the school. I have done the research as to when the pools integrated and the theaters integrated. Do you have any experiences related to those things?
GN: Those are not things that I really pushed. Kind of went along with the program to a certain degree. I didn't do sit-ins or demonstrations. I didn't do a lot of swimming because I am not a swimmer, unfortunately I regret that now. But the movie theater it was just common practice when we went in we went to the balcony the upper lever. To be very honest I preferred being on the upper level anyway. So that was not a big deal. I didn't personally put a whole lot into that. That was things that came along later. Magestic once it was done. Even the local pharmacy couldn't go in and get a soda or whatever. Didn't push that a lot. It happened. Once it happened it was fine. But mine basically was just school.
ZH: I am sure you experienced a lot of the segregation of society like the restaurants. Could you maybe talk a little bit about that? What things were segregated in Woodstock and a little bit of your experience?
GN: Pretty much the movie theater like you said. And once they did build the swimming pool. Like I said the local Walton & Smoot pharmacy, going in and sitting at the fountain. But you know I don't remember it being a big problem anywhere. I really don't. Again most of the local Black people were well enough known that most would go. Those who wanted to would go and those who stayed away, stayed sway. I personally, like I said, my father now the only one thing I can remember we would go up to Mac's Truck Center, I don't even know if it is still up there on Route 11, we would go in there. The Blacks had to go around to the back and go in a side door that was right there at the kitchen. They had a booth there and that is where the Blacks went. They didn't go in the front door into the dining area. I can remember going there with my parents. But that was just normal practice. My father didn't push the issue of gong in the front door. I grew up not knowing any different. But once it did change, I had gotten older, and I heard people talk about, "guess what we aren't going around to that back door any more we are going right in the front". But other than that, like I said, it wasn’t big issue to me, I was perfectly satisfied where I was. It was just the ability to go to school freely and that opened me up then to me more association with the white children to maybe not do so much in the community but to go in their homes, to go on trips together and do that kind of thing. That was more exciting to me than actually pushing the issue.
ZH: The junior high school you talked about you went to Francis Junior High School--was that an integrated school?
GN: Oh yes. In Georgetown.
ZH: Do you think that made you more prepared to go to an integrated school?
GN: Certainly helped. If nothing else it built my self-confidence. Because that was a unique experience for a little country girl, like I said earlier, from a one-room school with seven grades to go to a city school and be exposed to all of the different cultures, different races, different styles of teaching, more fast-paced. I mean the whole thing, it truly helped prepare me.
ZH: I am interested in the difference between what would have been the typical white student experience here and the typical African-American student. So coming from the African-American school in Woodstock, do you think if you had gone straight in to Central would you have had a different experience than the white students who had gone to a different school?
GN: I don't think so.
ZH: So you don't think the education that you had gotten in elementary school was that much different than the others?
GN: No. It laid the basics. Reading, writing, and arithmetic as the old folks say, they are the three ground players. She interjected that and along with it things that I really liked, history, science, geography that was just injected in. But laying the basics so I was able to go in and pick up a textbook and start from scratch. As long as I knew I had the help with that teacher. And like I said, all of them were very encouraging and helpful. But no I don't think, it maybe would have been a little bit as far as my self-confidence, but I never denied myself. I was never afraid. When they asked me if I was ok. I said yes, I don't have any problem with that. I don't have anything to be ashamed of. I am willing to learn and that is what school is for. If I get behind, or I feel that I am not meeting expectations, hopefully I will have someone to go to wherever I am. That has always has been my thought. No you are not going to get everything right off the bat, I tell my grandchildren that. The last one is graduating from high school this year. But you can do it. There is no such thing as "I can't". Yes you can. It might take you a little bit longer or you might need a little help. But I have always, my dad, like I said, did not have much schooling but was self-taught in so many things. He was one of those kind who could sit you down and reason with you thru intellect and talking with you and raising his voice and being very disciplinary. In my household my mother was the disciplinarian and believe me you did not want to mess with Miss Janie. But my father was always the one that could reason with you. My father explained to me about death when my sister died. And you know you don't forget those kinds of things. It has been a part of me and I appreciate that. He made me understand. There were a lot of little habits and things that I had that were not right. He would sit me down and explain to me why what I was doing was not good for me or anyone else or dangerous or what I could do. And those are things that are like WOW! He instilled in me there is nothing that you can't do. But if by chance there is something then don't worry about it because maybe it isn't your thing. You try something else. Try something else.
ZH: Find your thing.
GN: Yes. And along with that as I said earlier, there was the faith issue. You go to Sunday School and Church and you learn about Jesus. You don't leave him out. So I credit my community, my parents, and Mrs. McClain. Our morning ritual, Bible study of some sort, a Bible verse, the Pledge of Allegiance and then what you got out of the day before.
ZH: So you think your faith and maybe the church really helped you when it came to integrating the school.
GN: Absolutely. Absolutely. Very much so.
ZH: I am curious; you talked a little bit about the superintendent of the school. I know you were not the one talking to them but overall do you think they were opposed to integration and if they were do you think they would have eventually integrated the schools themselves if they had not been pushed.
GN: It really was such a shock. I mean this is not something that well I am getting a little bit that maybe they are thinking about it or someone talked to them about it and come and prepared me. I mean Mom just approached him "cold turkey", right out of the blue," I am doing it". "What?" I think it was more the shock of it. The timing of it I don't think had a whole lot to do with it. Because eventually you know it was going to happen. Eventually all things come to an end. But I just didn't think, Well I got thru with Skip with Jim & Janie, now all they have is Gwen. I don't think they expected necessarily from my mom and dad. I mean they gave no inclination of it even though they were independent people, going about their business. They did their jobs and all that. But it was just the "Now, under my?". But once it happened they were very supportive. Another thing about him was when Mom did go, she called his home to talk to him. She said "I want to do this one on one. I am not going to do this publicly yet". He was in bed sick. His wife said the day she was to go,"Do you think we better call and tell her not to come?" He said, “No let her come. I feel better". I don't think it was anything big but he was sick. He had been at home sick for a few days. So when Mom went she said maybe I should come back but his wife said no he said he would talk with you. So I don't know what he expected. But he was receptive to her when she went in. She told him I hope you feel better but I just wanted to come and tell you first. He said, "What is that Mrs. Tolliver?". She told him what. He said, "You are going to do what?” Because looking back on it now, little stories that Mom told me, after I finished elementary school, they kept the process of the segregated schools for awhile. It lasted a little longer at the school where I was because they had to expand to a larger place. The Black children ended up going to one of the old white schools while they built the new one. When the teacher was not feeling well they had to find a substitute. Several times they approached my mom. "Mrs. Tolliver, would you be willing to go out and just sit with the children for a day or so until the teacher gets back? And just be there and maybe go over a few things with them or listen to them read? And she said she would do that. Well Mom got involved in the school as someone that they knew they could count on to call to go and just sit there. She ended getting more involved with the children because she came away knowing some of them were not where they should be in their education and she commented. But that is just the way she was. And I think maybe he thought that maybe she was coming to talk to him about a student at school. And then she told him," No, I am coming to tell you we are going to enroll Gwen at Central for the coming year."
ZH: The research I have found is right until you went to Central; they were planning on building new Black schools in Woodstock and Strasburg.
GN: Yes. Yes. Leave status quo, the way status quo. No ones doing anything about. We will leave sleeping dogs lie. It is working out so far. Nobody in the white community was really pushing for it. In fact a lot of times you think, well they are happy so leave them them alone if you don't really sit down and talk to someone. Most of the Black community was satisfied and happy.
ZH: Well really that is pretty much all I had. Is there anything else you would like to add?
GN: I have talked to several that followed after me and none of them had any issues. Everybody got along. Right to today. Friendships were made. I still did up until a few years ago we had our annual class reunions. It was always so good to see all of them. A lot of them grew up in the community close, their parents and my parents. Of course, a lot of them are gone now. I got to know them one on one. We shared with one another. I started a little bit earlier in my life than a lot of them. A lot of them had an opportunity to go right from high school to college. I got married. So I had a completely different lifestyle. I had a daughter. Then after I had my daughter I went back to school. So I started a lot earlier than a lot of them. So at the class reunions I would talk about my daughter and getting older and her school experiences and they were just starting to have their children. I have been blessed and in the last couple I would talk about my first grandchild. It was like, "What? Mine is just barely getting in to high school and you already have a grandchild?". Yes, but I started earlier. So it has always been good. No issues or problems.
ZH: And that is pretty much what I have gotten from everybody else, they said there were no issues or problems.
GN: Yes.
Duration
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48:29
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Title
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Gwendolyn Tolliver Nickens Oral History Interview
Subject
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Nickens, Gwendolyn Tolliver
Central High School (Woodstock Va)
Description
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Oral history interview featuring Gwendolyn "Gwen" Tolliver Nickens conducted on February 5, 2016 for the Shenandoah County Library's Black History Month Program. In 1963 Gwen became the first African American student to attend the formally all black Central High School in Woodstock Virginia.
Creator
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Zachary Hottel
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Shenandoah Voices Oral History Collection
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VbM08jy7TGU" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
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Shenandoah County Library
Date
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February 5, 2016
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Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC)
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MP3 File
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English
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Sound Recording
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2016-0002
African Americans
Integration
Schools
Segregation
Shenandoah County
Virginia
-
https://archives.countylib.org/files/original/c92cebe71ca9d885ebaf6b6c9955c1d2.pdf
19b078740f2ddd28662829dd7504c414
PDF Text
Text
Oral History Transcript 16-0004
Interviewee: Laura Marquetta Mitchell & Willy Mitchell
Interviewer: Zach Hottel
Subject: Integration, Segregation, Strasburg (Va); Shenandoah County Public Schools (Va)
February 9, 2016
Zach: This is Zach Hottel. It is February 9th. I am here to do an oral history interview on
integration and segregation.
Marquetta: My name is Marquetta Mitchell. I always like to say Laura Marquetta Mitchell and
Zach is in our home here with my husband and me to talk about segregation and integration. We
welcome him in our home and we glad for the opportunity.
Zach: Thank you.
Willy: My name Wilbert "Willy" Mitchell. I was born on August 3, 1948. Went to Sunset Hill
Elementary School and shortly after graduation went to Strasburg High School.
Marquetta: I actually was born in Greenville, Tennessee. I always say that because my mother
happened to be in Greenville at the time and that was her hometown. I call Strasburg my home
though. I attended Sunset Hills School until I graduated from the seventh grade. When I
graduated from the seventh grade that was when the segregated schools here, that was the last
year of the segregated school. So I was in the first class that was officially went over to what was
then called the white school which was high school for me which was 8th grade. Although there
were other Black students there before I got there that had matriculated into the system before it
was really official.
Zach: Just to clarify when did you finish at Sunset Hill?
Willy: I believe it was 1963.
Marquetta: I was 1964 wasn't I?
Willy: Must have been. I was the first Black male to go to Straburg High School. Prior to that
Fay Mitchell, my sister, Gloria Hess, Priscilla and Angela Alsberry were the first from Strasburg
to go to high school.
Zach: I found in the records that 1962 was the first year there were any African-American
students there and then a few more in 1963 and finally in 1964.
Willy: I believe that is right.
Marquetta: I know the history. Let me call Susie Gaynor? and I can put my hands on it. If you
want there is a whole story about it.
Zach: About this?
�Marquetta: Her children. Would you like to get a copy?
Zach: That would be great.
Marquetta: It’s in the closet upstairs. Was it 64? Graduated 69 in 12th. 68 in 11th grade. 67 in
10th grade. 66 in the 9th grade. 65 in the 8th grade.
Willy: Because the years, my mind. I started school late because we lived out in the outer part of
the county in Lebanon Church. My father worked on a farm. My mom worked on the farm also.
We weren't allowed to ride the buses and so I ended up being moved to Strasburg to live with my
grandparents, Turner ? and Letha Mitchell, down on B Street. So I stayed there and lived with
them and went to school until, seemed like it was. I was at school at Sunset Hills and then we
moved to Strasburg I think it was 1956 we moved into town.
Zach: I am curious about Strasburg. I know in Woodstock there was a geographic place where
most of the African-Americans community lived. But then in Mount Jackson, New Market that
was not the case. Was that the case in Strasburg?
Willy: Yes. Predominantly was B Street, now it is Branch Street. But it is known now as
Alsberry Street was what we called it here up on the hill. That was where Sunset Hills School
was. There were Black families up there.
Zach: So that area the hill up there around the school was predominantly Black.
Willy: With us we lived on A Street which is now Ash Street. It was like 3 families, 3 Black
families we lived beside each other there and that was about it. Wasn't too many. Most all the
Blacks lived between Branch Street and D Street and what was Alsberry Street.
Zach: Now can you talk the restaurants and the theater which I assume were segregated in
Strasburg. Talk a little bit about in general about some of your experiences with those.
Willy: There were several restaurants in Strasburg at that time of course they were all segregated.
But the one that we went to most of the time was Virginia Restaurant. Sager Realty is there now
on the corner. But we had to go in the back in the kitchen area and that is where my mother
worked as a cook. They had several booths back there and that is where we ate and were served.
It wasn't until years later that we allowed to go out front. We were washing windows out front
and stuff like that but as far as sitting down and eating we weren't allowed to go out front. And
other place was the Tastee Freeze, that was after when integration started we were allowed to go
to the Tastee Freeze. But as a young person I really didn't go to any of the other restaurants in
town other than that. As far as the theater, we could go to the theater we could go to the theater
but you had to sit up in the balcony which was great. We thought it was great! You set and the
screen was right in front of you and it was nice. If that was punishment--. The thing was you
didn't have the option. But then again we couldn't afford to go to the theater that much. Most of
the time it was at Christmas when First Bank used to have Santa Claus and they would give you
�a, you would go in and sit on Santa's lap and tell him what you want, and get a bag of hard
candy and an orange and a ticket to go to Home Theater.
Marquetta: I can't find it. I got to get that stuff together for a Virginia Tech reunion.
Zach: I talked to Gloria Stickley and she said something about you all having to start a reunion. I
am curious a little bit if you could talk about-- I know you said you were born in Greenville.
How did you end up moving from there to Strasburg?
Marquetta: Well, long story short, my mother and father, actually my father lived at the time in
Washington DC. My mother worked for my father's parents, cleaning their house and that kind
of stuff. And so my mother was from Greenville, Tennessee. She had moved from Greenville to
Washington DC cleaning homes and doing what was called "days work". In Washington DC
"days work", and I did" days work. It was basically Black folks working for white folks cleaning
their house. And so my mother basically worked for my grandparents cleaning their house. And
so I came along. So my grandparents had property here. The Witheralls, I am a Witherall that is
my maiden name. The Witheralls go way back, way, way, back. The family Bible is over there.
In Shenandoah County it is spelled three different ways. We are working on that. Because my
parents had issues. My grandparents took all of us and brought us here to Strasburg because they
had property in Strasburg that was on B Street which is Branch Street now. They used to rent it
out to people. I t was like a rental property. So they came here and brought us here and raised us
here. That is how Strasburg became my home. And Willy lived in the county and he moved to
Strasburg in order to go to school. So that is how I got here. But the Witherall name was already
here.
Willy: We found out, doing, Marquetta more so than me, with research and everything and
talking to the Alsberrys, one of the main reasons that they moved here from the Rappahannock
County was so their children could get an education. And because in that particular area they
might have to have gone to Manassas.
Marquetta: Miles and miles. My dad went to school had to leave here to go to Charlottesville and
Manassas to go to school. That was that generation, But now my grandparents were retired
teachers of the colored school when they moved here. So that is how we had to do good in
school. My grandfather was the schoolteacher, before the Sunset Hill School that was the school
over on Queen Street. Pigtail Alley. And then my Auntie, I don't if, I can't remember if Auntie
taught at Sunset Hills because she was one of the teachers at Woodstock, at Creekside. I can't
confirm Creekside, I just remember Woodstock school. And I think she did do some subbing at
_____ Sunset School. But Poppy, my grandfather was the one that taught here, and I know my
grandmother subbed here, taught here at Sunset Hills school because they were already retired
teachers.
Zach: Now talk a little bit about what Sunset Hills Schools was like. I know it was a one room
school but I guess just give a description of what the classes were like, if you liked you teachers
and just kind of a general overview.
�Marquetta: It was a one room school. Coal stove. It was, I won't say it was always warm in terms
of temperature though, physical temperature. It was a class divided up in rows by class and what
I remember was Mrs. Payne was my teacher.
Willy: Dora H. Payne.
Marquetta: Dora H. Payne and her sister Mrs. McClain taught in Woodstock. She, I remember so
well, because the teachers lived at different houses and ours was the main house. So I remember
very well. We hated it. When you had to be at school and then Mrs. Payne followed you home.
So the classroom. I liked school. I didn't know how to compare it to any other school. I liked
school. I enjoyed school. I excelled in school. So the kids that excelled or did well they taught
other kids. I liked that, I liked teaching other kids. So I wasn't the only one. So all the kids that
did very well sort of became teacher’s aids in how to teach the other classes which I liked. And
then if you really did, it was a really big deal for Mrs. Payne the teacher to take you home to her
home in West Virginia for the weekend. So that was like a really big deal so everybody wanted
to go home with Mrs. Payne, you know. I liked that. I liked the discipline of learning. The
teachers were for me really good. There were some kids who got in trouble or they might not
have been but I was one of those kids who was a pretty decent student and I did fine. I enjoyed
school. School was fun. We had recess outside. We sang, started every morning with prayer, said
the pledge of allegiance to the flag, we sang songs. We sang songs where you moved, we had
plays. We had talent shows. My brother and I we had dance talent shows. We had speaking talent
shows and I liked it. There was not anything I didn't like about school. But really the part that I
did not like, I was like a year ahead of kids my age, because my grandmother did that and I didn't
like it because it left me very isolated. I didn't have a clique or group. I knew they liked me and I
liked them but I wasn't ever a part of a girlfriend group or that kind of stuff. That is the part I
didn't like. I liked going home for lunch. His brother Ray, after school, everybody when run and
jump on his bike, he must have sometimes it seemed like he had six kids on his bike, that is an
over-exaggeration. But he would stand up, someone would be on the seat, someone would be on
the fender, and someone would be on the handle bars. And we would come down that hill, pop
the tracks but my grandmother never knew about that. There was a bully in school. was
Raymond. He used to chase us home every day. Not every day but often enough for my
grandmother to come out of the house with a broom and chase him down the street. I enjoyed
school and I looked forward to going to Frederick Douglas school because the kids who were
older than me they caught the bus right down the street at Mrs. Riffey's(?) house on Bragg Street
and I used to watch the teenage girls with their pretty skirts, and their oxford shoes and their
transistor radios. And sometimes they would be dancing all the new dances before they got on
the bus and I could not wait to be a part of that. Mrs. Payne always would say, "I am going to get
you ready to go to the white school. You have to get you ready to go to the white school. And
you are going to learn this. Because I don't want to be bad-mouthed when you get to the white
school. And I remember that. I remember that was her thing. And my grandmother was there too.
I wasn't looking forward to going to the white school; I was looking forward to going to
Frederick Douglas where all the other Black kids went. But I enjoyed school. I liked being a
student. I was happy in school. Even when I looked back today I think we got a better education
than those most kids today. And we got extra when we got home because I lived with teachers.
We had to go upstairs. Everybody got an extra dose of education. My grandfather was an invalid
who was a teacher also. He taught history. So after we ate dinner, Poppy had to go over our
�lessons from school. He would always teach us something different, extra multiplication tables,
addition, subtraction tables, all of the stuff. I so when I think about kids today, education, it is
just real different. But I got a good education. It may have been in a secondary school. It may
have been with books that were thrown in the trash can at the end of school. They were. We
knew that. I may have been with tiny pieces of chalk but the discipline was there and the hunger
for a good education was there. There wasn't a parent that I knew that didn't want that for any of
their kids. Would you agree with that?
Willy: Yes
Marquetta; Very serious about education.
Willy: She was.
Marquetta: But most parents were. There were some kids that didn't go astray. You got the strap
on your hand. You had to hold out your hand.
Willy: It was a ruler.
Marquetta: Yes but Mrs. Payne used a strap too.
Willy: That wasn't on your hand that was on your back.
Marquetta: No. Mrs. Payne used a strap on my sister.
Willy: She used it on my buttocks.
Marquetta: Yes but she used a strap on my sister's hands. I never will forget that. Anyway, so
that is my experience.
Willy: You went through a lot when you were a kid. Basically when I started school I always
felt, "why am I here". I got an education but I don't think I got what I should have. I think my
father was a better teacher on things like math. My father only had a sixth grade education but if
you would say Dad what is 6 x 9 plus 4 plus 3 he would have it for you. And I look at the math
that we did and the math that these children are doing now and we had it really easy. But even
the math that we had was not as simple as the math that my father had. Everything was
simplified. My experience in school it really was not that bad.
They did away with the coal stove and got an oil stove. The oil tank was in the back at one of
the ends and it was an old stove. When I was in the seventh grade I got the job as being the
stoky??. So I had to be there early in the morning and make sure the fire was going. That was a
lot of responsibility. I had to make sure the fire was going, the door was open and the lights were
on. I got paid by the county $12 a month. And sometimes in the evening we had this oil that
would come in these 5 gallon cans and we had to mop it on the floors to keep all the dust down
so I used to have to do that and get some of the guys to help me. Make sure that the chalkboard
was all cleaned. I think about the rainy days when we couldn't go out. We had like shuffleboard
and horseshoes and things like that. At times like Christmas I believe the kids from, I don't
�remember if it was from the high school or the middle school and they would bring us textbooks
that they were finished with them and we still have some with their names in them. Because
some of those books were just tossed and just like the guys down at Morrison's??. I found with
Marquetta's name in it and my brother. We had one bully and I beat the bully. Yeah, I stopped
that. He became one of my best friends. It was a lot of --it was the first place I had ever met a
Puerto Rican. They moved in to our community, we don't know where they moved from, so they
had to go to our school also. So that was very cool. And I think that even today I like to meet
people from different cultures. It is really interesting. But when graduation night came I was the
only one who graduated. It wasn't but one person in that class that graduated because I started
late and I might have been back a little bit. But I was the only one who received a diploma that
time. I remember my father meetings downtown with the school board, I remember vaguely
sketches of that. Getting things ____ and going thru a lot of arguments and discussions about us
children integrating the school.
Marquetta: Mongolizing. They didn't want their kids mongolizing.
Willy: That was my father. My father was told that, "you know, Wilbur, your son and my
daughter, they are young and they might mongolize." Well my father said, "My son is not a dog
and neither is your daughter and they will be just fine." My dad was very calm type person, but
my mother was a little fiery. But my dad was very calm type guy in the essence of "we can talk
about this." But his mind was set that we were going to Strasburg High School. But Sunset Hill it
was good. But I look at education now, some of the things, the tutors, and I believe if I would
have had access to something like that I would have made out much better. But I haven't done
bad.
Marquetta: No. You haven't. But you know our parents did not want us to go to Frederick
Douglas at all. At all. And like his parents were involved in that movement. My grandparents
were involved in that movement for integration. I don't know, I don't remember I was just a kid. I
don't remember any parent wanting their kid to get on that bus to Frederick Douglas. I didn't
because of all the teenage girls________. Sometimes you want to have that bus______ to
Winchester because sometimes you had to tie the door closed with rope.
Zach: Yes, I have heard something about that. In fact, it wasn't the bus that went to Frederick
Douglas but I have talked to a guy that rode the bus to Lucy Sims in Harrisonburg and he had
some pretty vivid descriptions about the bus.
Marquetta: Now my grandmother taught at Lucy Sims in Harrisonburg. She was in Rockingham
County before she came here. Our parents generally, it was a move, an initiative, by the Black
folks in this town they not be segregated, that they go to the so-called white schools in this town.
Zach: Now what do you all think was the big push for that movement because and I think that
was unique because both the people from the South end of the county in Woodstock have told
me that they don't remember there being a movement to get-- they have told that they were sent
to Central because their parents--it was more of a personal reason.
�Marquetta & Willy: Yes. Same thing. It wasn't like Warren County. That was not Shenandoah
County.
Marquetta: I would agree with the lower end of Shenandoah County. It was more of parents
getting together as parents taking a personal responsibility to verbalize that their kids are going.
Willy: It took courage. With all the turmoil that was going around in the United States at that
time.
Marquetta: Civil Rights Movement.
Willy: And all that stuff. A lot of the parents, my dad and mom, with 5th and 6th grade
educations, work for the rest of your life, all your life, but they did have a lot of common sense.
And just kind of pulling everything together. But the thing also, when you had the PTA meetings
parents were there. The teachers and the parents they had a communication. My parents would
go the school and set down or Ms. Payne would come to the house, or Ms Trusdale, and set
down or take them out to dinner. There was a respect there, it was almost like family. They
watched out more for each other, a community type thing. Our parents did.
Marquetta: I think what really helped with that, all the teachers from the different sections of
Shenandoah County, we imported our own teachers you see. And so all the teachers lived with
the parents of the students in the community so they got to be a part of the community. I like I
said most of the time it was at my house, Mrs. Payne. Mrs. Trusdale I don't know where she
stayed.
Willey: She stayed over at Mrs.Hilda Mormon's?? house.
Marquetta: That's right. I can't remember where Ms. Bremitt?? stayed.
Willey: I think it was all in the same place.
Marquetta: But it was all in the same community. If they stayed for the weekend they would,
most of the time they didn't, they went home except for the ones, Ms.Trudale and Ms. Burge
were from North Carolina and South Carolina. So if they stayed for the weekend they would go
to our church. So they were in our churches, they were in our schools, they were in our
communities. And the community you have to remember we were a very small Black
community so everybody knew everybody. So they became a part of our family, they were like
family and they were treated very well. Now at our house we had to give up a whole room and
there were five kids in our house. Some of us had to sleep downstairs. But a room was given up
in our house for that teacher. And so the teachers at that time were very lofty in terms of their
position in those communities. So the definition of a teacher is very different than a definition of
a teacher today. There was so much respect and so much reverence. They weren't God but they
were up there. Okay. So that made a big difference. Everybody was involved in making sure
these kids were ready for the white school. It was a drive without saying it was a drive. It was a
move without defining it as a move. It just happened because of all the lives that just melded
together.
�Willey: But there were meetings with the Board of Education and some of the town leaders also
and things of that nature also.
Marquetta: And sometimes those things were pretty trying.
Willey: Yes but it wasn't to the point where they were burning crosses in the yard, killing cattle
and stuff like that.
Marquetta: One of the reasons why it didn't happen. I don't know all the reasons. I know the first
day of school was very scary. The schools were segregated but we were on a Black bus. I
remember a teacher standing up there and saying "We don't want to teach you". I never will
forget that. I never will forget that. And so I was scared most of my school year. I talked to my
colleagues, my high school people. They forget that I didn't start-- most of them, who were white
they forget that I wasn't in elementary school with them. But I was afraid most of the time in
high school. All it had to do with braces a lot of it did but I was just a tiny little. But when I
graduated I only weighted 95 and I was just extremely shy. And then with everything that was
going on around Front Royal and the Civil Rights stuff was just scary but I didn't know these
white kids. But some of the white kids were just as scared as I was because they didn't know
these Black kids. You know I was scared. I was_____.People thought I was shy that is true but I
appeared more shy because I did not open my mouth but I was scared. You didn't
know_______with what you were seeing on TV. Daddy was scared for us. So I never really
thought about that until Willey just said. It took a lot of courage for our parents to push us to go
to that school because nobody knew what was going to happen. I never thought about that
before. But I know Daddy was scared. I remember seeing the look on his face. I knew he was
scared.
Willey: I remember the first time they, they being Mom & Dad, took me to Strasburg High
School. It was before school and we met with Mr. Stanley Dellinger and he gave us tour and I
was in awe of it. It was so big. And the gym. I told Daddy it was the biggest gym I had ever seen.
He said, Where have you ever seen a gym before?" I still remember that. But my only thing was
after I started school at Strasburg High School it was lot of times by yourself especially in the 8th
grade, it was just like people didn't talk that much to you. Teachers seemed like they were kind
of offish. Some of them were. So I just kind of muddled thru. And one day I was, I guess I was in
the 9th grade and I was putting something in my locker and Larry Bright came up to me and
said,"Hey man want to play football?" And I said I don't know I never played football before. He
said why don't you come out and try, what the heck? And I said "Sure".
Marquetta: I didn't know that.
Willey: I call Doc Bright today. But then athletes that is a different, whole different thing, you
earned their respect. It was really good to me because that way I could put a whole lot of
negative energy into the football thing, and later on track. I was on the first wrestling team.
Marquetta: You weren't the "Big Star".
�Willey: I was just an athlete.
Marquetta: He is so modest.
Willey: But to me it was just like you could really get rid of a lot of stuff, stress by just
channeling it differently and that is just what I did. I just channeled it all into the next play and
that just keeps down a whole lot of anger and stuff like that. But even looking back now, with
hormones running wild when you are fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. I don't see how Mr. Proctor?? put
up with it. But you know what I am saying. It was good. Sports was good. I have always said
they are three men my life that have made me the man I am today. That was Jesus Christ, Wibert
Mitchell, and Glenn Proctor. In that order.
Zach: And do you think that being on the sports teams helped you be accepted by the student
population better?
Willey: Yes. Just like my dear, little wife there, she was on the debating team.
Marquetta: I didn't have a sports bone in my body.
Willey: But everyone doesn't do sports. I have been doing a little debating but you know
________. She was on it. What she did was challenge all hers to education. Me I wished I would
have done more education. But it all worked out. But yes, but you know the thing that gets me
today. It's just like two months ago I had a young man come up to me, well he's in his forties
now I guess, and you never know what impression you give, you never know how people are
going to read you. And he comes up to me and he said, “Brother I want to tell you something."
And I said,” what’s that?" He said," You were always my hero". And I said,” Your hero, how is
that?" He said I like the way you always carried yourself. You never got angry or mad. You
never did things that would cause embarrassment to your family or school. He said, 'That's the
way I wanted to be. I wanted to be just like that. So the way you carried yourself that is the way
I carried myself. So I went Wow. And that is when I was in the 11th or 12th grade. And when
you hear a full grown man tell you that. And he was the second one that told me that. And me I
am going Wow! And I just treat people like I wanted to be treated with respect.
Zach: Now I am curious for both of you when you went to the all white or predominantly white
schools, how did, first of all how did the students react, were there any issues there? And how
did the teachers and administrators react? You talked a little bit about that. But I have quite a
variety of stories on both those types of populations and I wanted to get your reactions were.
Willey: Her class had a different well it's like what Marquetta said, it was all 30 or 40 children
just went to the middle school and the high school then.
Marquetta: My father had a real hard time at the middle school. Did he go to the middle school?
He had a hard time.
Willey: I hear that. But when I went to the high school I didn't. The only thing I ran into was
people would not talk to you. Which I was somewhat a loner. I always hunted and fished and
�was off to myself. But all that changed. Just like I had a young kid come up to me and say I want
to ask you something. And I said, "Yeah what?' He said, "Do you all carry knives' and I said,
"No, I don't carry a knife, do you?" And he said, "No, but my mommy and daddy said that all
you people all carry knives." I said, “No, not all of us carry knives." But it just with me it was a
feeling out of each other. You know what this kid is different. I think by the 9th grade by me
doing hunting and fishing and doing sports and doing stuff like that that fit right in with
everyone.
Zach: With what everybody else did.
Willey: Still do, except the hunting part I don't still do that just fish. But as far as fights, I have
never been in a fight, cursing and hollering and all that stuff. Other than encouraging someone in
football camp or something like that we never had to go thru that. I hear Marquetta’s brother
Robert saying this and that. They used to have a lot of fights and things of that nature. One on
one type thing. But I never was involved in anything like that.
Marquetta: You knew who----. I know my father was a fighter. I was not a fighter. I was always
quiet.
Willey: Negotiator:
Marquetta: Well I feel in negotiating, I just watched. But my brothers had a hard time. Very
difficult time. But I could sense things, a very acute sense of things, I knew who didn't want to
deal with me and I really didn't care. I take that back, I really did. But I knew because of
elementary school ______hear you talk. Because in elementary school I really was not in with a
group so I wasn't missing a group. You know how some girls and boys have a clique. I was never
in a clique so I never missed a clique. And I didn't have a need. I wished I was. I wished I had a
best friend and all that. I really wanted that but I was used to not having that. And with the
circumstances I was in I never looked for it.
Zach: OK
Marquetta: So it was very, very lonely. I couldn't play sports. I tried to play sports. I tried to play
basketball. I loved volleyball. Because it worked for Willey. It worked for Edgar. Edgar was in
my class. He was another sports star. I mean everybody loved Edgar, everybody loved Russell,
everybody loved Willey. The boys they had the sorts. but I didn't have anything. There were
some girls that spoke to me, Pat ________? She really liked me and I really liked her. People did
seem like they didn't know what to do with me. I wouldn't say there was anybody really nasty to
me because I was too shy I really was. Kind of like invisible. As far a relationship with a teacher,
Mr. Proctor came from West Virginia. His whole thing about integration/segregation was way
different than the way Virginia treated it. And I don't know why but to this day he is one of my
best friends. But he would come to me almost every day. I guess he felt sorry for me. I was this
tiny, little thing, I looked like I had Ricketts I was so skinny. I must have looked so sick. So I
was this invisible, quiet, kind of smart of kid and he could come. But I was so shy. My name was
Marquetta Witherall. So some people would come up to me and they would say,” What’s your
name?" Huh? I couldn’t even say my own full name. I was too shy to say my own full name.
�And he would always check on my every day and he is the one that made me feel like you are
going to be Ok. That was Glenn Proctor. He always checked on me. And when I graduated and
went to college and would come back home I always sought out Glenn Proctor. There was
something about that man. He was just a good man and he understood Black students. I am going
to say it like it is. He understood it because he couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe what he
was seeing. I guess that was how he saw me and to this day he hasn't told me. I need to ask him
that when I see him. He took an interest in me but he did. And so he always would check on me.
Now the Principal made me feel safe. Mr. Dellinger was our first principal and the reason why
stuff didn't pop off at Strasburg High School is because he threw the media out.
Willey: He would not allow them in.
Marquetta: They were not allowed in. He would not allow them to come in and interview us
because that is what the media wanted to do. He said no. He kept the lid on. And so when we had
our first reunion at Strasburg Museum we asked him to come and speak with Glenn Proctor. He
spoke with the Superintendent of Schools and all that to recognize for the first time in this county
that they did exist and you need to honor them. And all our graduates, the wonderful people that
taught and the wonderful students that came out of that school. And he spoke about that. So that
was my experience. My personality was too shy to start any trouble. But I knew that there was a
little trouble in river city with the Cooper boys, my cousins. You don't remember that.
Willey: I was gone.
Marquetta: You were gone. That was a little bit later. They were my cousins and they were wild
but they didn't take any stuff. So whenever stuff happens, up in the mountains and in the hills
and the police would_____?. And that is all I am going to say.
Willey: The thing that I think about with Mr. Proctor is when we were supposed to play John
Mosby. Mr. Proctor got a call from the coach at Mosby and said we will not play you all with the
Black players on the team. And Mr. Proctor said then we will just not play you at all. And that is
where Mr. Proctor almost lost his job because him and Stanley Dellinger had it out then because
Stanley said," Glenn we have a contract. We won't play them next year." I got two young men
who are my two of my key players and you are not going to let them go because of these people?
It ended up we didn't go but he had to go. And he had to but they lost too. I don't know if it
would have made any difference if we were there.
Marquetta: You mean the two Black players could not go.
Willey: Yes. Leonard Alsberry and myself were not allowed on their field. It was kind of sad.
But that side of that county was a whole different mentality. I mean because we played Turner
Ashby, Montevideo, Elkton, Stonewall, Central.
Marquetta: Warren County was real different.
Willey: Yes it was.
�Zach: I get that sense especially, get a sense with the different newspapers in the county. The
Northern Virginia Daily because they cover Warren County and so I get the sense there
completely different than the way the other two papers in the county at that time covered things.
Willey: That is the first and last time I have ever been spit on in my life was when we played
Warren County in Bing Crosby Stadium. I said I couldn't believe this. It was sad. Really sad. It is
hate is what it amounts to. And it is really sad but I looked at it then as I look at it now. You have
an option. You could go out there and fight and bust your knuckles and use all that stuff. Or just
play duck and let it roll off your back and just play the game. Keep yourself straight, follow the
rules and just play the game.
Zach: I am curious a little bit about kind of the difference in how people, I don't really want to
say the different classes treated you but the different backgrounds. And the reason I say this is
one of the things I have gotten is this theme, the more educated people who lived in town treated
African-Americans differently than the people who lived like out in the country. And you
mentioned that about something happening out in the hills. Did you all have that experience,
something similar to that or was it kind of a generic white people treated you?
Willey: I think I understand what you are saying. But with me I didn't, it wasn't any different. I
can't say there was any difference. Because the guys who lived out in Coal Mine, Star Tannery,
Lebanon Church, we all squirrel hunted, target practiced, and groundhog hunted and played
football. So it was like we had so much in common. With me it goes back to respect thing. Then
again I looked up to guys who were straight A students or on the track team or in class with.
Let's say on the track team for example, "Willey, just do what you need to do, you need to work
on your start, you need to get in your box this way." It was positive. In my mind I can't think of
negative stuff. No matter A student or straight B student. That was with me.
Marquetta: I have never really thought about that way. In high school.
Willey: Let's see you had your valedictorian.
??
Marquetta: It was Marcy who was white and the valedictorian. I had this conversation with her 5
or 6 years ago. I used to say to her ", Marcy do you ever notice that when you look at those class
pictures that I was always somewhere around you not just because you were________?? It was
because you were supposed to be the smartest so I was always watching you because I wanted to
beat you at everything you did", and I told her that. She said, “I didn't know that". I just wanted
to beat her, but I know that I had to work 3 times as hard as she did to get the grade and I knew
that. And I considered myself a good student but I wanted to be a great student. I wanted to show
her, really what it was. It wasn't about her personally what I wanted to do and how lonely it was.
She cried, we had lunch together; we are in the same industry. I said, "What's the matter?" And
she said,"Marquetta, I was just as lonely as you were. I was a teenage kid without friends. She
was. The smartest girl in school. A lot of people were jealous of her, didn't want to be around
her. And I understood her, and for the first time I understood her. And so we had a good cry and
lunch. But I understood that. So for me I never thought about it like that in high school. And only
having an adult perspective on it, not a high school perspective. And my adult perspective, when
I look back over my adult years I would say if I were to look at it like that in terms of grades of
�people like you say. I would say there is no difference. Racism is racism. If you have an
education you think you had it better were high fancy words. If you don't have the fancy words
or haven't learned them it is pretty__________which is what I appreciate about it. Where an
education will teach you how to practice racism like this. At the same time you are doing like
this. Where we are now, "I don't like you_____OK. It is the same thing. That is my adult
perspective. My high school perspective, I don't know that I thought about it. I was just trying to
survive.
Willey: But I see what you were doing. See where I was using sports, you were using education.
You just said, Marcy was good at this, this and this and I can do this too. It is like channeling.
Marquetta: It is. That is what I was doing. If I think of it now, I felt you know I can do exactly
what she is doing. For a while there I thought I couldn't but I watched her. And Joe_______, he
is a sweetie pie, but Marcy I didn't get, but she was like the smartest kid, and there was that
female thing going on.
Willey: Oh yeah!
Marquetta: You have to realize I could do what she did but I had to study real hard. And I would
never go to school without having anything unanswered. If I had to stay home my grandma
would have to make me go to bed. And sometimes I would not get the last answer but I would
get up in the morning real early because I would never go to school without having all my
answers done. I am still am that way. But that was me. And I couldn't participate in a lot of after
school activities because there were five of us and I had to help my grandparents take care of my
brothers and sisters. My dad______. I wasn't involved in a whole lot of social stuff. But I was
always envious, not jealous, but envious that other kids like Willey and Edgar could do that and I
didn't. I didn't have a social life. It's true.
Willey: I was going to the Tastee-Freeze, eating 15 of them quarter hamburgers and drinking a
milkshake.
Marquetta: You see we were never allowed. I could go to the Tastee-Freeze with permission but
we never allowed to go with a group of kids anywhere like that. We were pretty protective in
our family. They didn't let us, you couldn’t get in a car and go someplace and nobody knew
where you were. First of all we didn't have a car to get in. So we were not allowed to roan like
that.
Willey: Not like we were.
Marquetta: That's right. You all roamed. We were kind of protected.
Zach: Now I am kind of curious. You mentioned about the principal not letting the media in.
From your perspective what was the media trying to accomplish? Because I have read the
newspaper accounts of integration and things and they didn't do very much coverage of any of
Shenandoah County and mean there were short articles like on Page 2. What were they trying to
accomplish with that do you think?
�Willey: Well I think personally, it would have been other areas and how everything was put on
the tube, on the radio and some of the newspapers. They wanted to keep all the drama down and
put a lid on it. "We are going to do this but without all the drama".
Marquetta: Like Front Royal was having.
Willey: Or other places. _______, we don't want to do that here. We think we can just keep it
down. Keep these kids going to school. Not going to have a bunch of pictures taken and all that
stuff. Keep it low key.
Marquetta: Violence.
Willey: And I think that what it was. And it was a transition. I can remember it just like
yesterday, Lawrence, I can't remember Lawrence's last name. I remember getting off the school
bus, and walking in the school. I was just like the first day was just like all the other days. It was
nobody hardly speaking to you. But it was just like walk on in. Try to find my locker and my
classes. You know it was nobody saying anything. Every once in a while someone would say
good morning. But everything was just-- and that transition was just smooth and that was what
Mr. Dellinger wanted.
Marquetta: He didn’t want any trouble.
Willey: He thought the media might have wanted-Marquetta: To stir it up.
Willey: Inadvertently maybe but some people. Sometimes when I look on the television, I try not
to watch too much news but some of it can really get you riled up. Keep it down. Not put it out
there for people but keep it at a lower roar.
Marquetta: Because there are people enough around to stir a pot. He was just doing his, he was
just keeping it down. He was doing his job. He was protecting his students. And he took it a step
further. And a lot of people don't know about this. He said it for the first time when we had that
celebration at the Museum. People don't know he came up to Sunset Hills School. He didn't have
to do that. And he talked to those teachers and knew how he could make the transition smoother
for us. He didn't have to do that. That how the visits started, pre-school, making sure that we kids
could have a chance to go over to the school before the school started so we could have a chance
to see what a locker is. We didn't know what a locker is. What's a cafeteria? What are you talking
about?
Willey: And a gym?
Marquetta: Do you really get in a line with a tray for lunch?
Willey: You don't have to bring a bag??
�Marquetta: You don't have to bring a bag! He made sure that happened. For him to have that
foresight, in that day and that time. That was a heck of a thing to do to have the forethought for
kids who know nothing about a locker and a cafeteria and how to matriculate into classes. And
then we had two floors! We had one room school first with a water fountain on the outside that
froze in the winter.
Willey: Yeah but they moved it inside.
Marquetta: Then we had an add on and there was a bathroom, one for girls and one boys. We
were like in heaven then.
Willey: No johnnies!
Marquetta: That's right! So to go to a school with two floors and showers in the locker room. So
he came to the school and worked out a plan with the teachers to make sure we were afforded
that. So to me that was protecting and taking care of your kids. Not just the boys the boys in
trouble but helping us thru the transition.
Zach: That's interesting because the same year that you started at Strasburg I talked to a student
who started at Stonewall the same year and she gave a completely different story of her first day.
She said when they got there the media was there. She said they had police there and there was a
lot of excitement and a lot of drama. So that is a very interesting contrast.
Marquetta: You see I remember the teachers saying we don't want _______? You see his
memory of it is different from mine. He wasn't on my bus.
Willey: I was on a whole different set-up. Remember I started before you did.
Marquetta. It makes a difference.
Willey:But also, we were talking about this last week. Some of the teachers that used to snub us.
Not really be very friendly. Or some of them that we see now are some of our best friends. It is
awesome.
Marquetta: My first client that they gave me, called me at my house on a Saturday.
Willey: You want to say where you work?
Marquetta: Oh, I am a financial advisor with _________. My office is right downtown. My first
$350,000 check OK, I am thinking, ______?? First of all it is a production thing, especially the
first one. You got to make money. And so I know that they have money but I know who he is.
One of the biggest racists in town. Because everybody in Strasburg at the time was a racist. So I
called him, Mr. So & So. I said, "This is what I'm doing. I know you know me because you
know we know we know each other and we don't have to go any further, but this is what I'm
�doing. He let me in his house. Which shocked me. These kids used to call us "N" words and we
used to call them "C" words.
I was never a fighter. My brothers and sisters, they would be fighting going to school, fighting
coming home from school. So I talked to him a good six months. But I am persistent and quiet.
So one day he called me here at this house and said," May I come to your office?" And I said
well of course I will open for you. How much is your check?
He said, "$350,000." First of all I was shaking all the way down to the office. And I to this day I
can't tell you why he gave me that check or why he trusted me.
Willey: Maybe it is because he trusted you.
Marquetta: Yes. But what I am saying is that he was one of the worst. And that was _______?_.
And his daughter was in my class and we had a few "nice" words. I didn't let people run over me.
I didn't have a nasty mouth. I didn't curse. But by the time I got finished with you, you knew you
were cursed out by the time you got home. Because my grandmother taught me how to do that.
Willey: Nancy Nice.
Marquetta: Nice Nancy. Because she taught us nice, you know, that you had to stand up. You
don't pick a fight. You walk away. Every time we did.______________? Here's what you say.
And she's even very nice. And so you know I still remember him handing me that check. It was
almost like he didn't know what he was doing. So I took the check and put it in his account. That
was my first real big account. And when that happened to me I knew I was going to be okay in
Strasburg. As long as I truly respect people. If you don't respect me that's your issue. But I am
going to respect you, and if you don't respect me then we don't have any business together. And
that was a turning point for me, a good turning point for my business as an adult. I knew that I
could handle Strasburg, I do all right in Strasburg. And so he was not a very nice person. Truly
he was not. So anyway that's one of my adult stories coming from a child in school with his
daughter, who taught his kids how to do the "N" word. I know he did. So that is how people can
change. If he can change, anybody can change.
Zach: Now I am curious you knew one of them I guess, the teachers at the Black Schools.
Number one I can't figure out what happened to them after the Black schools.
Willey: That's a good question!
Marquetta: We are still looking.
Willey: I know one Mrs. Eudora H. Payne (?) went back to Ranson, West Virgina and she had
two daughters and that is where she lived until she passed. Which hasn't been too awful many
years ago.
Marquetta: Now we don't know what happened to her daughters.
Willey: George Heller.
�Marquetta: I had a crush on George Heller(?)
Willey: George Heller and then Mrs. Burbidge(?) We have been trying to see if we can find
them. But we have had people try to see if they can find them. From what we understand, the
county they don't keep records but for a certain amount of time. And someone brought us some
stuff that had been throwed out in the trash.
Marquetta: It was Judy Jackson. It was at John-Manville? In the trash. It was Mr. Howard's
attendance book and it had my name and all my sisters and brothers name in it. Where he was
from, his address in Roanoke and everything. We had not been able to find him. He went to
Virginia State College where I went. Of course years before and I find it in the college book, but
he has probably passed away.
Willey: But those three we been trying to locate, Richmond, all those things trying to locate
them.
Marquetta: And one minister, Rev. Greer (?) he was your relative, but that was before our time.
That was Sunset Hills School before our time. But we have a list of teachers that we have
accumulated thru the older citizens that were there thru the younger citizens that were there. And
as much information as we were able to get but we are still working on it.
Willey: It is at the museum.
Marquetta: I know we have it upstairs.
Zach: I was curious they were working for the county as teachers and then the schools integrated
and I am sure, and this is the case almost everywhere, that they are just no longer teachers here in
the county. Even at the time you couldn't have a Black teacher teaching the white kids. You
know. So what happened to them?
Willey: That's a good question. We wondered that too. But think back when we made that
transition, all our focus was on the now and never even thought about what happened to the
teachers. But we were kids. But as adults we wanted to look up and find out where they went and
what happened to them. But the only one we know of was Mrs. Payne.
Marquetta: It was there focus. They were so focused on us doing well at the white school when
you get there. That was the push. I want you to do well. I want you to show them. That was the
push and then they just left.
Zach: There was one and I forget her name now was the teacher at Creekside.
Marquetta: Mrs. McClain, that was Mrs. Payne's sister.
Zach: The Church there in Woodstock, Mt Zion, they know where she is buried. She went back
to West Virginia. But I don't know anything about the ones that were the teachers in Strasburg.
�Willey: We were hoping but people just trashed their records. That is so sad. So much history
just trashed.
Marquetta: We made a copy of George Heller's (?) book that was found. It is there. It looks like
the original. We did a real good job. I never thought about it like that. That is an excellent
question. I feel guilty we didn't think about the teachers but we were kids.
Willey: And then there was that push. Get out of school. What are you going to do when you get
out of school? Some of you are going to go in the military; some of you are going to college.
That was a chaotic time in a sense.
Marquetta: It was a traumatic time.
Willey: But I look at now and I look back at then. That isn’t too bad compared to some of the
stuff that goes on now.
Marquetta: Even with all that stuff I think we were focused. We were a lot more focused. And
then at the same time there were things motivating you. There was the Civil Rights, there were
leaders, and there were people there to guide you in your community. The community mobilized
where there was a local mobilization. There was the push. There is not that anymore. We knew
that education or something beyond high school you were going to need, vocational school,
college, military. But I don't know I think our focus was more simple. Do you know what I mean
than what the kids are experiencing today? Maybe I am wrong I don't know.
Zach: And then looking after integration, after the schools integrated, I guess maybe we can do it
like we did at the beginning where I ask you to talk for a minute or so about how things were
kind of focusing on Strasburg after integration progressed. Racism continues but you know what,
how has that change maybe, what the community was like and how that changed a little bit in
terms of how people dealt with race and things like that. Were there any bad instances after
integration comes at the schools? I hope that makes sense.
Willey: All I can say is that at schools, then again, I think some of the guys from what I
understand after the school was started after all that you did have some fights. You have boys or
some girls you are going to have conflicts no matter what. But it seemed like it was somewhat of
an acceptance of what we had come thru as a community. but yet as some of the ladies in the
church used to say, you still got some of the ______?? in the back thinking the old ways and that
is on both sides of the race. “We shouldn't be over there or we shouldn't be at that school and of
course the swimming pool thing. Some of the Black people won’t let their children go to the
swimming pool today.
Because of something that happened back then. We weren't allowed to go then. But sometimes
you got to move on a little bit because hate begets hate. My thinking is I have a granddaughter
that goes to the pool. We have a granddaughter that goes to the pool. I would not allow her to
swim in the river. I had a ball. All my friends were there because the poor white families couldn't
afford $100 a summer couldn't afford that. So we were swimming at that river together and
having a ball. But maybe that answers a part of your question.
�Zach: I think it does. You know that was the kind of what I was looking for the overall.
Willey: You still got hate in there. You still got, you will for a long time.
Marquetta: That is an excellent question because I was asked that question and had an
opportunity to answer that question by someone white just the other day. And here is how I
answered that question. Well the question was proposed a little bit differently. Is there still
racism? The person had had a conversation with someone Black in the community and felt
_______? wasn't done because of racism. Do you still think that exists in Strasburg? Well of
course. Well really? If you, in order for you to mention that to me because I am Black then you
know it must be something like that. You are an intelligent person I know that and I like you. I
don't know you that well, but in order for you to ask me that question you know there must be.
But the person wasn't quite sure how to deal with it. And I said this," Couple of things you do not
want to do. Do not appoint a person in Strasburg who is Black to deal with Black stuff. Do not
do that. Because there you are ______? it. But you know it happened here and I know you do
because you asked me about it. Look at it as an opportunity to say to the person, "Do you think is
racism?" Don't be afraid to say the word race or racism. You need to understand that anybody
past 50 or 60 or so in this town had had to deal with that and that is part of who they are. And so
because it is part of who they are it is going to affect how they respond to certain things. And so
if you really want to do a great job don't deny what they are thinking. They are opening up an
invitation for you to talk about it. It is just a dialogue in and of itself. It is a step forward. You
must take the step forward. You must take the step forward. It's okay to talk about race. Let us
not pretend that it is insignificant and it does not exist. And when you take that step, you are
taking that step forward every time even if you still end up disagreeing about the issue you are
talking about. But to deny is the worst mistake you could ever make. There is racism just like
Willey said was a part of many white folk here. Racism was a part of many Black folk here not
that there is a whole bunch of Black folk. But there is. And we can only take a step forward when
we are in dialogue together. If I can be of any help, I will be glad to be of any help to anyone
who wants to have a conversation but I don't represent Black people. And that is where a lot of
white people make a mistake. And so that was an excellent question you asked and that is my
answer to that.
Willey: And you are sticking to it.
Zach: There is one last question and I am glad you brought this up. The Strasburg pool. I know
the story of the Woodstock pool integrating. Do you all know anything in relation to the
Strasburg pool and segregation and integration?
Willey: Only thing I know was you had to pay a fee.
Marquetta: It was to keep us out. And riffraff too. You know what I mean. That was the way it
was seen.
Willey: Well that was the way it was set up too. Every time I think about that I think about a
story that Glenn Proctor told. It was this young boy named Carter Alsberry. He used to play with
Glenn's children okay. One day Glenn was going to take his boys to the pool. Carter asked,
�"Coach Mr. Proctor you going to the pool?' Coach said, " Oh no, we just, it is time for you to go
home and we are going to take these boys for a walk etc." Because coach didn't want to break his
heart to tell because he was going to take his boys to the pool and he wasn't allowed to go. So
that being said time went on. But right down the road on Battlefield, Gypsy Falls, Carter with
some other boys was down there swimming when he drowned. And that haunted Mr. Proctor for
so long. Here he is one of the leaders in his community, wanting to do the right thing and get
along and here is this young man who his sons played with and he thought a lot of drowned
because there was no other place really with a lifeguard or something like that for him o go to.
So I think he withdrawed his children from it then. But that being said it got to the point where as
people where not supporting it and it was getting into disrepair so ended up having to open up
everything and we got to get this thing fixed or we are going to have to shut down.
Marquetta: And then they started letting the riffraff and the Blacks in.
Willey: No, anyone that wanted to go there they were allowed in.
Marquetta: Daddy didn't let us go. But I really wasn't interested in because I was not a swimmer.
So it didn't bother me at all. But for a long time, I was very angry about that because there were a
lot of Black people who needed to learn how to swim and wanted to swim and weren't allowed.
So as a young woman who went to a Black college specifically and my Daddy hated it. I was
coming back with like A's_________________. I really did. My dad was so afraid. And I
remember being very angry about that. But you know you get over stuff. But I don't like the
history. I was in the pool with Bree honey. I was in the pool with Bree.
Willey: This woman can't swim a bit. But she went to college and took a class on swimming and
passed.
Marquetta: It was only 2 credits. I went off the board and everything.
Willey: But then all of a sudden it is like "I can't swim.
Marquetta: But then I go to the park because I helped paint the park and it is not right for me not
to go to the park when I want my family to go to the park. And so we had our first reunion of
_______school, Queen Street in the park and you know it was so neat, everybody in town came
and it wasn't just a Black reunion. It was a Strasburg thing.
Willey: And that is the way it is supposed to be.
Marquetta: And that is where dialogue like yours with different people and dialogue with each
other would happen. Dialogue changes things because it gets you to know you a bit better."Oh
yeah well he is an Okay guy. Things grow and change. But we have a thing at the Museum. It
was the largest attendance. And was the thing to celebrate the Black schools. It was the largest
attendance of any event in the museum. Because it was dialogue. And people had a chance to cry
with us. We weren't the only people crying. Strasburg cried. That is why I am here in Strasburg
now. It is not the most perfect place.
�Willey: There is no perfect place.
Marquetta: There is no perfect place.
Willey: Maybe Myrtle Beach. Outer Banks.
Zach: Maybe perfect weather.
Marquetta: Strasburg is what it is. It does not pretend to be something it is not. When it is time to
rally, it rallies. And good people in it. And for the most part, when there is a dialogue even if it
comes to fist-fighting sometime, we dialogue. Or the town council does sometimes.
Willey: The thing that amazes me is, see where do you live?
Zach: Woodstock.
Willey: Woodstock, Edinburg, Mount Jackson, Strasburg, all of them are so different. So
different. You know I mean. It is amazing. Even Maurertown, Toms Brook. We are all right here
in the same sock, but we don't fit the same shoe. But we are all so different and that is what
makes it so unique in my opinion.
Marquetta: It has been quite a journey and we are all allright with it.
Zach: That's good.
Willey: But one of the things I didn't like about the swimming pool thing. After I went into the
Navy and we did all this swimming stuff. It's chlorine! Now of course we thought the river was
the greatest thing since sliced bread, now we find out it is so polluted. It's awful. Marquetta and I
have been blessed to live through all that we have gone thru and we look back and just think
about some of the things that we have seen. Some of the players that have been in this drama that
we lived and it has been pretty unique. One of the things I would change is I would take a typing
class my last year. (Laughter follows)
Zach: I get a lot of people that say that and they are usually guys.
�
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Zachary Hottel
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Willy Mitchell
Marquetta Mitchell
Location
The location of the interview
Strasburg VA
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
Oral History Transcript 16-0004
Interviewee: Laura Marquetta Mitchell & Willy Mitchell
Interviewer: Zach Hottel
Subject: Integration, Segregation, Strasburg (Va); Shenandoah County Public Schools (Va)
February 9, 2016
Zach: This is Zach Hottel. It is February 9th. I am here to do an oral history interview on integration and segregation.
Marquetta: My name is Marquetta Mitchell. I always like to say Laura Marquetta Mitchell and Zach is in our home here with my husband and me to talk about segregation and integration. We welcome him in our home and we glad for the opportunity.
Zach: Thank you.
Willy: My name Wilbert "Willy" Mitchell. I was born on August 3, 1948. Went to Sunset Hill Elementary School and shortly after graduation went to Strasburg High School.
Marquetta: I actually was born in Greenville, Tennessee. I always say that because my mother happened to be in Greenville at the time and that was her hometown. I call Strasburg my home though. I attended Sunset Hills School until I graduated from the seventh grade. When I graduated from the seventh grade that was when the segregated schools here, that was the last year of the segregated school. So I was in the first class that was officially went over to what was then called the white school which was high school for me which was 8th grade. Although there were other Black students there before I got there that had matriculated into the system before it was really official.
Zach: Just to clarify when did you finish at Sunset Hill?
Willy: I believe it was 1963.
Marquetta: I was 1964 wasn't I?
Willy: Must have been. I was the first Black male to go to Straburg High School. Prior to that Fay Mitchell, my sister, Gloria Hess, Priscilla and Angela Alsberry were the first from Strasburg to go to high school.
Zach: I found in the records that 1962 was the first year there were any African-American students there and then a few more in 1963 and finally in 1964.
Willy: I believe that is right.
Marquetta: I know the history. Let me call Susie Gaynor? and I can put my hands on it. If you want there is a whole story about it.
Zach: About this?
Marquetta: Her children. Would you like to get a copy?
Zach: That would be great.
Marquetta: It’s in the closet upstairs. Was it 64? Graduated 69 in 12th. 68 in 11th grade. 67 in 10th grade. 66 in the 9th grade. 65 in the 8th grade.
Willy: Because the years, my mind. I started school late because we lived out in the outer part of the county in Lebanon Church. My father worked on a farm. My mom worked on the farm also. We weren't allowed to ride the buses and so I ended up being moved to Strasburg to live with my grandparents, Turner ? and Letha Mitchell, down on B Street. So I stayed there and lived with them and went to school until, seemed like it was. I was at school at Sunset Hills and then we moved to Strasburg I think it was 1956 we moved into town.
Zach: I am curious about Strasburg. I know in Woodstock there was a geographic place where most of the African-Americans community lived. But then in Mount Jackson, New Market that was not the case. Was that the case in Strasburg?
Willy: Yes. Predominantly was B Street, now it is Branch Street. But it is known now as Alsberry Street was what we called it here up on the hill. That was where Sunset Hills School was. There were Black families up there.
Zach: So that area the hill up there around the school was predominantly Black.
Willy: With us we lived on A Street which is now Ash Street. It was like 3 families, 3 Black families we lived beside each other there and that was about it. Wasn't too many. Most all the Blacks lived between Branch Street and D Street and what was Alsberry Street.
Zach: Now can you talk the restaurants and the theater which I assume were segregated in Strasburg. Talk a little bit about in general about some of your experiences with those.
Willy: There were several restaurants in Strasburg at that time of course they were all segregated. But the one that we went to most of the time was Virginia Restaurant. Sager Realty is there now on the corner. But we had to go in the back in the kitchen area and that is where my mother worked as a cook. They had several booths back there and that is where we ate and were served. It wasn't until years later that we allowed to go out front. We were washing windows out front and stuff like that but as far as sitting down and eating we weren't allowed to go out front. And other place was the Tastee Freeze, that was after when integration started we were allowed to go to the Tastee Freeze. But as a young person I really didn't go to any of the other restaurants in town other than that. As far as the theater, we could go to the theater we could go to the theater but you had to sit up in the balcony which was great. We thought it was great! You set and the screen was right in front of you and it was nice. If that was punishment--. The thing was you didn't have the option. But then again we couldn't afford to go to the theater that much. Most of the time it was at Christmas when First Bank used to have Santa Claus and they would give you a, you would go in and sit on Santa's lap and tell him what you want, and get a bag of hard candy and an orange and a ticket to go to Home Theater.
Marquetta: I can't find it. I got to get that stuff together for a Virginia Tech reunion.
Zach: I talked to Gloria Stickley and she said something about you all having to start a reunion. I am curious a little bit if you could talk about-- I know you said you were born in Greenville. How did you end up moving from there to Strasburg?
Marquetta: Well, long story short, my mother and father, actually my father lived at the time in Washington DC. My mother worked for my father's parents, cleaning their house and that kind of stuff. And so my mother was from Greenville, Tennessee. She had moved from Greenville to Washington DC cleaning homes and doing what was called "days work". In Washington DC "days work", and I did" days work. It was basically Black folks working for white folks cleaning their house. And so my mother basically worked for my grandparents cleaning their house. And so I came along. So my grandparents had property here. The Witheralls, I am a Witherall that is my maiden name. The Witheralls go way back, way, way, back. The family Bible is over there. In Shenandoah County it is spelled three different ways. We are working on that. Because my parents had issues. My grandparents took all of us and brought us here to Strasburg because they had property in Strasburg that was on B Street which is Branch Street now. They used to rent it out to people. I t was like a rental property. So they came here and brought us here and raised us here. That is how Strasburg became my home. And Willy lived in the county and he moved to Strasburg in order to go to school. So that is how I got here. But the Witherall name was already here.
Willy: We found out, doing, Marquetta more so than me, with research and everything and talking to the Alsberrys, one of the main reasons that they moved here from the Rappahannock County was so their children could get an education. And because in that particular area they might have to have gone to Manassas.
Marquetta: Miles and miles. My dad went to school had to leave here to go to Charlottesville and Manassas to go to school. That was that generation, But now my grandparents were retired teachers of the colored school when they moved here. So that is how we had to do good in school. My grandfather was the schoolteacher, before the Sunset Hill School that was the school over on Queen Street. Pigtail Alley. And then my Auntie, I don't if, I can't remember if Auntie taught at Sunset Hills because she was one of the teachers at Woodstock, at Creekside. I can't confirm Creekside, I just remember Woodstock school. And I think she did do some subbing at _____ Sunset School. But Poppy, my grandfather was the one that taught here, and I know my grandmother subbed here, taught here at Sunset Hills school because they were already retired teachers.
Zach: Now talk a little bit about what Sunset Hills Schools was like. I know it was a one room school but I guess just give a description of what the classes were like, if you liked you teachers and just kind of a general overview.
Marquetta: It was a one room school. Coal stove. It was, I won't say it was always warm in terms of temperature though, physical temperature. It was a class divided up in rows by class and what I remember was Mrs. Payne was my teacher.
Willy: Dora H. Payne.
Marquetta: Dora H. Payne and her sister Mrs. McClain taught in Woodstock. She, I remember so well, because the teachers lived at different houses and ours was the main house. So I remember very well. We hated it. When you had to be at school and then Mrs. Payne followed you home. So the classroom. I liked school. I didn't know how to compare it to any other school. I liked school. I enjoyed school. I excelled in school. So the kids that excelled or did well they taught other kids. I liked that, I liked teaching other kids. So I wasn't the only one. So all the kids that did very well sort of became teacher’s aids in how to teach the other classes which I liked. And then if you really did, it was a really big deal for Mrs. Payne the teacher to take you home to her home in West Virginia for the weekend. So that was like a really big deal so everybody wanted to go home with Mrs. Payne, you know. I liked that. I liked the discipline of learning. The teachers were for me really good. There were some kids who got in trouble or they might not have been but I was one of those kids who was a pretty decent student and I did fine. I enjoyed school. School was fun. We had recess outside. We sang, started every morning with prayer, said the pledge of allegiance to the flag, we sang songs. We sang songs where you moved, we had plays. We had talent shows. My brother and I we had dance talent shows. We had speaking talent shows and I liked it. There was not anything I didn't like about school. But really the part that I did not like, I was like a year ahead of kids my age, because my grandmother did that and I didn't like it because it left me very isolated. I didn't have a clique or group. I knew they liked me and I liked them but I wasn't ever a part of a girlfriend group or that kind of stuff. That is the part I didn't like. I liked going home for lunch. His brother Ray, after school, everybody when run and jump on his bike, he must have sometimes it seemed like he had six kids on his bike, that is an over-exaggeration. But he would stand up, someone would be on the seat, someone would be on the fender, and someone would be on the handle bars. And we would come down that hill, pop the tracks but my grandmother never knew about that. There was a bully in school. was Raymond. He used to chase us home every day. Not every day but often enough for my grandmother to come out of the house with a broom and chase him down the street. I enjoyed school and I looked forward to going to Frederick Douglas school because the kids who were older than me they caught the bus right down the street at Mrs. Riffey's(?) house on Bragg Street and I used to watch the teenage girls with their pretty skirts, and their oxford shoes and their transistor radios. And sometimes they would be dancing all the new dances before they got on the bus and I could not wait to be a part of that. Mrs. Payne always would say, "I am going to get you ready to go to the white school. You have to get you ready to go to the white school. And you are going to learn this. Because I don't want to be bad-mouthed when you get to the white school. And I remember that. I remember that was her thing. And my grandmother was there too. I wasn't looking forward to going to the white school; I was looking forward to going to Frederick Douglas where all the other Black kids went. But I enjoyed school. I liked being a student. I was happy in school. Even when I looked back today I think we got a better education than those most kids today. And we got extra when we got home because I lived with teachers. We had to go upstairs. Everybody got an extra dose of education. My grandfather was an invalid who was a teacher also. He taught history. So after we ate dinner, Poppy had to go over our lessons from school. He would always teach us something different, extra multiplication tables, addition, subtraction tables, all of the stuff. I so when I think about kids today, education, it is just real different. But I got a good education. It may have been in a secondary school. It may have been with books that were thrown in the trash can at the end of school. They were. We knew that. I may have been with tiny pieces of chalk but the discipline was there and the hunger for a good education was there. There wasn't a parent that I knew that didn't want that for any of their kids. Would you agree with that?
Willy: Yes
Marquetta; Very serious about education.
Willy: She was.
Marquetta: But most parents were. There were some kids that didn't go astray. You got the strap on your hand. You had to hold out your hand.
Willy: It was a ruler.
Marquetta: Yes but Mrs. Payne used a strap too.
Willy: That wasn't on your hand that was on your back.
Marquetta: No. Mrs. Payne used a strap on my sister.
Willy: She used it on my buttocks.
Marquetta: Yes but she used a strap on my sister's hands. I never will forget that. Anyway, so that is my experience.
Willy: You went through a lot when you were a kid. Basically when I started school I always felt, "why am I here". I got an education but I don't think I got what I should have. I think my father was a better teacher on things like math. My father only had a sixth grade education but if you would say Dad what is 6 x 9 plus 4 plus 3 he would have it for you. And I look at the math that we did and the math that these children are doing now and we had it really easy. But even the math that we had was not as simple as the math that my father had. Everything was simplified. My experience in school it really was not that bad.
They did away with the coal stove and got an oil stove. The oil tank was in the back at one of the ends and it was an old stove. When I was in the seventh grade I got the job as being the stoky??. So I had to be there early in the morning and make sure the fire was going. That was a lot of responsibility. I had to make sure the fire was going, the door was open and the lights were on. I got paid by the county $12 a month. And sometimes in the evening we had this oil that would come in these 5 gallon cans and we had to mop it on the floors to keep all the dust down so I used to have to do that and get some of the guys to help me. Make sure that the chalkboard was all cleaned. I think about the rainy days when we couldn't go out. We had like shuffleboard and horseshoes and things like that. At times like Christmas I believe the kids from, I don't remember if it was from the high school or the middle school and they would bring us textbooks that they were finished with them and we still have some with their names in them. Because some of those books were just tossed and just like the guys down at Morrison's??. I found with Marquetta's name in it and my brother. We had one bully and I beat the bully. Yeah, I stopped that. He became one of my best friends. It was a lot of --it was the first place I had ever met a Puerto Rican. They moved in to our community, we don't know where they moved from, so they had to go to our school also. So that was very cool. And I think that even today I like to meet people from different cultures. It is really interesting. But when graduation night came I was the only one who graduated. It wasn't but one person in that class that graduated because I started late and I might have been back a little bit. But I was the only one who received a diploma that time. I remember my father meetings downtown with the school board, I remember vaguely sketches of that. Getting things ____ and going thru a lot of arguments and discussions about us children integrating the school.
Marquetta: Mongolizing. They didn't want their kids mongolizing.
Willy: That was my father. My father was told that, "you know, Wilbur, your son and my daughter, they are young and they might mongolize." Well my father said, "My son is not a dog and neither is your daughter and they will be just fine." My dad was very calm type person, but my mother was a little fiery. But my dad was very calm type guy in the essence of "we can talk about this." But his mind was set that we were going to Strasburg High School. But Sunset Hill it was good. But I look at education now, some of the things, the tutors, and I believe if I would have had access to something like that I would have made out much better. But I haven't done bad.
Marquetta: No. You haven't. But you know our parents did not want us to go to Frederick Douglas at all. At all. And like his parents were involved in that movement. My grandparents were involved in that movement for integration. I don't know, I don't remember I was just a kid. I don't remember any parent wanting their kid to get on that bus to Frederick Douglas. I didn't because of all the teenage girls________. Sometimes you want to have that bus______ to Winchester because sometimes you had to tie the door closed with rope.
Zach: Yes, I have heard something about that. In fact, it wasn't the bus that went to Frederick Douglas but I have talked to a guy that rode the bus to Lucy Sims in Harrisonburg and he had some pretty vivid descriptions about the bus.
Marquetta: Now my grandmother taught at Lucy Sims in Harrisonburg. She was in Rockingham County before she came here. Our parents generally, it was a move, an initiative, by the Black folks in this town they not be segregated, that they go to the so-called white schools in this town.
Zach: Now what do you all think was the big push for that movement because and I think that was unique because both the people from the South end of the county in Woodstock have told me that they don't remember there being a movement to get-- they have told that they were sent to Central because their parents--it was more of a personal reason.
Marquetta & Willy: Yes. Same thing. It wasn't like Warren County. That was not Shenandoah County.
Marquetta: I would agree with the lower end of Shenandoah County. It was more of parents getting together as parents taking a personal responsibility to verbalize that their kids are going.
Willy: It took courage. With all the turmoil that was going around in the United States at that time.
Marquetta: Civil Rights Movement.
Willy: And all that stuff. A lot of the parents, my dad and mom, with 5th and 6th grade educations, work for the rest of your life, all your life, but they did have a lot of common sense. And just kind of pulling everything together. But the thing also, when you had the PTA meetings parents were there. The teachers and the parents they had a communication. My parents would go the school and set down or Ms. Payne would come to the house, or Ms Trusdale, and set down or take them out to dinner. There was a respect there, it was almost like family. They watched out more for each other, a community type thing. Our parents did.
Marquetta: I think what really helped with that, all the teachers from the different sections of Shenandoah County, we imported our own teachers you see. And so all the teachers lived with the parents of the students in the community so they got to be a part of the community. I like I said most of the time it was at my house, Mrs. Payne. Mrs. Trusdale I don't know where she stayed.
Willey: She stayed over at Mrs.Hilda Mormon's?? house.
Marquetta: That's right. I can't remember where Ms. Bremitt?? stayed.
Willey: I think it was all in the same place.
Marquetta: But it was all in the same community. If they stayed for the weekend they would, most of the time they didn't, they went home except for the ones, Ms.Trudale and Ms. Burge were from North Carolina and South Carolina. So if they stayed for the weekend they would go to our church. So they were in our churches, they were in our schools, they were in our communities. And the community you have to remember we were a very small Black community so everybody knew everybody. So they became a part of our family, they were like family and they were treated very well. Now at our house we had to give up a whole room and there were five kids in our house. Some of us had to sleep downstairs. But a room was given up in our house for that teacher. And so the teachers at that time were very lofty in terms of their position in those communities. So the definition of a teacher is very different than a definition of a teacher today. There was so much respect and so much reverence. They weren't God but they were up there. Okay. So that made a big difference. Everybody was involved in making sure these kids were ready for the white school. It was a drive without saying it was a drive. It was a move without defining it as a move. It just happened because of all the lives that just melded together.
Willey: But there were meetings with the Board of Education and some of the town leaders also and things of that nature also.
Marquetta: And sometimes those things were pretty trying.
Willey: Yes but it wasn't to the point where they were burning crosses in the yard, killing cattle and stuff like that.
Marquetta: One of the reasons why it didn't happen. I don't know all the reasons. I know the first day of school was very scary. The schools were segregated but we were on a Black bus. I remember a teacher standing up there and saying "We don't want to teach you". I never will forget that. I never will forget that. And so I was scared most of my school year. I talked to my colleagues, my high school people. They forget that I didn't start-- most of them, who were white they forget that I wasn't in elementary school with them. But I was afraid most of the time in high school. All it had to do with braces a lot of it did but I was just a tiny little. But when I graduated I only weighted 95 and I was just extremely shy. And then with everything that was going on around Front Royal and the Civil Rights stuff was just scary but I didn't know these white kids. But some of the white kids were just as scared as I was because they didn't know these Black kids. You know I was scared. I was_____.People thought I was shy that is true but I appeared more shy because I did not open my mouth but I was scared. You didn't know_______with what you were seeing on TV. Daddy was scared for us. So I never really thought about that until Willey just said. It took a lot of courage for our parents to push us to go to that school because nobody knew what was going to happen. I never thought about that before. But I know Daddy was scared. I remember seeing the look on his face. I knew he was scared.
Willey: I remember the first time they, they being Mom & Dad, took me to Strasburg High School. It was before school and we met with Mr. Stanley Dellinger and he gave us tour and I was in awe of it. It was so big. And the gym. I told Daddy it was the biggest gym I had ever seen. He said, Where have you ever seen a gym before?" I still remember that. But my only thing was after I started school at Strasburg High School it was lot of times by yourself especially in the 8th grade, it was just like people didn't talk that much to you. Teachers seemed like they were kind of offish. Some of them were. So I just kind of muddled thru. And one day I was, I guess I was in the 9th grade and I was putting something in my locker and Larry Bright came up to me and said,"Hey man want to play football?" And I said I don't know I never played football before. He said why don't you come out and try, what the heck? And I said "Sure".
Marquetta: I didn't know that.
Willey: I call Doc Bright today. But then athletes that is a different, whole different thing, you earned their respect. It was really good to me because that way I could put a whole lot of negative energy into the football thing, and later on track. I was on the first wrestling team.
Marquetta: You weren't the "Big Star".
Willey: I was just an athlete.
Marquetta: He is so modest.
Willey: But to me it was just like you could really get rid of a lot of stuff, stress by just channeling it differently and that is just what I did. I just channeled it all into the next play and that just keeps down a whole lot of anger and stuff like that. But even looking back now, with hormones running wild when you are fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. I don't see how Mr. Proctor?? put up with it. But you know what I am saying. It was good. Sports was good. I have always said they are three men my life that have made me the man I am today. That was Jesus Christ, Wibert Mitchell, and Glenn Proctor. In that order.
Zach: And do you think that being on the sports teams helped you be accepted by the student population better?
Willey: Yes. Just like my dear, little wife there, she was on the debating team.
Marquetta: I didn't have a sports bone in my body.
Willey: But everyone doesn't do sports. I have been doing a little debating but you know ________. She was on it. What she did was challenge all hers to education. Me I wished I would have done more education. But it all worked out. But yes, but you know the thing that gets me today. It's just like two months ago I had a young man come up to me, well he's in his forties now I guess, and you never know what impression you give, you never know how people are going to read you. And he comes up to me and he said, “Brother I want to tell you something." And I said,” what’s that?" He said," You were always my hero". And I said,” Your hero, how is that?" He said I like the way you always carried yourself. You never got angry or mad. You never did things that would cause embarrassment to your family or school. He said, 'That's the way I wanted to be. I wanted to be just like that. So the way you carried yourself that is the way I carried myself. So I went Wow. And that is when I was in the 11th or 12th grade. And when you hear a full grown man tell you that. And he was the second one that told me that. And me I am going Wow! And I just treat people like I wanted to be treated with respect.
Zach: Now I am curious for both of you when you went to the all white or predominantly white schools, how did, first of all how did the students react, were there any issues there? And how did the teachers and administrators react? You talked a little bit about that. But I have quite a variety of stories on both those types of populations and I wanted to get your reactions were.
Willey: Her class had a different well it's like what Marquetta said, it was all 30 or 40 children just went to the middle school and the high school then.
Marquetta: My father had a real hard time at the middle school. Did he go to the middle school? He had a hard time.
Willey: I hear that. But when I went to the high school I didn't. The only thing I ran into was people would not talk to you. Which I was somewhat a loner. I always hunted and fished and was off to myself. But all that changed. Just like I had a young kid come up to me and say I want to ask you something. And I said, "Yeah what?' He said, "Do you all carry knives' and I said, "No, I don't carry a knife, do you?" And he said, "No, but my mommy and daddy said that all you people all carry knives." I said, “No, not all of us carry knives." But it just with me it was a feeling out of each other. You know what this kid is different. I think by the 9th grade by me doing hunting and fishing and doing sports and doing stuff like that that fit right in with everyone.
Zach: With what everybody else did.
Willey: Still do, except the hunting part I don't still do that just fish. But as far as fights, I have never been in a fight, cursing and hollering and all that stuff. Other than encouraging someone in football camp or something like that we never had to go thru that. I hear Marquetta’s brother Robert saying this and that. They used to have a lot of fights and things of that nature. One on one type thing. But I never was involved in anything like that.
Marquetta: You knew who----. I know my father was a fighter. I was not a fighter. I was always quiet.
Willey: Negotiator:
Marquetta: Well I feel in negotiating, I just watched. But my brothers had a hard time. Very difficult time. But I could sense things, a very acute sense of things, I knew who didn't want to deal with me and I really didn't care. I take that back, I really did. But I knew because of elementary school ______hear you talk. Because in elementary school I really was not in with a group so I wasn't missing a group. You know how some girls and boys have a clique. I was never in a clique so I never missed a clique. And I didn't have a need. I wished I was. I wished I had a best friend and all that. I really wanted that but I was used to not having that. And with the circumstances I was in I never looked for it.
Zach: OK
Marquetta: So it was very, very lonely. I couldn't play sports. I tried to play sports. I tried to play basketball. I loved volleyball. Because it worked for Willey. It worked for Edgar. Edgar was in my class. He was another sports star. I mean everybody loved Edgar, everybody loved Russell, everybody loved Willey. The boys they had the sorts. but I didn't have anything. There were some girls that spoke to me, Pat ________? She really liked me and I really liked her. People did seem like they didn't know what to do with me. I wouldn't say there was anybody really nasty to me because I was too shy I really was. Kind of like invisible. As far a relationship with a teacher, Mr. Proctor came from West Virginia. His whole thing about integration/segregation was way different than the way Virginia treated it. And I don't know why but to this day he is one of my best friends. But he would come to me almost every day. I guess he felt sorry for me. I was this tiny, little thing, I looked like I had Ricketts I was so skinny. I must have looked so sick. So I was this invisible, quiet, kind of smart of kid and he could come. But I was so shy. My name was Marquetta Witherall. So some people would come up to me and they would say,” What’s your name?" Huh? I couldn’t even say my own full name. I was too shy to say my own full name. And he would always check on my every day and he is the one that made me feel like you are going to be Ok. That was Glenn Proctor. He always checked on me. And when I graduated and went to college and would come back home I always sought out Glenn Proctor. There was something about that man. He was just a good man and he understood Black students. I am going to say it like it is. He understood it because he couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. I guess that was how he saw me and to this day he hasn't told me. I need to ask him that when I see him. He took an interest in me but he did. And so he always would check on me. Now the Principal made me feel safe. Mr. Dellinger was our first principal and the reason why stuff didn't pop off at Strasburg High School is because he threw the media out.
Willey: He would not allow them in.
Marquetta: They were not allowed in. He would not allow them to come in and interview us because that is what the media wanted to do. He said no. He kept the lid on. And so when we had our first reunion at Strasburg Museum we asked him to come and speak with Glenn Proctor. He spoke with the Superintendent of Schools and all that to recognize for the first time in this county that they did exist and you need to honor them. And all our graduates, the wonderful people that taught and the wonderful students that came out of that school. And he spoke about that. So that was my experience. My personality was too shy to start any trouble. But I knew that there was a little trouble in river city with the Cooper boys, my cousins. You don't remember that.
Willey: I was gone.
Marquetta: You were gone. That was a little bit later. They were my cousins and they were wild but they didn't take any stuff. So whenever stuff happens, up in the mountains and in the hills and the police would_____?. And that is all I am going to say.
Willey: The thing that I think about with Mr. Proctor is when we were supposed to play John Mosby. Mr. Proctor got a call from the coach at Mosby and said we will not play you all with the Black players on the team. And Mr. Proctor said then we will just not play you at all. And that is where Mr. Proctor almost lost his job because him and Stanley Dellinger had it out then because Stanley said," Glenn we have a contract. We won't play them next year." I got two young men who are my two of my key players and you are not going to let them go because of these people? It ended up we didn't go but he had to go. And he had to but they lost too. I don't know if it would have made any difference if we were there.
Marquetta: You mean the two Black players could not go.
Willey: Yes. Leonard Alsberry and myself were not allowed on their field. It was kind of sad. But that side of that county was a whole different mentality. I mean because we played Turner Ashby, Montevideo, Elkton, Stonewall, Central.
Marquetta: Warren County was real different.
Willey: Yes it was.
Zach: I get that sense especially, get a sense with the different newspapers in the county. The Northern Virginia Daily because they cover Warren County and so I get the sense there completely different than the way the other two papers in the county at that time covered things.
Willey: That is the first and last time I have ever been spit on in my life was when we played Warren County in Bing Crosby Stadium. I said I couldn't believe this. It was sad. Really sad. It is hate is what it amounts to. And it is really sad but I looked at it then as I look at it now. You have an option. You could go out there and fight and bust your knuckles and use all that stuff. Or just play duck and let it roll off your back and just play the game. Keep yourself straight, follow the rules and just play the game.
Zach: I am curious a little bit about kind of the difference in how people, I don't really want to say the different classes treated you but the different backgrounds. And the reason I say this is one of the things I have gotten is this theme, the more educated people who lived in town treated African-Americans differently than the people who lived like out in the country. And you mentioned that about something happening out in the hills. Did you all have that experience, something similar to that or was it kind of a generic white people treated you?
Willey: I think I understand what you are saying. But with me I didn't, it wasn't any different. I can't say there was any difference. Because the guys who lived out in Coal Mine, Star Tannery, Lebanon Church, we all squirrel hunted, target practiced, and groundhog hunted and played football. So it was like we had so much in common. With me it goes back to respect thing. Then again I looked up to guys who were straight A students or on the track team or in class with. Let's say on the track team for example, "Willey, just do what you need to do, you need to work on your start, you need to get in your box this way." It was positive. In my mind I can't think of negative stuff. No matter A student or straight B student. That was with me.
Marquetta: I have never really thought about that way. In high school.
Willey: Let's see you had your valedictorian.
??
Marquetta: It was Marcy who was white and the valedictorian. I had this conversation with her 5 or 6 years ago. I used to say to her ", Marcy do you ever notice that when you look at those class pictures that I was always somewhere around you not just because you were________?? It was because you were supposed to be the smartest so I was always watching you because I wanted to beat you at everything you did", and I told her that. She said, “I didn't know that". I just wanted to beat her, but I know that I had to work 3 times as hard as she did to get the grade and I knew that. And I considered myself a good student but I wanted to be a great student. I wanted to show her, really what it was. It wasn't about her personally what I wanted to do and how lonely it was. She cried, we had lunch together; we are in the same industry. I said, "What's the matter?" And she said,"Marquetta, I was just as lonely as you were. I was a teenage kid without friends. She was. The smartest girl in school. A lot of people were jealous of her, didn't want to be around her. And I understood her, and for the first time I understood her. And so we had a good cry and lunch. But I understood that. So for me I never thought about it like that in high school. And only having an adult perspective on it, not a high school perspective. And my adult perspective, when I look back over my adult years I would say if I were to look at it like that in terms of grades of people like you say. I would say there is no difference. Racism is racism. If you have an education you think you had it better were high fancy words. If you don't have the fancy words or haven't learned them it is pretty__________which is what I appreciate about it. Where an education will teach you how to practice racism like this. At the same time you are doing like this. Where we are now, "I don't like you_____OK. It is the same thing. That is my adult perspective. My high school perspective, I don't know that I thought about it. I was just trying to survive.
Willey: But I see what you were doing. See where I was using sports, you were using education. You just said, Marcy was good at this, this and this and I can do this too. It is like channeling.
Marquetta: It is. That is what I was doing. If I think of it now, I felt you know I can do exactly what she is doing. For a while there I thought I couldn't but I watched her. And Joe_______, he is a sweetie pie, but Marcy I didn't get, but she was like the smartest kid, and there was that female thing going on.
Willey: Oh yeah!
Marquetta: You have to realize I could do what she did but I had to study real hard. And I would never go to school without having anything unanswered. If I had to stay home my grandma would have to make me go to bed. And sometimes I would not get the last answer but I would get up in the morning real early because I would never go to school without having all my answers done. I am still am that way. But that was me. And I couldn't participate in a lot of after school activities because there were five of us and I had to help my grandparents take care of my brothers and sisters. My dad______. I wasn't involved in a whole lot of social stuff. But I was always envious, not jealous, but envious that other kids like Willey and Edgar could do that and I didn't. I didn't have a social life. It's true.
Willey: I was going to the Tastee-Freeze, eating 15 of them quarter hamburgers and drinking a milkshake.
Marquetta: You see we were never allowed. I could go to the Tastee-Freeze with permission but we never allowed to go with a group of kids anywhere like that. We were pretty protective in our family. They didn't let us, you couldn’t get in a car and go someplace and nobody knew where you were. First of all we didn't have a car to get in. So we were not allowed to roan like that.
Willey: Not like we were.
Marquetta: That's right. You all roamed. We were kind of protected.
Zach: Now I am kind of curious. You mentioned about the principal not letting the media in. From your perspective what was the media trying to accomplish? Because I have read the newspaper accounts of integration and things and they didn't do very much coverage of any of Shenandoah County and mean there were short articles like on Page 2. What were they trying to accomplish with that do you think?
Willey: Well I think personally, it would have been other areas and how everything was put on the tube, on the radio and some of the newspapers. They wanted to keep all the drama down and put a lid on it. "We are going to do this but without all the drama".
Marquetta: Like Front Royal was having.
Willey: Or other places. _______, we don't want to do that here. We think we can just keep it down. Keep these kids going to school. Not going to have a bunch of pictures taken and all that stuff. Keep it low key.
Marquetta: Violence.
Willey: And I think that what it was. And it was a transition. I can remember it just like yesterday, Lawrence, I can't remember Lawrence's last name. I remember getting off the school bus, and walking in the school. I was just like the first day was just like all the other days. It was nobody hardly speaking to you. But it was just like walk on in. Try to find my locker and my classes. You know it was nobody saying anything. Every once in a while someone would say good morning. But everything was just-- and that transition was just smooth and that was what Mr. Dellinger wanted.
Marquetta: He didn’t want any trouble.
Willey: He thought the media might have wanted--
Marquetta: To stir it up.
Willey: Inadvertently maybe but some people. Sometimes when I look on the television, I try not to watch too much news but some of it can really get you riled up. Keep it down. Not put it out there for people but keep it at a lower roar.
Marquetta: Because there are people enough around to stir a pot. He was just doing his, he was just keeping it down. He was doing his job. He was protecting his students. And he took it a step further. And a lot of people don't know about this. He said it for the first time when we had that celebration at the Museum. People don't know he came up to Sunset Hills School. He didn't have to do that. And he talked to those teachers and knew how he could make the transition smoother for us. He didn't have to do that. That how the visits started, pre-school, making sure that we kids could have a chance to go over to the school before the school started so we could have a chance to see what a locker is. We didn't know what a locker is. What's a cafeteria? What are you talking about?
Willey: And a gym?
Marquetta: Do you really get in a line with a tray for lunch?
Willey: You don't have to bring a bag??
Marquetta: You don't have to bring a bag! He made sure that happened. For him to have that foresight, in that day and that time. That was a heck of a thing to do to have the forethought for kids who know nothing about a locker and a cafeteria and how to matriculate into classes. And then we had two floors! We had one room school first with a water fountain on the outside that froze in the winter.
Willey: Yeah but they moved it inside.
Marquetta: Then we had an add on and there was a bathroom, one for girls and one boys. We were like in heaven then.
Willey: No johnnies!
Marquetta: That's right! So to go to a school with two floors and showers in the locker room. So he came to the school and worked out a plan with the teachers to make sure we were afforded that. So to me that was protecting and taking care of your kids. Not just the boys the boys in trouble but helping us thru the transition.
Zach: That's interesting because the same year that you started at Strasburg I talked to a student who started at Stonewall the same year and she gave a completely different story of her first day. She said when they got there the media was there. She said they had police there and there was a lot of excitement and a lot of drama. So that is a very interesting contrast.
Marquetta: You see I remember the teachers saying we don't want _______? You see his memory of it is different from mine. He wasn't on my bus.
Willey: I was on a whole different set-up. Remember I started before you did.
Marquetta. It makes a difference.
Willey:But also, we were talking about this last week. Some of the teachers that used to snub us. Not really be very friendly. Or some of them that we see now are some of our best friends. It is awesome.
Marquetta: My first client that they gave me, called me at my house on a Saturday.
Willey: You want to say where you work?
Marquetta: Oh, I am a financial advisor with _________. My office is right downtown. My first $350,000 check OK, I am thinking, ______?? First of all it is a production thing, especially the first one. You got to make money. And so I know that they have money but I know who he is. One of the biggest racists in town. Because everybody in Strasburg at the time was a racist. So I called him, Mr. So & So. I said, "This is what I'm doing. I know you know me because you know we know we know each other and we don't have to go any further, but this is what I'm doing. He let me in his house. Which shocked me. These kids used to call us "N" words and we used to call them "C" words.
I was never a fighter. My brothers and sisters, they would be fighting going to school, fighting coming home from school. So I talked to him a good six months. But I am persistent and quiet. So one day he called me here at this house and said," May I come to your office?" And I said well of course I will open for you. How much is your check?
He said, "$350,000." First of all I was shaking all the way down to the office. And I to this day I can't tell you why he gave me that check or why he trusted me.
Willey: Maybe it is because he trusted you.
Marquetta: Yes. But what I am saying is that he was one of the worst. And that was _______?_. And his daughter was in my class and we had a few "nice" words. I didn't let people run over me. I didn't have a nasty mouth. I didn't curse. But by the time I got finished with you, you knew you were cursed out by the time you got home. Because my grandmother taught me how to do that.
Willey: Nancy Nice.
Marquetta: Nice Nancy. Because she taught us nice, you know, that you had to stand up. You don't pick a fight. You walk away. Every time we did.______________? Here's what you say. And she's even very nice. And so you know I still remember him handing me that check. It was almost like he didn't know what he was doing. So I took the check and put it in his account. That was my first real big account. And when that happened to me I knew I was going to be okay in Strasburg. As long as I truly respect people. If you don't respect me that's your issue. But I am going to respect you, and if you don't respect me then we don't have any business together. And that was a turning point for me, a good turning point for my business as an adult. I knew that I could handle Strasburg, I do all right in Strasburg. And so he was not a very nice person. Truly he was not. So anyway that's one of my adult stories coming from a child in school with his daughter, who taught his kids how to do the "N" word. I know he did. So that is how people can change. If he can change, anybody can change.
Zach: Now I am curious you knew one of them I guess, the teachers at the Black Schools. Number one I can't figure out what happened to them after the Black schools.
Willey: That's a good question!
Marquetta: We are still looking.
Willey: I know one Mrs. Eudora H. Payne (?) went back to Ranson, West Virgina and she had two daughters and that is where she lived until she passed. Which hasn't been too awful many years ago.
Marquetta: Now we don't know what happened to her daughters.
Willey: George Heller.
Marquetta: I had a crush on George Heller(?)
Willey: George Heller and then Mrs. Burbidge(?) We have been trying to see if we can find them. But we have had people try to see if they can find them. From what we understand, the county they don't keep records but for a certain amount of time. And someone brought us some stuff that had been throwed out in the trash.
Marquetta: It was Judy Jackson. It was at John-Manville? In the trash. It was Mr. Howard's attendance book and it had my name and all my sisters and brothers name in it. Where he was from, his address in Roanoke and everything. We had not been able to find him. He went to Virginia State College where I went. Of course years before and I find it in the college book, but he has probably passed away.
Willey: But those three we been trying to locate, Richmond, all those things trying to locate them.
Marquetta: And one minister, Rev. Greer (?) he was your relative, but that was before our time. That was Sunset Hills School before our time. But we have a list of teachers that we have accumulated thru the older citizens that were there thru the younger citizens that were there. And as much information as we were able to get but we are still working on it.
Willey: It is at the museum.
Marquetta: I know we have it upstairs.
Zach: I was curious they were working for the county as teachers and then the schools integrated and I am sure, and this is the case almost everywhere, that they are just no longer teachers here in the county. Even at the time you couldn't have a Black teacher teaching the white kids. You know. So what happened to them?
Willey: That's a good question. We wondered that too. But think back when we made that transition, all our focus was on the now and never even thought about what happened to the teachers. But we were kids. But as adults we wanted to look up and find out where they went and what happened to them. But the only one we know of was Mrs. Payne.
Marquetta: It was there focus. They were so focused on us doing well at the white school when you get there. That was the push. I want you to do well. I want you to show them. That was the push and then they just left.
Zach: There was one and I forget her name now was the teacher at Creekside.
Marquetta: Mrs. McClain, that was Mrs. Payne's sister.
Zach: The Church there in Woodstock, Mt Zion, they know where she is buried. She went back to West Virginia. But I don't know anything about the ones that were the teachers in Strasburg.
Willey: We were hoping but people just trashed their records. That is so sad. So much history just trashed.
Marquetta: We made a copy of George Heller's (?) book that was found. It is there. It looks like the original. We did a real good job. I never thought about it like that. That is an excellent question. I feel guilty we didn't think about the teachers but we were kids.
Willey: And then there was that push. Get out of school. What are you going to do when you get out of school? Some of you are going to go in the military; some of you are going to college. That was a chaotic time in a sense.
Marquetta: It was a traumatic time.
Willey: But I look at now and I look back at then. That isn’t too bad compared to some of the stuff that goes on now.
Marquetta: Even with all that stuff I think we were focused. We were a lot more focused. And then at the same time there were things motivating you. There was the Civil Rights, there were leaders, and there were people there to guide you in your community. The community mobilized where there was a local mobilization. There was the push. There is not that anymore. We knew that education or something beyond high school you were going to need, vocational school, college, military. But I don't know I think our focus was more simple. Do you know what I mean than what the kids are experiencing today? Maybe I am wrong I don't know.
Zach: And then looking after integration, after the schools integrated, I guess maybe we can do it like we did at the beginning where I ask you to talk for a minute or so about how things were kind of focusing on Strasburg after integration progressed. Racism continues but you know what, how has that change maybe, what the community was like and how that changed a little bit in terms of how people dealt with race and things like that. Were there any bad instances after integration comes at the schools? I hope that makes sense.
Willey: All I can say is that at schools, then again, I think some of the guys from what I understand after the school was started after all that you did have some fights. You have boys or some girls you are going to have conflicts no matter what. But it seemed like it was somewhat of an acceptance of what we had come thru as a community. but yet as some of the ladies in the church used to say, you still got some of the ______?? in the back thinking the old ways and that is on both sides of the race. “We shouldn't be over there or we shouldn't be at that school and of course the swimming pool thing. Some of the Black people won’t let their children go to the swimming pool today.
Because of something that happened back then. We weren't allowed to go then. But sometimes you got to move on a little bit because hate begets hate. My thinking is I have a granddaughter that goes to the pool. We have a granddaughter that goes to the pool. I would not allow her to swim in the river. I had a ball. All my friends were there because the poor white families couldn't afford $100 a summer couldn't afford that. So we were swimming at that river together and having a ball. But maybe that answers a part of your question.
Zach: I think it does. You know that was the kind of what I was looking for the overall.
Willey: You still got hate in there. You still got, you will for a long time.
Marquetta: That is an excellent question because I was asked that question and had an opportunity to answer that question by someone white just the other day. And here is how I answered that question. Well the question was proposed a little bit differently. Is there still racism? The person had had a conversation with someone Black in the community and felt _______? wasn't done because of racism. Do you still think that exists in Strasburg? Well of course. Well really? If you, in order for you to mention that to me because I am Black then you know it must be something like that. You are an intelligent person I know that and I like you. I don't know you that well, but in order for you to ask me that question you know there must be. But the person wasn't quite sure how to deal with it. And I said this," Couple of things you do not want to do. Do not appoint a person in Strasburg who is Black to deal with Black stuff. Do not do that. Because there you are ______? it. But you know it happened here and I know you do because you asked me about it. Look at it as an opportunity to say to the person, "Do you think is racism?" Don't be afraid to say the word race or racism. You need to understand that anybody past 50 or 60 or so in this town had had to deal with that and that is part of who they are. And so because it is part of who they are it is going to affect how they respond to certain things. And so if you really want to do a great job don't deny what they are thinking. They are opening up an invitation for you to talk about it. It is just a dialogue in and of itself. It is a step forward. You must take the step forward. You must take the step forward. It's okay to talk about race. Let us not pretend that it is insignificant and it does not exist. And when you take that step, you are taking that step forward every time even if you still end up disagreeing about the issue you are talking about. But to deny is the worst mistake you could ever make. There is racism just like Willey said was a part of many white folk here. Racism was a part of many Black folk here not that there is a whole bunch of Black folk. But there is. And we can only take a step forward when we are in dialogue together. If I can be of any help, I will be glad to be of any help to anyone who wants to have a conversation but I don't represent Black people. And that is where a lot of white people make a mistake. And so that was an excellent question you asked and that is my answer to that.
Willey: And you are sticking to it.
Zach: There is one last question and I am glad you brought this up. The Strasburg pool. I know the story of the Woodstock pool integrating. Do you all know anything in relation to the Strasburg pool and segregation and integration?
Willey: Only thing I know was you had to pay a fee.
Marquetta: It was to keep us out. And riffraff too. You know what I mean. That was the way it was seen.
Willey: Well that was the way it was set up too. Every time I think about that I think about a story that Glenn Proctor told. It was this young boy named Carter Alsberry. He used to play with Glenn's children okay. One day Glenn was going to take his boys to the pool. Carter asked, "Coach Mr. Proctor you going to the pool?' Coach said, " Oh no, we just, it is time for you to go home and we are going to take these boys for a walk etc." Because coach didn't want to break his heart to tell because he was going to take his boys to the pool and he wasn't allowed to go. So that being said time went on. But right down the road on Battlefield, Gypsy Falls, Carter with some other boys was down there swimming when he drowned. And that haunted Mr. Proctor for so long. Here he is one of the leaders in his community, wanting to do the right thing and get along and here is this young man who his sons played with and he thought a lot of drowned because there was no other place really with a lifeguard or something like that for him o go to. So I think he withdrawed his children from it then. But that being said it got to the point where as people where not supporting it and it was getting into disrepair so ended up having to open up everything and we got to get this thing fixed or we are going to have to shut down.
Marquetta: And then they started letting the riffraff and the Blacks in.
Willey: No, anyone that wanted to go there they were allowed in.
Marquetta: Daddy didn't let us go. But I really wasn't interested in because I was not a swimmer. So it didn't bother me at all. But for a long time, I was very angry about that because there were a lot of Black people who needed to learn how to swim and wanted to swim and weren't allowed. So as a young woman who went to a Black college specifically and my Daddy hated it. I was coming back with like A's_________________. I really did. My dad was so afraid. And I remember being very angry about that. But you know you get over stuff. But I don't like the history. I was in the pool with Bree honey. I was in the pool with Bree.
Willey: This woman can't swim a bit. But she went to college and took a class on swimming and passed.
Marquetta: It was only 2 credits. I went off the board and everything.
Willey: But then all of a sudden it is like "I can't swim.
Marquetta: But then I go to the park because I helped paint the park and it is not right for me not to go to the park when I want my family to go to the park. And so we had our first reunion of _______school, Queen Street in the park and you know it was so neat, everybody in town came and it wasn't just a Black reunion. It was a Strasburg thing.
Willey: And that is the way it is supposed to be.
Marquetta: And that is where dialogue like yours with different people and dialogue with each other would happen. Dialogue changes things because it gets you to know you a bit better."Oh yeah well he is an Okay guy. Things grow and change. But we have a thing at the Museum. It was the largest attendance. And was the thing to celebrate the Black schools. It was the largest attendance of any event in the museum. Because it was dialogue. And people had a chance to cry with us. We weren't the only people crying. Strasburg cried. That is why I am here in Strasburg now. It is not the most perfect place.
Willey: There is no perfect place.
Marquetta: There is no perfect place.
Willey: Maybe Myrtle Beach. Outer Banks.
Zach: Maybe perfect weather.
Marquetta: Strasburg is what it is. It does not pretend to be something it is not. When it is time to rally, it rallies. And good people in it. And for the most part, when there is a dialogue even if it comes to fist-fighting sometime, we dialogue. Or the town council does sometimes.
Willey: The thing that amazes me is, see where do you live?
Zach: Woodstock.
Willey: Woodstock, Edinburg, Mount Jackson, Strasburg, all of them are so different. So different. You know I mean. It is amazing. Even Maurertown, Toms Brook. We are all right here in the same sock, but we don't fit the same shoe. But we are all so different and that is what makes it so unique in my opinion.
Marquetta: It has been quite a journey and we are all allright with it.
Zach: That's good.
Willey: But one of the things I didn't like about the swimming pool thing. After I went into the Navy and we did all this swimming stuff. It's chlorine! Now of course we thought the river was the greatest thing since sliced bread, now we find out it is so polluted. It's awful. Marquetta and I have been blessed to live through all that we have gone thru and we look back and just think about some of the things that we have seen. Some of the players that have been in this drama that we lived and it has been pretty unique. One of the things I would change is I would take a typing class my last year. (Laughter follows)
Zach: I get a lot of people that say that and they are usually guys.
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
WILLY AND MARQUETTA MITCHELL ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW
Subject
The topic of the resource
Strasburg (Va)
Public Schools-Virginia-Strasburg
School Integration-Virginia-Strasburg
Description
An account of the resource
Oral history interview featuring Willy and Marquetta Mitchell conducted on February 4, 2016 for the Shenandoah County Library's Black History Month Program. Willy and Marquetta were the first two African American students to attend Strasburg High School.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Zachary Hottel
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Shenandoah Voices Oral History Collection
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Publisher
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Shenandoah County Library
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
February, 4 2016
Rights
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Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC)
Format
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MP3 File
Language
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English
Type
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Sound Recording
Identifier
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16-0004
African Americans
Integration
Schools
Segregation
Shenandoah County
Virginia