 Well, welcome everyone. Welcome back to Ohio University. Welcome to Alden Library. I'm Scott Seaman, Dean of Libraries, and it's a real pleasure for me to open this session featuring Carl Walker, author of Soulful Bobcats. Mr. Walker isn't just an author of Soulful Bobcats. He's also a contributor to Black America, a state-by-state historical encyclopedia recently published by Clio Press, in which he contributed the Washington D.C. entry on. After graduation in 1956, Carl Walker worked for the Social Security Administration until retiring in 1986. He then became an adjunct professor in the Department of Public Administration at Atlanta University and later a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Clark Atlanta University. Our host this afternoon is Doug McCabe, Curator of Manuscripts in the MAHN Center for Archives and Special Collections. We welcome also all of our online audiences. We are broadcasting this live with the help from our friends at WOUB Public Media. Thanks also go out to the Ohio University Alumni Association and of course the Black Alumni Reunion. I do want to remind everyone that books are available for purchase right in the corner. I understand Mr. Walker might be available afterwards to sign copies. If you would like, for our web audience, we encourage you to go to your local bookseller and buy a copy there. Thank you very much. And Dr. Mr. Walker and Mr. McCabe, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you very much Scott. Here we go. Welcome back to Ohio University. I know you've been here several times, lots of times more recently than long ago perhaps, but we're thrilled to have you back. Soulful Bobcats. And let's get the rest of the title for all of you here. Experiences of African American students at Ohio University from 1950 to 1960. Where did this concept come from? Where did the idea come from for the book? The idea of the book actually is a natural progression of the aging process. We had had two previous reunions of this group and in preparation for the third reunion, my idea was that we're getting pretty old and we're losing our schoolmates rather rapidly. So the idea was perhaps let us do our children and grandchildren a favor of letting them know what we were like, what we experienced during our years because almost universally we had such expressions of pride and joy and happiness of our years at Ohio University. And I really felt that it was the kind of thinking that would be treasured by families for generations to come. Well there were, as it ended up, a total of 18 people who contributed to the book as autobiographical sketches and then there were other people too who helped put the book together. Should we maybe point out some of those people? Excellent point. First I would like to point to my co-writer, Betty Hollow, whom I was fortunate in meeting at the third Soulful Bobcat reunion and after a little encouragement she agreed to give me a hand with this book so I'm deeply indebted to her for the assistance particularly the research and the history that was available here at Ohio University and in this library. But I'm even more indebted to my fellow Soulful Bobcats, my friends for life, eight of whom are here with me sitting on this front row and I would like to mention them by name Ada Wood, Lois Green, Ada Woodson, Alice Rush, Joan Neighbors and I'm going to skip over the next one for a moment. And then Alva Jane Johnson, Tracy, Frances Walker, my wife and then Dorothy Lusanne to whom the book is dedicated and the book is also dedicated to Howard Nolan whose widow is here with us and sharing his spot. So I'm deeply indebted to each and every one of these along with the roughly 10 fellow students who are not here with us today. They made excellent contributions to the story and allowed a framework of our experience to be established based on their individual experiences. So I'm very proud of them and so much credit goes to them for their writing. Let's give this a special credit. The whole front row of very lovely looking ladies. So the construction of the book is really so much the autobiographical reminiscences of these 18 people. And then there are the, you know, there's a preface and so forth Roderick McDavis, President McDavis wrote a piece for it. And then there are, I guess we might call them bridges between to kind of bring you up to speed on each person and a few comments in between to help people understand where the folks were coming from and what got them going here and so forth. I was really struck by, and I've read this book two times. So, you know, I do remember some of it. But I was struck by some really common elements that everybody experienced as well as their individual experiences that were special to them. And I think maybe my next question would be what were some common elements about being here in that decade of the 1950s? I think the most common element that we shared was that each of us, regardless of whether we were from the north or the south, actually had experience with racial segregation. We knew it, we recognized it, and we were quite cognizant, and our own more raise and behavior were largely shaped by those experiences that we had had and those of our parents. Now, it is not that we liked it. As a matter of fact, as you look at the progression of history, you can see that the flaming resentment was really intensified during the 1950s when African-American soldiers who had fought in World War II having gone to places like Europe and seeing a relative social freedom there and then having seen the wounded and dead of African-Americans there and come back home and say, well, that's what we fought for, to come back home and endure this kind of segregation. So, many of them became college students in the 1950s, particularly the early 1950s, and it was that feeling, veterans did have a lot to do with intensifying the resentment to racial segregation because they had seen another world. Now, we as students had a double obligation, one to our parents who had sent us here and expected us to do well and behave, and that code of ethics was universal. That, again, was another of the characteristics of our generation, and we had an obligation to ourselves, to be ourselves. We were a group of ambitious young African-Americans and we really felt that we could make a difference in the lives of our children and that we greatly appreciated what our parents had done, but we really were hungry for more. Well, this is another thread that I think that's very important that shows up, I think, with really everybody who contributed, and that was their familial background, their families, their parents, and it's just something, I don't know, was it across the generation or just special for you all and your parents for that desire, for more education, more out of life? We were truly blessed to have had such a focus on life, and it's somewhat tragic that subsequent generations have not been able to focus as clearly as we, because the obstacles and difficulties are different. In our day, as I mentioned, segregation was real, and we knew it, and it was fairly easy in comparison to even devise your own goals in the face of the reality of that time, and you could keep them realistically. Now, for example, it's, if you look at the majors that we pursued while here, you'll see a heavy indication, particularly from the girls' students of education. We were in the age where many black or professional or were teachers, mostly women, and many of the men and women black were finding small openings in public service, federal, state, and local governmental entities of one type or the other, and with that along with the traditional professional classes of medicine and the law and religion, theology, they sort of circumscribed where our lives were going to be, even being educated. However, we were beginning to feel the thought and threat of saying it's not enough. We want to be engineers as well, as Howard Nolan so aptly demonstrated, and his story is quite touching in that regard about his determination, and to hear that we live those conversations, we were very close socially. As a matter of fact, I would say that our group of students were closer than most family units I have observed in recent years, and a lot of thanks goes to Dorothy Luce Fans, to whom the book is dedicated, for maintaining that feeling over the years. After school, we were aware of each other's families and children and where they lived and promotions and so forth, and our reunions became a centerpiece of which I'm very grateful to Ohio University for allowing us to re-establish that ideal life we had here in Athens, and we just cherished that, and thanks to Ohio, we'll always cherish that. We're glad to hear that. One of the things I think that's been talked about a lot about that generation of college students in the 1950s, as in comparison to the later generation of, say, the 60s and the 70s, when those generations were here on this campus and other campuses, a lot more vocal, a lot more upfront and in your face kind of thing, but I look at this book and reflect on other things that I've read, and I see that there were numerous barriers being broken down in the 1950s that really set things up for the 1960s and the 70s and beyond. More educational opportunities, more business opportunities and career opportunities in the 1950s that were in some ways really just what quietly done. Government jobs, yes, but coming to state schools, for example, we have embarrassingly in our own Board of Trustees minutes from the 1920s a controversy that brought on the President of the University at that time writing and saying, well, we want in the Board of Trustees policy that no one can come from out of state to Ohio University who is not acceptable to a state school in their home state. We all know what that means, don't we? And when that was challenged, the President of the University actually wrote a letter to say that we're not interested in becoming a Negro college, and it was because of people like you from West Virginia and people from Kentucky and Tennessee and the state of Virginia itself and so forth that he said that, you know, I mean, it's a terribly racist thing, but 20, 30 years later, we're starting to see more and more African-Americans and people of color coming to colleges like Ohio University and making some inroads for accommodation for that to happen. And I think you all made a lot of that nice experience on your own. Now, not that you were really challenged that much in other senses you were, of course. Thank you for bringing that up because there are a couple aspects to that. That particular effort by the administration at that time really was, as you point out, aimed at preventing Negro students, which was the term in common at that time, from attending Ohio University. Yet there's a certain irony if you look at the composition of the student body, particularly during the years around 1919, 1920, 1921, and even enough to bring an African-American fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, to the campus. And I looked at the birth place of a number of those. I was surprised to see how many West Virginians, for example, African-Americans were in that group. So the first point that I would suggest in that particular edict that was passed was that it was half-heartedly enforced, apparently. And the second aspect of it is my understanding that that has never officially been rescinded, that it is still in effect. And I think that while the numbers and the progress that has been made, particularly by my favorite president, Dr. Davis, this has just been so wonderful to have lived over this period of time and to see what has truly happened. But I think that while there were variances in variations in the implementation of that edict, it was not enough to truly impact the admission of African-American students as a movement as such. And I think that was really good. Now, what has happened and remained problematic throughout the 1950s were certain other vestiges of segregation. As you know, I'm sure you are well aware of the number of incidents that we face, even with attitudes of professors. In my own story, I recount a relationship with professors whom I cannot attribute that experience to anything of the than racial. And there were all the people who had various other forms of behavior exhibited by professors, the attitude and all. But we were able to somewhat discount that as an impediment to getting our education. That was just that guy. As a matter of fact, there was a certain irony in my own experience that the professor that I referred to had a relative, I don't want to identify it even more, had a relative who was also my guiding teacher in education for whom I've never had a closer working relationship and a more positive one. And I was able to do student teaching in the plains. Now, there was that other law that was passed which was designed to prevent education majors from teaching in the Athens school system. And many, like Alice Rush here, went back to Cleveland to do her student teaching. And I'm not sure whether she was told she had to go back or whether it was voluntary, but it was not uncommon to have that experience. But in my own case, I went to the plains high school and the leading professor told me he was so comfortable he allowed me to teach his class for a week. Lois Green knows she was one of my students over there for a week while he took another class on a field trip. So the experiences were varied here and they across the board there was not the thing of a rigid segregation system that was clearly southern base here where the answer were no. You do not go here, you cannot go here, you cannot do that. But here at Athens we had a number of circumstances for which race was the central point in the central scene. And again, as I forgive my reference to the personal experience again, but as an adult I look back at how close we might have come to sparking a little racial incident by my roommate and I stopping at a bar here on Court Street to have a drink after a meeting and so forth. That had all the ingredients that sparked later riots and conflict that we were served the drink. But then the other patrons and particularly a couple of Ohio University students who became rather vociferous about our presence in that bar. And so it's a part of the story that I tell, but that was a reality. We found comfort in each other. Our natural instinct was to share the experience and get, either talk down or further infuriated by our peers. But they shared the emotional reaction to the incident as we had felt it. And of course as you got older those are the learning experiences of life. But we kept our focus, our eyes on the prize of getting a college degree. That was very important to us. Well, speaking of that incident, you know, to follow it through, you came back to the door to explain to a few of your fellow students what had happened. And a group of you went back up to the bar to deal with that little situation. And I guess everybody was maybe lucky that the perpetrator of that problem was no longer in the bar. But I think there's something very important about that as well is that I wondered, as I read that, if 10 years earlier, that same incident, how that might have gone, would you have been allowed to have been served a drink in the bar in the first place? And then when confronted with, you know, vocal racism and then go back to the dorm and tell people about it, 10 years before would a group of people said, you know, no, we're not going to have this. We're going to go up and confront this guy. So that's another example I think of a transition thing going on. In the 40s, it would have been, oh, let this one go. In the 60s, it would have been, okay, fine, we're going to, you know, we'll find somebody to pound on. So now, John Baker was president for the entire decade when you were here. Give me your impressions of John and what do you think he was as a president from the viewpoint of African Americans on campus at that time? I'll speak personally and I think it's a comment that later on my colleagues would have a chance to speak on. But I found him to be charming, delightful and friendly. He walked the campus, he spoke, he smiled and very welcoming. I was more impressed with who he really was as I read, as I learned earlier and read the account of Frank Underwood and his relationship with President Baker and President Baker's own attitude and desire for integrating the athletic teams here. And I thought that was a very wonderful story and no doubt about it, it endeared President Baker to me a great deal knowing that particular experience. But otherwise, I knew him as a nice, kindly, polite, cheerful looking man. But during those days, one did not get to dialogue with President of the University. That's been one of my real thrills of the current president is by, get a thrill out of talking with him one-on-one. So it's one of the things that was so wonderful to see how President Baker and Frank Underwood divide the communication system that was very helpful and I doubt that my fellow students were any more aware of that than I was at the time that it was going off. I remember from John Baker's oral history that he talked about when he was, he recruited some students from Africa and he wanted to make sure that they were welcome in the community and could operate in the community and he went to the local barbers and said, now look, I know there's a problem here with our own African-American students getting haircuts and I want you to promise me that these African students will be able to get haircuts in your barbershops. And the first response was, no. And John said, that's not good enough and he finally talked them into it that they promised to do so and then he saw these students later on on campus and asked them now, are you, are you everything okay and can you get haircuts and they said, well, yeah, we can go to the barbershop and get haircuts but we're not. We're cutting each other's hair and he said, why, were you treated poorly? He said, no, it's too expensive. Now, you know, in earlier sessions during this reunion and prior ones and, you know, it certainly brought up in the book that was one of the things was how to get hair care as an African-American. It requires some special talents on the part of those who are caring for their own hair as well as those who are professionally trained to do so and it's pointed out very clearly in the book that you had to go to the planes to get haircuts and that was from a, really an amateur. Lois is a green father. Oh, okay, you're a father. Oh, okay, so yeah, all right, good. So, you know, that's just one restriction that wasn't so much an Ohio University's restriction by any means but it was a town, a regional restriction. I'm not sure that, oh, that perception of President Baker's was consonant with our experiences. Our experiences was that the barbershops would not cut your hair and I'm not sure what it sounds from that incident that you described or your conversation with President Baker that that might have transpired even before I arrived here in 1954 but it was fairly, clearly known that you cannot get your hair cut in the barbershops and in the class before one of Dorothy Lou's roommates who was very fair complexion, young lady, actually went, there's stories in the book about her going to a shop here and not being recognized as being African-American and was served but the point of that time was that we could not get our haircuts here and even in relationship to the experience at the bar, my roommate and I very carefully analyzed which bar had been reputed to serve African-Americans. It wasn't just a happenstance that we went into that bar. We had assessed whether there was an opportunity to get the drink if we went into the bar. There were questions about being served if you were to go into specific beauty politics and to my knowledge during our day it was very firmly established that the barbershops here in Athens would not cut your hair and in all honesty I think most African-American males certainly of that age and generation were not really desirous of non-African-Americans cutting their hair so that more than the cost might have been a subtle factor because if you got a haircut you want it to look nice. Now people who are not experienced with your style and your hair styling and so forth, it becomes a defeat to your purpose for going to the barbershop. And they're wielding very sharp scissors. Exactly, that's exactly true. The other thing that I noticed too with that episode or the discussion of that kind of thing with the hair care for the men in particular was something that turned out to be actually an enjoyable experience because everybody would go together up to the plains to get their hair cut. They met some nice people up there. Who met some nice college boys. So you can make something nice out of something that's a little disappointing. And even for those of us, I recall going to Parkingburg two or three times, it turned into a social event when we would go to Parkingburg to get our hair cut there. We couldn't go into the nightclubs there but the African American Legion was certainly open to us and we were very familiar with that on campus. And there were a couple of us that had automobiles. Now automobiles were not prevalent among student body of our day. But I was fortunate enough to go in with a couple of guys and we bought an old car that would run around campus and we had a little bit of fun with that driving around. Matter of fact, I got a wife out of it. We won't talk anymore. Well, I know the thing that I think that when it comes to campus, you all kind of took over the bunch of grapes room, didn't you? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And the bunch of grapes room was ideal for our needs, our purposes. And in truth, I didn't meet most including my wife there in the bunch of grapes room. So it was our favorite spot. It had a couple of characteristics that truly were quite appealing, even in retrospect, look at that. Number one, it was convenient. Number two, they had integrated the jukebox to have had at least four or five songs that we really wanted to hear and that we could dance to. So dancing being a favorite sport that we would engage in is always an African-American community. One of the entrees to a good social evening is have the music and dancing. So the convenience of it. And yet in truth, we did not seek to make it all black. I think that the fact that it did turn all black was mostly either out of deference by fellow white students saying, well, I leave those guys alone with what they're doing or they might have even felt uncomfortable being in there. But we felt very comfortable being in the bunch of grapes room and it was like home and we could truly depend on having a bit of social interaction on a daily basis there. So it was a great thing. Somebody's always going to be there. Someone was always going to be there and you could play bid with too which was another favorite pastime that we had. And kind of interesting little side story. I was abused when my co-writer Betty Hollow asked me, well, what is bid with? I said, well, it's an aspect of a cultural thing. For now, for those of you who don't know, it's a card thing. That's about all I know about it. So what were some of the songs that were on the jukebox? Do you remember? Oh, yes. Rachel, Night Train, Build Doggot, Night Train, Build Doggot and Fiddle, Girl, Twist, Chubby Checker. My favorite was, and I've not even told my friends this but I've told Francis to sing that I was so enamored with was a song called Earth Angel by the Pinkland and that was my song, my date there at the... You probably sang it to someone special. I couldn't sing. That was not a talent. You mouthed the word. I'm certain I did. Now with Count Basie and Nat King Colby, too? Yes, they were. Yes, that was... Nancy Wilson was a kind of local. Nancy Wilson? Wow. Now, I heard earlier that there were a lot of parties at the Armory, was that your time? Well, we were not at the Armory. Those young folk that came later on went to the Armory. We went to the Knights of Columbus of KFC and usually they were Alpha Phi, Alpha Sponsored event. Very often they were... And of course, we attended a number of the dormitory parties on the Voigt Hall parties and so forth and the military ball and J-Prom. So we did attend on-campus parties and so forth but there were the parties that held sort of off-campus at the Knights of Columbus Hall. Okay, okay. Now, did Alpha Phi Alpha have a house at that time? No. Okay, so they're just kind of doing what President McDavid was talking about in the earlier session of making what wings or areas available for... I guess maybe you all would have been just wherever. We were scattered as far as dormitory assignments. First of all, this little anecdote. I was always fascinated after graduation with the notion that Ohio University might have had a quota system for African-American students and I really believed that because I began to count the numbers and it looked like it was around 1%. And then as I advanced in my career and became a manager and saw how you had to deal with organizational problems and say I began to think that if there were a formalized quota system it had certain advantages for the university. Number one, the difficulty of housing could be addressed with a small percentage of a special population and with the number of dormitories that were here by being accepted to Ohio University we were virtually guaranteed of housing and did not have to participate in that lottery for housing as white students did. So we really did get favorable treatment in that regard and it was essential because we couldn't get the housing through the community for the size that we were. And then the second advantage that I felt was good for the administration was that they could hold their heads up high nationally and say we do not discriminate. We have African-American students at our school. So the reputation was clearly established there and it was an integrated school. And the third advantage administratively that I would see is that in the event of disorder, this social disruption and so forth it would be far easier for an administration to handle a smaller student population, minority population. It just lent itself more to an element of control. Now even that incident that I mentioned in the story of mine I'm sure you're familiar with the part where I mentioned my roommate and I going to see the Dean of Men the following day to report that incident to the university and of course the outcome was really kind of interesting but it turned out well. The outcome did turn out because myself and two other veterans of military service were able to get a little apartment under the Washtaria on East Mulberry Street here and so we lived in our own apartment and I'm almost certain that the thought was maybe I could put you guys separately. You're a little old and susceptible to fomenting difficulty with younger minds I'm not sure what it's thinking was. Well a little older and know how to use guns. Yeah, veterans of the Korean War. Well I remember years ago talking with Frank Underwood and Charlie Wilson that of course they were both the first two African Americans to get full-ride scholarships to Ohio University through football and they're trying to get off campus housing and having a terrible time doing that because nobody would rent to them and I also know having talked with Vern Alden he came after your generation had moved on that he had decided he wasn't going to put up with that anymore segregation or just non-renting to African American students and he announced that since they had control over approved outside housing. Remember that there was both approved and unapproved. He went to the people, the landlords who owned the approved outside housing and said you can no longer discriminate and he said one woman in particular was just absolutely irate but he also said we had to keep on it we had to keep following up and asking students to make sure when you make that phone call are you being served okay or not because if you're not then we're going to have to get on these people again. So he was very serious about making changes with things you all didn't get to experience that but it I think was also that sort of transition period of allowing things to move in a better direction. And I would like to think that a part of that would do to the adherence of our group to some standards of conduct and of scholarly pursuits. Really and truly, I'm sure that if there is one thing that as a group we represent it was a kind of seriousness of purpose of being here and as E.J. said in her bit that we could not disappoint the people who sent us here. We had that obligation and all of us felt that it was a generalized feeling and the idea even in our socialized we could explain our woes and problems and get a little help and strength from just talking and sharing with each other and that's probably why we did grow so close we became interdependent on each other for a hardship or shortage of money or whatever it is. We were in this thing together and that was a very strong bond. A strong set of goals. A strong set of goals. And especially I think I was wondering when I was reading this I wonder what the graduation rate was for African Americans at Ohio University during that 1950 90 percentile doesn't surprise me in the least and it's that parental and communal closeness it's the personal drive to succeed that's impressive. Ohio University likes to make a lot these days as it should of a very high graduation rate throughout all of our student communities but over 90 percent that's incredibly impressive. Yeah we even expected each other to graduate I can't imagine a conversation that we would have saying hey I can't make it here I can't do this and so forth but we were all interested and each year we saw who was leaving and some you cried well most we cried over and we were closed. Well that's one of the things too that I think we as a university now take a lesson from with our residential learning programs and so forth with your experience by having this tight group together everybody's helping everybody else out everybody's encouraging everybody else and that's so terribly important so much. Well my guess is that that really kind of came from your own backgrounds as children within your own families? Yes it did and I think the beauty of it though there was a variety of background and circumstances that we came from no indication that seemed to have ever used where there was any indication of class or status based on family or anything we were completely devoid of that and in a couple of the biographies my fellow students commented on having their first experience with a white community that would make big issues over variations in religion and so forth and girls not being able to date boys of a different religion and so they were fascinated and puzzled by that because that was not a part of our culture I mean you would hope that the boy or girl would be religious that they were brought up in family training and of course most of us could relate to old Baptist training yet a high percentage of us if you'll notice in that book I was surprised to see how many of us were attached to the Episcopal church here in Athens I know my wife was Joan was, Dorothy Lou was Claire were a bunch of us and if you'll notice the participation in the Canterbury Club again was a major social outlet for that group and in all honesty I became an Episcopalian because I was pursuing a young lady who was an Episcopalian and I finally gave me extra time to go to the Episcopal church so I honestly became an Episcopalian right here in Athens at that church was that church especially welcoming? it was, it was as a matter of fact it has been understated for its welcoming and they can tell you the story they sang in the choir they were members of the Canterbury Club no Francis went on a couple of retreats to Cincinnati with the Episcopal church and so forth and a little interesting sideline I found it so interesting to me was in the Episcopal church you have to have these lessons to become an Episcopalian and in my day and I remember many skirts were just coming on the scene so one of the guys in my instructional class asked a priest that well, oh father how do you feel about these students going to wear these many skirts and he said well I feel the same way that you would feel he said however I'm trying to resist the kind of thoughts that you might have he said but I have the feeling so I said that's my kind of man and so I became an Episcopalian along with the fact along with the fact that I found that he also could drink beer and smoke a pipe so that sealed the deal with me so the many skirts weren't too distracting for him well one of the things I remember with many skirts was my favorite class was French class because half of the class sat within chairs facing the other half of the class so a much better view of many skirts I would say you are progressive yeah well that's another thing about community here and that community is university community but also the community the town gown thing there was another church in town the Mount Zion church which was very popular too with our group predominantly white churches I'm not aware of any that attracted as many as the Episcopal church did I'm not sure whether there was a press return or any other faith it does not seem to from my own awareness that Marlene several who are not here who were Episcopalians and Burl many of us who were and it was kind of strange but it seems as though Mount Zion Baptist church was also that was a real big deal for us that's where my roommate and I were coming from when we stopped at the bar we were coming from a church meeting safe haven yeah it was and I went there we went there the Episcopalian students went there to church and activities so Mount Zion was quite popular with us MIAs was it still called the Men's Independent Association because my time that had fallen away and they just called it Movies in Auditorium which is they didn't have to change MIA oh that's interesting but movies were 25 cent 20 cent 20 cent went up by the late 1960s but still a great place to be able to go now these were not run movies of course they were already a year or two old but wow they were fresh to us I remember seeing the High and Mighty and they were gone with the wind gone with the wind gone with the wind let's try that Italian films and a nice dark auditorium you could sit next to somebody important you perceive very clearly of the time well and it was a way you talked about how like with the university and your suspicion of like a quota system I confess I've read a lot of university records and things here in the archives and I don't recall seeing anything like that but then again I wasn't really looking for it I doubt if that would have been written down I doubt it I think the lesson was learned from the 20s about what you write down and what you don't but I know that really started to change with Verne Alden in the 1960s so that was a nice thing to see I can say as a freshman in 1969-70 I had a black roommate and that was not one of these things where pick your roommates or any of that kind of thing we weren't allowed to do that that year we were allowed to as sophomores and frankly that was my first experience being close to someone who was from a very different background it wasn't just that he was black he was from Queens, my god you know this was really different for an Ohio boy oh boy and but okay let's go back to that decade of the 50s was it really always the case that African Americans roomed with African Americans and that's the way it was yes we had to ask our parents if it was alright and it was only for one semester because we both lost our roommate who got married and we were in Cedardville and we were in Honors store and we had to get permission and we were the first ones that were it was interracial okay so for those of you listening on the web and might not have heard all of this we have a barrier breaker right here and you know who had a white roommate and center dorm was and was Baker Center yes it was back to John Baker about that he knew that he was going to have terrible time getting financing to build a student center and they decided early on to make those upper floors dormitory rooms as we used to always call those things back then so that they could get financing from the state for that and then of course years later all those rooms were turned into offices for student organizations and so forth because you ate all your meals at Baker Center as well right you might notice too a couple of the bios indicated the experiences with tempting to have interracial roommates matter of fact there was one account of where the university person said that they would call the parent of the white girl to see if that would be acceptable and of course that's an obvious slap to the black girl that you take what you get you know I mean you take what we give you kind of it so that sort of experience was offensive and would not be done of course in today's world but those that kind of response was not seen as being so out of line back in the fifties even though it was but to give that kind of impression and we'll call the white family and see if they will permit their daughter to room with an African-American student that's kind of in loco parentis with a twist isn't it because of course though all women on campus had hours the men never did I still never figured that one out but and well then there were things like there were certain evenings you had to dress up for dinner and then the whole thing about with women's hours was just it was more than you have to be in it ten o'clock on the weeknights and was it midnight on the weekends baby but you had to sign in and out of the dorm if you were going to go home and I just heard a story another day or so ago that one woman got caught up in a snow storm up in Columbus and had to get an excuse from the railroad company and handed into Margaret Deppin so that she didn't get points or whatever it was well I'm getting the high sign from the back that we need to open things up to the folks out in the audience here and on the web if you have any questions or comments that you'd like to direct to us or to everybody else you're more than welcome to do so I would like to if you would ask my fellow schoolmates to turn your seats around so you can face the audience or you can stand up any questions that come that you feel you have the information relevant to that question please do answer it because you have had as much or more experience at Ohio University as I have so this is these are contributors to the books their biographies are part of the book and it would be good to hear their voices as well thank you okay so to the hand that there was a I was just going to provide grace to our roommates but in 1960 that had changed and they were just making a room but in 1959 you were assigned rooms we just missed that because they had to have so the comment was that in 1959 students were assigned by race to dormitory rooms but by 1960 it had changed okay and that I guess means too that when you signed up for a dorm room you had to disclose your race right it's in a picture okay we're asking Frank to come and sit with the ladies he doesn't appear to be very reluctant all of these schoolmates were contributors to the book and their stories are in the book yes ma'am there was some kind of a racial incident which I'm not really sure what it was but somebody made a comment because of the record the lion sleeps tonight remember the song the fact that it was an African village and somebody made a comment like in a student newspaper editorial or something about you know maybe there was an African village here on campus because all the life was set in the lunch break room well the reply to that was something like well maybe that's true and maybe you don't want to walk through that room because you don't want to wait for the sleeping line and that was another editorial that was in the student newspaper at the time the whole bunch of great and then it turned out and then it started to be called the bunch of A's room called the A's room by a lot Grant Latimer Dr. Latimer well there wasn't a question with that but that's fine but for the web audience I'll try to paraphrase definitely between 1960 and 64 the bunch of great room was still being used by a lot of African Americans and there were rumblings of things particularly around the song Sleeps Tonight and then things slid into racial slurs by calling the bunch of grapes room the bunch of A's room I'm hoping that didn't last very long but I'm not sure and I don't in my own time in late 1960s I don't recall the bunch of grapes room being considered just for African Americans but I could be wrong about that I didn't spend a lot of time up at Baker Center so I'd like to try to Carl may reference to the fact that Shirley Nolan was here and Shirley's husband Howard was a member of this group and had contributed to not only contributed to the contribution to this university I think in a way that no one else has done as an American Howard was the he worked on many of the buildings at the university but he built his company built Baker Hall and the Baker Center and I think that's we appreciate Shirley being with us today is there acknowledgement of Nolan's building of the the new Baker Center over at Baker Center yeah but they don't know who he is but they don't know who he is well we'll make a call to the post and make sure that they they publicize that Carl is one other thing and when he talked about um President Baker I was talking with Wiki today and she told me something about President Baker as far as haircuts and I think she should share that with us I was really in high school but President Baker realized that there was need he was always aware of things that were that the African American students needed and he found out that some of the students were cut in town so we lived at the plane so he drove out there and asked my dad if he would take the responsibility to make sure that African Americans got their hair cut and so he did it for quite a few years and I also understand that President Baker was a facilitator for affording some scholarships and he was an anonymous donor the recipients and Yvonne Spotswood was my roommate she was not aware of the fact that she was who her donor sponsor was she went to an academic Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati so she was a very strong academic student and she was giving this award and I understand three other people received those awards from Dr. Baker very much Grant one other comment about the haircutting situation there were two black barbers here in the city and they were members of the Baptist Church and when we went down to get a haircut they worked in a white barbershop they told us they were not allowed to cut our hair they wanted to know why they said it would make the business bad so what we decided to do and that's because that's when the paternity got started by out paternity reactivated and we took the money out of the treasure and a couple of the other brothers that had gone down got their hair cut and we were better at barbershop than anyone in the city kind of messed over their hair so we took the money out of the treasure took 21 guys down to the barbershop and said we thought you needed to practice once we got we thought you were going to spread the business around so we were going to do that but once you messed over some of the brothers we decided you better better do some some practicing so after that we had no problem we always did insist we come after 5 o'clock that's when all the business the white business had terminated if I may back to Dr. Baker for a moment Carl indicated that the reality is he and I did have a good relationship and that is that I and Charlie Wilson were the first two blocks to get athletic scholarships here so when I came on campus Dr. Baker communicated with me and invited me to his house which he did continually as long as I was here and he would just ask me how things are going but in our first meeting he it came about that I was there and he said he was at a football game and he didn't see any as he put in colored players and he asked them to say we don't have any colored players and he said they gave me a bunch of garbage and I said get some and so it was from that that athletic scholarships were made available within the next year or so and I don't know how many others but that's the way we got through this university and he did a lot of things such as what you were just talking about something he didn't even know about but that's the kind of man he was but he made a tremendous influence on this university because as a result of that many more black students came from the areas where these athletes came to high university and that continues today because students are looking and wondering what I want to go to college and they say well so and so and so many more black students are enrollment roles from that point on and the university still benefits from what Dr. Baker did okay anybody else well I do want to say that the year that we came was Frank graduated in 1954 we came in 1954 and I think also and there was a much larger number of African American students who came in 1954 I think that it ever come 63 so I think that that Dr. Baker's influence carried over there also and there were a lot more women who came a lot more young ladies and I understand that prior to 1954 I was told that the young men would meet the buses as people were coming in to see how many African American ladies were going to get off the bus because there were very few but the year we came there were more there was a larger number than there and I'd like to say that all the women who were here during that never wanted for a date every party everyone was asked to every dance there were never an African American girl sitting in the dorm wanting for a date ever that's right so Carl will you be signing books for folks? yes I'll be happy to okay so we're ready to wrap it up well everybody thank you so much for coming and for those of you tuning in on the web thank you so much for watching and listening and it's been a great pleasure for me to host this Get Together with Carl Walker and everybody go out and buy Soulful Bobcats it's available at all of the local bookstores it's not available on Amazon, right to Amazon but it needs to be and it's just I've read this book several times it's an excellent book it really fills in a lot and one more thing I'd like to challenge those people who are of the decade of the 60s and people of the decade of the 70s and people of the decade of the 80s to get together and do what Carl has done with all of his fine friends here and let us know about the history of African American students at Ohio University during those decades I think it would be a wonderful contribution all the way around so with that thank you very much for coming post-available proceeds very importantly the proceeds from the sale of this book is to the Urban Scholarship Program so it is very important it has nothing to do with the writers of the book in terms of getting any kind of royalty it is the book was written by these fine people with the intent of making it meaningful to students at Ohio University so all the proceeds of that book will go to the Urban Scholarship Fund Excellent well thank you very much