Albert C. Stewart Oral history interview (Oral History)

Albert C. Stewart Oral history interview

Christy, Jeanne

Stewart, Albert C., 1919-2016

1 hour, 8 minutes, video

Stewart discusses his service in the Navy during World War II. Bahrain Islands. He had been at first deferred from the draft because he was to be assigned to be the weatherman for the Tuskegee Airmen.

2009

World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, American

Veterans -- United States -- Interviews

Racism against Black people

ms067_01_04_dvd

Today is March 20th, 2009. The location of this interview is Ridgefield Commons. The name of the interviewer is Jean Marie Christie. The name of the interview, her is, Would you please say your name? OK, you have to talk.

Would you please say your name? Albert store. I make sure I give. OK. OK, would you spell Stuart for us stw r? And your date of birth, November the 25th, 1999. And there is nobody else in this room know the war in the branch of service that you served in, I assume World War Two in the Navy

and your rank, sir? I was seaman second class. Am I an ensign? And where did you serve in the Pacific specifically? Well, throughout the Pacific, we went to the whole Pacific and even to the to the barren island to get oil.

I was on a fleet oil. So we picked up oil and the Bryan Islands and the Middle East now. And then we would oil ships for one period for six months. We were in Shanghai, China, and serve and fuel Japanese warships going back to Japan because the Japanese had surrendered.

Bahrain Island. How are you going to spell that b. H, a r. A. I am. OK. All right. Let's start back with when you began in boot camp. Yeah. And were you I assume you were drafted? I was drafted, but it was unusual story.

Keep talking. I was. At the first draft at the time of the draft, I was too young and I didn't I didn't. At least I was in school when I finally was drafted. I was in the University of Chicago and I was deferred because I had been selected to be a weather man in the Army, to be

trained as a welcome home for the Tuskegee Airmen Group. But it turned out that they have the two blacks who are going to be the weathermen for the Tuskegee Airmen. So now I was put on the general. I had to go back and I was now put on the general track list.

Meanwhile, I worked at I graduated and worked at Sherman's Frank Company. I was drafted from Sherwin Williams. I was drafted at the draft and then went down to get into one of the services of a guy. Just stamp my card, Navy.

So. They put you in the Navy, I went to Great Lakes Naval Training Station, as I call. Well. I was a draft agent. Finished at Great Lakes Naval Training Station as a seaman second class, but I. He was in the out when unit helping get other seamen who finished black seamen who finished early.

But the officer there said I had to take the officer's training program that was being offered. The officer, the white officer said that I had to take the exam. I took the exam. I didn't know that there was a program that they wanted to train some blacks to be officers on an integrated ship.

See, integration didn't come until 1949. So I went I took the exam, passed it, and I went to Notre Dame. Wow. When I was one of I was the only black and like I said, well, thirteen hundred oh oh.

Midshipmen who were training to be officers from all over the country, from all over the country. So I was the one black in this group of thirteen hundred. Wow. What year was that? 1940. Oh, wait a minute. Sure.

In. Forty five. OK. Do you remember the first days of being in boot camp? Well, the first thing, the first days of being in boot camp. Yeah. Can you tell me something about that? What was it like? For you and some of the experiences you had.

Well, when we went up. To the Great Lakes, I mean, uh, to uh uh. You know, Great Lakes now, they had us waiting because they were waiting until the black group came to be selected, they had to wait for.

But they kept us waiting all day while groups of whites were going as a group. We had to wait until our our. Well. Numbers are enough to put us in the in the branch, and I went up and complained because they were making us wait all day, well, all these other guys were coming and going.

So it wasn't a very pleasant day. And by the time it was near the end of the day, when we finally went to the to to our quarters, OK, how many were in that group, do you remember? 40 seconds, 40.

And they were from all over. From all four. Do you remember any of the instructors that you had at Great Lakes? Yeah, but I don't remember the name. I remember the guy who was our instructor. Great Lakes little train station is on Lake Michigan, of course.

And I remember he used to get us up at six o'clock in the morning to go out and drill. And I was in the winter and it was cold. He was a tough guy, I forget his name. He was Navy or Marine.

Hmm. Was he Navy or Marine? He was a Navy. He was a naval petty officer. OK. And so he marched you around. And what type of training did you do? Well, we marched up and down and learn the manual of arms.

We did have exercise programs. OK. That was the company on Our Man. I was selected by everybody is the best in the group, but we also did signal work and sort of stuff. Was it? How did you get through that experience?

How did you get through that experience? Oh, OK. I didn't have any trouble. The other guys were not used to being a little younger than I was. And so I had fun. OK, so you had a college degree at that point?

I was in order. Yes. So that made a difference? Yes. Some of those kids were 18 years old. Yeah. Yeah. Was it the same when you got into the officers program? Well, in the officers program, most of the kids in the Great Lakes, the blacks were from that group from the Middle Midwest region.

When I got into the officers program, all of the people were all of the kids were college graduates. Hmm. You see, when they drafted once for college graduates, they immediately went into midshipman school that there was the Navy.

Here I wasn't black and I had to go through a regular boot camp when I got to Notre Dame as the only left. There were kids from all from the well, eastern half of the country and a bunch of southerners down there.

And boy, that was forty five. And then there are some who just couldn't imagine a black pain there. But it was pretty much individual effort. And the guys who didn't like blacks just mainly stayed away from me. OK.

Anything happened that was unpleasant or. Oh, yeah. A couple of guys tried to. We played touch football for exercise and a couple of guys tried to rough me up, but I rough them up. And so that was the only real unpleasant thing.

But as usual, we didn't have much time to talk when we had the time off. The guys that wanted to talk to me did OK. Who were they? Do you remember? Oh, can I forget the name of Sput?

Well, you mentioned the southern gentleman state to the Southerners, most of the guys that I talked to were from the north from Wyoming. Yeah, well, proper oak. Huh? I've got a I've got a. Maybe you'd like to see my book.

Sure. They put out a war book. And this is the capstone, that's next. And that's class. Cook. From Notre Dame, from Notre Dame. And these were all the young officers already, the officers, OK? They had us divided by companies according to which company were you in?

Um, I think 13 or 12 or so. Well, that's alphabetical. OK. For that. There you are. Yeah. It's hard to tell. I know you were the only black man in the whole group. Oh, yeah. How did you feel discrimination a lot at that point, or was it just the only thing they used to watch us?

We had to run between classes, and if if you didn't run, they would shout at each, you know, kept moving. And I remember walking them one from one class and an officer shouting out at me. Listen, Stewart, run to him.

He knew my name because I was the only black. He wouldn't have known the white guys. Let's just say that. Interesting. Maybe we borrow this. Maybe we borrow this book. Yeah. And I'll bring back. OK. OK. I do that.

Oh, I would. But we'll photograph a couple of the pages. That'll be terrific. All right. Let's. Let me just make sure that you're sitting back in place again. Let's talk about where you went first after four officers. Okay.

Well, it was funny because as you were graduating, they called you together to tell you your assignment. Mm hmm. And people cheered, you know, they would get someone get aircraft carriers. And I was laughing with the guys because I said I'm black.

They're just going to send me. I'm not even going to leave the United States because they don't have that only have those start. I thought it was 12 black officers and so on. And they called out and said to me, the whole 25, the Sabean.

And I was, what's fleet oil? Because the Fleet Oilers are named after a reverse, OK? So the people knew it was a sub, that it was a fleet oil, and they knew that there weren't any fleet oil or gas in the United States waters.

So that I had to be going out into the Pacific for more active duty. And after maybe because I've been left in a cell. And so I got a transport ship from there to Japan, which had just surrendered.

OK. And I flew flew from Tokyo to Shanghai and went on board the ship there. Hmm. What happened when you went on board the ship? Can you tell me about that? Oh, yeah, I remember that because. At the time, Staats makes uniforms were the same as officers uniform, except that they didn't have gold braid.

Right. So the officer that deck looked over and saw this new shipment of replacements coming. And he saw me and he said, hey, we're got a new Stuarts. Maybe he told me later, he said to himself. And then he said, hey, wait a minute, that guy's got gold braid.

We don't have any officers, any black officers. And this. And I came up and was an officer, he was just stunned by the fact that they had one black seam in there, too. OK. But this guy was stunned that Noui first officer never seen a black officer.

Was he happy, stunned or unhappy? He was OK. And most in the guys on the ship and Carol, they were all I knew was standart replacements for coming to get them home. And then what happened? What did you have a particular job assignment at that point?

Yes, I was the second division officer on the scene and are divided into persons on a fleet oilor divide in the first, second and engineering divisions and I was second, which is from the midship to the air, the OK of the ship.

The only guy that was really unkind to me was the at the start was the second in command because. He was an old Navy guy, had been in the Navy 25 or more years and had been promoted to an officer because of that long service.

And he just couldn't imagine a black in an officer. And he said so he was he said Kearsley. And the our ship, the sailors usually went down. We had a long flight of stairs to a pump room. And when they got mad with one another, they would go down there, close the door and have a fight.

So I invited him down there when he after a curse, may, you know, uh, he didn't he wouldn't go. So everybody knew that he was now not living up to what was the custom. So he was the one in disgrace, not me.

OK. But he was the only one that gave you a hard time, really? Oh, yeah, the other guys remember I was the officer, you know, and. And you had court martial for. You're an officer and a gentleman, and they can't like they can't touch you better not touch it.

Burnat. That was obviously the first day that you arrived here. How long did you stay there? And then I would say you go next. I serve as. Well, I was on the scene for a year without the stand getting to stay on the shore.

We've just slipped and moved out on the shore. So overall, it was a Rhondda a year and a couple of months that I was at say, OK, can you give me a typical day from getting up in the morning?

What time did you get up in the morning? What did you normally do during the course of the day? Oh, he served officer has certain dude. And like we had to clean the ship. I was the athletic officer, OK?

So I had to have have exercise programs for all of the crew, not just my group all day long. So except when I had to go out and watch and guide the ship, be the officer in charge of the ship.

But my work day was doing the athletic work, having these guys and I have team I had a boxing team that I had to oversee the training for, OK. But mostly that was a work with the sailors on athletic thing.

I mean, I did the service a lot, so I had to be on watch watch when I went up and help the captain, the captain or his officer, first officer ran the ship. And I was up there directing the sailors who were the navigation and various people running the ship and watching out for clients.

Fortunately for us, the war had ended. So the bombers that we saw were American bombers. We felt one day, though, that we saw Japanese flight and we felt that maybe those guys had learned that the war was over.

And so we ban the guns. But fortunately, it was. They knew. OK. What time did you normally get up in the morning? Quarters was around six o'clock. And you had breakfast around 7:00. Hmm. And that went on until 9:00 at night.

But then you'd have watches, you say, on page schwing. So you'd you'd go to the crew was divided in the port and starboard. That crew that that group was only a third of my men that I know is in charge, you know, because they were divided.

And these watches that were on duty for that day when they were not on duty, then they have exercise programs or they took classes and such. Which do you remember any of their names? No, I don't. I probably have some names back in my pile of stuff because a number of the office, a number of them in

a couple of them live near Chicago where I lived, and. They call when they got out of the service before I did. They call my mother and said I was a good guy and so forth and so on.

And so several of them call my mother, but it's so long ago, I don't remember. What did your parents think when you said you were going to go in the Navy and then go in to become an officer?

My father said, oh, you know, these you guys are in a real war or anything because he remembered World War One. Well, I'm just very proud of me. They came up to Notre Dame for my graduation and drove me home rather than me riding the train to get home.

Would you have been allowed to ride with everybody else in the train or were you just in Chicago for the transport segregated and all know that? When I went to work after the war and uh, Oak Ridge, they were.

But not that interesting. Couldn't go to a movie in South Bend, though, because they were segregated. Okay. Didn't allow blacks. What did they say or were there signs or did somebody say something to you? If you want to want to go to the movie, well, it just wouldn't give you a ticket when you went up to purchase

a ticket. What would they say? No tickets or didn't have to say anything. Everybody knew that they wouldn't. Everybody in town knew they couldn't. You couldn't go to the movie. Things have changed things well after the war, as I say, I went down to Oak Ridge.

They had the big thing popular was the outdoor movie part of fashion, and they would have let us go to the movies, those outdoor movies in Oak Ridge if we had been with white people in a white person, scart.

Needless to say, I didn't go to the movie Oak. All right. You mentioned that you went into service after the war had just finished. Yes. Did you ever see any combat? No. No. OK. Did you ever have any casualties of men, injuries, any casualties with the men?

Well, yes. We had men injured doing daily work when we were in Shanghai every morning. And we used to watch the dead bodies through the Chinese slope. But I remember once when we had to put a line on the ship and it was a dangerous job.

I selected doing the job rather than have one on line and do it because the time there was a typhoon in Hawaii and the effects were a fact in Shanghai. So the Wang Premiere, where we were, and I decided to put the line in myself because I didn't want to get drowned while I was commanding the effort

. So I did the work. What, you had to pull something in? We were tied up to a boy and a merchant ship was taking oil from us. The lines weren't strong enough when this war when the typhoon effect came, OK?

So we had to put an extra big line through the boy to hold her hand and little speeching up and down. And so I got and you had to get on the wall and it would go up and then come down the little water and you have to hop off.

Well, when it went the low water, but it wasn't that quick. You went up and came and I got me a tranq eye. I've put the one through the boy and the doctor. I got all wet and the doctor gave me some medicinal brandy the door me up.

But none of our men. Yes. You know, they had accidents falling and so forth. But that was normal thing. OK, what was your most memorable experience of being on that ship? When we got to the Virgin Islands, as I say, in the.

Well, the Saudi Arabia is right, and the captain was when the local sheikh to have dinner and he then wanted to have an officer who had a dress uniform to go with him. Most of us didn't. Only God that had a dress uniform was the ship's doctor.

He went with him. And the most memorable thing was he came back and he said as guests, they were often a delicacy from the chic, the eyeball of the sheep. That was my lowest level. I missed the having the ship's bow.

That's the ship Simbo. But one of the I met one of the other black officers and he said and the guys, he was a name. He was a navigator. And he, uh, he said that he just had a miserable time because the guys talked to him and I later and some of the guys were transferred to my

ship and said that they had pulled him the whites and pulled in. So he was afraid of what? Well, but I didn't I didn't know it was all hearsay. Hmm. When you think about the experiences, what was perhaps the happiest experience you had while you were in the Navy?

Well, when the guys told me that I was their favorite officer. Tell me about that. Well, a couple of guys were going home and they said that they considered me the best guy that they had ever been associated with being in the Navy.

So when you're in that close contact, you know, it's it's pretty nice to have the guy say you're I'm under your command, but you're a great, great guy. Hmm. That was a happy feeling. Yes. That's a very nice compliment.

Very nice compliment. Did you get any awards and citations or are they all listed on the sheet? No, no, no. OK, just got the usual, you know, banners for being in the Pacific and nothing. Let's talk a little bit about your family now.

How did they stay in touch with you? How did how did your family stay in Russia? We wrote letters censored and there were censored, OK? They were censored. And I couldn't tell them where I was. Mm hmm. But people would then go leave and go back to Chicago and all your family.

So are you OK? What was the food like when you were in the Navy? Well, unfortunately, most of my life I've only had two meals a day here. Here are three meals a ticket, three meals. The food in the Navy was ordinary, but I only two meals generally in the officers mess.

You're seated according to your length of service or your rank. And you couldn't leave the table until the commanding the highest officer left. And that protocol with me not being very hungry meant that I. But after the message, they want only two meals and most of our food, most of the supplies came from Australia.

And so the meat was always not lamb, but sheep. And that didn't appeal to me as meat to very much. And I didn't I don't like breakfast even now. So I didn't like to go for bacon and eggs.

So I just didn't think it was adequate food, but I didn't care for. Oh, then we got a a we have an an ice cream machine. And. They finally got supplies from making ice cream, so I would eat practically every other day, but on the day I didn't eat in the mess, I would have ice cream.

What's your favorite ice cream over vanilla? Yeah. Why vanilla? I don't really I don't really, you know, just appeals to me, OK, OK. You mentioned supplies that you got food supplies in from Australia. What about your other supplies?

Did you ever supply ships? OK, I've been asked to bring water to us. We made our water, but we use most of our water for for showering and so forth. And they taught us and taught us how to shower or you you go in and watch yourself, then soap and then you rinse off.

But most of our supplies came from our supply ships that we run with you. OK. What they gave us is mainly food, because we have most everything else. OK. And the war was over. Yes. OK. Feelings of pressure or stress.

Did you ever feel pressure or stress? Well, in the Navy and I hated being away from home, but. All right. I can't really say that I had the extra sounds. Well, I remember serving as one of our couple of our men were court martial, and they ask me to be their lawyer.

And I had to go to the court martial as their lawyer and most. And this was a district thing when we were in Shanghai. And the officers there were just so startled to see this black officer that that struggle.

Then we went to the officers corner and in Shanghai, I remember. There was a Russian girl there. The Russian elite have fled Russia and are in Shanghai. And this girl came over and asked me to dance. And boy, one of the other officers got so mad, he came over and threatened me because the girl had asked me

to dance. And I knew that the guys wouldn't let me dance on. And so I refused to dance with her. OK. That was an incident, she said. I don't know how to dance or something like or I can't dance.

I said I can't dance, I guess. And she said, I thought all niggers could dance. She but she wasn't. She didn't know she was being insulted. But this guy came up and he was so mad because he wanted to.

Fight with me, but my a couple of the guys had gone to the place with my officers, got up and started. Protecting me. Oh, I will because of you. Were you? Where's the discrimination at the officer's clubs? No, no, no, there wasn't.

Well, I was the only black officer on any ship in that place. OK, so you just had a lot of suntan to that. A lot of. You had a lot of suntan. Oh, yes. What did you have a good luck charm or anything that you took with you or carried with you?

No, no, no, no, no. God, I would say I've got a Ph.D. in chemistry. OK. And I was a scientist in my training and so forth. So those things never won't work. Entertainment. What did people do for entertainment while you were there?

They had poor movies that they would exchange regularly, but that was on our show. Uh oh. We played soccer on, uh, that sort of thing. But it's hard because of the wimt. If you were traveling the wind, taking the war, there was there was this uh uh, booth crew played, gambled and so forth, and we officers gamble

. OK, that was uh that was no. Did play cards gambled or. Yeah, OK, I'll play poker or something like that. All right. Did you ever have any entertainers that you went to see, the entertainer? What we were saying when they were in Shanghai, we had some entertainment put.

Uh. No, no. Not all of that show. OK, what did. Who do you remember any of the entertainers tonight? Do you remember any of the entertainers? No, I don't. I remember when we were in when I was in boot camp and uh, you know, before I became an officer, the Harlem Globetrotters came up to the camp and

we had to march a long distance to see the Harlem Globetrotters. That's the only entertainment I've had in the service. When I was waiting to be shipped out in San Francisco, I went to a USO, OK. Was it a show or just the the facility that was at segregated?

Yeah. Well, I remember going to a dance, but it was All Blacks. OK. Yeah. Yeah. You know. I don't know whether it was the cause required or what. But I do know. Yes, I do remember this. When I went to San Francisco as a Navy officer waiting to be shipped off, I couldn't stay at the two top

hotels in San Francisco who directed me pardon me to the one black hotel in San Francisco. I remember later as a civilian going to San Francisco, and I wouldn't stay in one of the hotels. I was there with my wife.

I wouldn't stay in one of the hotels because I remember them not accepting me as a sailor. Hmm. Very interesting. What did you do when you went on leave and where did you go? In Shanghai, we generally went to a restaurant because the high higher class Chinese restaurant.

Or bar than Shanghai. We only have the rest of the year when we remember in Colombo, Ceylon, we want one on the shore for one day with all we did was go to a restaurant there because we didn't know anything about the places.

So there were no facilities around and we didn't stop in the other place. OK, you know why we went through there. But I went to another small camp outside of Honolulu, the small city. But again, because there was food, not anything else.

Hmm. But we never, never time. Just curious, did you notice any more discrimination when you were in Hawaii or in America? Well, I wasn't in Hawaii, but a couple of days. OK. And I only got ashore once. OK.

There are often pranks that people pull when they're in the military service to relieve stress or. Whatever reason you want to call it, get even with people. Do you remember any pranks that you were in on or that people pulled?

I don't remember doing pranks, but I remember that in Shanghai. The. You guys had some press sneak, some prostitutes on board, and I remember them questioning me because my quarters were rainouts right next to one of the big gun emplacements.

And what they did was they brought the girls up and hid them under the top of this gun emplacements and the captain of a smoking gun on why I didn't see it, but I was on duty or asleep and I didn't.

And those guys were trying to keep the crew, anyone from fun know. But that was the only that was a pretty serious business. So we just didn't do anything other than work. And as an aside, do sports on the show.

But pranks. Oh. I can't even remember. Oh, so if. We would look at the Merchant Marines when they when we refuel them and laugh at them, but nothing. Why didn't you laugh at them? Well. They were always doing something funny.

One fellow, they were laughing so loud, my guys looking over at one fellow had had a tattoo on his penis and he was showing by guys. But there was, you know. Really? Tough stuff, OK? No, no, we didn't have fun.

We work most of the time either, as I say, we fuel ships, clean up our ship, chipping paint and all that stuff. But it was just mud. We didn't we didn't get the stars since we were alone. We were not in a convoy or anything.

We were alone sailing around the ocean just refueling, OK. Where did you get your oil from? We use it from our supply. OK. We also had jet fuel, too, and our ship. But we have the. The Syrian people, everybody else, but we have our own punkers.

Mm hmm. We talked about the photos and we're going to put those in. Do you remember any officers particularly galling that the second officer wasn't the trouble? But I do remember that the captain wrote a glowing report of my performance, and I felt that he did it because here was a new thing coming along, the black officer

, and he had showed his that ability. I didn't think I was that good. But he said, watch. And I forget his name, but he was he was regular Navy. He hasn't been promoted or anything other than he was Navy.

OK. In some branches of the service, they call the Mustangs. Did you call the Mustang? Was this guy who had been there a long time and was promoted because he had been in such a long time? So you use that same term.

OK. After the service. Do you recall the day your service ended? Where were you and what you were doing? Well, as I got out of the service at Great Lakes, I went back to Great Lakes and I don't remember any vitamin.

I don't remember what happened, though. How did you get back to Great Lakes? Oh, well, I was I was discharged from sea duty in San Francisco, and then I was on my own to get back to us with orders to Great Lakes for a discharge.

And I then flew as I had flown out to I was when I flew out to San Francisco to go overseas. I spent a couple of days in Chicago on leave and then flew. Rather than take the train, not just because of segregation, but because I could spend extra time.

And they didn't have trans-Atlantic flights stopped in Elko, Nevada. I mean, I think I'm not sure, but I might have come back on a military plane to Chicago. I'm not sure. Okay. Okay. What did you do afterwards? What did you do?

Service. What did you do the first weeks or days after you were discharged? Well, in Chicago, there were small paper boats. And so I. Communicated with people on my blog. But most of the girls had gotten married while I was away, so that was enough to socialize with neighbors.

OK. Did you meet your wife at that point? Not that week, though I met a few weeks later. I did meet an old classmate, girl classmate who had been dating another guy, and I started dating her and eventually met my wife from dating this girl.

Are dating who? And she was your wife was from Chicago. Your wife is from Chicago? Oh, yes. My wife. Oh, yeah, my wife was the Chicago nut from my neighborhood, but from a nearby neighborhood. OK, did you. Well, you obviously went on to school.

I went back to the University of Chicago. I had a bachelor's. I went back to the University of Chicago, got my master's, then my major prof. I was on the research staff at the University of Chicago. So I didn't have to take the GI Bill.

I got more money from my major prof or went down to St. Louis. And the research that that Chicago I went down to St. Louis. He had me a member of the faculty in St. Louis, and I was the first Ph.D. in Missouri, black page in Missouri by 15 minutes.

There was another guy who was in sociology. I was in college, but that's what I did. I went back to school and then got married and went to St. Louis. Now, why did you go to St. Louis? But to get this degree, I came to get my Ph.D. because like I had gone there.

Did you stay in touch with any of your old military friends? But when I got married, yes, I was one of the fellows there in there that I knew he was in Chicago and he was dating an airline stewardess.

And I forget his name, but I was asking him I wanted to ask him to be my best man because I know military service, but my wife and others would have none of that. So one of my neighbors was my best.

OK. Did you join any veterans organizations afterwards? Well, now segregation came in. OK, tell me about that. I was in Missouri and I wanted to join the reserve officers only, but they wouldn't have me because I was black.

So I missed out on, you know, they had trips and so forth that I would have enjoyed, but I couldn't do it. What how did they. Did they send you a letter saying, I'm sorry, you can't join or did they how did they tell you you weren't acceptable for their.

Well, one of my fellow faculty members were and proposed me OK. And they said no. And no meant that you were a person of color. Yes. Couldn't John. OK. Did you join any other veterans organizations, any other did you join any other veterans organizations?

No, no. Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Sure. It's the one that wouldn't have me. Oh. We'll see all the, you know, the famous schools. I forget what the what the what the major one was, but they didn't have Negroes in it them either.

And then there was another Veterans of Foreign Wars, something that came along that accepted, of course. And I was joined up with I was asked didn't do much because I was in school. But what do you want? What's the big.

It's still a big American legion. Oh, American Legion. American Legion. Yeah. OK, American Legion. So Oak. So I couldn't join. Tell me a little bit about obviously you went through school, you went to St. Louis, you got your Ph.D. What else did you do after that?

Tell me a little bit about your career. I know it's a long one. Yeah, well. I. Decided. And after the experience that I have that in my social life, I would work for the the the opportunities for blacks to.

Yeah, for for everybody to get an opportunity. So I've been an Urban League's been the president and chairman of Urban League's throughout the country because the Urban League is still a mixed operation that tries to get working class people jobs.

That was my social thing. And. Because I was in the parade and sort of saying, see, St. Louis was segregated when when I went there to get my degree, I got it in 51 and blacks couldn't go to the zoo except for one day a week.

And when I left there and I the professor, my professor wanted me to be in another field because he had a small department. So he encouraged me to take leave from St. Louis University. Go get another field. They were trying to build a homogeneous reactor, not one with all of the carbon bricks and so forth.

And so I went to Oak Ridge. One reason to get in that nuclear field. But when I was going to try to go to the arbitrates atomic laboratories in Chicago in a long time, I couldn't because blacks couldn't live in those neighborhoods.

So I went to Oak Ridge, which was segregated. And I know. Let's on the town council, there has had some problems. My wife lost a child there and. The Ku Klux Klan tried to kill me, shot at me, and you're right.

Hmm. And not just the car, but Union Carbide Ram for the government ran Oakridge. I had good reports and I had a scientific background that said I should be. Promoted to head a group. OK. But they wouldn't promote me to head a group because segregation whites wouldn't suppose they wouldn't work for a black.

So I told them either write me a letter of recommendation and let me go. What they did was to the government said, well, come to work for the Atomic Energy Commission. But that was government. And I said, yeah.

So instead, I they did promote me to a place in Cleveland. So I still work for you. I work for Union Carbide for thirty three years before I went and spent 15 years working, which came because I was up there.

I was director of university relations for FBM, for Union Carbide. But I moved from Oak Ridge to Cleveland to New York to Manhattan, and then up here, Oak. So far, you'll see got publications and all that stuff. My wife went when we were in Tennessee, she was one of the first blacks to go to.

Oh, there. Oh, but she couldn't finish school there because she was black. When we then moved to Cleveland, she got a bachelors in Cleveland and then our doctorate in education at Columbia University. When we were in Manhattan. So we moved around and I got a whole record of different things.

But as I got promoted, I was out of science and to management. OK. All right. Let me ask you a question, do you think. How did the service experience affect your life? Well, I think it's the reason I have been willing to take chances.

Oh, I didn't get support, but I wanted from my family, my mother and father, because they were afraid. But being in the military gave me a conviction that I could do a lot of things once I had become an officer with manslaughter and that sort of environment.

I didn't think anything could stop. And I did get discriminated against. And Carbide, as far as promotion to a couple of jobs I should have gotten and guys practiced discrimination against me. But that wasn't it wasn't overt. They didn't come out and say, I'm not doing it.

I was the first black and and the oil in the management ranks and so forth and clarify. But I didn't get promoted to being an officer because I was black, in my view. So but it all came, I think, because leaving the the environment that I was in and having to go, you know, in a strange environment

with pressures from everybody in the Navy, I think that that's what made me think that I could survive. And the world, I think, from my personal view is. Oh, young people should have to. We have a period of some sort of service away from their family and not necessarily would it have to be military.

But I think they should have an experience where they have to answer to some higher authority. That's not Paravel. Hmm. I still believe that today. And I'm not saying, you know, why I say youngsters should should have to have that kind of experience.

Is there anything else you would like to add that we haven't covered? I just uh. I can't think of anything other than them. Well. My feeling again is when I. I went to a business meeting down in Florida.

Just after the end of not just after the end of military desegregation, but I went to Florida while things were pretty rough and I looked and here were I saw near Pensacola, I saw four or five black Navy officers, and I said, wow.

Oh, isn't that you that the the experience that they had with blacks and command positions regardless of race? We had achieved what was important. And I think even today, it's well known that the military gives of minorities the best opportunity still.

When you look at look at the Army Navy football team, and of course, I'm going to root for Navy, but I look there. They got all these black guys around, but saying, wow, this is wonderful. I think we're getting better.

We're getting better. And I'm hopeful that that President Obama is going to make it make it even better. And I think he has the capability of being a good president. And I won't be around to see it since I'm going to be 90.

But I think that the United States is going to be a better place. If you have to remember that the projections are that European whites are going to be a minority in 25 years or so. And I hope that that means that the other people will treat everybody as an American.

But it's interesting, you know, like I keep saying, the black or Negro or something, and it's very fascinating to me that now we're African Americans, that's a step forward. That's true. Do you remember? And this is a very personal question.

You mentioned that you occasionally were called by a very negative name. Sure. I've been called the derogatory name and nigger and everything else. But people nive. I thought that's a kid. That's we have neighborhood fights with whites. So for that, I, I grew up in a rough neighborhood to tell.

I say I pass the civil service exam in Chicago that helped me pay my way through university. I was a page in the library, stack books on library, passed a civil service exam that got me that, you know, I made thirty dollars a month on which they took two dollars for retirement pay work for my father, who

was a carpenter on the weekend. I worked every job I could while I was still in the university and I still got my degree. I was used to and have been used to hard work all my life. I recommend it for character building for even the wealthy.

But I don't think that. That any man who can decide exactly who you are going to be or what you're going to strive for. But part of it always has to be what you. So what and how you treat other people?

So I try very hard not to be abusive or mean to. Oh. Anybody? I live in a place with all women, I try and help them without being condescending. I don't just see a person we will cheer and jump and say, hey, I've got to help them, because I try very hard to assume that humans want to

be self-sufficient and I should help them when I have something that they need to be. Strength is. OK. Anything else you'd like to add, hmm? Anything else you'd like to add? Although at the end of my questions, I just.

So interesting project. OK, and I think we have a project like that here, but they have us relating to the grade school kids and the rich for elementary and middle school. So our experiences, a man wanted me to speak and they didn't say, hey, come and speak because you're black.

But the thing that I've been looking at here is they wanted me to talk about, uh uh, uh, a of a program that's a patriot. I then talked about being a patriot and what it meant to me, how my experiences and I told them that I had gone to segregated Navy and so forth.

But I've gone back since. We share people here share with those schools experiences and they want the kids rather than just getting it from a textbook. They want the kids to hear those of us who've had the experience.

And I think that's a good project. Hmm. Well, I thank you very much for your interview. And I think we're all done. Thank you.