5 20 1839 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/98ecbe8389178ce6aa8aefaef1c5f2c4.jpg 68740d6ee7de9167c865db7ec3f27e56 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Description An account of the resource Papers donated by George Melvin Richardson, former principal of Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High School. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Glee club Description An account of the resource Glee club singing. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Black and white photograph Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1950s Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This image is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the images in the Local History Photograph Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 307_0066 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/7a23e8ff92fdf613737dc9b271085add.jpg 7d56faf5c05d2eaab9ab100aefbb71ca Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Description An account of the resource Papers donated by George Melvin Richardson, former principal of Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High School. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Group of African-American men at meeting Description An account of the resource A multigenerational group of men in sport coats and suits sit at long tables in the cafeteria of Hoffman-Boston. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Black and white photograph Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1950s Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This image is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the images in the Local History Photograph Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 307_0067 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/c4c09c24b92bae903e9faa14089769ef.jpg a3f526b85b1da754c27897fc7d26ea14 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Description An account of the resource Papers donated by George Melvin Richardson, former principal of Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High School. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource V of America Description An account of the resource Multiracial, multigenerational group in the loby of a large modernist building. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Black and white photograph Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1950s Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This image is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the images in the Local History Photograph Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 307_0068 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/d74c0664a6bc3566644850f876fa54c8.jpg 8c6cbb98f2194b8376d37c5d0f3a1b8b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Description An account of the resource Papers donated by George Melvin Richardson, former principal of Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High School. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Group of students with dinosaur skeleton Description An account of the resource Hoffman-Boston students look at a fossilized dinosaur skeleton on a field trip to a museum. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Black and white photograph Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1950s Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This image is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the images in the Local History Photograph Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 307_0069 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/0419f72d1057f2a99c2e4361df808aa6.jpg 3401b07884356eb61453f0b173dccd24 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Description An account of the resource Papers donated by George Melvin Richardson, former principal of Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High School. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Queen Street - Entrance to Arlington View Description An account of the resource Photo of Queen Street in the Arlington View neighborhood, formerly known as Johnson's Hill, the neighborhood where Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High was located. Car parked in driveway. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Black and white photograph Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1950s Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This image is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the images in the Local History Photograph Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 307_0070 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/aca3f66437b0020bd23ac9a5b17247cc.jpg 9538c5040c860c7048367f59f4cdc26b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Description An account of the resource Papers donated by George Melvin Richardson, former principal of Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High School. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource House Description An account of the resource Image of a house in the Arlington View neighborhood, formerly known as Johnson's Hill, the neighborhood where Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High was located. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Black and white photograph Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1950s Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This image is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the images in the Local History Photograph Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 307_0071 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/bc2d6e575043721dff618eec1cc98384.jpg 6b147c36759fdde31e0d63f6bfc4881a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Description An account of the resource Papers donated by George Melvin Richardson, former principal of Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High School. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Queen Street Description An account of the resource View from S. Queen Street in the Arlington View neighborhood, formerly known as Johnson's Hill, the neighborhood where Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High was located. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Black and white photograph Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1950s Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This image is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the images in the Local History Photograph Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 307_0072 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/291f4039debcf275e63cfb65412518bd.jpg e9386ce0faedf68dbc7b1d4fd311e2ad Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Description An account of the resource Papers donated by George Melvin Richardson, former principal of Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High School. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 11th at Queen Description An account of the resource View of 11th St. S. from S. Queen Street in the Arlington View neighborhood, formerly known as Johnson's Hill, the neighborhood where Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High was located. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Black and white photograph Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1950s Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This image is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the images in the Local History Photograph Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 307_0073 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/a196f3c86bd46ac697d0e4704958d15e.jpg 3171b58f17b449ddaa7412bb1663d516 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Description An account of the resource Papers donated by George Melvin Richardson, former principal of Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High School. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Queen Street Description An account of the resource View from S. Queen Street in the Arlington View neighborhood, formerly known as Johnson's Hill, the neighborhood where Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High was located. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Black and white photograph Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1950s Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This image is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the images in the Local History Photograph Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 307_0074 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/55efea326e02b0f60d9dec1044c6b52a.jpg e6d84ea74bc413053423e400f8c8375f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Description An account of the resource Papers donated by George Melvin Richardson, former principal of Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High School. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Queen Street Description An account of the resource View from S. Queen Street in the Arlington View neighborhood, formerly known as Johnson's Hill, the neighborhood where Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High was located. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Black and white photograph Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1950s Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This image is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the images in the Local History Photograph Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 307_0075 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/5139208f3ff2492c204f731036f3a57c.jpg affee97343d4c6cb4498dc988406e70f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Description An account of the resource Papers donated by George Melvin Richardson, former principal of Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High School. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 11th Street from Queen Street East Description An account of the resource View of 11th St. S. from Queen St., looking east, in the Arlington View neighborhood, formerly known as Johnson's Hill, the neighborhood where Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High was located. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Black and white photograph Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1950s Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This image is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the images in the Local History Photograph Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 307_0076 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/3880519960ac605ca22d88c6847cbb25.jpg a9f7527d1f1c0271b8dabf0ae202bf90 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Description An account of the resource Papers donated by George Melvin Richardson, former principal of Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High School. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 12th and Pierce Sts. Description An account of the resource View of the intersection of S. Pierce St. and 12th St. S. in the Arlington View neighborhood, formerly known as Johnson's Hill, the neighborhood where Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High was located. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Black and white photograph Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1950s Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This image is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the images in the Local History Photograph Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 307_0077 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/c827e048ad3158d544c12ddc6ef534b7.jpg fbc743161ae21185102a3af5c65ac634 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Description An account of the resource Papers donated by George Melvin Richardson, former principal of Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High School. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Pierce Street Description An account of the resource View of the intersection of S. Pierce St. and 13th St. S. in the Arlington View neighborhood, formerly known as Johnson's Hill, the neighborhood where Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High was located. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Black and white photograph Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1950s Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This image is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the images in the Local History Photograph Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 307_0078 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/1d08b03b1979ea3efc18d14e75e88129.jpg a8747bb6bcad37961486946429d3846e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Description An account of the resource Papers donated by George Melvin Richardson, former principal of Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High School. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Queen Street Description An account of the resource Photo of a house on Queen Street in the Arlington View neighborhood, formerly known as Johnson's Hill, the neighborhood where Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High was located. Car parked in driveway. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Black and white photograph Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1950s Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This image is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the images in the Local History Photograph Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 307_0079 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/fac2c1155d115df8d86178db1bd00893.jpg a453f08f31670e0811d1b0d5f36d14db Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Description An account of the resource Papers donated by George Melvin Richardson, former principal of Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High School. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Queen and 15th St with Hoffman-Boston behind Description An account of the resource The corner of S. Queen St. and 15th St. S. in the Arlington View neighborhood, formerly known as Johnson's Hill, the neighborhood where Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High was located. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Black and white photograph Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1950s Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This image is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the images in the Local History Photograph Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 307_0080 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/45bc361c54a42fcc318b736768f0b3ee.jpg 0a19e5751f988964b6bfcd678247ca7c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Description An account of the resource Papers donated by George Melvin Richardson, former principal of Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High School. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Playground before - Queen Description An account of the resource Playground on S. Queen Street in the Arlington View neighborhood, formerly known as Johnson's Hill, the neighborhood where Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High was located. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Black and white photograph Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1950s Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This image is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the images in the Local History Photograph Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 307_0081 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/d8b209179497516b13be1e22dbf68502.jpg 2e9228b62173f8eb8da723146fd7978e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Description An account of the resource Papers donated by George Melvin Richardson, former principal of Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High School. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Entering Queen St from CP (Columbia Pike) (main st) Description An account of the resource View upon entering S. Queen Street from Columbia Pike in the Arlington View neighborhood, formerly known as Johnson's Hill, the neighborhood where Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High was located. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Black and white photograph Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1950s Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This image is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the images in the Local History Photograph Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 307_0082 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/4b4210c6dd81be140abb1395c35cdd74.jpg 7a41bdfb0ba2c2bad00c043ffeb47456 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Description An account of the resource Papers donated by George Melvin Richardson, former principal of Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High School. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 12th St. S. from Queen to the east, about 1964 Description An account of the resource View from S. Queen Street looking east down 12th St. South in the Arlington View neighborhood, formerly known as Johnson's Hill, the neighborhood where Hoffman-Boston Junior-Senior High was located. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Black and white photograph Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived RG 307, The George Melvin Richardson Collection Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1950s Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This image is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the images in the Local History Photograph Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 307_0083 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/88ad90ac4fb73a38240df031ffb25d46.mp3 f4cc2c6c0bcfcb9835ad2d40b656d0e6 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral History Interview with James Stockard, April 23, 1984, Audio Recording Subject The topic of the resource Desegregation Arlington County School Board Description An account of the resource Audio recording of an oral history interview with James Stockard on April 23, 1984, regarding his life and his work on the Arlington County School Board. Interviewer is Edmund Campbell. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource James Stockard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Arlington County Library Oral History Program Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Arlington County Library Oral History Program Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 23-Apr-84 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Edmund Campbell Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This interview is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the interviews in the Local History Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Recording Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context stockardj19840423.mp3 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1930s-1980s https://projectdaps.org/files/original/9b91cc127597fb976487cca22b8d99b4.pdf 294b2494e3ea6b8638a312566c115f39 PDF Text Text ARLINGTON COUNTY LIBRARY Oral History Project NARRATOR: James G. Stockard INTERVIEWERS: Edmund Campbell DATE: April 23, 1984 INTERVIEWER: This is Edmund Campbell of the Arlington County Library Oral History Project, and this is April 23, 1984. We have the privilege today of interviewing James G. Stockard, former resident of Arlington and now a resident of Fairfax County, Virginia, who served with distinction on the Arlington County School Board for a good many years and who was an ardent advocate of many things that he thought were important, and were important, and an ardent opponent of other things he thought were improper. Jim played an important role in the history of the Arlington schools and we're glad to have him here today. Jim, a few preliminary questions. When and where were you born? NARRATOR: Ed, I was born in Texas, on a farm about 50 miles south of Dallas, a little town named Frost, Texas, September 19, 1914. INTERVIEWER: That makes you 70 years old? NARRATOR: Almost. I will be in September. INTERVIEWER: And I think you told me that you have just come here from playing tennis. NARRATOR: That's right, Ed. I've played tennis since I was 10 or 12 years old. It's a part of my life. I probably wouldn't even be here if I hadn't played tennis for well over 50 years. And I beat most youngsters. INTERVIEWER: You play tennis every day, do you? NARRATOR: Just about every day; sometimes twice. INTERVIEWER: You're married and have children? NARRATOR: Yes. I've been married to Nadene B. Johns (Stockard) since February 10, 1940--44 years. We have three wonderful high-achiever children, all out in the business and professional world on their own. We have eight handsome, bright and potentially high-achiever grandchildren. INTERVIEWER: Probably the best in the world, aren't they? NARRATOR: I'm sure, I'm sure. And the Arlington schools get a great share of the credit for what they have made of themselves--our three children. INTERVIEWER: Jim, you resided in Arlington during what period of time? NARRATOR: Nadene and I lived in the District for a year after our marriage. We came out to live in Arlington County, namely the Buckingham Apartments, in the spring of 1941 and we stayed in Arlington for 28 years, exciting years, and left the County when we came back from the one-year overseas assignment with the United Nations in the Fall of 1970. INTERVIEWER: And you were engaged in what profession? NARRATOR: My profession is the field of human resources. More specifically, personnel management, and within that field you might say adult training, education and career development of people. INTERVIEWER: You had what educational background? NARRATOR: I was educated at The University of Texas, which I would like to say for the record is a great institution. I had a double major: business administration and education. INTERVIEWER: University of Texas, where? NARRATOR: Austin. This was during the Depression years, 1932 to 1936, so jobs in the private sector were hard to come by and I therefore used my interest in education to go into high school teaching, and that's where I met Nadene, my wife, in a satellite town out about 30 miles from Austin. We were teachers together; I was the commercial teacher and she was the English teacher the first year. INTERVIEWER: Then you came into the Washington area, and went into Government service? NARRATOR: Yes, after a year of high school teaching, which was paying the great sum of $90 a month for 9 months ($810 a year and they divided that by 12), I decided that the pastures looked a little greener in the public service at the national level, so I took a Civil Service exam for clerk-typist. I'd gone to business college right out of high school for 3 months and become a fast typist, so I took and passed a test, came up to Washington in October of 1937, and Nadene came up a couple of years later and we've been here ever since. I've been in the Washington area now since 1937, which is about 47 years. INTERVIEWER: In what capacity were you employed in the Federal Government? NARRATOR: I worked my way up from the next to the bottom rung on the ladder to a fairly responsible executive level position. I worked in four different departments and agencies: The Department of Commerce for about 15 years, General Services Administration for 8, the State Department's Foreign Aid agency for about 6, and my final tour was with the U.S. Postal Service corporation. My role at the latter was the most gratifying of all because I was chosen to plan and put in place the Postal Service Institute, which is a staff college similar to the nation's three military schools. It trains people to work in the Postal Service at the managerial level. INTERVIEWER: What got you interested in civic life in Arlington? NARRATOR: The answer is very simple. We moved from Buckingham after about 6 years to a private home out in the East Falls Church area on Washington Boulevard there. Walter Reed Elementary School was just across the street from us so our first child became a first grader in it, I believe in the year 1948 when he was 6 years old. My wife went to the first few PTA meetings and I stayed home with the children, and she said to me, "You've got to get interested in that PTA." So I did, and pretty soon I found myself in the presidency of that local PTA and then I became a delegate to the County Council of PTAs and through some turnover unexpected, in the top echelon of the County Council, within a year I was the president of the county-wide Council of PTAs. INTERVIEWER: Were you active in CCSI, the Committee for School Improvement? NARRATOR: To some extent. I was kind of a dormant member, encouraging it and doing whatever I could, but about the time I was to become active in that, I was going on to the School Board and the School Board was enough, because that literally generated for me 300 meetings a year. INTERVIEWER: How did you get on the School Board? NARRATOR: I was elected to my first term on the School Board because Arlingtonians had, by referendum, decided they wanted an elected Board and they then had a New England Town Hall system for choosing their candidates to run for office. I emerged in the Fall of 1955 as one of the candidates, one of the candidates sponsored by the Arlingtonians for a Better County (ABC) coalition, which at the same time was forming. INTERVIEWER: That was in 1955? NARRATOR: Yes, and I was on the slate of the first three School Board members to be endorsed by ABC, and I was elected by the people along with Barnard Joy and Barbara Riches in November 1955, and began my service on the Board in 1956. INTERVIEWER: You were elected to the School Board as a result of that nomination and election in 1955? NARRATOR: The election was in November 1955. INTERVIEWER: Did you take office on January 1, 1956? NARRATOR: Correct. INTERVIEWER: As I recall, the Supreme Court's decision in Brown vs. The Board of Education, which ordered desegregation of the nation's public schools with all deliberate speed, came out in 1954. Refreshing your recollection for a moment, the State of Virginia which had gone through a period of trauma on the subject, had appointed a Commission headed by State Senator Garland Gray, am I not correct? And they had come out with the so-called Gray Plan in late 1955, as I recall, which provided among other things for tuition grants to students who wanted to go to schools where there might be a person of another race and also provided in effect for local option, or decisions by the local school boards as to just how they would implement, if at all, the Supreme Court decision. Am I correct? NARRATOR: That was our understanding of the Gray Commission report, yes. INTERVIEWER: Well then, when you came into office on January 1, 1956, you came into a maelstrom of problems, did you not, in connection with this? NARRATOR: Yes, I did. The Board then had a policy of meeting twice a month, and I believe it was at the very first meeting, around the middle of January, when the issue came onto our table of the Board. INTERVIEWER: What was the special acute matter that brought it to the table? NARRATOR: As you know, Ed, Arlington was a bedroom for Washington and we had a growing population and this meant that we were involved in expanding the little red schoolhouse and other building construction needs. Due to planning time and construction time, the Board realized it had to commit itself on how to use existing buildings and where to put new buildings. To us the Gray Commission had signaled local option, so we simply took the position that we would, in an orderly way over a period of three years, phase into desegregated public education in Arlington, and so we voted accordingly on the issue that was really involved more at the time with school construction than anything else. INTERVIEWER: Did you have some problem as to whether or not to expand existing all-Negro schools? NARRATOR: Yes, yes. We had three little gerrymandered school districts in the County for Black students, and this had been true historically, and we had to decide whether we were going to further expand those buildings because the Black population was expanding as well as the White population, or should we begin to phase some of the Black children into the White schools? We decided the latter because it seemed to be public policy both of the nation and the State and we wanted to be in compliance with all the public policy that we knew about. INTERVIEWER: Was that acceptable to the powers that be in Richmond? NARRATOR: No, Ed, of course it wasn't. In Richmond it was somewhat like an earthquake that we had last night in this area, I hear, and some of our political adversaries here in Arlington gratuitously rushed down to Richmond with an armload of Washington Posts reporting what we had done the night before. They planted one of those Washington Posts headlining the matter on the desk of every General Assemblyman, who just happened to be in session. The fat was in the fire from that moment forward. INTERVIEWER: Did you have any role or any specific role to play in relations with the General Assembly? NARRATOR: Yes, I did, Ed. You know, my grandfather on my mother's side was at Appomattox when General Lee finally had to throw in the towel and surrender, and my other grandfather also was in the Civil War on the side of the South; i.e., I had good credentials, people felt, for talking with those south side Virginians, and I tried to reconstruct my Southern accent as best I could. INTERVIEWER: The School Board designated you as their representative to go to Richmond? NARRATOR: Yes, they did. I was the School Board spokesman. There were many other spokesmen too, from other facets of community life. INTERVIEWER: From my understanding of the history, you didn't have very much success on that occasion, did you? NARRATOR: No, we got barely a half loaf in the compromise. INTERVIEWER: What was the agitation in the General Assembly--what happened? NARRATOR: One of the neighboring districts of the State, Stafford County, through one of its Delegates there (Mr. Moncure), introduced a measure which would have deprived Arlington of its elected School Board and thrown us all the way back to the appointive system. INTERVIEWER: Appointive system? NARRATOR: You know, the appointive system in some communities in Virginia is really pretty bad. The Legislature, as I understand it, appoints judges and judges appoint an electoral board; then the electoral board appoints the board of trustees and the board of trustees finally appoints a Superintendent. So you got the Superintendent about four levels removed from the people he's trying to serve. Fortunately, our compromise that they-- INTERVIEWER: Now, wait a minute. The system provided that the Circuit Judge, which as you say was elected by the Legislature, would appoint a school trustee electoral board, and that school trustee electoral board would choose the members of the school board? NARRATOR: They would. INTERVIEWER: They would choose the members of the school board, and that system still obtained in all counties of Virginia except Arlington? NARRATOR: There were no trustees in between the electoral board and the superintendent? INTERVIEWER: No. It's the School Trustee Electoral Board, I think is the name of it. The compromise that you referred to was what, sir? NARRATOR: The compromise was to allow Arlington to have its School Board members appointed by the governing body of the County, the Board of Supervisors, and also they agreed to have the grandfather clause and let those of us who were then serving on the School Board finish out our terms, so we got two compromises. INTERVIEWER: So as a result of that, you finished your term as an elected member? NARRATOR: Yes. INTERVIEWER: And after that, were you re-appointed by the County Board? NARRATOR: Yes, sir, I was. I was re-appointed twice, each time to a four-year term. Somehow I got an extra six months out of the elected term, because I think the new mandate became effective July 1, even though the General Assembly voted in January. INTERVIEWER: You were then on the School Board 12-1/2 years? NARRATOR: Yes, sir. INTERVIEWER: During this period did you have any brushes with the General Assembly in connection with sex education? NARRATOR: Oh yes, yes we did. Again, some of our local political adversaries, that is, people we thought were not in step with the school improvement movement, they decided that the School Board was far too liberal in sex education matters. INTERVIEWER: As I recall, Mr. Robert Peck, who was at one time a School Board member, and at the time in question was a County Board member, and who had given an oral interview here, has stated that he was one of those who went to Richmond on this subject. Is he one of those you had in mind? NARRATOR: Yes, he is. You know, it became so bad that we had the scene of teachers and librarians in Arlington County having to clip pages out of biology books because they made some reference to human reproduction. INTERVIEWER: Was that as a result of General Assembly action? NARRATOR: Yes, it was. The General Assembly acted on the advice of some of these local interests who were pressing the matter, and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction had to enforce its action; i.e., he had to promulgate regulations to carry out the law. INTERVIEWER: As a result of General Assembly action, then, sex education in effect was taken out of the Arlington schools for a period of time? NARRATOR: It was suspended, yes. INTERVIEWER: Now the action of the General Assembly in providing for the appointed School Board instead of the elected School Board, while designed perhaps to make it more difficult to desegregate the Arlington schools, did not ultimately have that effect, did it? NARRATOR: No, it didn't. Thanks to the Federal Courts, Judge Bryan in Alexandria and the persistence of the NAACP and other groups, including, I'm sure, many people who were not working as members of groups but as individuals exerting their influence. INTERVIEWER: Judge Bryan entered an order, as I recall, in September 1958, directing the admission of four students from what was then the Halls Hill Negro School District, to the Stratford Junior High School. As I recall, that took place actually in February 1959. Were you present in the hearing before Judge Bryan? NARRATOR: Yes, I was. INTERVIEWER: Did you testify? NARRATOR: I don't believe I did, no. INTERVIEWER: The School Board at that time was composed of who? Do you recall? NARRATOR: I recall Barnard Joy for one. INTERVIEWER: Lee Bean? NARRATOR: Lee Bean, perhaps. INTERVIEWER: He was on, I believe. Mr. Peck was also on, was he not? NARRATOR: Maybe Helen Lane. INTERVIEWER: I believe that was it. NARRATOR: My memory is a little fuzzy. It's been about 30 years. INTERVIEWER: I believe the School Board at that time was composed of you, Barnard Joy, Lee Bean, Bob Peck and Helen Lane. Lee Bean, at this time, was he in your camp, so to speak, or was he in Mr. Peck's camp as far as the politics of the School Board was concerned? NARRATOR: I think on the hard issues he was on Peck's side, but I found Lee Bean to be much more moderate and I found Lee Bean to be a human being that I would like to be associated with. I enjoyed my relationship thoroughly with Lee Bean, but I felt he was considerably more conservative than I in getting on with the matter of desegregation as public policy. INTERVIEWER: You had no question as to his, shall I call it integrity, as far as- NARRATOR: No, no. Lee Bean is a gentleman and a scholar I am sure. I just disagreed with him on fundamentals on some issues. INTERVIEWER: Mrs. Lane was a different kind of person? NARRATOR: Mrs. Lane and I--we could not do much business together on the same wave length. She was anti-school improvement, anti- all of the things that seemed to me to be essential to a good public education system and I just didn't understand her. INTERVIEWER: Is she still living? NARRATOR: Yes, she is. Someone told me that they called her and-- INTERVIEWER: Am I correct that on one occasion she, as a School Board member, exercised what she claimed to be her purported authority to change the grade of her own daughter? NARRATOR: I do recall that, and this was very unusual, extraordinary. I just can't imagine any School Board member doing that. I see a School Board member as being a person who has to help formulate public policy and who stays out of day to day administration. INTERVIEWER: Well, there might be some question as to the legality of her action, in any event, might there not? NARRATOR: Yes. INTERVIEWER: Jim, you tell me that you have brought with a little list of things that you were especially for on the School Board and some that you were against. The most effective way to proceed with your story of your service to Arlington on the School Board might be for you take that list and go over it with any comments that you want to make. Do you agree? NARRATOR: I would be happy to do that, yes, and I'll do it as briefly as I can. INTERVIEWER: Take your time, we do not want to shut this off in any way. NARRATOR: Ed, I'm just by nature a fastidious file clerk. Whenever I'm doing an extracurricular community assignment, I keep meticulous notes in the files, therefore, one day following my leaving the School Board in Arlington, I went through my files to develop a list of anything that looked like an issue. So, from that perusal of my files, I came up with a list here of about 29 or 30 issues in which I was particularly interested. I'm sure there are many others of even greater or lesser importance, but these are some of the ones I felt deeply about, and of course heading that list would be the matter of desegregation of the public schools. But first, let me read into the record the negatives. I try to be positive, constructive, and affirmative in my work because I feel basically I'm an educator interested in development and utilization of human resources. There were, however, six or seven issues that I had to be against. Here they are. And then I'll give you 22 issues during my term, my tour of the Board, about 22 issues that was for. INTERVIEWER: Would you go over those seven, and I'd be glad to have your comments as to what happened to your opposition. NARRATOR: Okay. I was against school prayer in the classrooms because I believe in the fundamental concept of separation of church and state, and even though I was brought up in a religious atmosphere and I still adhere to those principles as best I can, I just feel that school prayer has no place in the public schools. INTERVIEWER: During your terms on the School Board, was that a live issue or had the Supreme Court already acted in the matter? NARRATOR: I can't remember the timing of that, but it did come up as an issue and I don't--as you know, it just keeps coming up--we've just had another round of it over on Capitol Hill, but at any rate I was against it then and I'll be against it tomorrow. INTERVIEWER: The School Board did not take any affirmative action in favor of school prayer? NARRATOR: That's right. It let the matter rest, whatever the status quo was. I was against smoking on campus of our public schools. INTERVIEWER: What happened to that? NARRATOR: All right. There developed a working majority, to my great satisfaction, in support of that as a policy. You know, I made that motion on account of the Surgeon General's report linking tobacco with cancer. INTERVIEWER: That working majority accepted the policy and the policy was in effect--is it still in effect in Arlington? NARRATOR: You know, I live in Fairfax now, and I see that the matter has come up again for review by the School Board in Arlington and it sounds as if there was a relapse in Arlington for a time at least, so I don't know what the status now is in Arlington. INTERVIEWER: Well, you succeeded in having the policy adopted prohibiting smoking on the campuses and, of course, in the buildings of the Arlington schools? NARRATOR: Yes, there was--we had no way, of course, of controlling the students going across the street and smoking on the street corner, but I felt that it was just inconsistent for us to be in the business of health education and at the same time allowing smoking to go on on campus in the very sight of the teachers and principal. I was against tuition grants which was a big part, as you mentioned, of the Gray Commission report. INTERVIEWER: Actually, the Supreme Court took care of that matter in, as I recall it, the second desegregation decision involving the state of Arkansas and Governor Faubus. NARRATOR: Yes. But there was a time, brief as it may have been, in which Arlington had to go through the motions of--the paperwork and all--to get some tuition grants for some children. INTERVIEWER: There was nothing you could do about that in that period? NARRATOR: Nothing we could do about it. I always voted "no"--it was one of those things that had to go down to Richmond for approval of individual cases. Another thing that I was against, strongly against, and I had a public posture in Arlington and went around and made a few speeches about it, was the expansion of the Drew-Kemper Elementary School to 37 classrooms, which was nearly twice the size of a standard elementary school, or a typical elementary school, in Arlington--usually about 18 to 20 classrooms, but the Drew Kemper area down there in South Arlington outgrew the building and it was either a matter of finding another site nearby, there was another one but it was, some people said, too hilly. At any rate, I opposed that expansion and eventually the courts supported me in that position. I hear that the School District served by that big elementary school was broken up--or something happened. INTERVIEWER: On the Drew school? NARRATOR: Yes. INTERVIEWER: I believe that is now used as a special school for special projects. NARRATOR: I'm not current anymore on Arlington schools. I was against the proposal by a member of the County Board, a Mr. Castro, now deceased, who had a proposal to have the School Board members resign when ABC lost control of the Board. An interesting position. He felt that a School Board should serve at the pleasure of the working majority on the County Board, I presume. INTERVIEWER: I take it that that was a personal expression of opinion that would have no legal effect because of the status of the Virginia law, which provided for the appointments for fixed terms, did it not? NARRATOR: I think so; I think that's right. I was against commercial advertising in and on the school premises. For example, on the athletic field score board and the book covers and calendars. I found when I came onto the Board that a child would bring home a school book with a cover on it furnished free of charge by Mr. Magruder, who just happened to be running for the Board of Supervisors. I would go into the classroom where my children were getting educated and I'd find on the wall a calendar furnished through the courtesy of some bank, and I didn't think that was right, and out on the athletic field it was Coca Cola and we must have plenty of good citizens around here selling Pepsi Cola instead of Coca Cola, so I tried--I didn't get much support on that but I was always against it. INTERVIEWER: You say you did not get support? NARRATOR: No, I never got support. I was against it. And the last one that I have in my notes here that was an issue that voted "no" on, with some repercussions, when Helen Lane, a member of the School Board, moved one day that we require all teachers and applicants for teaching positions to sign a special oath affirming their non-involvement in Communist activities. I had to vote "no" on that for two reasons. One-- INTERVIEWER: Was that adopted by the School Board? NARRATOR: No, it was not, to my satisfaction. I was against it for two reasons: One, I felt it was discriminatory against the teachers; we were not requiring the same kind of thing from policemen and firemen, or librarians. And 2, I think that's a poor way to catch Communists. We don't want any Communists, of course, in our schools, but there must be better ways than that to catch them. INTERVIEWER: I understand you had some personal repercussions because of that vote. It might be interesting for you to describe briefly what happened. NARRATOR: The very next day on my bread and butter job across the river, my boss, the Director of Personnel of one of the agencies, called me in and asked me to stand at attention practically and to explain why the Washington Post was reporting that I had voted "no" on this motion. INTERVIEWER: That you were a Communist, in effect? NARRATOR: He as much as suggested that I must be a Communist, Jim Stockard. And I tried to explain to him but nevertheless he set in motion his internal investigative people to check me out, and they did a full field investigation. About a year later, on Christmas Eve, they came in as if they were giving me a big gift and said, "Well, Jim, we checked you out and we didn't find a thing." INTERVIEWER: Didn't find you a Communist? NARRATOR: No, they didn't find I was a Communist. INTERVIEWER: Here is a little interlude. When Elizabeth and I were active in the desegregation movement (and possibly you had the same experience), particularly when I was involved in the Norfolk case to have the massive resistance law declared unconstitutional, we used to get phone calls accusing us of being Communists and these were rather emotional days. NARRATOR: Yes, they were. I received a number of threatening phone calls and I received through the mail one time a picture of somebody that had been bloodied somewhere in the U.S. because he had supported desegregation and the implication was that this could happen to me if I persisted in my position on that. INTERVIEWER: I don't suppose it had much effect on you. NARRATOR: No, it didn't. I felt at that point fully committed to the position that I had taken. INTERVIEWER: Well, you go ahead now. NARRATOR: Now, there are some other issues, about three-to-one in ratio, issues that I took an affirmative position on. As I've already mentioned earlier, I was for the desegregation of the Arlington schools and I had better mention at this point, Ed, that contrary to the public understanding, it wasn't--this business of desegregation was not just a matter of getting some Black children into the schools that had before then been for White children only. It was a multifaceted thing and I've got some points to prove it. It was multifaceted because you not only had to worry about placement of the children, we had to worry about the school districts. That's one of the most controversial things in public education--where are you going to draw the boundaries? INTERVIEWER: There's no way you can do that right, is there? NARRATOR: No. So, we had that problem, the school districts. We had of course placement of the children, assigning a particular child to a particular school. Number 3, we had the business of desegregating athletics. Many parents seemed to be opposed to having their child involved in bodily contact athletics, and this came into sharp focus at one Board meeting when we had to decide as to whether or not we were going to let one of our high school teams engage a team (Annandale, I believe) with Black athletes. We voted "Yes, we will." INTERVIEWER: There's been a great deal of progress in that over the years since that time. NARRATOR: Yes, there certainly has. Another aspect of the desegregation was the social activities. Many parents were not about to let their Johnny or Mary go to a dance where there would be a Black child. We had also the matter of employment policy--shall we or shall we not in our recruitment effort look for some Black applicants? INTERVIEWER: Affirmative action? NARRATOR: Right. Then came the issue of staff assignments. Shall we keep those Black teachers locked into their Black schools, or shall we consider them for career opportunities in other schools throughout the County? I took the initiative on that and one day it was the lead article in the Washington Post because I think we were the first in the South to do something about that. INTERVIEWER: Jim, these other items that have just mentioned, these ancillary facets of desegregation, was your position accepted by the Arlington School Board in each of those cases? NARRATOR: I would say yes, ultimately. No court action was necessary to settle any of these matters, so eventually we wrestled it through. INTERVIEWER: Then your position was ultimately accepted by the Board? It was not opposed by the majority of the Board members and ultimately took effect throughout the County, did it not? NARRATOR: Yes, it did. INTERVIEWER: Obviously, we all know that there was complete desegregation--that has been complete desegregation of athletics. There's been desegregation of social activities, has there not? NARRATOR: Yes, but we had to go through an interim stage on the social activities. As you know, one of the churches, the Methodist church at 16th Street and Glebe Road, agreed to be host to the dances, and it was by-- INTERVIEWER: You may have abolished dances for a particular period, did you not? NARRATOR: Yes, as a public school system sponsored activity. Another facet of this whole thing was, as I mentioned, the size of buildings that we were to construct. Another was the allocation of the resource material and the utilization of the old schools. So, there were many facets to this desegregation question; not just a matter of getting Black children going to a logical school in relation to their home. So I feel, Ed, that I performed, at least according to my own conscience and beliefs, on the matter of using the public schools, for all the people. I was pro-integration, pro-desegregation. I was also pro, consistently, on the elected School Board. I testified in Richmond to that effect. I have lobbied for the elected School Board both for Arlington County and Fairfax County since we lost it in Arlington. I was pro-kindergarten. Believe it or not, there were some people in Arlington who opposed kindergarten. They thought we couldn't afford them, they thought that they were-- INTERVIEWER: You're referring, of course, to public kindergarten? NARRATOR: Yes. INTERVIEWER: And, as I recall, the School Board of which you first became a member there, was in favor of public kindergarten, was it not--there was no opposition from that Board? NARRATOR: I don't think there was. It took money, of course, and we were always short of money. I remember Jeanette Nygaard. Jeanette Nygaard was a wonderfully skilled person in elementary education. She was selected by the Superintendent to do the conceptual planning to run the first--to oversee the public kindergartens once they began. She did a marvelous job. Another issue that I was for consistently was teacher salary improvement. We were constantly battling to get more money for the teachers and that really is the secret of good education. INTERVIEWER: Then I take it on that, while you may have been the most articulate spokesman, and I'm sure that the other members of the School Board agreed with you that efforts should be made to increase the salaries of teachers, did they not? NARRATOR: Yes, I think particularly the ABC-sponsored members of the School Board. There came a time, you recall Ed, when we had some people appointed from the other side of the fence. INTERVIEWER: Other side of the political spectrum? NARRATOR: All right, now, at that time, Jim, were suggestions made by one or two other School Board members to save money by filling vacancies with inexperienced teachers who were to be paid smaller salaries? NARRATOR: That's right. My memory tells me that Bob Peck was one of those who were looking for ways to save money and he would, I think, have put a lot of green apprentices without teaching experience into teaching positions in the County as a way of saving money. INTERVIEWER: Was his position carried? NARRATOR: It did not prevail, fortunately. INTERVIEWER: On the question of teachers' salaries, this is different from what you might refer to as merit pay--is that a separate issue? NARRATOR: That's a separate issue. We were trying, you know, to improve the scale and this was done with deliberate speed, but not dramatically overnight. Because the County had just so much money from the taxpayers to spend, and you know the County itself in general government was competing. INTERVIEWER: Did we finally get the salaries in Arlington during your tenure on the School Board up to the higher level of the Washington Metropolitan area? NARRATOR: I believe we did. I believe we were ranking at or near the top before my tour on the Board ceased, so I regard whatever influence I had as one of the most significant things I did because money attracts people and you can't expect people to work just out of love alone in teaching. INTERVIEWER: All right--the next one. NARRATOR: The next issue I have in my notes that I felt keenly about--and these incidents are really random, mentioned in a random order, not necessarily in order of importance--the business of desegregating the faculty. The idea that if there is an outstanding Black teacher or administrator somewhere in the system that he need not be considered solely for work in his building where he's always been prior to desegregation from the pupil standpoint. Now I have in mind a very brilliant and effective Black male in our system--I don't remember his name but he was down in the Hoffman-Boston junior-senior high complex, and his specialty was in music and dramatics. This gentleman was considered and approved for placement up in the Yorktown High School in North Arlington, so he went from South Arlington to North Arlington. INTERVIEWER: He went, I take it, from the area which was largely and almost exclusively composed of Negro residences to an area that was composed almost exclusively of White residents? NARRATOR: Exactly. And one of the greatest thrills of my service on the School Board was to go one night as a School Board member and witness an end-of-school performance by probably 100 or more students in the Yorktown High School, and this man who was orchestrating and directing the whole thing, put on a performance worthy of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. INTERVIEWER: Was he pretty well accepted by his peers? NARRATOR: The audience that night was electrified. Of course, many of them had children performing and you might expect them to be pleased, but he, it seemed to me, was as accepted as if he were out of New York City or some other place where there is lots of good music and I was very pleased with his acceptance and the work that he was obviously doing there. INTERVIEWER: What's the next item? NARRATOR: Another issue that I took special interest in, Ed, was the issue of eliminating secret societies in our high schools. INTERVIEWER: Fraternities? NARRATOR: Fraternities, sororities--I just felt that the existence of these secret societies was inconsistent with the democratic principles that we were teaching in the schools, and so I moved to have them--any work on behalf of these societies--eliminated from the premises of the public schools, and as I recall that position prevailed after a lot of dialogue and I don't know if they exist now or not. We did for a time at least get rid of them. Another matter was the desegregation of athletics which I have already alluded to. Actually the Board did not have to do much to see the desegregation of athletics, the coaches took care of that. INTERVIEWER: There were some very able Negro athletes that the coaches wanted to have on their teams? NARRATOR: That's right. As I remember, one of the coaches--and this was Arlington against somebody else--the other team's coach said, "We're not coming [Annandale to Wakefield, I think it was] unless we can bring our Black member or members of our team." And there were some people on our School Board, I'm sure Barnard Joy was one of them, who were interested in athletics and he didn't want to see athletics and I didn't want to see athletics disappear from our curriculum so we managed to get that. It did take some kind of a resolution on the part of the Board so that the principal at Wakefield and the coach at Wakefield would not be subject to discipline if they went ahead. So the majority of the Board did put on record a resolution favoring the continuance of athletics regardless of racial considerations. Another matter was--it was an ongoing thing--the matter of school construction. We decided that as a matter of public policy in Arlington, we ought to try to adhere to a reasonable teacher-pupil ratio, such as one teacher per 25 students. Actually this varied a little from school to school, but we had a general guideline. Now this meant that from time to time, usually about every two years, we had to propose another bond issue to get some money to build schools because you can't build school buildings that last 50 years or more out of current income, and this always aroused the conservative elements of the business community in Arlington. Ironically, some of those same people in the Arlington Chamber of Commerce were putting out slick print literature all over the country encouraging people to come and settle in Arlington because of the fine schools, but they would fight us to the death on the bond issues that paid for the buildings. INTERVIEWER: Actually those bond issues had been one of the earliest problems of the School Board from its original elected inception, had it not? Before you came on the School Board. NARRATOR: That's right. It was an ongoing thing from the time the good guys, you might say, took over on the School Board back in '48 that brought in a new Superintendent and all of that. INTERVIEWER: It's sort of an endemic problem of democracy, isn't it? Democracies are unwilling to take action involving expenditures of money until they see, shall I say, a desperate situation such as pupils on double shifts? NARRATOR: Yes, until it affects their child adversely, and that's unfortunate but it's happening right now as you know all over the country--communities voting "no" on bond issues that are probably essential to the welfare of their own children. I was a one-man lobby, I think, for a while on more emphasis on tennis--and you can guess why. I've been playing tennis since I was 10 or 12 years old. I found when I came onto the Board that the Arlington public schools owned not a single tennis court. Can you believe that, Ed? They owned not a single tennis court. There were 4 or 5 courts somewhere right near where we are sitting now in the Arlington County Central Public Library. There were a few courts but they were owned by the County. The County would loan them the Washington Lee High School. INTERVIEWER: When you say the County, you mean under the jurisdiction of the County Board? NARRATOR: Yes--County Manager. INTERVIEWER: And they would let the schools use them during certain periods? NARRATOR: Yes. Certain hours. Our Washington Lee High School, which was the closest. INTERVIEWER: You had the same problems at Yorktown, didn't you? NARRATOR: Yes, and Wakefield. INTERVIEWER: Greenbriar? NARRATOR: Greenbriar, I think it is. I served for two or three years on a recreation council, I think it was called, that was headed by the County Manager. It included some County Board members, and there was always a delegate from the School Board on that, and throughout my 12 years or so on the School Board, I was always lobbying for a little more money in the school budget to put in some tennis courts, and you know when I left the Board I was happy as a lark in one way because we had tennis courts at Washington Lee, we had tennis courts at Wakefield, we had tennis courts at Yorktown High School, and at most of the seven junior high school campuses. INTERVIEWER: You were a rather effective lobbyist. NARRATOR: I was a pretty good lobbyist. Unfortunately, as we built more tennis courts on the County side and on the school side, there became more tennis players and I couldn't get a court to play on in the public parks. I promoted this thing down here with Al Lundberg, the County Manager. He was the County Manager for a long time. And I went over to see Lundberg one day and said, there's a lot of unused land down there where the railroad tracks used to be, and all you've got is a baseball diamond there, why don't we build some tennis courts? Lundberg decided that was all right, and he did it. It became sort of a showplace for tennis and they had tournaments down there. Well, if I didn't do anything else, I stimulated interest in tennis. I'll take credit for that. Now, another one that I became active in as an issue was the reform of the Honor Society. Did you hear about that? The Honor Society of the Arlington Public Schools? INTERVIEWER: I don't know specifically to what you're referring. NARRATOR: Okay. There is, first of all, a National Honor Society. INTERVIEWER: I do know that. NARRATOR: Okay. Our three children all went to Washington Lee High School and the issue came home very sharply to me one day when our distinguished son and many of his distinguished peers who were in the upper echelons of the school academically, and as far as we knew they were good citizens in all other respects, but a lot of these high achieving young people were passed over for the National Honor Society. When we got to the bottom of this, parents became enraged about it and many parents began to call on the Superintendent and the Principal at Washington Lee and said, what is this, what do you have to be to win--here's a student with all A's--he's a good citizen, he's--you know--and when we got to the bottom of it we found that the teacher who had been running this for about 25 years, with the support of the principal, was using the Honor Society selection system as a disciplinary weapon. Any student who dared to write something critical for the school newspaper, or question a policy on something of the school, that became an indelible black mark, and the student was not supported for the National Honor Society. INTERVIEWER: You mean, he wrote something which the teacher disapproved? NARRATOR: Yes. And as you may know this actually resulted in the firing of a principal because of the way that matter was being administered--the Honor Society selection system. The whole Board got into that, and we reformed it. INTERVIEWER: Do you know about what year that was? NARRATOR: Well, this would have been in the mid '60s. INTERVIEWER: All right, what's the next one? NARRATOR: Another issue that concerned me, Ed, was the matter of how to draw the school boundaries. I took the position, consistently I believe, that geography should be the single criterion--how large or small should the district be in order to fit the children into the building or buildings that were served in that district? Now, as you know, prior to the desegregation of our schools in Arlington, we had the awesome thing of a school district consisting of a blob of land up in what we called Halls Hill on Lee Highway, and that was connected to a blob down in South Arlington which was served by the little Hoffman-Boston elementary school--those two little land masses were connected by five miles of Glebe Road--and that was a gerrymandered district if I ever heard of one. INTERVIEWER: Now that's Hoffman-Boston. NARRATOR: Hyphenated. INTERVIEWER: Yes, hyphenated. NARRATOR: One of the first moves the Board had to take was to destroy that gerrymandered district, and we had other, not as severe as that one, but we had other adjustments to make in the school boundaries and you know we were pressed on one side by the conservatives and on the other side by the more liberal element to draw those, to maximize the white population in any given building. INTERVIEWER: Now you say geography would be the only criterion, and geography would have to be measured by convenience in avoidance of crossing main highways and that sort of thing, would it not? NARRATOR: That's right. You would need to consider, for example, today I suppose this Interstate Highway 66 that whips through Arlington, and Shirley Highway that goes north and south. INTERVIEWER: They would have to be considered as boundaries? NARRATOR: Natural boundaries, yes. But save for that, it seems to me geography is a logical single criterion for drawing the boundaries. INTERVIEWER: You mean you should not consider social or economic circumstances of the family? NARRATOR: Correct. INTERVIEWER: Now that's the primary negative thing of that sort, is it not? Geography would necessarily involve not only the natural boundaries such as what you say with respect to Route 66 and Shirley Highway, but it might also involve a hillside or getting in a group of houses that were convenient, something other than drawing a concentric circle of which the school building was the center? NARRATOR: I would think that a logical geographic configuration which would hopefully not slice a given community into two or three parts would be ideal. Of course, at some point the boundary line has to run down a given street. You can't run it through the air and so children that play together maybe-- INTERVIEWER: May go to different schools--there's no way to avoid that--the school districts. NARRATOR: All right. Another issue that was active during my tour is that of, as you know, closing the Hoffman-Boston Senior High School. INTERVIEWER: Do you know when that was closed? NARRATOR: No sir, I can't recall the year, but it was I would guess in the early '60s. INTERVIEWER: Did you have opposition on the Board for that? NARRATOR: I really should have with me a listing of the Board members for particular periods, but I don't have that and I just depended on the configuration of the people on the Board. Conservatives certainly would have been against that sort of thing--people like Peck, Helen Lane, Dean and some of those people were on--some of those people were on--but I don't recall who voted how. INTERVIEWER: The Hoffman-Boston was closed and the pupils were transferred to Wakefield, were they? NARRATOR: Yes, sir. The junior high students went over to Thomas Jefferson and the senior high students of Hoffman-Boston went to Wakefield. INTERVIEWER: And did not the principal of Hoffman-Boston take a position at Wakefield as Assistant Principal or something of that sort? NARRATOR: Yes, he did. We had no work left for him at the old Hoffman-Boston building so he became Assistant Principal at Wakefield. Another matter, and again I mention that these are random, mentioned in a random order, the abandonment of the single salary schedule for teachers--my favorite. Call it merit pay if you like. I couldn't raise much support for that either on the Board or even among the teachers. In fact, the teachers were bitterly opposed. INTERVIEWER: The teachers wanted salary steps based solely on seniority, did they not? NARRATOR: Yes, longevity. And that's not good personnel management. I finally got to the bottom of it, Ed, as to why the teachers were in opposition. The teachers, perhaps through hearsay about the results of attempts to have merit pay in other communities around the nation, decided that they could not trust the administration of such a plan. They could not trust principals, administrators, to administer such a scheme with objectivity. INTERVIEWER: That is, I take it, still a highly controversial issue in public education in America, is it not? NARRATOR: Yes, it is. That issue is recycling now and I notice that a number of communities are giving serious consideration to it. My position was grounded in the belief that everybody knows who the master craftsmen teachers are. The students know and other teachers know. Parent know because they are constantly trying to get their child moved into a certain classroom because they know that that teacher is outstanding. I suppose there would be some reluctance on the part of the principal to have that role, because he then is playing give and take away, you see, he has to single out you as the outstanding teacher, and me as the just so-so teacher. So we got nowhere on that issue. We had a lot of debate, though, a lot of hearings, a lot of committee meetings, but we finally had to abandon it. Another matter that interested me very much because of my professional background is this--some school systems and some employers just sit and wait for applicants to walk in. My own experience is that walk-in traffic is--too much of it--made up of unemployables. They are people who are washed ashore from somewhere else, or were never able to get a job in the first place, so if you wait for people to walk in you may be left with the rejects--the passed-overs. INTERVIEWER: You were urging an affirmative recruitment policy? NARRATOR: I was from the beginning interested in positive recruitment programs for teachers, and so every spring, with or without my urging, and it probably would have happened anyway because Ed Rutter, whom I admire so much-- INTERVIEWER: Ed Rutter, he was the Superintendent of Schools? NARRATOR: During a part of my service, probably 4 or 5 years, and the rest of the time it was Ray Reid. Now Ed Rutter, the Superintendent, each Spring, which is a good recruitment time because it's near the end of the road for the students in teacher training institutions, he would send teams all over the Eastern sector of the United States to the college campuses which were known to be successful generators of outstanding teachers. And those teams would, interestingly, carry with them stereo slides showing the environment in which the teacher would be working if he or she came to Arlington, the kinds of resource materials we were using and all that, so to me this was good personnel management and I favored and encouraged that all I could. Another one was on insurance. Believe it or not, the insurance of all of the plant that we had in the school system, the insurance was being handed out on a non-competitive basis to the Arlington insurance industry. I moved against that and insisted that we put the insurance on a competitive basis. What was happening was that the fellows who were selling insurance in Arlington County were, they were assigning the insurance to companies, one or more companies of their choice, and then they, through some committee or mechanism of local insurance people, were slicing up the premium pie among themselves on the basis of their prorated share of total insurance business done. In other words, if I'm an insurance man and you're an insurance man, and you do a million dollars’ worth of insurance in a year, and the total insurance in the County is one hundred million dollars, okay, you get one percent of the premium on the Arlington school buildings. And that was the way it was working. We got rid of that, with the help of the County Board, and-- INTERVIEWER: And adopted a competitive system of bids for fire insurance for the schools? NARRATOR: Yes. And a side issue was that of whether to limit consideration in our competitive bidding process to the stock companies, or expand it to include the mutuals as well. Traditionally, the local insurance interests had gone exclusively with the stock companies. I insisted that we have a man bid who had consistently had the door slammed in his face, one who was operating out of Falls Church out here--George Reeves, a mutual insurance company representative. Reeves insisted he could save us money, and he did. He bid lower than the stock companies. So there were some insurance issues that I wanted to get at-- INTERVIEWER: You said that you got the cooperation of the County Board. I suppose that was also involving the insurance on County Board buildings? NARRATOR: Dave Krupshaw had an eye for business. He was on the County Board then, and he got very disturbed about this, and was working on it from the County Board side. Another matter that became an issue was what I call fringe benefits for teachers. You know, salary alone is not quite enough. I believe in the continuing education and in-service training of teachers and other employees, so I was particularly pushy about getting some fringe benefits that they hadn't had. For example, having a kind of pool of money which we could tap when there was a worthy case of some member of the staff who needed to update or upgrade his or her education, and so we began an active program of out-service training subsidies, you might say. INTERVIEWER: The sabbatical? NARRATOR: The sabbatical was another form of it. INTERVIEWER: The out-service training need not be sabbatical; it might be after hours? NARRATOR: This could be evening classes. And the Superintendent-- INTERVIEWER: Were you able to get, call it subsidies, for that purpose? NARRATOR: Yes, we did. And each year that fund would grow a little because of the interest on the part of other teachers, and then the Superintendent and his staff changed, or adjusted their personnel policies, so that it became a requirement like many other professions have, that you must within a given time period do something about updating your skills. INTERVIEWER: Your continuing education. NARRATOR: Yes. Another--I'm approaching the end of this series of issues, Ed, I think. Open public meetings of the School Board kept coming up from time to time as we would get new people onto the School Board, they would say, why can't we have a private meeting about this, you know, and we don't have to hassle with the public out there, do we? And so-- INTERVIEWER: You took the position in favor of public meetings at all times? NARRATOR: Yes, I did. Except on three matters. INTERVIEWER: You might list those three. NARRATOR: You know what they are. Personnel matters, like, we're going to fire a principal for cause, perhaps, unless the hearing develops reasons why we shouldn't. Number two is on land-- INTERVIEWER: Acquisition of land? NARRATOR: Yes. And another is legal matters. We didn't discuss our position in public in advance of the hearing. So, except for those three exceptions, I stood consistently for--and I'm not saying other School Board members didn't-- INTERVIEWER: And I believe that because of your position and with the support of some others, it has been the established practice, has it not, in both the Arlington School Board and maintained also in the Arlington County Board, is it not? NARRATOR: I believe that's the case. I applaud that posture. INTERVIEWER: That did not preclude, did it, private preliminary conferences on budget details, or did it? NARRATOR: We had working sessions, executive sessions, during the formulation of the budget, which is really-- INTERVIEWER: Prior to its public hearings? NARRATOR: Yes. Establishing some objectives, goals, etc., but when it came to the matter of debating and taking positions, our debate was always open to the public. Another matter was--there was a lot of dialogue and controversy about the new Thomas Jefferson High School, which now sits in its majesty over here on Route 50, you know. It's a prime building. But the bond issue that would have supported the construction of that new building failed the first time around, because it was rooted in the whole business of whether to close out Hoffman-Boston or not. I took the position that we should close Hoffman-Boston, but the community itself was divided and it wasn't a matter that you could just decree. You know one of the hallmarks of the elected School Board, I think, was citizen participation. No better principle of government than getting the people involved, and we did have tremendous involvement on the part of South Arlington residents in that issue, so eventually it came to be. As I was leaving the Board, the building was under construction and I'm happy to see it over there. INTERVIEWER: Not on Route 50--one of the side streets. NARRATOR: Arlington Boulevard. Well, there is a little separator strip in there, but it's close to Route 50. Another one that I raised as an issue myself was that of putting into our personnel policy book a policy on how to handle reductions in force. No good personnel policy is complete without the policy about how you're going to shrink the staff. It's fine and good on how you're going to enlarge it-- INTERVIEWER: What was your position on this? NARRATOR: Well, all I wanted was a policy that would set forth the criteria and the guidelines by which we would reduce the force. INTERVIEWER: You did not want it solely on the basis of seniority, I take it? NARRATOR: I wanted it on the basis of merit which would be tied to a good, effective performance evaluation system and multiple judgement instead of the supervisor being the sole judge, the principal being the sole judge, but no one seemed interested in that then because we weren't reducing the force. Now it's the order of the day in Arlington I hear, because of a shrinking school enrollment and I would be surprised if they didn't wish they had one because otherwise you make post facto rules. INTERVIEWER: It was not adopted at that time while you were on the Board? NARRATOR: Not at all. Much to my regret. I was in favor, of course, it goes without saying, that because I was ABC-sponsored (Arlingtonians for a Better County), I was for wider and wider involvement of citizens in the formulation of public policy with respect to the schools, so during my service on the Board we had countless citizen task groups, advisory committees around every school, and all of that, and not just -- I think in the early days of Arlington public schools from what I heard, not under the elected School Board but prior to the elected School Board, it was a matter of buddy-buddy, friends of the Superintendent or friends of the County Board, who were the people involved in the schools. Another one--this was an interesting side issue--as to who should be the counsel, the legal counsel, for the School Board as we went to federal Court from time to time. Being a southerner, I felt that the South deserved the best counsel it could get, or the most -- the legal person who stood very high among his peers, and so I made the motion to designate as a member of the counsel team-- we actually had two or three people doing that--I nominated Senator Ball because if the Southern point of view was to lose in the end, I wanted them to lose with their flags high, and being carried by none other than the Dean. I understand he was then the Dean of the legal profession, at least in the General Assembly. INTERVIEWER: This was the famed Arlington attorney, Frank Ball, Sr. NARRATOR: Yes. His name you know is still around. We have the Ballston Metro Station not far from his home in Arlington. INTERVIEWER: I'm not sure I understand what you said -- the position you took. You said you wanted the most distinguished Southern lawyer--you were not opposed to desegregation; you were in favor of desegregation. NARRATOR: I was in favor of desegregation. I hoped and prayed that opposing forces would lose, of course, but I believed in both sides of an issue having their day in court, with representation as good as they could have. INTERVIEWER: Well now, you were certainly not in favor of Arlington School Board objecting to desegregation of the schools in Court proceedings, were you? NARRATOR: I consistently voted "no" on every case that went to Court, with the possible exception of the first case that I think went all the way to the Supreme Court. I felt that a specific case deserved a hearing at the Supreme Court level, but they refused to issue a "writ of certiorari. " Now, once that decision was made at the Supreme Court, forever after in my tenure on the Board, I voted "no" against the School Board opposing any case that the local citizenry or any segment thereof might bring to court, and they did continue to bring those cases. I even registered my negative position against the School Board's involvement in the support of such cases by sending certified letters, return receipt requested, to Simmonds, our head counsel. INTERVIEWER: That's James H. Simmonds. NARRATOR: Well, our team of lawyers, the School Board's team of lawyers, consisted of James Simmonds and Senator Ball. To the best of my knowledge, there were not others on those court cases, but on some of those matters I went to court because all Board members were subpoenaed. I was there as a spectator, but not testifying. INTERVIEWER: I believe I represented the School Board in One case. I don't know whether you were on the Board or not at the time. It involved the transfer of students from Hoffman-Boston, and Strangely enough, Judge Lewis decided in favor of the segregationists' viewpoint. The case was Warren, I believe, and it was reversed in the 4th Circuit, and I think you were on the Board at the time, and my recollection is that you gave substantial support to the position that the Board then took, which was that we should desegregate Hoffman-Boston as speedily as possible. NARRATOR: Well, Ed, that is the end of the informal list of issues in which I became involved and felt keenly on. INTERVIEWER: Now, are there any other matters which you would like to express yourself on while we're here, with respect to your relations to Arlington County, its people or its government? NARRATOR: Yes, there are several matters that I would like to mention. Ed, there are a few things I want to say in closing my commentary. I want to say first, and I really mean this Sincerely, that my twelve and a half years on the School Board in Arlington were the highlight of my community experience in my lifetime, the wonderful people I met, including you and your good wife Elizabeth. That was a most rewarding experience to be associated with people, all of whom were interested in the school improvement movement. I want to just mention a few names besides yours and Elizabeth's, of people who impressed me. These were people in the private sector of our economy. The first I want to mention and pay tribute to is Dave Krupsaw. He ran for the County Board the same year that I ran for the School Board, and he served on that Board until his untimely death in an airplane accident. Ralph Kaul is another. He is in land development, housing. Another was Herbert Brown, who served a tour on the County Board. Herb was then the Managing Editor of Changing Times, I believe. INTERVIEWER: Changing Times being a Kiplinger magazine. NARRATOR: Kiplinger magazine, consumer-oriented. And another who impressed me so much because he was an exception to Our local business community, and that was Ed Holland. Ed Holland basically was an engineer, but he became a banker when he acquired an interest in the little old Old Dominion Bank that was right in an island at Cherrydale on Old Lee Highway, and Ed Holland was a good banker. I see him from time to time. He's in retirement now but he serves as Chairman Emeritus in a banking syndicate and network of banks that he established. INTERVIEWER: First American? NARRATOR: First Virginia Bank. Ed Holland told me one time that, he said, "Jim, people are interested in two things primarily--their children and their money." And Ed set out to help us improve the schools in Arlington. He was working behind the scenes in an advisory committee role and he supported us On bond issues while his counterparts in the business community locally were working against us on those bond issues and not helping us get on with the job. Ed Holland deserves a lot of Credit as, of course, so many other people do, but five or six of you, I thought, were really the leading citizen class of that era. The end product that makes it all worthwhile for me is what happened to our three children who went throughout the system in Arlington. We have a son, James G. Stockard, Jr., who is a graduate of Princeton University in architecture, Harvard University in urban planning, and Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He is the head of a consulting firm working all over New England. He's doing well. We have a daughter in the Chicago area, Ruth, who is a graduate of Northwestern University, University of Denver, and the Illinois Institute of Technology. She has specialties of speech, dramatics, and now law, and is a practicing attorney for a large, large firm based in downtown Chicago. We have a daughter, Janet, another product of the Arlington school system, who is a graduate of Northwestern University in journalism and also of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. She has been working for the World Bank for the last 10 years and, interestingly, is the first woman ever designated by the World Bank to head one of its Overseas missions. She is bright, attractive and, apparently, very effective in her work. Now as to my own personal - - INTERVIEWER: Permit me to interrupt for a minute. I assume that possibly a little bit of credit should be given to the children's parents. NARRATOR: Particularly their mother, Nadene. She was the counselor, I was the disciplinarian, but the mix, the chemical mix in the balance apparently produced three for three and we're so delighted. Now, just one more thing. One likes to feel that one is, to some extent at least, accepted by his or her peers and the people that are being served in this democracy by public servants. I got two or three things out of this that affected my pride and my pocketbook. First, the Citizens Committee for School Improvement, CCSI it's called, gave me their award of the year one time, the Citizen Award of the Year, for doing what they considered good things to further the school improvement. I got a little recognition therefore from CCSI. When I left, the year I left the Board, the teachers themselves, through their Arlington Education Association, awarded me their Annual School Bell Award, and gave me a big school bell like the old fashioned thing, and this made me feel good because I felt that I had been not entirely a part of management and public policy making, but I had been working on behalf of teachers through salary improvement and other measures, and I believe that that stems from the fact that I started as a teacher and my whole life's work has been in adult education training, career development, and that kind of thing. I served as a part-time professor for 12 years in the evenings, the same 12 years I was on the School Board, so nearly all of my life's work has been in the field of education, or some facet thereof. Also, this great experience in Arlington public school life was a personal growth experience for me. Still another matter is this -- the citizens of Arlington were paying a small stipend of S75 a month to School Board members when I came onto the Board. Twelve and a half years later, when I left it for an overseas assignment with the United Nations as an educational advisor, it was paying S200 a month. INTERVIEWER: Were you giving 75 hours a month to your work? NARRATOR: Ed, according to my little daily diary book (I have 30 years of them now), my work in Arlington on the schools and related matters involved over 300 meetings a year, and I don't think I got too much pay for that. But I tell you what I'm doing with the Social Security money that I now get--a little over S3,000 a year, because of that 12 years on the Arlington School Board, I'm giving 100% of it to a memorial endowment fund I established at The University of Texas at Austin in honor of my parents. I gave 100% of my inheritance from my parents and I'm giving 100% of my Social Security, and I'm matching that with some personal funds, and now my greatest interest is in that memorial which will be awarding fellowships in six academic disciplines at The University of Texas in perpetuity. INTERVIEWER: Isn't that a fine contribution. NARRATOR: And so I started and end my experience in my profession and here in Arlington with education. Now I'm trying to perpetuate my influence and my parents' influence in the state of Texas where I came from. Thank you very much for this Opportunity. INTERVIEWER: I consider the Only mistake you have made, sir, from Arlington's point of view, is that you left this County and went into the neighboring county of Fairfax. But I suppose Fairfax, being a growing community while Arlington is now more stable, needs your imaginative efforts and I'm certain you're giving them there. NARRATOR: Well, at least they need my strong back and fast feet. My wife and I decided after all of our children were gone from home that we ought to find a little solitude, so we moved out into big, big Fairfax County--a very quiet place, cul de sac, but you know what, pretty soon they found me and I've been active ever since in Fairfax County. Just finished a six-year tour on the Fairfax County Civil Service Commission, which is a quasi-judicial Court that hears grievances from county employees, and I have other roles in the county, so there's no relief for a volunteer. INTERVIEWER: Jim, thank you very much for your Oral history today. It will be valuable to Arlington County, and we appreciate the services you have given to the County through the years. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral History Interview with James Stockard, April 23, 1984, Transcript Subject The topic of the resource Desegregation Arlington County School Board Description An account of the resource Typed transcript of an oral history interview with James Stockard on April 23, 1984, regarding his life and his work on the Arlington County School Board. Interviewer is Edmund Campbell. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource James Stockard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Arlington County Library Oral History Program Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Arlington County Library Oral History Program Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 23-Apr-84 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Edmund Campbell Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This interview is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the interviews in the Local History Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Language A language of the resource Eglish Type The nature or genre of the resource Transcript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context stockardj19840423.pdf Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1930s-1980s https://projectdaps.org/files/original/2a0db1856ecd47ba5c91c44478e2a608.mp3 ce5a5fb9e369979044e36e594eacc960 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Communism and Anti-Segregation Harassment Clip - Oral History Interview with James Stockard, April 23, 1984 Subject The topic of the resource Desegregation Description An account of the resource Excerpt from the audio recording of an oral history interview with James Stockard on April 23, 1984, regarding his reflections on anti-communist and desegregation harassment. Interviewer is Edmund Campbell. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource James Stockard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Arlington County Library Oral History Program Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Arlington County Library Oral History Program Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 23-Apr-84 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Edmund Campbell Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This interview is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the interviews in the Local History Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Recording Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context stockardj19840423_Communism and Anti-Segregation Harassment Clip.mp3 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1930s-1980s https://projectdaps.org/files/original/51534972bad7e181deb714232fbf6166.pdf 58db989da05e7298c53e737e962cc84f PDF Text Text ARLINGTON COUNTY LIBRARY Oral History Project NARRATOR: James G. Stockard INTERVIEWERS: Edmund Campbell DATE: April 23, 1984 Communism and Anti-Segregation Harassment Clip NARRATOR: [00:35:05] And the last one that I have in my notes here that was an issue that voted "no" on, with some repercussions, when Helen Lane, a member of the School Board, moved one day that we require all teachers and applicants for teaching positions to sign a special oath affirming their non-involvement in Communist activities. I had to vote "no" on that for two reasons. One-- INTERVIEWER: Was that adopted by the School Board? NARRATOR: No, it was not, to my satisfaction. I was against it for two reasons: One, I felt it was discriminatory against the teachers; we were not requiring the same kind of thing from policemen and firemen, or librarians. And 2, I think that's a poor way to catch Communists. We don't want any Communists, of course, in our schools, but there must be better ways than that to catch them. INTERVIEWER: I understand you had some personal repercussions because of that vote. It might be interesting for you to describe briefly what happened. NARRATOR: The very next day on my bread and butter job across the river, my boss, the Director of Personnel of one of the agencies, called me in and asked me to stand at attention practically and to explain why the Washington Post was reporting that I had voted "no" on this motion. INTERVIEWER: That you were a Communist, in effect? NARRATOR: He as much as suggested that I must be a Communist, Jim Stockard. And I tried to explain to him but nevertheless he set in motion his internal investigative people to check me out, and they did a full field investigation. About a year later, on Christmas Eve, they came in as if they were giving me a big gift and said, "Well, Jim, we checked you out and we didn't find a thing." INTERVIEWER: Didn't find you a Communist? NARRATOR: No, they didn't find I was a Communist. INTERVIEWER: Here is a little interlude. When Elizabeth and I were active in the desegregation movement (and possibly you had the same experience), particularly when I was involved in the Norfolk case to have the massive resistance law declared unconstitutional, we used to get phone calls accusing us of being Communists and these were rather emotional days. NARRATOR: Yes, they were. I received a number of threatening phone calls and I received through the mail one time a picture of somebody that had been bloodied somewhere in the U.S. because he had supported desegregation and the implication was that this could happen to me if I persisted in my position on that. INTERVIEWER: I don't suppose it had much effect on you. NARRATOR: No, it didn't. I felt at that point fully committed to the position that I had taken. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Communism and Anti-Segregation Harassment Clip - Oral History Interview with James Stockard, April 23, 1984, Transcript Subject The topic of the resource Desegregation Description An account of the resource Excerpt from the transcript of an oral history interview with James Stockard on April 23, 1984, regarding his reflections on anti-communist and desegregation harassment. Interviewer is Edmund Campbell. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource James Stockard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Arlington County Library Oral History Program Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Arlington County Library Oral History Program Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 23-Apr-84 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Edmund Campbell Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This interview is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the interviews in the Local History Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Transcript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context stockardj19840423_Communism and Anti-Segregation Harassment Clip.pdf https://projectdaps.org/files/original/fc6ea96ae3b214103c1df5371c649df1.mp3 741236b1a31e6615c77dc361374aa8f6 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Loss of the Elected School Board Clip - Oral History Interview with James Stockard, April 23, 1984 Subject The topic of the resource Desegregation Description An account of the resource Excerpt from the audio recording of an oral history interview with James Stockard on April 23, 1984, regarding his reflections on Arlington's loss of the elected school board. Interviewer is Edmund Campbell. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource James Stockard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Arlington County Library Oral History Program Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Arlington County Library Oral History Program Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 23-Apr-84 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Edmund Campbell Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This interview is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the interviews in the Local History Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Recording Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context stockardj19840423_Loss of Elected School Board Clip.mp3 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/95e5d4f9ae0460cc253d58b947433768.pdf 165e6755690de04de140f4016434d57d PDF Text Text ARLINGTON COUNTY LIBRARY Oral History Project NARRATOR: James G. Stockard INTERVIEWERS: Edmund Campbell DATE: April 23, 1984 Loss of Elected School Board Clip NARRATOR: [00:07:47.5] I was elected to my first term on the School Board because Arlingtonians had, by referendum, decided they wanted an elected Board and they then had a New England Town Hall system for choosing their candidates to run for office. I emerged in the Fall of 1955 as one of the candidates, one of the candidates sponsored by the Arlingtonians for a Better County (ABC) coalition, which at the same time was forming. INTERVIEWER: That was in 1955? NARRATOR: Yes, and I was on the slate of the first three School Board members to be endorsed by ABC, and I was elected by the people along with Barnard Joy and Barbara Riches in November 1955, and began my service on the Board in 1956. INTERVIEWER: [00:09:12] You were elected to the School Board as a result of that nomination and election in 1955? NARRATOR: The election was in November 1955. INTERVIEWER: Did you take office on January 1, 1956? NARRATOR: Correct. INTERVIEWER: As I recall, the Supreme Court's decision in Brown vs. The Board of Education, which ordered desegregation of the nation's public schools with all deliberate speed, came out in 1954. Refreshing your recollection for a moment, the State of Virginia which had gone through a period of trauma on the subject, had appointed a Commission headed by State Senator Garland Gray, am I not correct? And they had come out with the so-called Gray Plan in late 1955, as I recall, which provided among other things for tuition grants to students who wanted to go to schools where there might be a person of another race and also provided in effect for local option, or decisions by the local school boards as to just how they would implement, if at all, the Supreme Court decision. Am I correct? NARRATOR: That was our understanding of the Gray Commission report, yes. INTERVIEWER: Well then, when you came into office on January 1, 1956, you came into a maelstrom of problems, did you not, in connection with this? NARRATOR: Yes, I did. The Board then had a policy of meeting twice a month, and I believe it was at the very first meeting, around the middle of January, when the issue came onto our table of the Board. INTERVIEWER: What was the special acute matter that brought it to the table? NARRATOR: As you know, Ed, Arlington was a bedroom for Washington and we had a growing population and this meant that we were involved in expanding the little red schoolhouse and other building construction needs. Due to planning time and construction time, the Board realized it had to commit itself on how to use existing buildings and where to put new buildings. To us the Gray Commission had signaled local option, so we simply took the position that we would, in an orderly way over a period of three years, phase into desegregated public education in Arlington, and so we voted accordingly on the issue that was really involved more at the time with school construction than anything else. INTERVIEWER: Did you have some problem as to whether or not to expand existing all-Negro schools? NARRATOR: Yes, yes. We had three little gerrymandered school districts in the County for Black students, and this had been true historically, and we had to decide whether we were going to further expand those buildings because the Black population was expanding as well as the White population, or should we begin to phase some of the Black children into the White schools? We decided the latter because it seemed to be public policy both of the nation and the State and we wanted to be in compliance with all the public policy that we knew about. INTERVIEWER: Was that acceptable to the powers that be in Richmond? NARRATOR: No, Ed, of course it wasn't. In Richmond it was somewhat like an earthquake that we had last night in this area, I hear, and some of our political adversaries here in Arlington gratuitously rushed down to Richmond with an armload of Washington Posts reporting what we had done the night before. They planted one of those Washington Posts headlining the matter on the desk of every General Assemblyman, who just happened to be in session. The fat was in the fire from that moment forward. INTERVIEWER: Did you have any role or any specific role to play in relations with the General Assembly? NARRATOR: Yes, I did, Ed. You know, my grandfather on my mother's side was at Appomattox when General Lee finally had to throw in the towel and surrender, and my other grandfather also was in the Civil War on the side of the South; i.e., I had good credentials, people felt, for talking with those south side Virginians, and I tried to reconstruct my Southern accent as best I could. INTERVIEWER: The School Board designated you as their representative to go to Richmond? NARRATOR: Yes, they did. I was the School Board spokesman. There were many other spokesmen too, from other facets of community life. INTERVIEWER: From my understanding of the history, you didn't have very much success on that occasion, did you? NARRATOR: No, we got barely a half loaf in the compromise. INTERVIEWER: What was the agitation in the General Assembly--what happened? NARRATOR: One of the neighboring districts of the State, Stafford County, through one of its Delegates there (Mr. Moncure), introduced a measure which would have deprived Arlington of its elected School Board and thrown us all the way back to the appointive system. INTERVIEWER: Appointive system? NARRATOR: You know, the appointive system in some communities in Virginia is really pretty bad. The Legislature, as I understand it, appoints judges and judges appoint an electoral board; then the electoral board appoints the board of trustees and the board of trustees finally appoints a Superintendent. So you got the Superintendent about four levels removed from the people he's trying to serve. Fortunately, our compromise that they-- INTERVIEWER: Now, wait a minute. The system provided that the Circuit Judge, which as you say was elected by the Legislature, would appoint a school trustee electoral board, and that school trustee electoral board would choose the members of the school board? NARRATOR: They would. INTERVIEWER: They would choose the members of the school board, and that system still obtained in all counties of Virginia except Arlington? NARRATOR: There were no trustees in between the electoral board and the superintendent? INTERVIEWER: No. It's the School Trustee Electoral Board, I think is the name of it. The compromise that you referred to was what, sir? NARRATOR: The compromise was to allow Arlington to have its School Board members appointed by the governing body of the County, the Board of Supervisors, and also they agreed to have the grandfather clause and let those of us who were then serving on the School Board finish out our terms, so we got two compromises. INTERVIEWER: So as a result of that, you finished your term as an elected member? NARRATOR: Yes. INTERVIEWER: And after that, were you re-appointed by the County Board? NARRATOR: Yes, sir, I was. I was re-appointed twice, each time to a four-year term. Somehow I got an extra six months out of the elected term, because I think the new mandate became effective July 1, even though the General Assembly voted in January. INTERVIEWER: You were then on the School Board 12-1/2 years? NARRATOR: Yes, sir. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Loss of the Elected School Board Clip - Oral History Interview with James Stockard, April 23, 1984, Transcript Subject The topic of the resource Desegregation Description An account of the resource Excerpt from the transcript of an oral history interview with James Stockard on April 23, 1984, regarding his reflections on Arlington's loss of the elected school board. Interviewer is Edmund Campbell. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource James Stockard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Arlington County Library Oral History Program Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Arlington County Library Oral History Program Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 23-Apr-84 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Edmund Campbell Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This interview is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the interviews in the Local History Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Transcript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context stockardj19840423_Loss of Elected School Board Clip.pdf https://projectdaps.org/files/original/75d75d7f549132373182afc06a026ca8.mp3 3b4c25b391ed42a96096a86a162b3a09 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Multifaceted Desegregation Clip - Oral History Interview with James Stockard, April 23, 1984 Subject The topic of the resource Desegregation Description An account of the resource Excerpt from the audio recording of an oral history interview with James Stockard on April 23, 1984, regarding his reflections on the many facets of desegregating Arlington Public Schools. Interviewer is Edmund Campbell. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource James Stockard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Arlington County Library Oral History Program Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Arlington County Library Oral History Program Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 23-Apr-84 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Edmund Campbell Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This interview is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the interviews in the Local History Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Recording Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context stockardj19840423_Multifaceted Desegregation Clip.mp3 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/034220264d6c29da2021b75e9b9dede6.pdf 6f85afa60e7f880b578db6f91a2c6721 PDF Text Text ARLINGTON COUNTY LIBRARY Oral History Project NARRATOR: James G. Stockard INTERVIEWERS: Edmund Campbell DATE: April 23, 1984 Multifaceted Desegregation Clip NARRATOR: [00:38:07.3] Now, there are some other issues, about three-to-one in ratio, issues that I took an affirmative position on. As I've already mentioned earlier, I was for the desegregation of the Arlington schools and I had better mention at this point, Ed, that contrary to the public understanding, it wasn't--this business of desegregation was not just a matter of getting some Black children into the schools that had before then been for White children only. It was a multifaceted thing and I've got some points to prove it. It was multifaceted because you not only had to worry about placement of the children, we had to worry about the school districts. That's one of the most controversial things in public education--where are you going to draw the boundaries? INTERVIEWER: There's no way you can do that right, is there? NARRATOR: No. So, we had that problem, the school districts. We had of course placement of the children, assigning a particular child to a particular school. Number 3, we had the business of desegregating athletics. Many parents seemed to be opposed to having their child involved in bodily contact athletics, and this came into sharp focus at one Board meeting when we had to decide as to whether or not we were going to let one of our high school teams engage a team (Annandale, I believe) with Black athletes. We voted "Yes, we will." INTERVIEWER: There's been a great deal of progress in that over the years since that time. NARRATOR: Yes, there certainly has. Another aspect of the desegregation was the social activities. Many parents were not about to let their Johnny or Mary go to a dance where there would be a Black child. We had also the matter of employment policy--shall we or shall we not in our recruitment effort look for some Black applicants? INTERVIEWER: Affirmative action? NARRATOR: Right. Then came the issue of staff assignments. Shall we keep those Black teachers locked into their Black schools, or shall we consider them for career opportunities in other schools throughout the County? I took the initiative on that and one day it was the lead article in the Washington Post because I think we were the first in the South to do something about that. INTERVIEWER: Jim, these other items that have just mentioned, these ancillary facets of desegregation, was your position accepted by the Arlington School Board in each of those cases? NARRATOR: I would say yes, ultimately. No court action was necessary to settle any of these matters, so eventually we wrestled it through. INTERVIEWER: Then your position was ultimately accepted by the Board? It was not opposed by the majority of the Board members and ultimately took effect throughout the County, did it not? NARRATOR: Yes, it did. INTERVIEWER: Obviously, we all know that there was complete desegregation--that has been complete desegregation of athletics. There's been desegregation of social activities, has there not? NARRATOR: Yes, but we had to go through an interim stage on the social activities. As you know, one of the churches, the Methodist church at 16th Street and Glebe Road, agreed to be host to the dances, and it was by-- INTERVIEWER: You may have abolished dances for a particular period, did you not? NARRATOR: Yes, as a public school system sponsored activity. Another facet of this whole thing was, as I mentioned, the size of buildings that we were to construct. Another was the allocation of the resource material and the utilization of the old schools. So, there were many facets to this desegregation question; not just a matter of getting Black children going to a logical school in relation to their home. So I feel, Ed, that I performed, at least according to my own conscience and beliefs, on the matter of using the public schools, for all the people. I was pro-integration, pro-desegregation. Page 34 Page 37: NARRATOR: [00:47:44.45] The next issue I have in my notes that I felt keenly about--and these incidents are really random, mentioned in a random order, not necessarily in order of importance--the business of desegregating the faculty. The idea that if there is an outstanding Black teacher or administrator somewhere in the system that he need not be considered solely for work in his building where he's always been prior to desegregation from the pupil standpoint. Now I have in mind a very brilliant and effective Black male in our system--I don't remember his name but he was down in the Hoffman-Boston junior-senior high complex, and his specialty was in music and dramatics. This gentleman was considered and approved for placement up in the Yorktown High School in North Arlington, so he went from South Arlington to North Arlington. INTERVIEWER: He went, I take it, from the area which was largely and almost exclusively composed of Negro residences to an area that was composed almost exclusively of White residents? NARRATOR: Exactly. And one of the greatest thrills of my service on the School Board was to go one night as a School Board member and witness an end-of-school performance by probably 100 or more students in the Yorktown High School, and this man who was orchestrating and directing the whole thing, put on a performance worthy of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. INTERVIEWER: Was he pretty well accepted by his peers? NARRATOR: The audience that night was electrified. Of course, many of them had children performing and you might expect them to be pleased, but he, it seemed to me, was as accepted as if he were out of New York City or some other place where there is lots of good music and I was very pleased with his acceptance and the work that he was obviously doing there. Page 39 Page 40: Another matter was the desegregation of athletics which I have already alluded to. Actually the Board did not have to do much to see the desegregation of athletics, the coaches took care of that. INTERVIEWER: There were some very able Negro athletes that the coaches wanted to have on their teams? NARRATOR: That's right. As I remember, one of the coaches--and this was Arlington against somebody else--the other team's coach said, "We're not coming [Annandale to Wakefield, I think it was] unless we can bring our Black member or members of our team." And there were some people on our School Board, I'm sure Barnard Joy was one of them, who were interested in athletics and he didn't want to see athletics and I didn't want to see athletics disappear from our curriculum so we managed to get that. It did take some kind of a resolution on the part of the Board so that the principal at Wakefield and the coach at Wakefield would not be subject to discipline if they went ahead. So the majority of the Board did put on record a resolution favoring the continuance of athletics regardless of racial considerations. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Multifaceted Desegregation Clip - Oral History Interview with James Stockard, April 23, 1984, Transcript Subject The topic of the resource Desegregation Description An account of the resource Excerpt from the transcript of an oral history interview with James Stockard on April 23, 1984, regarding his reflections on the many facets of desegregating Arlington Public Schools. Interviewer is Edmund Campbell. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource James Stockard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Arlington County Library Oral History Program Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Arlington County Library Oral History Program Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 23-Apr-84 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Edmund Campbell Relation A related resource This interview is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the interviews in the Local History Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Transcript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context stockardj19840423_Multifaceted Desegregation Clip.pdf Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Arlington Public Library Oral History Program Description An account of the resource The Arlington Oral History Program preserves the memories of Arlingtonians who witnessed and made history in a growing collection of over 375 interviews. This sample features interviews with people who were involved in the desegregation of Arlington Public Schools in various ways. You can listen to the audio recording of the interview and read through the typed transcript by clicking any of the files. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 176kbps Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:41:40 Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed James Stockard Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Edmund Campbell Location The location of the interview Arlington County, Virginia Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Cassette Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Edmund Campbell Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1930s-1980s Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource James Stockard Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 23-Apr-84 Description An account of the resource James Stockard elected to the Arlington School Board, after being involved in the PTA, in 1955 and served for 12 ½ years. His time on the School Board was tumultuous; Mr. Stockard experienced the County’s loss of an elected school board and actively campaigned for desegregation in Arlington Public Schools, among other things. His interview, which mentions his Southern identity twice, sheds light on the regional conflicts that riddled the issue of desegregation in Virginia. He was interviewed for the Arlington Public Library Oral History Program by Edmund Campbell in 1984, and his interview is available in its full audio and typed transcript forms. You can also read and listen to excerpts from his oral history, regarding the loss of the elected school board in Arlington County, the multifaceted issues of school desegregation, and the connection made by opponents to integration between desegregation activists and “communists.” Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context stockardj19840423 Language A language of the resource English Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Arlington County Library Oral History Program Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This interview is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the interviews in the Local History Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Arlington County Library Oral History Program Subject The topic of the resource Desegregation Arlington County School Board Title A name given to the resource Oral History Interview with James Stockard, April 23, 1984 Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History https://projectdaps.org/files/original/ac1f1a68310e022f9b18f82fec48d704.mp3 d5d9ed9d1ec489d758099d8dce6a6cba Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral History with Lance Newman, February 13, 2016, Audio Recording Subject The topic of the resource Desegregation Description An account of the resource Audio recording of an oral history interview with Lance Newman on February 13, 2016, regarding his life and his experience as one of the first students to desegregate Arlington Public Schools. Interviewers are Judy Knudsen and Joanna Dressel. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lance Newman Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Arlington County Library Oral History Program Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Arlington County Library Oral History Program Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 13-Feb-16 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Judy Kundsen Joanna Dressel Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This interview is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the interviews in the Local History Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Recording Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context newmanl20160213_Edited.mp3 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/71e44a62707329a0f5c5f509f3e735d5.pdf 80734123815ee9c279d532cd1322ad96 PDF Text Text ARLINGTON PUBLIC LIBRARY Oral History Project “Desegregation of Arlington Public Schools” NARRATOR: Lance Newman INTERVIEWER 1: Judy Knudsen INTERVIEWER 2: Joanna Dressel DATE: February 13, 2016 INTERVIEWER 1: [00:00:04] Today is Saturday, February 13, 2016, and we are here in the central library to do an oral history with Lance Newman, who was one of the four students to desegregate Arlington public schools. The interviewers are Judy Knudsen and Joanna Dressel. So I guess we can start by saying tell us where you grew up here and where you went to school early and what it was like. NARRATOR: Okay. I grew up in the Halls Hill area of Arlington County. Originally, I lived on Lee Highway, and then we moved to—-that was in the ’50s—-in 1951 or so—-and then in ’64, we moved to 22nd Street but the same area. I went to school at Langston Elementary, W&L High School, and then I went to Howard University for my bachelor’s in engineering. Then I moved to the Los Angeles area. INTERVIEWER 1: [00:01:01] What was it like growing up? It was segregated. NARRATOR: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Actually, we can discuss this. Actually, it was pretty good. I mean Halls Hill was a very—actually, it was a great place to grow up. It was a very close community. Everybody knew everybody, and there were families and stuff, and there was really—it wasn’t really the problems that you have today. It was in the ’50s and early ’60s and stuff. You didn’t have the drug problems and all of that. And because it was— (phone rings) INTERVIEWER 1: Okay. So you were saying— NARRATOR: Okay. Yes, it was a very nice place to grow up. There were community leaders, and most people were—as far as the black community were concerned—I guess you would call it lower-middle class tradesmen. [00:02:01] A lot of people worked for the government. But I guess, generally, I just want to tell you that there were no—I mean we—there was no overt racism at the time. There were problems. I can remember early on when I was extremely young going down to the—I think it was Kanns or Hecht Company at the—in the Parkington—whatever you call it—Ballston-Parkington. INTERVIEWER 1: Parkington would have been Hecht’s. Yeah, right. NARRATOR: And the sign just said—in the bathroom, I can vaguely remember it saying ‘colored.’ Okay. But that was one of my first introductions to it, and that’s when I may have been about four or five years old. But other than that, I can say that it was just a nice place to grow up, and I’m thankful for it. [00:03:06] Oh, and like I said, I actually did have a great set of parents. I didn’t please them all the time, (laughs) but who does? I drove them nuts sometimes, but we did. And so, I think that’s pretty much it about my feelings about— INTERVIEWER 1: Right. You had siblings—your children—brothers and sisters you had— NARRATOR: Yeah. I had one brother, one sister. My brother still lives here. He’s retired D.C. police. My sister teaches in South Carolina at a college down there. My parents are deceased. Actually, I do have a lot of cousins that actually live in Arlington. In fact, I’m staying with my cousin right now. She lives in Hall’s Hill, so that’s it. INTERVIEWER 1: Okay. So were your parents active in the desegregation movement? And how did that work out? NARRATOR: [00:04:04] They were a little passive. They weren’t the act—they weren’t as active as Ms. Hamm or Ms. Cosley or Ms. Deskins. They were the three really movers and the most active participants. My parents—my mom and dad were sort of passive. I mean not passive. They were participants, and I remember they gave us a choice. Do we want to be a part of the desegregation suit? When I say ‘they,’ I mean they gave us—I meant my brother and I, because my sister was fairly young at the time. And I said yes, and my brother said no. He wanted to stay at HB. So where some of the other kids’ parents said, “You’re going to do this,” or—you know—whether you like it or not. And I was—so for that, I kind of— [00:05:01] in later years, I kind of appreciated that they did give us the choice and didn’t force it upon us, because some kids—they were forced upon them. I don’t think they had a very fond memory of the whole experience. I wouldn’t say nobody had it. There were really no fond—I mean I can’t say fond memories, but they had a—shall we say a negative experience, a negative memory. INTERVIEWER 1: Do you know why you said yes at the time? Were you just adventurous? NARRATOR: Okay. A couple of things. I was kind of adventurous. I said—you know. It was sort of, hey, this will be cool maybe. And at the time, we were bussed down to HB in south Arlington. That was the school, and I hated getting up in the morning and getting on and riding the bus. I really did for some reason, because I’m lazy. I didn’t like to get up that early, but I just didn’t like it. I said, “Oh, gee. I’ll just walk down to school or something.” Although the walk took just as long as the bus ride, [00:06:00] it turns out, because I had Stratford from Arlington. But at the time—I just remember that, and that was one of the reasons. So it wasn’t—I mean I didn’t have any overreaching goal. I mean at twelve years old, you really don’t understand what the movement’s all about. You don’t know. And so I thought it would be kind of a relief from the drudgery of (laughs) the school bus ride. I mean that’s sort of trivial, but that was one of the reasons. And you know, it was just—I mean they kind of impressed upon us the difficulties we might encounter and everything, but it didn’t daunt me. INTERVIEWER 2: Uh-huh (affirmative). And before then, had your parents talked to you about segregation and race relations in Arlington and things like that? NARRATOR: Not extensively. They kind of mentioned [00:07:00] there were problems and stuff, and we lived in our community. It’s all black. If you weren’t really—I mean we couldn’t—we didn’t venture out that much from the Hill because of that, but they didn’t—I don’t believe that they—they didn’t say that you can’t go to these places, but they said there were certain places—your boundary. You really shouldn’t be going. I remember that they—you know. This is from when they became a—when I got a little older, when you could go out on your own, going to places like Peoples Drug Store and [00:08:00] there’s a restaurant called Tops at the time on George Mason Drive and Lee Highway. And they were saying you couldn’t—you could only go in the back if you wanted something for takeout, and that was our—not introduction, but that was one of our memories of the segregated—the segregation in Arlington. INTERVIEWER 1: Uh-huh (affirmative). But you had a lot of your own businesses and things within the community. NARRATOR: Yeah. There was actually—that was pre-integration. After that, it kind of died. They had the stores like Miss Allen’s stores, Mr. Hicks’ store. I’m trying to remember all this—local grocery stores, mom-and-pop organizations. So we did have those. Like I said, it was a community contained in itself, so that was good, I thought. INTERVIEWER 1: [00:09:00] Now, the churches played a strong role in this. NARRATOR: Yeah. INTERVIEWER 1: And so, there must have been a lot of leadership there that— NARRATOR: Yes, yes. A lot of the church leaders, the ministers, and the deacons in the Baptist church and the lay people in the Methodist church—I went to Calloway, so a lot of those leaders were very active. And during the integration movement, there was not only the church leaders of the black church, but we did have some—a lot—the white churches, especially the Unitarian church on Arlington Boulevard, I think. INTERVIEWER 1: Yes. NARRATOR: And people from—representatives from there—and actually, they started an exchange going to the Unitarian church trying to get acclimated, shall we say, to what’s coming. [00:10:02] And so, I can say, yes, there was a lot of church support, support from the community churches and the church leaders. INTERVIEWER 1: Right, and the NAACP was— NARRATOR: Oh, yeah. They were—especially the lawyers. I can’t remember some of the names—Robinson, Tucker, I don’t even know if they’re still around these days. They were responsible for the lawsuit—conducted the lawsuit that was brought. And as far as the lawsuit was concerned, if I may digress, I remember we went down to the Alexander Courthouse for the hearings, and I guess there were pictures. [00:11:00] I don’t know if you’ve seen the pictures, but there were pictures of the original thirty plaintiffs that—school—the kids on the steps of the courthouse as we were leaving. And I remember that clearly. And I also remember sitting in the courtroom. I guess it was all day one day—and being bored stiff because you’re twelve years old, and you don’t really understand it. These lawyers are talking, and a lot of times, they’re having conferences with the judge, and so they’re whispering, and you’re twiddling your thumbs, and we were kind of told to be—you know, act properly. So you had to sit in your chair and behave, and so that was—it wasn’t very pleasant. INTERVIEWER 1: [00:12:00] Yeah, for a twelve-year-old— NARRATOR: I just remember for a twelve-year-old, it was—I’d rather be out playing basketball. (laughs) I think it was in the summer, too. I’m not sure. Maybe not. But anyway, you wanted—you’d rather be somewhere else. (laughs) INTERVIEWER 1: Of course. So I know that, leading up to this, you got a lot of preparation. Tell us about that. NARRATOR: Yeah. This is sort of a long—not a long story, but anyways, this is—the community leaders—Ms. Hamm, Ms. Cosley, Ms. Deskins and all the others—in conjunction with the NAACP and the whole organization did a lot of preparation on how to act, how to dress, what might happen when you go to school. You know, the abuse you may have to suffer, the name-calling and the stares and all of that. And this is a time of [00:13:00] passive resistance. You’re supposed to ignore it—suck it up and ignore it. But my dad did tell me. He said, “If somebody hits you, you’ve got permission to whale them.” So defend yourself, as it were. And then, there was also—because they thought—the thought at the time was that we weren’t maybe academically up to the level of the white kids that were at Stratford or in the white school system. We had—they had tutoring sessions, and a couple of things I remember. I went up to—this is after we did decide that the four of us were going to go. We went up to—gosh, I can’t remember the name. They were the church—Mrs. Wesson? She lived in Arlington, but I can’t remember [00:14:01] exactly where. Beyond Garden City, over in that area. Anyway, they were going to tutor us. So the first day we got there, it was in a room like—it wasn’t a kitchen, but they sat down and they were going to tutor us in math and English and stuff. So they started math, and I was really good in math. And so, Ronnie and Michael and Gloria were pretty good in English and stuff, too. So they started and they realized that—I didn’t realize this at the time, but what happened was after about an hour, they said, “These guys are just as sharp as anybody else, I guess.” And so, we just were tutored for about maybe an hour, and then we went out and played basketball with their sons. They had two sons that actually went to Stratford—or were going to Stratford. They were sixth graders at the time. Then we—and we actually came up there. I went up there for about—I don’t know—several weekends. This was on Saturdays. And we really didn’t [00:15:00] do much tutoring. And I really didn’t understand until I got to school, until I got my first week at Stratford. I didn’t understand what—like I said, we had been told that it’s going to be academically challenging or something like that. And I’ll relate this story. The first week at Stratford, after the first day—this is the first week—I got an assignment. I think it was like Wednesday from—in our English class or general education class. All it was—it was—we had to go home and write some sentences. We were just studying—it was English grammar. And so, we were studying sentences—write sentences and using certain parts of speech—you know, nouns, pronouns, subjects, verbs, and all of that—and we’re going to, the next day, present the sentences and do structure diagrams and all of that. I went home, and I must have spent hours. And I was trying. [00:16:00] I’ve got to make the best prose I possibly can. William F. Buckley would be proud of me. It was about twenty-five sentences you had to write. I took them to school the next day, and we got to class, and I think it was Mrs. Bowman that was our general ed teacher. So she calls one of the students up to go up to the board and write the sentences and break it down, and it was some sentence like, ‘He hit the ball,’ or something like that. They all were in that vein, and I looked at it, and I thought to my—this is what I actually thought to myself. I said, “These kids are as dumb as I am.” (laughter) INTERVIEWER 1: Maybe dumber. (laughter) NARRATOR: Yeah. And so, after that, that was an awakening. After that, I realized, like you said, there were smart [00:17:00] —a lot of smart kids and there were a lot of dumb kids, and they’re kids. They’re not the so-called superior beings that we were kind of led to believe in our preparation. You know. INTERVIEWER 1: Let’s go back to that first day and describe the first day. NARRATOR: Okay. Let’s see. I remember getting up, getting ready, and I think my mom was—she was probably—she told me later she was a nervous wreck. INTERVIEWER 1: I’m sure. NARRATOR: Yeah. And I was kind of. I wasn’t—because I was there with my buddies. Actually, Ronnie and Michael and I were really good friends because we played softball together. Gloria—I knew Gloria, but I kind of felt sorry for her because she was the only girl. But so, we went down, and we all gathered at Ronnie Deskin’s house. [00:18:01] And there were reporters there and then all the people—community leaders. And then, we sat around and they took pictures. We got some pictures, then we piled into Mr. Jones’ car and went down to Stratford, and I guess on Old Dominion Drive they let us out, and we went—we actually went in the back of the school, not the main entrance at the front. I remember going down and getting off—crossing Old Dominion Drive. They had blocked it off—and then walking down the long pathway near the football field and tons—well, it seems like just a gauntlet of Arlington County police. They were in their riot gear with helmets and their riot gear. Actually, we were walking in by ourselves. They purposely had us come after school started, so we just went in. We went into the central entrance near the flagpole [00:19:01] in the back, went to the principal’s office, Mr. Richmond. They sort of had—they had a conference and they told us what to expect and all of this, tried to calm us I guess. And then, we were escorted down to our first class, and I remember going into—well, he was—my math teacher was Mr. Marks—and going into the class and seeing about thirty or—thirty all-white faces, and it was kind of tense. He was pretty good because he shook our hands and stuff and said, “Kids, this is—” and had us sit down. He had a seat and a desk for us. It was right up front. [00:20:02] And that was a Monday, I believe. Yeah, it was a Monday. And then, the next day—I mean it went okay. That class—and then I remember the first period bell ringing and going out in the hallways, and Stratford was a lot bigger than HB. I went to HB first. And I was going out in the hallway and seeing this mass of humanity changing classes, and people were kind of—pretty much—I think they were kind of staring. People were kind of—you know—wanted to ignore us. But it was tense, and then that day after school, we went back to—I guess actually we went back to my house, and then we had this press conference with the—and I remember the Washington Post and the local television stations were there and had big cameras set up, [00:21:01] and a guy interviewed us. The next day was quite different. I mean I think they still had police there but not as many. But that day was sort of the icebreaker because there was a kid that was sitting in front of me. He was Charles Aragon—Alagon—Aragon, and Mr. Marks said—I don’t remember what he said, but they were—something happened, and he cracked this joke and kind of broke the ice on the whole thing. And from sort of that time on, people were friendly and stuff and it was—so it made that experience a lot less—I mean a lot more palatable. And I wish I could remember what he said, but for the life of me, I can’t. But it was— INTERVIEWER 1: The kid said? NARRATOR: The kid. Yeah. His name was Charles Alagon, and I think he was—actually, he had volunteered, from what I found out, to be kind of [00:22:02] —to befriend us and all that kind of stuff. They asked kids beforehand, and he was one of them. I actually got to be pretty good friends with him and his father. His father was a captain in the Pentagon in the Navy. He was a captain in the Navy and worked at the Pentagon. I can say that at that time—I don’t know if they—I don’t think they do this anymore. At that time, you had periods where your class stayed pretty much together—you know, your math class and your speech class. INTERVIEWER 1: So it was the same group of— NARRATOR: Same group, different periods. You’re all in the same homeroom, and they purposely put us in these sections that were seven-six and seven-eight, and these kids kind of made up of military kids and state department kids, because the Washington, D.C. area is all—and because I guess they thought that these—because they’d [00:23:00] been around other areas, not just the South, they would probably be more at ease with whole process. INTERVIEWER 1: Now, you didn’t all four go into the same group. NARRATOR: No. Seven-six and seven—Ronnie and I were in the same section, I guess, and then Michael and Gloria were in another section. Two and two they split us. INTERVIEWER 1: Right. Now, there was some talk about they had some people kind of take you around. I mean I can’t—you had to change classes or go to lunch. Was there somebody that was assigned to you to—? NARRATOR: Yeah. For us, it was Charles and I can’t remember the other people. There was another one of his friends that kind of went with us and said where the next room was because everybody—because we came in in the middle of the year, and they were pretty familiar with Stratford and where to go. [00:24:00] So they took us around, and they kind of escorted us. And I remember walking in the hallways. There were some stares, of course. And I must admit, there was some hostility, not really—you know-some of it was overt and some of it was kind of covert, but I remember one—I had a locker, and the kid next to me – as he saw me at the locker, he would stand out and he would stay away in the hall until I left. Or if he was at the locker [00:25:01] and I came and he didn’t see me till I got to my locker, he would stuff his books and run away—right away leave and stuff, he and his friend. So they were—I remember that. And then, there was not—there may have been sneers and stuff. I don’t remember overt name-calling. So all in all, I can say it was nothing like Little Rock or places in the South. So my experience—I can say my experiences there were, on the whole, fairly good. I can’t say that for some of the other kids. I think Michael and Ronnie and I kind of agree that it was—the process was not nearly as traumatic as we thought it would be. Gloria being the only girl, I think she was lonely. I mean it went well, she was a little bit more–but, [00:26:02] I’m not quite sure. And then, I know some of the kids that came after us. They have mixed feelings about the whole process. INTERVIEWER 1: So did you make—as the time went on, because you were there for a while, did you make white friends as such? NARRATOR: Oh, I did. Actually, in the eighth grade, it was David—you know. These people I—David Ferguson, I think, was in the eighth grade. I kind of hung around with him quite a bit in the eighth grade. We became good friends. But mainly, we were among the black friends, and we went home, and then we didn’t have any school—I mean any outside activities. We were friends in school, but we never did socialize, so I can say that. INTERVIEWER 1: Okay. NARRATOR: On through my high school career, I played football. Ronnie and I played football, so we knew a lot of the football players and stuff. In fact, [00:27:00] it was kind of nice meeting everybody a year and a half ago at our reunion. INTERVIEWER 1: So, by that time, the athletics were integrated, because at first they were not. That's my understanding. NARRATOR: Exactly. Yeah, all through Stratford, there was no—because I think that was a Virginia law. INTERVIEWER 1: Yeah, I’m sure. NARRATOR: Yeah. It was a Virginia law—no social active, no athletics, no intermingling of that. And that changed, I believe, when I—and not in the ninth grade. When we went to W&L in the tenth grade—tenth, eleventh, twelfth grade and high school—yeah. And there was no—you didn’t go to prom. I don’t know. Yeah, I can’t remember going. I can’t remember a junior high school prom. I didn’t go, anyway. But anyway, there were no dances at that time. [00:28:00] It later opened up in high school. INTERVIEWER 1: So also the social activities also— NARRATOR: Yeah, the social activities started opening up. After I went to W&L, they started. They used to have the socials. They used to have the after-football-game dances at Mount Olivet [United Methodist Church] INTERVIEWER 1: Oh, yeah. NARRATOR: It was 16th Street and Lee Road. INTERVIEWER 1: Yeah, I know. Yeah. NARRATOR: Everybody met there. But that was quite a few years after the original integration. INTERVIEWER 1: Right. So looking back on it now, are you glad you did it? NARRATOR: All in all, I can’t say a hundred percent, no. There were advantages and—we kind of discussed this. The community of Halls Hill—that kind of changed after that. In some ways, we were—I didn’t feel that much, [00:29:00] but one of my friends, Leslie Carmichael, said she felt kind of ostracized by the black people. Oh, you’re going to that white school. And then you didn’t really socialize with the white kids and stuff, so you felt kind of isolated. So some people have bad memories. The community did change, integration was good for us, but I don’t know if this is directly a result of integration or just the changing times. I think as the years went by, the so-called discipline or the family—I mean the family unit—respect for your elders and all that stuff kind of waned, and that could be just general society. But I think it had something to do with integration, because kids got more— [00:30:00] I want to say independent. They got more— INTERVIEWER 1: Well, they were out and about in the world more. They weren’t just in that community. NARRATOR: Yeah. They were in the community, but they know there are a lot of problems in there. Like I said, I keep harping back on Halls Hill. There was just respect for parents. I wouldn’t say you did what you were told, but you didn’t—it was unheard of to really sass your—I mean parents. And nowadays, people can just cuss them out or something. I mean actually, they’re really disrespectful. And you called everybody Mr. This and Mrs. That. In fact, I still do to this day. Anybody who’s older than me and is living, you remember them. They’re quite old now, but that’s just the way it was. It could be just the change—a lot of it is just the change in society. [00:31:01] But I think a lot of it has to do with the breakdown—I mean the integration, and that was one of the bad sides. But on the plus side, Stratford and W&L were good schools. But I must say my elementary school was very good, too. We had some really good teachers. And so we became more—it was easier to deal with people that were not your race, not your kind. You learned to deal with other people in society, so in that respect, I think it was good INTERVIEWER 1: Well, Hoffman-Boston, who had a stellar reputation for teaching and so forth—I mean it’s always had a good— [00:31:59] so that part of the county they were getting—I know they closed in ’64, I guess, but that was one of the things you always hear about—how well educated those students were. NARRATOR: Yeah. I know because my brother said that. But I only went to Hoffman—HB for one semester. I remember. Yeah. There were some really good teachers, but I just—I do remember my first through sixth-grade teachers at Langston. All of them knew my name. A lot of them—most of them lived in the community, too, and attended the same churches and all of that. So you knew them, and they were really good, I must admit, and they cared about the students. Most of them were pretty disciplined, and they did things back then you wouldn’t tolerate today—what they call corporal punishment, I guess. [00:33:00] But I must admit that they were very good teachers. And I could say just one other thing. I think our parents’ generation—our parents—I didn’t realize until—how it affected them at the time, because you’re twelve, and you’re kind of in your own world or with your buddies. But my parents went through a lot. All the parents. They were frightened because—they were very nervous because it was their kids and stuff. And once you start having kids, you get a different perspective on that. And my mom told me that she was scared to death. When I came home sort of nonchalantly, I think she had a sigh of relief or something. Maybe she thought something was wrong with me. [00:34:01] But I really respect them for that. INTERVIEWER 1: How did your brother feel? He chose not to. How did he feel about you doing it? And did that change anything in your relationship or—? NARRATOR: No, it didn’t. He just wanted to stay at HB because of his friends. If he was—he was there a year. He’s a couple grades ahead of me, so he had been there, and he had all his friends. I had my friends, too, but my running buddies, shall we say, were Mike and Ronnie at the time, so I didn’t mind. So that’s why he didn’t want to go. But I don’t think it affected us one bit that I was going to Stratford and he was going to HB. And had other—just there were different problems… INTERVIEWER 1: Right. Well, everybody— NARRATOR: [00:35:00] Mom loves you best or something like that. My sister and my brother, to this day, they said they called me Baby Boy because they said I was spoiled, which is not true. She was the only girl and the youngest. She was the one that was spoiled. I can say that. Anyway. But no, I’m just saying that because I think all in all we had great community leaders and great parents. I can just say that Arlington-and Halls Hill-was a good place to grow up. I think it probably still is. I haven’t been back here in forty-some years, but it has changed. Oh, my God. I mean architecture here is funny. INTERVIEWER 1: Yeah. NARRATOR: And you guys have a traffic problem here. I thought you all—you know LA is bad. LA is really horrible. INTERVIEWER 1: You think we’re worse? NARRATOR: [00:36:00] It’s not quite as bad, but it’s bad. I don’t remember it being like this when I was in it. INTERVIEWER 1: So then, you went on to Howard, which was totally different because it was a black college. NARRATOR: Traditionally black. INTERVIEWER 1: And you said you studied—you became a defense—in defense— NARRATOR: Yeah. I majored in electrical engineering, got my BS at Howard and went out to the LA area and got a job with what, at that time, was called North American Rockwell, and we were working on the Apollo program when it started. And then later, there was a—called follow on to Apollo. I only worked there two years, and then I worked ten years at a place called TRW, which is now part of North and growing. The defense industry has consolidated and changed over the years. But after that, I worked thirty-five years at aerospace, which I retired from. [00:37:00] And actually, I’m still working as a—they call it a retiree casual, so you just work when you want to work, but you’re kind of limited in your hours. And it’s fine with me. Great. INTERVIEWER 1: Do you have children? NARRATOR: I have two step kids and then a bunch of grandkids—Eric and Nicole. They live in Arizona. Eric lives in Arizona, and Nicole lives in LA. Well, I must admit Nicole’s sort of a—shall we say a problem child. We have—but anyway, we raised our granddaughter, Natalie, and Natalie is the gem of my life. But she’s actually twenty-seven now, and she’s getting married. She’s engaged. She’s getting married in August, and she’s quite successful. She moved to Florida. Of course, her fiancé is there. But she’s doing quite well. [00:38:01] She and my—well, she’s close to me, but she and my wife are—they talk to each other every day, especially now that they’re planning the wedding. INTERVIEWER 1: Well, yes. That's a big deal. (laughs) NARRATOR: We can go on about that. I got the credit card out. That's the extent of my participation. INTERVIEWER 1: Right. I was going to say, do they have any idea of what your role in all this was? That's interesting to me. NARRATOR: Not really. I’ve never really talked to them about it. I got a call from Natalie. I got a text and a call from Natalie yesterday. She was reminding me of Valentine’s Day. Oh, good thing. But anyway, for my wife. But she did say, “I want to hear all about—when you get back,” because we haven’t talked. She’s actually going to be in LA next week, [00:39:00] so she wants to know about the experience because I guess she has an interest now because of—she found out that I’m going back. I went back on the second and now for Halls Hill celebration. So she has an interest. INTERVIEWER 1: Well, that’s good. NARRATOR: Uh-huh (affirmative). INTERVIEWER 1: Because it was pivotal. I mean it was pivotal. Really it was. NARRATOR: I think it was. INTERVIEWER 1: Not just for Arlington but for the state of Virginia. NARRATOR: Oh, yeah, yeah. We were—actually, they—we have the distinction of being the first because I think they integrated—well, Norfolk was just a few—it was the same day, I believe, but it was a couple hours later. So we can claim we were the first. INTERVIEWER 1: That's all that matters to Arlington. You were the first, even if it was by a minute. NARRATOR: Yes. We were the first. INTERVIEWER 2: And is it something that you feel is very pivotal in your own life? Do you feel like that’s a major event? NARRATOR: Oh, it’s a major event because I remember. There are certain things you—especially the first day. [00:40:00] You recall certain things, unfortunately, like assassinations. And it was pivotal since I had—I did have to make a new set of friends— besides Michael and Ronnie and Gloria—at school, and it was slow. The first year we were there or the first semester—I mean the second semester of the first year, it was a slow process. We did have, like I said, the couple guys that we befriended. And then as time went on, the ice broke more. But I feel that it was—all in all, I had a fairly good experience. INTERVIEWER 1: I was going to ask you about your teachers. Were any—how did they relate to you all? NARRATOR: For the most part, it was pretty good. [00:41:01] Mr. Marks was—he was on the panel at Stratford. He was very good. He was in math. He was only twenty-six at the time. And then we had Michael in the—Michael’s math teacher was on the panel. She’s 104 now. INTERVIEWER 1: Mrs. Miller. NARRATOR: Mrs. Miller. She’s 104. Wow. It’s amazing she remembers. I just remember my math teacher, Mrs. Lee in the eighth grade. Or was it algebra? She was very helpful. Science teacher in ninth grade was pretty help—was pretty—and I don’t—I guess there was some teachers that were kind of apprehensive or something or—if I can use that term. Or standoffish. [00:42:00] That could be—I don’t know if it was race related or not. But you tend to remember the ones that were helpful. And there was no real—like I said, I don’t think there was any teachers that were—that I had that were openly hostile or even overtly hostile. INTERVIEWER 1: Is there anything else? INTERVIEWER 2: Yeah. Was there anything—after all the training that you had leading up, was there anything that you weren’t expecting to happen or that surprised you that you didn’t feel you had been trained for but that was either—? Yeah. NARRATOR: Let’s see. Not really, except what I mentioned about the preparations. I was shocked to find that the kids were [00:43:01] pretty much the same as— INTERVIEWER 1: Level. NARRATOR: —the same level academically as I was, because I was prepared to be struggling and catching up. And I didn’t have to. That's about the only thing I can say about that. INTERVIEWER 2: So you were just over prepared. Yeah. NARRATOR: Well, yeah. Maybe in some cases. I don’t know if you noticed, but in the pictures, we were dressed really nicely for the time. And if you notice—and I noticed that after about a week, the kids were dressed like high school kids. Not like they are today, but still they were kind of more casual. So eventually—I didn’t like dressing up anyway (laughs), so that started changing as the weeks went by. [00:44:00] So I got more like them, and in fact, that was something I was thankful for. INTERVIEWER 1: Yeah. Can you think of anything else? INTERVIEWER 2: Yeah. Well, so when you were young going into it, you didn’t really realize the gravity of what it was. Was there a moment when you did sort of? Was there an ‘aha’ moment? Did it sort of trickle slowly through your life of what it meant to do this? NARRATOR: Yeah. It trickled slowly. There was no ‘aha’ moment. Well, let me take that back. Yeah. There was a moment I regret because of something I did wrong, I can say. They had the twenty-fifth anniversary in 1989, no it couldn’t have been 89, 1985 or something, they were going to do a thing, and they wanted me to come back. I was living in LA at the time, and I said, [00:45:00] “Uh…” They sent a Washington Post reporter out here and I said no. And then I remembered getting a call from one of the leaders—Mrs. Marx, probably—and she said she would pay for me to fly back. I said, “Oh, God.” It hit me there. I said, “Oh, my God.” I still turned it down, but I kind of felt really—I don’t know what I was doing. I wasn’t married. Yeah, I was married. I don’t know if we really—we really didn’t have anything planned. I could have gone, and I just felt that I didn’t want to come. And when she said that—you know. I could afford it. INTERVIEWER 1: Sure. NARRATOR: And I really felt bad about that. INTERVIEWER 1: Was that Barbara Marx? NARRATOR: Barbara Marx. INTERVIEWER 1: Yes. Uh-huh (affirmative). NARRATOR: And I think I sent her a letter later apologizing or an e-mail. What was it? It was a letter. [00:46:01] But that’s one—if you can call it an ‘aha’ moment—yeah. INTERVIEWER 1: Is there anything else you’d like to add? NARRATOR: Let’s see. Not really. Like I said, this is—it does bring back memories, I guess. I’ve been—the one at Stratford on the second and this. I was interviewed by Carmella Hamm last night at my cousin’s house, and we’re going to this—tonight, we’re going to the Langston—that’s not just for us. That's for Langston Elementary. INTERVIEWER 1: Yeah. NARRATOR: But it is—even though it’s cold, it’s nice being back in Arlington and Halls Hill and just driving around the neighborhood, bringing back all the memories. Most of them are pretty fond memories, and I think that’s roots. [00:47:01] And so— INTERVIEWER 1: One other thing I didn’t mention was people talk all the time about the wall that was there in Halls Hill. What do you remember? NARRATOR: I remember it. It was pretty—it was all around the—you know. Especially around 17th Street. Not Cameron Street. It was the next street over behind that, and it was a wooden wall. But in places, it was a cinderblock wall. I think that—this was a small part of it. But in the ’60s, it was renamed, and we started calling it the Berlin Wall, because after—it was ’61 or whenever that they put up the real one, so that was the moniker it got in the early ’60s. It separated the so-called—we called it the white section. I do remember—okay, if I can [00:48:00] relate to this—about my—I forgot to mention this, actually—interacting with white people. Every Halloween, we’d go trick-or-treating, and we used to go up to what we called the white section up there—22nd Street, across George Mason Drive—because they were the only ones that gave us tons of candy. Anyway, you know. Kids have masks on, and the people were pretty—and that was a big thing when you were in the second, third, and fourth grade for trick-or-treating, and we just went—you know. That was another thing that’s different today. Nobody lets their—if you were at that age, you let your kid go alone for pretty good reasons. But you did it in groups, and so that was a fond memory from my experience. INTERVIEWER 1: There had to be—I mean there had to be resentment about that, but was that ever—was that ever talked about particularly in—? [00:49:00] I mean everybody knew it was there, and it separated you. NARRATOR: Oh, the wall? INTERVIEWER 1: Yes. NARRATOR: Yes, it was—I guess it was sort of—it was—it certainly wasn’t a pleasant thing, and there was resentment. There wasn’t open hostility. We weren’t that close to it, relatively so. I didn’t get to have much interaction there, but I know you didn’t—you did not interact with the people on the other side of the wall, and they didn’t interact with you. It was the way it was, I guess. It did become—oh, I must admit there was—on 16th Street, which is right just south of the wall, I guess. There were a couple of homes that had these [00:50:00] —what do you call them? Those hitching posts with the stable boy. That was—that was a very negative emblem for us. I think one day—I think some of the—and sometime somebody did—they vandalized it. You know, knocked his head off or something like that. This was in the mid ’60s or something like that. But I remember passing because when—coming home from—this is when I was at W&L. I used to walk home going up 16th Street, and you had to pass that statue all the time. INTERVIEWER 1: Right. Anything else you can think of? This is your time. NARRATOR: (laughs) Oh, my time. No, that’s pretty much it, I guess. [00:51:01] Like I said, it was an experience. It was a seminal experience, and I didn’t realize it until later in life. I must say we were—they said we were part of it. I mean we were—the four of us were the vanguards and everything, but I think myself—I believe the community leaders—the parents, especially, and the community leaders, the NAACP, and even the white community that supported us deserve 90 percent of the credit. I firmly believe that. INTERVIEWER 1: Well, thank you very much for doing this. We appreciate it. [00:51:47] (end of audio)   Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral History with Lance Newman, February 13, 2016, Transcript Subject The topic of the resource Desegregation Description An account of the resource Typed transcript of an oral history interview with Lance Newman on February 13, 2016, regarding his life and his experience as one of the first students to desegregate Arlington Public Schools. Interviewers are Judy Knudsen and Joanna Dressel. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lance Newman Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Arlington County Library Oral History Program Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Arlington County Library Oral History Program Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 13-Feb-16 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Judy Knudsen Joanna Dressel Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This interview is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the interviews in the Local History Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Format Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context newmanl20160213_edited.pdf https://projectdaps.org/files/original/79b9e3ef4516ddd274ee790b9ac812d4.mp3 07f735a8601b3290408284154c095dfd Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Activism and Decision to Go Clip - Oral History with Lance Newman, February 13, 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Desegregation Description An account of the resource Excerpt from the audio recording of an oral history interview with Lance Newman on February 12, 2016, regarding his and his parents' involvement in desegregation activism and his decision to go to Stratford. Interviewers are Judy Knudsen and Joanna Dressel. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lance Newman Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Arlington County Library Oral History Program Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Arlington County Library Oral History Program Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 13-Feb-16 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Judy Knudsen Joanna Dressel Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This interview is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the interviews in the Local History Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Recording Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context newmanl20160213_Activism and Decision to Go Clip.mp3 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/cb2b82d730d2657fed79db7a46950d94.pdf e9a53a9b24588a42316a41b9e2c83658 PDF Text Text ARLINGTON PUBLIC LIBRARY Oral History Project “Desegregation of Arlington Public Schools” NARRATOR: Lance Newman INTERVIEWER 1: Judy Knudsen INTERVIEWER 2: Joanna Dressel DATE: February 13, 2016 Activism and Decision to Go Clip INTERVIEWER 1: [00:03:58] Okay. So were your parents active in the desegregation movement? And how did that work out? NARRATOR: [00:04:04] They were a little passive. They weren’t the act—they weren’t as active as Ms. Hamm or Ms. Cosley or Ms. Deskins. They were the three really movers and the most active participants. My parents—my mom and dad were sort of passive. I mean not passive. They were participants, and I remember they gave us a choice. Do we want to be a part of the desegregation suit? When I say ‘they,’ I mean they gave us—I meant my brother and I, because my sister was fairly young at the time. And I said yes, and my brother said no. He wanted to stay at HB. So where some of the other kids’ parents said, “You’re going to do this,” or—you know—whether you like it or not. And I was—so for that, I kind of— [00:05:01] in later years, I kind of appreciated that they did give us the choice and didn’t force it upon us, because some kids—they were forced upon them. I don’t think they had a very fond memory of the whole experience. I wouldn’t say nobody had it. There were really no fond—I mean I can’t say fond memories, but they had a—shall we say a negative experience, a negative memory. INTERVIEWER 1: Do you know why you said yes at the time? Were you just adventurous? NARRATOR: Okay. A couple of things. I was kind of adventurous. I said—you know. It was sort of, hey, this will be cool maybe. And at the time, we were bussed down to HB in south Arlington. That was the school, and I hated getting up in the morning and getting on and riding the bus. I really did for some reason, because I’m lazy. I didn’t like to get up that early, but I just didn’t like it. I said, “Oh, gee. I’ll just walk down to school or something.” Although the walk took just as long as the bus ride, [00:06:00] it turns out, because I had Stratford from Arlington. But at the time—I just remember that, and that was one of the reasons. So it wasn’t—I mean I didn’t have any overreaching goal. I mean at twelve years old, you really don’t understand what the movement’s all about. You don’t know. And so I thought it would be kind of a relief from the drudgery of (laughs) the school bus ride. I mean that’s sort of trivial, but that was one of the reasons. And you know, it was just—I mean they kind of impressed upon us the difficulties we might encounter and everything, but it didn’t daunt me. [00:06:44] INTERVIEWER 1: [00:08:57.4] Now, the churches played a strong role in this. NARRATOR: Yeah. INTERVIEWER 1: And so, there must have been a lot of leadership there that— NARRATOR: Yes, yes. A lot of the church leaders, the ministers, and the deacons in the Baptist church and the lay people in the Methodist church—I went to Calloway, so a lot of those leaders were very active. And during the integration movement, there was not only the church leaders of the black church, but we did have some—a lot—the white churches, especially the Unitarian church on Arlington Boulevard, I think. INTERVIEWER 1: Yes. NARRATOR: And people from—representatives from there—and actually, they started an exchange going to the Unitarian church trying to get acclimated, shall we say, to what’s coming. [00:10:02] And so, I can say, yes, there was a lot of church support, support from the community churches and the church leaders. INTERVIEWER 1: Right, and the NAACP was— NARRATOR: Oh, yeah. They were—especially the lawyers. I can’t remember some of the names—Robinson, Tucker, I don’t even know if they’re still around these days. They were responsible for the lawsuit—conducted the lawsuit that was brought. And as far as the lawsuit was concerned, if I may digress, I remember we went down to the Alexander Courthouse for the hearings, and I guess there were pictures. [00:11:00] I don’t know if you’ve seen the pictures, but there were pictures of the original thirty plaintiffs that—school—the kids on the steps of the courthouse as we were leaving. And I remember that clearly. And I also remember sitting in the courtroom. I guess it was all day one day—and being bored stiff because you’re twelve years old, and you don’t really understand it. These lawyers are talking, and a lot of times, they’re having conferences with the judge, and so they’re whispering, and you’re twiddling your thumbs, and we were kind of told to be—you know, act properly. So you had to sit in your chair and behave, and so that was—it wasn’t very pleasant. INTERVIEWER 1: [00:12:00] Yeah, for a twelve-year-old— NARRATOR: I just remember for a twelve-year-old, it was—I’d rather be out playing basketball. (laughs) I think it was in the summer, too. I’m not sure. Maybe not. But anyway, you wanted—you’d rather be somewhere else. (laughs) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Activism and Decision to Go Clip - Oral History with Lance Newman, February 13, 2016, Transcript Subject The topic of the resource Desegregation Description An account of the resource Excerpt from the transcript of an oral history interview with Lance Newman on February 12, 2016, regarding his and his parents' involvement in desegregation activism and his decision to go to Stratford. Interviewers are Judy Knudsen and Joanna Dressel. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lance Newman Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Arlington County Library Oral History Program Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Arlington County Library Oral History Program Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 13-Feb-16 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Judy Knudsen Joanna Dressel Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This interview is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the interviews in the Local History Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Transcript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context newmanl20160213_Activism and Decision to Go Clip.pdf https://projectdaps.org/files/original/86183d2d239645a8c8cc113bbbed6b71.mp3 92542da2ebef168b2e78406e8b0c9341 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource First Day Clip - Oral History with Lance Newman, February 13, 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Desegregation Description An account of the resource Excerpt from the audio recording of an oral history interview with Lance Newman on February 12, 2016, regarding his memories of his first day at Stratford. Interviewers are Judy Knudsen and Joanna Dressel. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lance Newman Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Arlington County Library Oral History Program Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Arlington County Library Oral History Program Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 13-Feb-16 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Judy Knudsen Joanna Dressel Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This interview is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the interviews in the Local History Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Recording Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context newmanl20160213_First Day Clip.mp3 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/bed9c9870e6958a9ff3ecd7c7b55d3dd.pdf 68afac400e09bd2bc34a0e352a7b5ee2 PDF Text Text ARLINGTON PUBLIC LIBRARY Oral History Project “Desegregation of Arlington Public Schools” NARRATOR: Lance Newman INTERVIEWER 1: Judy Knudsen INTERVIEWER 2: Joanna Dressel DATE: February 13, 2016 First Day Clip INTERVIEWER 1: Let’s go back to that first day and describe the first day. NARRATOR: Okay. Let’s see. I remember getting up, getting ready, and I think my mom was—she was probably—she told me later she was a nervous wreck. INTERVIEWER 1: I’m sure. NARRATOR: Yeah. And I was kind of. I wasn’t—because I was there with my buddies. Actually, Ronnie and Michael and I were really good friends because we played softball together. Gloria—I knew Gloria, but I kind of felt sorry for her because she was the only girl. But so, we went down, and we all gathered at Ronnie Deskin’s house. [00:18:01] And there were reporters there and then all the people—community leaders. And then, we sat around and they took pictures. We got some pictures, then we piled into Mr. Jones’ car and went down to Stratford, and I guess on Old Dominion Drive they let us out, and we went—we actually went in the back of the school, not the main entrance at the front. I remember going down and getting off—crossing Old Dominion Drive. They had blocked it off—and then walking down the long pathway near the football field and tons—well, it seems like just a gauntlet of Arlington County police. They were in their riot gear with helmets and their riot gear. Actually, we were walking in by ourselves. They purposely had us come after school started, so we just went in. We went into the central entrance near the flagpole [00:19:01] in the back, went to the principal’s office, Mr. Richmond. They sort of had—they had a conference and they told us what to expect and all of this, tried to calm us I guess. And then, we were escorted down to our first class, and I remember going into—well, he was—my math teacher was Mr. Marks—and going into the class and seeing about thirty or—thirty all-white faces, and it was kind of tense. He was pretty good because he shook our hands and stuff and said, “Kids, this is—” and had us sit down. He had a seat and a desk for us. It was right up front. [00:20:02] And that was a Monday, I believe. Yeah, it was a Monday. And then, the next day—I mean it went okay. That class—and then I remember the first period bell ringing and going out in the hallways, and Stratford was a lot bigger than HB. I went to HB first. And I was going out in the hallway and seeing this mass of humanity changing classes, and people were kind of—pretty much—I think they were kind of staring. People were kind of—you know—wanted to ignore us. But it was tense, and then that day after school, we went back to—I guess actually we went back to my house, and then we had this press conference with the—and I remember the Washington Post and the local television stations were there and had big cameras set up, [00:21:01] and a guy interviewed us. The next day was quite different. I mean I think they still had police there but not as many. But that day was sort of the icebreaker because there was a kid that was sitting in front of me. He was Charles Aragon—Alagon—Aragon, and Mr. Marks said—I don’t remember what he said, but they were—something happened, and he cracked this joke and kind of broke the ice on the whole thing. And from sort of that time on, people were friendly and stuff and it was—so it made that experience a lot less—I mean a lot more palatable. And I wish I could remember what he said, but for the life of me, I can’t. But it was— INTERVIEWER 1: The kid said? NARRATOR: The kid. Yeah. His name was Charles Alagon, and I think he was—actually, he had volunteered, from what I found out, to be kind of [00:22:02] —to befriend us and all that kind of stuff. They asked kids beforehand, and he was one of them. I actually got to be pretty good friends with him and his father. His father was a captain in the Pentagon in the Navy. He was a captain in the Navy and worked at the Pentagon. I can say that at that time—I don’t know if they—I don’t think they do this anymore. At that time, you had periods where your class stayed pretty much together—you know, your math class and your speech class. [00:24:00] So they took us around, and they kind of escorted us. And I remember walking in the hallways. There were some stares, of course. And I must admit, there was some hostility, not really—you know-some of it was overt and some of it was kind of covert, but I remember one—I had a locker, and the kid next to me, as he saw me at the locker, he would stand out and he would stay away in the hall until I left. Or if he was at the locker [00:25:01] and I came and he didn’t see me till I got to my locker, he would stuff his books and run away—right away leave and stuff, he and his friend. So they were—I remember that. And then, there was not—there may have been sneers and stuff. I don’t remember overt name-calling. So all in all, I can say it was nothing like Little Rock or places in the South. So my experience—I can say my experiences there were, on the whole, fairly good. I can’t say that for some of the other kids. I think Michael and Ronnie and I kind of agree that it was—the process was not nearly as traumatic as we thought it would be. Gloria being the only girl, I think she was lonely. I mean it went well, she was a little bit more–but, [00:26:02] I’m not quite sure. And then, I know some of the kids that came after us. They have mixed feelings about the whole process. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource First Day Clip - Oral History with Lance Newman, February 13, 2016, Transcript Subject The topic of the resource Desegregation Description An account of the resource Excerpt from the transcript of an oral history interview with Lance Newman on February 12, 2016, regarding his memories of his first day at Stratford. Interviewers are Judy Knudsen and Joanna Dressel. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lance Newman Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Arlington County Library Oral History Program Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Arlington County Library Oral History Program Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 13-Feb-16 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Judy Knudsen Joanna Dressel Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This interview is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the interviews in the Local History Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Transcript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context newmanl20160213_First Day Clip.pdf https://projectdaps.org/files/original/ac39d9f0d0ed5258bdffeb4307481358.mp3 2d5246a681aa125c24cf3b2265bc8677 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Preparation Clip - Oral History with Lance Newman, February 13, 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Desegregation Description An account of the resource Excerpt from the audio recording of an oral history interview with Lance Newman on February 12, 2016, regarding his memories of the preparation he and the other students received leading up to desegregation. Interviewers are Judy Knudsen and Joanna Dressel. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lance Newman Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Arlington County Library Oral History Program Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Arlington County Library Oral History Program Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 13-Feb-16 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Judy Knudsen Joanna Dressel Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This interview is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the interviews in the Local History Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Recording Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context newmanl20160213_Preparation.mp3 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/af71506caef8c19c0e99df54b69b68c8.pdf 4c61fbf0551f731a4f677c33d4ba0d95 PDF Text Text ARLINGTON PUBLIC LIBRARY Oral History Project “Desegregation of Arlington Public Schools” NARRATOR: Lance Newman INTERVIEWER 1: Judy Knudsen INTERVIEWER 2: Joanna Dressel DATE: February 13, 2016 Preparation Clip INTERVIEWER 1: Of course. So I know that, leading up to this, you got a lot of preparation. Tell us about that. NARRATOR: Yeah. This is sort of a long—not a long story, but anyways, this is—the community leaders—Ms. Hamm, Ms. Cosley, Ms. Deskins and all the others—in conjunction with the NAACP and the whole organization did a lot of preparation on how to act, how to dress, what might happen when you go to school. You know, the abuse you may have to suffer, the name-calling and the stares and all of that. And this is a time of [00:13:00] passive resistance. You’re supposed to ignore it—suck it up and ignore it. But my dad did tell me. He said, “If somebody hits you, you’ve got permission to whale them.” So defend yourself, as it were. And then, there was also—because they thought—the thought at the time was that we weren’t maybe academically up to the level of the white kids that were at Stratford or in the white school system. We had—they had tutoring sessions, and a couple of things I remember. I went up to—this is after we did decide that the four of us were going to go. We went up to—gosh, I can’t remember the name. They were the church—Mrs. Wesson? She lived in Arlington, but I can’t remember [00:14:01] exactly where. Beyond Garden City, over in that area. Anyway, they were going to tutor us. So the first day we got there, it was in a room like—it wasn’t a kitchen, but they sat down and they were going to tutor us in math and English and stuff. So they started math, and I was really good in math. And so, Ronnie and Michael and Gloria were pretty good in English and stuff, too. So they started and they realized that—I didn’t realize this at the time, but what happened was after about an hour, they said, “These guys are just as sharp as anybody else, I guess.” And so, we just were tutored for about maybe an hour, and then we went out and played basketball with their sons. They had two sons that actually went to Stratford—or were going to Stratford. They were sixth graders at the time. Then we—and we actually came up there. I went up there for about—I don’t know—several weekends. This was on Saturdays. And we really didn’t [00:15:00] do much tutoring. And I really didn’t understand until I got to school, until I got my first week at Stratford. I didn’t understand what—like I said, we had been told that it’s going to be academically challenging or something like that. And I’ll relate this story. The first week at Stratford, after the first day—this is the first week—I got an assignment. I think it was like Wednesday from—in our English class or general education class. All it was—it was—we had to go home and write some sentences. We were just studying—it was English grammar. And so, we were studying sentences—write sentences and using certain parts of speech—you know, nouns, pronouns, subjects, verbs, and all of that—and we’re going to, the next day, present the sentences and do structure diagrams and all of that. I went home, and I must have spent hours. And I was trying. [00:16:00] I’ve got to make the best prose I possibly can. William F. Buckley would be proud of me. It was about twenty-five sentences you had to write. I took them to school the next day, and we got to class, and I think it was Mrs. Bowman that was our general ed teacher. So she calls one of the students up to go up to the board and write the sentences and break it down, and it was some sentence like, ‘He hit the ball,’ or something like that. They all were in that vein, and I looked at it, and I thought to my—this is what I actually thought to myself. I said, “These kids are as dumb as I am.” (laughter) INTERVIEWER 1: Maybe dumber. (laughter) NARRATOR: Yeah. And so, after that, that was an awakening. After that, I realized, like you said, there were smart [00:17:00] —a lot of smart kids and there were a lot of dumb kids, and they’re kids. They’re not the so-called superior beings that we were kind of led to believe in our preparation. You know. [00:17:17.5] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Preparation Clip - Oral History with Lance Newman, February 13, 2016, Transcript Subject The topic of the resource Desegregation Description An account of the resource Excerpt from the transcript of an oral history interview with Lance Newman on February 12, 2016, regarding his memories of the preparation he and the other students received leading up to desegregation. Interviewers are Judy Knudsen and Joanna Dressel. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lance Newman Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Arlington County Library Oral History Program Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Arlington County Library Oral History Program Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 13-Feb-16 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Judy Knudsen Joanna Dressel Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This interview is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the interviews in the Local History Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Transcript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context newmanl20160213_Preparation Clip.pdf https://projectdaps.org/files/original/dd57563fd6ef19d8d4020718ff4efc26.mp3 e017ea6761a81bba3376bac7eda7ab65 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Segregation, Hall's Hill, and The Wall Clip - Oral History with Lance Newman, February 13, 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Desegregation Description An account of the resource Excerpt from the audio recording of an oral history interview with Lance Newman on February 12, 2016, regarding his memories of growing up in the neighborhood of Hall's Hill, a segregated but supportive community. Interviewers are Judy Knudsen and Joanna Dressel. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lance Newman Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Arlington County Library Oral History Program Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Arlington County Library Oral History Program Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 13-Feb-16 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Judy Knudsen Joanna Dressel Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This interview is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the interviews in the Local History Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Recording Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context newmanl20160213_Segregation, Hall's Hill, and the Wall Clip.mp3 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/3debc9846da1471253a31d7755c67d04.pdf d0b1a56628ecca52d40aa86d12119bf4 PDF Text Text ARLINGTON PUBLIC LIBRARY Oral History Project “Desegregation of Arlington Public Schools” NARRATOR: Lance Newman INTERVIEWER 1: Judy Knudsen INTERVIEWER 2: Joanna Dressel DATE: February 13, 2016 Segregation, Hall’s Hill, and “The Wall” Clip NARRATOR: [00:01:40.9] Okay. Yes, it was a very nice place to grow up. There were community leaders, and most people were—as far as the black community were concerned—I guess you would call it lower-middle class tradesmen. [00:02:01] A lot of people worked for the government. But I guess, generally, I just want to tell you that there were no—I mean we—there was no overt racism at the time. There were problems. I can remember early on when I was extremely young going down to the—I think it was Kanns or Hecht Company at the—in the Parkington—whatever you call it—Ballston-Parkington. INTERVIEWER 1: Parkington would have been Hecht’s. Yeah, right. NARRATOR: And the sign just said—in the bathroom, I can vaguely remember it saying ‘colored.’ Okay. But that was one of my first introductions to it, and that’s when I may have been about four or five years old. But other than that, I can say that it was just a nice place to grow up, and I’m thankful for it. [00:03:06] Oh, and like I said, I actually did have a great set of parents. I didn’t please them all the time, (laughs) but who does? I drove them nuts sometimes, but we did. And so, I think that’s pretty much it about my feelings about— [00:03:25] INTERVIEWER 2: [00:06:44] Uh-huh (affirmative). And before then, had your parents talked to you about segregation and race relations in Arlington and things like that? NARRATOR: Not extensively. They kind of mentioned [00:07:00] there were problems and stuff, and we lived in our community. It’s all black. If you weren’t really—I mean we couldn’t—we didn’t venture out that much from the Hill because of that, but they didn’t—I don’t believe that they—they didn’t say that you can’t go to these places, but they said there were certain places—your boundary. You really shouldn’t be going. I remember that they—you know. This is from when they became a—when I got a little older, when you could go out on your own, going to places like Peoples Drug Store and [00:08:00] there’s a restaurant called Tops at the time on George Mason Drive and Lee Highway. And they were saying you couldn’t—you could only go in the back if you wanted something for takeout, and that was our—not introduction, but that was one of our memories of the segregated—the segregation in Arlington. INTERVIEWER 1: Uh-huh (affirmative). But you had a lot of your own businesses and things within the community. NARRATOR: Yeah. There was actually—that was pre-integration. After that, it kind of died. They had the stores like Miss Allen’s stores, Mr. Hicks’ store. I’m trying to remember all this—local grocery stores, mom-and-pop organizations. So we did have those. Like I said, it was a community contained in itself, so that was good, I thought. [00:08:57.3] INTERVIEWER 1: [00:47:08] One other thing I didn’t mention was people talk all the time about the wall that was there in Halls Hill. What do you remember? NARRATOR: I remember it. It was pretty—it was all around the—you know. Especially around 17th Street. Not Cameron Street. It was the next street over behind that, and it was a wooden wall. But in places, it was a cinderblock wall. I think that—this was a small part of it. But in the ’60s, it was renamed, and we started calling it the Berlin Wall, because after—it was ’61 or whenever that they put up the real one, so that was the moniker it got in the early ’60s. It separated the so-called—we called it the white section. I do remember—okay, if I can [00:48:00] relate to this—about my—I forgot to mention this, actually—interacting with white people. Every Halloween, we’d go trick-or-treating, and we used to go up to what we called the white section up there—22nd Street, across George Mason Drive—because they were the only ones that gave us tons of candy. Anyway, you know. Kids have masks on, and the people were pretty—and that was a big thing when you were in the second, third, and fourth grade for trick-or-treating, and we just went—you know. That was another thing that’s different today. Nobody lets their—if you were at that age, you let your kid go alone for pretty good reasons. But you did it in groups, and so that was a fond memory from my experience. INTERVIEWER 1: There had to be—I mean there had to be resentment about that, but was that ever—was that ever talked about particularly in—? [00:49:00] I mean everybody knew it was there, and it separated you. NARRATOR: Oh, the wall? INTERVIEWER 1: Yes. NARRATOR: Yes, it was—I guess it was sort of—it was—it certainly wasn’t a pleasant thing, and there was resentment. There wasn’t open hostility. We weren’t that close to it, relatively so. I didn’t get to have much interaction there, but I know you didn’t—you did not interact with the people on the other side of the wall, and they didn’t interact with you. It was the way it was, I guess. It did become—oh, I must admit there was—on 16th Street, which is right just south of the wall, I guess. There were a couple of homes that had these [00:50:00] —what do you call them? Those hitching posts with the stable boy. That was—that was a very negative emblem for us. I think one day—I think some of the—and sometime somebody did—they vandalized it. You know, knocked his head off or something like that. This was in the mid ’60s or something like that. But I remember passing because when—coming home from—this is when I was at W&L. I used to walk home going up 16th Street, and you had to pass that statue all the time. INTERVIEWER 1: Right [00:50:47] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Segregation, Hall's Hill, and The Wall Clip - Oral History with Lance Newman, February 13, 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Desegregation Description An account of the resource Excerpt from the transcript of an oral history interview with Lance Newman on February 12, 2016, regarding his memories of growing up in the neighborhood of Hall's Hill, a segregated but supportive community. Interviewers are Judy Knudsen and Joanna Dressel. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lance Newman Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Arlington County Library Oral History Program Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Arlington County Library Oral History Program Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 13-Feb-16 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Judy Knudsen Joanna Dressel Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This interview is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the interviews in the Local History Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Transcript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context newmanl20160213_Segregation, Hall's Hill, and the Wall Clip.pdf https://projectdaps.org/files/original/01ebbd1516fdb4c517a80610642d0c8a.mp3 1099bc976227c4769db6c0906bab7e68 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sports and Social Activities Clip - Oral History with Lance Newman, February 13, 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Desegregation Description An account of the resource Excerpt from the audio recording of an oral history interview with Lance Newman on February 12, 2016, regarding his memories of the desegregation of school athletics and social activities. Interviewers are Judy Knudsen and Joanna Dressel. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lance Newman Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Arlington County Library Oral History Program Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Arlington County Library Oral History Program Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 13-Feb-16 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Judy Knudsen Joanna Dressel Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This interview is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the interviews in the Local History Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource mp3 Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Audio Recording Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context newmanl20160213_Sports Clip.mp3 https://projectdaps.org/files/original/6529b840166c3ff6a0229aafa4f325ad.pdf f1264b0c197e459ac12fad88c3d031eb PDF Text Text ARLINGTON PUBLIC LIBRARY Oral History Project “Desegregation of Arlington Public Schools” NARRATOR: Lance Newman INTERVIEWER 1: Judy Knudsen INTERVIEWER 2: Joanna Dressel DATE: February 13, 2016 Sports and Social Activities Clip NARRATOR: On through my high school career, I played football. Ronnie and I played football, so we knew a lot of the football players and stuff. In fact, [00:27:00] it was kind of nice meeting everybody a year and a half ago at our reunion. INTERVIEWER 1: So, by that time, the athletics were integrated, because at first they were not. That's my understanding. NARRATOR: Exactly. Yeah, all through Stratford, there was no—because I think that was a Virginia law. INTERVIEWER 1: Yeah, I’m sure. NARRATOR: Yeah. It was a Virginia law—no social active, no athletics, no intermingling of that. And that changed, I believe, when I—and not in the ninth grade. When we went to W&L in the tenth grade—tenth, eleventh, twelfth grade and high school—yeah. And there was no—you didn’t go to prom. I don’t know. Yeah, I can’t remember going. I can’t remember a junior high school prom. I didn’t go, anyway. But anyway, there were no dances at that time. [00:28:00] It later opened up in high school. INTERVIEWER 1: So also the social activities also— NARRATOR: Yeah, the social activities started opening up. After I went to W&L, they started. They used to have the socials. They used to have the after-football-game dances at Mount Olivet [United Methodist Church] INTERVIEWER 1: Oh, yeah. NARRATOR: It was 16th Street and Lee Road. INTERVIEWER 1: Yeah, I know. Yeah. NARRATOR: Everybody met there. But that was quite a few years after the original integration. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sports and Social Activities Clip - Oral History with Lance Newman, February 13, 2016, Transcript Subject The topic of the resource Desegregation Description An account of the resource Excerpt from the transcript of an oral history interview with Lance Newman on February 12, 2016, regarding his memories of the desegregation of school athletics and social activities. Interviewers are Judy Knudsen and Joanna Dressel. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lance Newman Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Arlington County Library Oral History Program Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Arlington County Library Oral History Program Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 13-Feb-16 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Judy Knudsen Joanna Dressel Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This interview is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the interviews in the Local History Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource pdf Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Transcript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context newmanl20160213_Sports and Social Activities Clip.pdf Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Arlington Public Library Oral History Program Description An account of the resource The Arlington Oral History Program preserves the memories of Arlingtonians who witnessed and made history in a growing collection of over 375 interviews. This sample features interviews with people who were involved in the desegregation of Arlington Public Schools in various ways. You can listen to the audio recording of the interview and read through the typed transcript by clicking any of the files. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 86kbps Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:51:47 Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Lance Newman Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Judy Knudsen Joanna Dressel Location The location of the interview Arlington County, Virginia Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Digital Recording Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Judy Knudsen Joanna Dressel Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1950s-1980s Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lance Newman Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 13-Feb-16 Description An account of the resource Lance Newman was one of the first four students to break the segregation barriers in Arlington Public Schools by attending the previously all-white Stratford Junior High School in 1959. Mr. Newman grew up in the Hall’s Hill neighborhood, a historically African-American community in northern Arlington County. After graduating from Washington-Lee High School, Mr. Newman went on to attend Howard University. He was interviewed for the Arlington Public Library Oral History Program by Judith Knudsen and Joanna Dressel, and his interview is available in its full audio and typed transcript forms. You can also read and listen to excerpts from his oral history, regarding his preparation for his transition to Stratford, the events of the first day, and the experience of living in a tight-knit, though segregated, community. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context newmanl20160213 Language A language of the resource English Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Arlington County Library Oral History Program Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource This interview is subject to copyright. Unauthorized use of the interviews in the Local History Collections of the Arlington Community Archives is prohibited. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Arlington County Library Oral History Program Subject The topic of the resource Desegregation Title A name given to the resource Oral History with Lance Newman, February 13, 2016 Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History