Oral History Interview with Vera Allen

Vera Allen

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ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH VERA ALLEN
AUGUST 30, 2001
INTERVIEWED BY OLOYE ADEYEMON
The transcript below corresponds to the media embedded on this page

BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

EDITORIAL NOTICE

The transcript follows as closely as possible the recorded interview, including the usual starts, stops, and other rough spots in typical conversation. Due to the sensitive nature of the interview, it may contain inflammatory language that some find offensive. The reader should remember that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written, word. Stylistic matters, such as punctuation and capitalization, follow the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th edition.

ABSTRACT

Vera Jones Allen was born in Charles City, Va., in 1913. Her parents, Julius and Edna Jones had seven children, Irvin, Harold, Herman, Garland, Wilda, Iva and Vera. She attended Virginia State College where she majored in social studies and went on to become an educator for 43 years as a teacher, principal and later an assistant to the superintendent. She was an educator in Prince Edward County, Va., during the Davis v. County School Board case. She discusses her experiences as an educator during the case and the role of the Forrester Council of Women in improvement efforts in the segregated county.

People Mentioned: Julius Jones, Edna Jones, Irvin Jones, Harold Jones, Herman Jones, Garland Jones, Wilda Jones, Iva Jones, Martha Forrester, Ida Miller,

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Transcript

Oloye Adeyemon: Brown v. Board oral history collection, Prince Edward County, Virginia, school segregation to segregation interviews. Interviewee: Mrs. Vera Allen. Interviewer: Oloye Adeyemon for the National Park Service. Interview conducted in the home of Mrs. Allen in Farmville, Virginia, on August 30th, 2001. These interviews are made possible through the Brown v. Board Oral History Research Project funded by the National Park Service for the summer of 2001 as part of the Brown v. Board Oral History Research Project. Mrs. Allen, what is your full name?

Vera Allen: My full name is Vera Jones Allen.

Oloye Adeyemon: And what is your birthdate?

Vera Allen: December 21st, 1913.

Oloye Adeyemon: And where were you born?

Vera Allen: In Charles City, Virginia.

Oloye Adeyemon: And what are your parents’ names?

Vera Allen: My—Julius Jones and Edna Brown Jones.

Oloye Adeyemon: And were they born in Charles City?

Vera Allen: Yes. Both of them.

Oloye Adeyemon: Do you have brothers and sisters?

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: What are their names?

Vera Allen: I had, uh, two sisters and four brothers.

Oloye Adeyemon: And what were their names?

Vera Allen: Oldest brother was named Irvin, Harold, Herman, and Garland. My sister was Wilda and Iva.

Oloye Adeyemon: What did your parents do for a living?

Vera Allen: My father was a businessman. He didn’t believe in working for anybody but yourself—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - and he had several businesses like a grocery store and a fish market and a boarding house and a series of things. His whole life, yeah, he don’t work for anybody, make your own jobs.

Oloye Adeyemon: All right.

Vera Allen: And that he did.

Oloye Adeyemon: All right.

Vera Allen: And he took good care of us.

Oloye Adeyemon: And your mother, what did she do?

Vera Allen: My mother was a housewife.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: She helped with the businesses but generally a housewife.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. And what do you do for a living?

Vera Allen: I’ve been in public education for 43 years in everything. I started with, uh, elementary school. And I went all the way to being assistant to the superintendent.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: That—

Oloye Adeyemon: I see.

Vera Allen: So that’s what I retired from.

Oloye Adeyemon: So you were teaching at [unintelligible 02:38]?

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: And your husband owned a funeral parlor here in Farmville?

Vera Allen: Yes. He taught a little while first. He finished college, but he didn’t like it very much, and so he—afterward, opened a funeral home.

Oloye Adeyemon: What did he teach?

Vera Allen: He taught elementary school, too.

Oloye Adeyemon: And the name of the funeral parlor was?

Vera Allen: It was E B Allen Funeral Home.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: And back to my husband’s teaching, he taught in elementary school, and then he taught, uh, vocational agriculture in high school for a while—

Oloye Adeyemon: All right.

Vera Allen: - especially with returned veterans.

Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. And has the—is the funeral, uh, home still in operation today?

Vera Allen: Yes. It is.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. And do—does your family still run it?

Vera Allen: Yes. It still has its original name.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. Uh, you’ve also been active in civil groups as well, haven’t you?

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: Uh, what are some of those groups?

Vera Allen: Well, almost anything, church, civic organizations, and within them our women’s organizations here that was organized in 1920, the Martha E. Forrester Council of Women, and that’s still functioning. I’m president of it right now.

Oloye Adeyemon: Is it true that that was one of the first of its type in the country?

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: Can you tell us—

Vera Allen: And the—

Oloye Adeyemon: - a little bit about it?

Vera Allen: - and the longest, uh—well, they were interested in—well, first creek, uh, maintaining harmony among the races. They—there was never any violence, never anything of that nature in connection with that. And then they were interested in, uh, education. And even though they had the four or five different objectives, education had been the one that they worked on the longest. And all the way to the end—still working on it. Anything in discrepancies, anything that they see in it, they go to the board and talk about it.

Oloye Adeyemon: Who founded it?

Vera Allen: Um, it was founded by Mrs. Martha E. Forrester from Richmond. She was among the first Afro-American teachers to be hired in the city of Richmond. But, uh, she had one daughter who married and came here. And in Richmond, you couldn’t, uh, teach if you were married. And so she came here to live. And she saw all these needs that we had in the county, so she just took charge and organized with 20 women, and they were all women with families, who [unintelligible 05:13], but they all were very devoted and very devout to the cause of that.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: And we had—we have had as many as 50 members, but we don’t have that many now. And the men could only be just members if they—you know, wi—they had wives in there. But now we have one or two—two or three paying members.

Oloye Adeyemon: That are men?

Vera Allen: And we still, um, with the national organization.

Oloye Adeyemon: What is the national organization?

Vera Allen: Uh, National Council of-of-of Colored Women.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: But we-we dropped that “colored”—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - a-after a while. We just—we’re just the National Council—the Martha E. Forrester Council of Women.

Oloye Adeyemon: I see.

Vera Allen: But one time, we were colored women.

Oloye Adeyemon: I understand.

Vera Allen: But we’re not that way anymore.

Oloye Adeyemon: Was your husband’s mother a member?

Vera Allen: Yes. She was one of the first members. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: She’s a native of Farmville, and she’s first on the list. She was an Allen, and A’s—they were in, you know, alphabetical arrange. She’s first on the list.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. What was her name?

Vera Allen: Huh?

Oloye Adeyemon: What was her name? Your husband’s [crosstalk 06:21]?

Vera Allen: Her name-her name was Ida Miller.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. And you joined at a very early point after—

Vera Allen: Very early because I—then I took care of the-of the women. We had three leading women in the—Miss Forrester had two very good friends, women her age, uh, uh, Mrs. Miller, uh, and, uh, Mrs. Hock. Mrs. Hock’s husband was a minister. And, uh, they were very good friends, and I drove them around, took them around, you know, I drove all of ’em.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. What year did you join?

Vera Allen: I’m-I’m not so sure very sure exactly what year I joined. I—the late ’30s, I believe.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: That’s the best I can guess right now.

Oloye Adeyemon: What were some of the early things that they did in relationship to the schools and education?

Vera Allen: Well, at that particular time, uh, Prince Edward didn’t make any provisions for secondary education. They just—for Black people, you just went to elementary school, and then you didn’t go anywhere else. And, uh, when I that, the people now who didn’t remember, I say, “Well, my husband was one of those people because he couldn’t finish high school here.” He went to Cumberland. His parents bought him a car, and he took some other people along, and he went [unintelligible 07:38] so he could finish. And then went on to a better college.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: But, see, in Charles City, when I come here, we had had a-a secondary school, so it surprised me to see a place this size without one and-and then a little place—Charles is a country place, and we have a high school—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - and we could go to college.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. What college did you go to? Or did—

Vera Allen: Virginia State College.

Oloye Adeyemon: It was not that far away?

Vera Allen: Huh?

Oloye Adeyemon: It was not that far away from where you were?

Vera Allen: No. It isn’t, and it was the only one that’s available in the state for us. We had no way—no—we didn’t have any choices. Of course, Hampton Institute was organized for us—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - but it was an expensive school—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - and it was operated by white people, but it was organized for us—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - and still organized.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: But we have a-a number of people from here who go there, but we didn’t go. We went to Virginia State.

Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. So Virginia State was not as expensive to go to at that time?

Vera Allen: No. It wasn’t so expensive. What—we called it expensive, but it really wasn’t ’cause I-I don’t think we paid over 25 or $26 a-a month, and, you know, we had to do our own laundry and keep our own rooms and everything, but we thought that was a little bit of money. But that was hard to get for families, you know, that didn’t have much income.

Oloye Adeyemon: I understand.

Vera Allen: And then they gave us some help, too. If you-if you didn’t have the money, they gave you little jobs like work in the dining room and helping in the laundry and—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - all that, so working in the-in the dormitories.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: But they made provisions for you. They seldom turned anybody away. You got to be very bad to be turned away, you know. And it was—and since it was operated by the state, so.

Oloye Adeyemon: So by it’s being operated by the state, you had a little—there was some subsidy there, whereas it wasn’t in Hampton?

Vera Allen: Yeah. Yeah. That’s right. This is true.

Oloye Adeyemon: Okay.

Vera Allen: And Hampton still now is the most expensive school in the state, but it’s a good school.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: And we—a number of people who go there, but it’s a very, very strong school—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - but very expensive school too.

Oloye Adeyemon: Makes sense. So when you came to live in Farmville, you had already graduated with—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - from the—

Vera Allen: And then taught a year.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. And taught a year before you came?

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: When you came with your—were you already married when you came to—

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: - came to Farmville? When you came to live in Farmville, you didn’t start teaching at that time in Farmville, did you? When you first arrived, you-you weren’t teaching here in town?

Vera Allen: No. That’s right. I was in the county—

Oloye Adeyemon: Yes.

Vera Allen: - but it was all the same school system, see?

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: It was, uh, it—Prince Edward County, and that meant the town of Farmville and Prince Edward. It was all one, see?

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: We just had one superintendent, but it was one school division.

Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. I wanna come back to that. But I wanted to ask another question about the Martha E. Forrester, uh, Council of Women before we move on. Um, they—what-what role did they play in getting the high school? How—exactly how did that come about?

Vera Allen: They just kept on goin’ to the school board and-and-and-and asking them to do it.

Oloye Adeyemon: Uh-huh.

Vera Allen: Just kept on going, and they kept promising and not doing it, but they kept on going. Mrs. Forrester was a-a very persistent woman. She looked like a pioneer woman. You know, she dressed—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - a little differently from us.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: But she was a very strong woman, a very intelligent woman, and a very persistent woman. And she found some good, strong women here. And I look sometime at the dist—uh, those people who, um, they were all mothers. They had families, and some of them had jobs, you know, but they followed her all the time. She was very trustworthy and very nice to deal with.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: But she didn’t, um, mind being persistent, you know.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: She was always there. She was very, very strong.

Oloye Adeyemon: Did the Martha E. Forrester Council women actually raise some of the money to get the school built?

Vera Allen: Yes. They did, yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: How did they go about that?

Vera Allen: Well, just had programs and different donations. People just give what—you give a little money. They were—you know, buy books for the children and everything.

Oloye Adeyemon: So—

Vera Allen: So sometimes if there were a lot of children, even years after that, who didn’t have hardly clothes to wear, and then—and some of them didn’t have any materials like books, you know. And I was listening to a report just recently that, uh, Black teachers had how many hundreds of dollars out of their own salaries that they had to use to buy m—so they would have teaching materials.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: And how come they just had [unintelligible 12:30], just had it within the last week.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: Of course, I knew about it, but I mean—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - just to have them to come with those statistics now just—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - was a little surprising.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So when the school was built, it was really a result of the Martha E. Forrester Council of Women, uh, persistently staying on the school—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - board about it. But it—when it was built, it was actually built with a combination of funds from the county and funds that the Forrester Council of Women had—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - raised themselves.

Vera Allen: Yes. Now, which school are you talking about? D—we had that building across the other side of Main or-or the high school?

Oloye Adeyemon: Wh-which was the first building that they had built?

Vera Allen: The first one was across the high school, but they had the, um, elementary section on the first floor, and they had secondary on the second floor, but, you know, it wasn’t room enough for anybody—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - and they just had it, and they-they didn’t have all the subjects that they needed either. Th-that’s why they kept being persistent to get a-a secondary school—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - ’cause by that time, I tell you, some of the—our students were goin’ over in Cumberland so they could finish.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. What year was it when they were successful in getting this high school built, approximately?

Vera Allen: Uh, late ’30s.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Late ’30s. And—

Vera Allen: [Unintelligible 13:56] should’ve been able to tell you ’cause same time it was in their class.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. And so it was built, and now students, Black students here in Prince Edward County, had a high school in town that they could come to?

Vera Allen: Yeah. That’s right. But it wasn’t big enough.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: It-it was a nice little building, you know, very nicely built. The first we’d had, and we were proud of it, but it just wasn’t enough space in it for our children. And this is what made the—made [unintelligible 14:27] to strike.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So this building was the high school until what point when the other high school was built?

Vera Allen: The one across the street? I told you it was—

Oloye Adeyemon: Yes.

Vera Allen: - upstairs. That was the high school until we built that one across the street.

Oloye Adeyemon: And how long a period was that in between those two?

Vera Allen: I’m not sure the exact time. I don’t know. I would-I would say 8 to 10 years.

Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. So for quite a while—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - students had to go to that two-story building even—

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: - though it was very crowded?

Vera Allen: Yeah. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: When the new high school was built, it’s—it, too, quickly became overcrowded.

Vera Allen: Yes. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Okay.

Vera Allen: It only—eight classrooms, and it was-it was very crowded.

Oloye Adeyemon: Was this because it hadn’t been built to accommodate all the students, or was there an increase in the population? Why did—why’d the schools become overcrowded so quickly?

Vera Allen: I’ve often wondered. I don’t know. I don’t know why. They-they knew they didn’t have enough room at the other building, and maybe that’s all the money they wanted to spend—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - and because, uh, uh, a nicely built building, you know, they had a-a real contract done.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: And even when we’ve had something like that recently, he was up there one time, and I told him. I-I said—uh, he still has a-a business here in town. And I said, “Well, I’m glad you all built this building because it was a nice—” I say, “You built it brick by brick. Any other time I see, you brought the whole building on the truck.”

Oloye Adeyemon: So is it correct, then, that the conditions that existed that the students were protesting against in ’51 were conditions that also were present in the two-story building and the Forrester Council of Women, early on, had been trying to bring attention to the same thing that the students later were—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - successful in bringing—

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: - national attention to?

Vera Allen: That’s right. That’s right. That’s exactly right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Has the role that the Forrester Council of Women, uh, played to your—in your mind been adequately recognized?

Vera Allen: Then, I-I—maybe not now, but I think then it was.

Oloye Adeyemon: What about—

Vera Allen: But—

Oloye Adeyemon: - today?

Vera Allen: - but even so now, we, uh, we were—we want to get it up because we-we still think there are circumstances or conditions that we need to speak to.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. And I’m asking that—I-I realize that I’m an outsider and people here know the history very well, but this collection is gonna be looked at by people around the country, and I don’t think a lot of people will realize, uh, the role that the Forrester Council of Women played—

Vera Allen: Very strong.

Oloye Adeyemon: - in this.

Vera Allen: And that’s why I say we were-we were—the, uh, uh, [unintelligible 17:40] women is-is-is a national organization. It’s—it has a district, a local, a district, and a national affiliation. And we have always affiliated, even though the national affiliation is not as active as it used to be. But when the time came, this time to pay our dues, the members said, “Yes. We’re gonna pay. We gonna still, even though there-there are not as many organizations active, but we gonna [unintelligible 18:06] because we’ve always been there, and we still want to be there.” And they pay those dues—

Oloye Adeyemon: Besides your—

Vera Allen: - every year.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Besides your efforts to get that new high school, uh, what other things over the years was the Forrester-Forrester Council of Women involved in as far as education is concerned?

Vera Allen: Well, all school matters, you know. Um, when I said all school matters, I mean, the press—hiring personnel for-for the schools, you know, jobs for our people if they wanted to work here. So, an example, if you were here, and you wanted a job in the school, and they didn’t give you one, we would-we would go for you to—we’d go before them and ask if they hire you if we-if we thought that you—

Oloye Adeyemon: You were qualified.

Vera Allen: Yes. And could do the work.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: They speak the most—lay—we were speaking to most things. And at that time, we didn’t ha—weren’t paying anything hardly, but we always paid our members all the way to the national every year.

Oloye Adeyemon: How much aware was the national of what you were doing in these areas durin’ that time, and how supportive was the national organization?

Vera Allen: Ver-very active. Very—they recognized us because even when things started going downhill with the, uh—at the national level, when we were trying to decide whether we were gonna still affiliate, I called the little lady who had been president and talked to her about it, and she just begged us not to give up. Just [unintelligible 19:46] please function the same way. We—if we had any questions, they would be glad to answer. The first time I called her, she wasn’t at home. She’d gone to New York to attend to some business. But when she came back, she called me—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - and asked us not to give it up.

Oloye Adeyemon: The national organization was pretty—

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: - proud-proud of what you were doing.

Vera Allen: Yes. Yes. They can—could count on us.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. That’s great. So when you came—

Female Voice: Talk about the gifts that you all gave the schools, Mom—

Vera Allen: Oh, yeah.

Female Voice: - with curtains.

Vera Allen: Yeah. We bought the piano for the auditorium. We bought the curtains for the stage—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - you know, all those extra things that the county couldn’t afford to buy. We-we brought those.

Oloye Adeyemon: This is in the second high school?

Vera Allen: Yes. Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: So you played a very active role?

Vera Allen: Yes. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: And these were things that-that based on the separate but equal—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - they should’ve been doin’ because they were doing it for white schools—

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: - but they weren’t.

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: And so you supplemented those—

Female Voice: I think you all bought something—bought curtains in the first building, too.

Vera Allen: Yeah. We bought—yeah. That’s right. We did. We bought—

Female Voice: First [crosstalk 20:54]—

Vera Allen: That’s right, we did.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: We-we bought curtains for the first building to [unintelligible 20:58], um, and then when we went to the new building, we bought curtains over there again. And—

Female Voice: And a piano.

Vera Allen: And a—yeah, and a piano.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. So they—

Female Voice: Baby grand.

Oloye Adeyemon: So—oh, baby grand?

Female Voice: A baby grand.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. Wow. That’s-that’s great.

Vera Allen: Classy, isn’t it?

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Very. What, um, wh—were the, um, qualifications of white teachers at that time? What were the qualifications of Black teachers? Was there a difference?

Vera Allen: Yes. Because they didn’t—even in going to school, they didn’t recommend but two years to us. They-they called it at that time a “normal” certificate, see? And if you’re goin’ to send your children—Black children to college, that’s all you had to send them. And I told you my father went somewhere one day, and somebody told him you can [unintelligible 21:51] four-year. He said you’re going four, too.

Oloye Adeyemon: All right.

Vera Allen: But-but we-we didn’t know that in the—I well—didn’t always know exactly how much they were telling the white people. That-that’s what it was for us. And then we started going four, too.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: But it was a long time. Well, a lot—a right long—not a very long time before we were going four.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. So, in your case, how many years were you able to go?

Vera Allen: Four.

Oloye Adeyemon: And what did you take? What-what did you major in?

Vera Allen: I took, uh—I-I was a social studies—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - but the first year I taught, I was glad to get out because I was a little young, for the children in my classroom was just as old as I was, you know. You know, I-I was finishing early, and the—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - the children in the class would—boys were driving buses and—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - and I said that if I ever get outta this, I’m gonna do something else, and I did. I came back and got myself some elementary education. That’s what I—it said my children were—they were staying at home on Saturdays with somebody else, and I’m going to school every Saturday morning—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - to get-get that straight. And I’m glad I did because it helped me with some other jobs too, you know. And then I worked in—uh, got a job. Uh, they were looking for some people to be supervisors of the schools, you know.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: Well, that helped me to get a better job, a higher-paying job.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: And I’d always moved up a little bit.

Oloye Adeyemon: So—

Vera Allen: [crosstalk 23:30] workin’ all the time.

Oloye Adeyemon: So their normal degree was like an associate degree today.

Vera Allen: Yeah. Yeah. That’s right, two years.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. So—

Vera Allen: And that’s all we were getting. And-and then, sometimes they—we—they didn’t even that, just maybe—they just finished high school—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - and, you know, and didn’t have any teachers, and they got jobs too.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. What were-what were the, uh, qualifications? What was required of the white teachers at that time?

Vera Allen: Well, they said—they didn’t make the difference, you know, when they advertised it, but we-we did—we-we thought—we didn’t know there was a difference. Now, I remember when we had got a new superintendent. He brought with him some white teachers, and one of those white teachers got a—was hired when I was. When I found out she was makin’ more money than I was, I called his hand.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: And I told him. I said, “I already have my master’s degree, and she’s just workin’ on hers.”

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. And she was getting paid more than you?

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: What year was that, approximately?

Vera Allen: Let’s see. That we—oh, it’s been about 25 years ago.

Oloye Adeyemon: Did he correct the situation?

Vera Allen: Yes. Yes. He did. Yes. He did.

Oloye Adeyemon: You didn’t have to get the Forrester Council of Women involved, did you? [Laughter 24:46].

Vera Allen: No. He knew I knew what I was talkin’ about, lookin’ right in his hand.

Oloye Adeyemon: Maybe he just knew you were a member. So—

Vera Allen: He took me in his office to work with him after that and tried to hide much more.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: But that was all right, too.

Oloye Adeyemon: Was there a difference in the curriculum in the white schools and the Black schools?

Vera Allen: Well, this is one—something I always like to tell, and it’s the truth. Uh, we didn’t even get—we didn’t ever get—we didn’t get any new textbooks, Black people didn’t. When-when the state said, uh, “These books that you’re using now are out—they have to go,” we got those books.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: And I thought that was a terrible thing. I still think it is. So we never had new textbooks.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. And these books would’ve been books that white students had already used?

Vera Allen: Yeah. Yeah. Had used and-and-and the state said they can get new ones, you know.

Oloye Adeyemon: So what we’re-what we’re dealin’ with here is not only a used book but an outdated curriculum.

Vera Allen: Yes. That’s right. This is right. That’s right. It was some little time before we noticed that there better bookstore downtown, and when we got [unintelligible 26:04] books, we had to go down into the store and get these books. And then, um, somebody else laughed and said, “Well, that was—she didn’t mind the books because it’s—the white children marked their right answers in some of ’em, you know, so they didn’t have to study.” How you thought about that?

Oloye Adeyemon: So was there a difference also in the courses that were available?

Vera Allen: Yes. Because when we were over in this other building here, over here at the first high school, we didn’t have all the courses. We didn’t have all the science courses, you know. And [unintelligible 26:43]—I guess we got them all after we got in the new school, but we didn’t have ’em over here.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: We had math, and we—and, uh—

Female Voice: Didn’t have foreign language either, did you?

Vera Allen: No. No, foreign language, no.

Oloye Adeyemon: And when was foreign language introduced to the Black students?

Vera Allen: Well-well, there before we got—and then we get French—

Female Voice: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: Did we get Latin?

Female Voice: Every now and then.

Vera Allen: Mm-hmm.

Oloye Adeyemon: But this was a long time before this was introduced?

Vera Allen: Yes. Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: What about science labs? Were they equipped with—

Vera Allen: No. We didn’t get very much scot—we got general science, made a course in general science. And every time I look to the sky and even when the sun’s settin’, I remember I was doin’ a unit with the children on weather—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - you know—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - I was real good with that one—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - ’cause I learn—I had learned it from my momma. She was really telling weather.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: She didn’t learn it out of a book.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: But it was-it was true, though.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: See, the sun’s setting, and if it sits in a gray cloud, you know—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - the next day we gonna have [unintelligible 27:39] weather. Watch it sometimes.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: It’s true.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. It’s good. So you got some other [unintelligible 27:45] in school as well.

Vera Allen: Yeah. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: With the, uh, labs, in the white schools, they were pretty well equipped with—

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: - with equipment—

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: - to do experiments.

Vera Allen: That’s right. Now, back in the day, when they did school up here, they didn’t want us to buy this school up here—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - in the first place. There was a school about two blocks over, a white school.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: Well, the first thing they did with that was to tear it down—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - and thinking that we would-we would want-we would want this one.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: But we did.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Hmm. So there was a difference in the curriculum. There was a difference in the courses. There—

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: - were difference in the supplies—

Vera Allen: Co-course offerings, yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: I understand they didn’t have a gymnasium. They didn’t have a—

Vera Allen: No. No.

Oloye Adeyemon: - cafeteria.

Vera Allen: No. No.

Oloye Adeyemon: And these were things that the white schools—

Vera Allen: Yes. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: - had. So the schools, in fact, were definitely separate—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - and unequal.

Vera Allen: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: And who said that this wasn’t? One of the judges that said it could not—and I think the sign is hanging in this building r—up here right now. No-no such thing as, you know, bein’ equal.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. So with the, um, buses, children coming to high school had to come into Farmville from—

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: - other surrounding areas.

Vera Allen: Yes. And, see, and Farmville’s at the end of the county.

Oloye Adeyemon: Oh, it is?

Vera Allen: And-and they-and they are a long ways to come.

Oloye Adeyemon: Are we at the west end or the east end?

Vera Allen: We—I guess this is southern [unintelligible 29:19].

Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. Southern.

Vera Allen: No. No. South-south and north. This is, uh, north, you know.

Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. So one of the things, then, that students had to do was find a way to get to school.

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: Were buses pr-provided—

Vera Allen: Yes. Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - for-for the children to go on?

Vera Allen: Yeah. We didn’t have real school buses, just anybody who had a bus, and then we—offering us the rides, you know, and then they got buses.

Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. So initially, there were no school buses [crosstalk 29:42]—

Vera Allen: Huh-uh. No.

Oloye Adeyemon: So it might’ve been families bringing children?

Vera Allen: Yeah. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: That’s true.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. So I guess we’ve talked about some of the, uh, shortcomings, but I’d lie—now like to talk about one of the strips because consistently—

Vera Allen: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Oloye Adeyemon: - throughout the interviews in South Carolina, Delaware, and D.C., consistently, the children have praised their teachers. They have indicated that, looking back at it, their teachers were able to perform miracles.

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Can you talk about the ways in which the teachers were creative and ingenious and motivated their students and—

Vera Allen: They took—

Oloye Adeyemon: - and—

Vera Allen: - they took time with you if-if it was something in-in arithmetic, showing an example you didn’t quite understand. And there were maybe two or three in that group. We didn’t have two grades and—or anything like that because teachers hadn’t learned how to do that. But they would take those children off to the side. And sometime, take some stronger students to work with these children, show them how to do this math problem or to understand this—I mean, [unintelligible 30:54] foreign language or whatever it was.

Oloye Adeyemon: Would you say there’s a difference between education then and education now, especially for Black children, was the attitude of their teachers—

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: - and how-how concerned the teachers—

Vera Allen: Yes. Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: - were about their learning?

Vera Allen: Yes. They were always anxious to-to help us, you know. Never had any problems with—and-and-and very few discipline problems—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - very few. They were very anxious to be there.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. And the parents were concerned.

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: I mean, you had a lot of support from parents.

Vera Allen: Yes. Yes. Very, very good support.

Oloye Adeyemon: Would—

Vera Allen: And then—and even when the schools have closed and-and parents had to take children away, a lot of times that they got the, you know, offerings to—from people who were willing to take their children. We had children to go away from here and go all the way through high school with us.

Oloye Adeyemon: This was when the schools were closed?

Vera Allen: Yes. Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: So by and large, then, you know, the strength of those schools at that time was tea—were the teachers. The teachers were the strength of that because—

Vera Allen: Yes. Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: - the teachers, even though they didn’t have all the supplies and resources—

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: - they themselves were concerned about teaching and concerned—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - about their students.

Vera Allen: And children learning.

Oloye Adeyemon: And they were part of the community.

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: They sometimes were relatives of the students. They were members of the church.

Vera Allen: We-we were required—I remember when-when I first started teaching. We were required almost to go to church, you know, to go over there and meet people, and I thought that was a good strength [unintelligible 32:26].

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Would you say that during that period that parents were much more concerned about their children’s education and much more involved than now?

Vera Allen: I think much more involved and much more concerned, yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. So all around—

Vera Allen: I—and then the too—I wonder sometime, though, if-if concern and the environment would, you know, might be based on the fact that it’s—things going on in schools now that parents are not—can’t do. They don’t understand, you know. One [unintelligible 32:58], maybe they didn’t know—have any foreign language. They can’t do anything to help the children, you know, because they don’t n—haven’t had it.

Female Voice: Mm-hmm.

Oloye Adeyemon: That’s great. So when the, uh, events occurred, you know, and the schools, uh, the-the walkout took place.

Vera Allen: Mm-hmm.

Oloye Adeyemon: You weren’t teaching in Farmville at the time.

Vera Allen: Huh-uh. No.

Oloye Adeyemon: Where were you at when that happened?

Vera Allen: I think I was over in Cumberland, I guess.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. And what was your reaction when you heard about it, particularly since your daughter was [crosstalk 33:35]—

Vera Allen: Well, I-well, I was shocked because, you know, sh-she left all that knowing to go to school. You know, if I had known differently, uh—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - and, uh, didn’t know anything about it. And then I came back home that evening, walked out.

Oloye Adeyemon: Uh-huh. You were surprised. How did you feel as a mother about that occurring and you not knowing?

Vera Allen: I was frightened to death because, uh, you couldn’t make these white people believe that I didn’t know it, you know. First thing they thought we put-put them up to it, you know.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: We had—they had done their own planning, their own scheming—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - or whatever [unintelligible 34:12] walkout.

Oloye Adeyemon: Now, you were in the school system.

Vera Allen: Mm-hmm.

Oloye Adeyemon: Did any of the teachers indicate that they knew ahead of time?

Vera Allen: Uh, not-not right away, but way late, way late. I mean, principal’s wife said she had even given ’em some advice—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - but we didn’t know that for years.

Oloye Adeyemon: He didn’t know it either. The principal didn’t know it?

Vera Allen: No. They sent him downtown, you know, he wasn’t there.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. So the principal didn’t know that his wife knew.

Vera Allen: That’s right. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. What about the teachers in the school? Did any of them know ahead of time?

Vera Allen: I don’t think they did because—

Oloye Adeyemon: No?

Vera Allen: - they said the—uh, when-when they—uh, announced over the PA system that, you know, all teachers get your things and go, and the children [unintelligible 34:52] so and so, and says they just got up just like they were the children, you know. They just obeyed. There was one, uh, one or two other, and they had these, uh, [unintelligible 35:01] shacks out in the yard. Well, some of those people didn’t move because they were in-in-in the main building.

Oloye Adeyemon: Uh-huh.

Vera Allen: But they just-just obeyed and went home.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Did you—

Vera Allen: But somebody had called downtown and told the superintendent we’re comin’.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. So even though you were a teacher and even though they knew—it just felt that you had put it up to it, you really weren’t against what they were doing—

Vera Allen: No. No.

Oloye Adeyemon: - at all.

Vera Allen: No.

Oloye Adeyemon: Were you proud of ’em?

Vera Allen: Yeah. I was. ’Cause that’s what I told somebody. I was scared to death.

Oloye Adeyemon: Before for your job?

Vera Allen: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: Okay.

Vera Allen: And about the children. But I—but there—

Oloye Adeyemon: You thought there would be [unintelligible 35:37] against them as well.

Vera Allen: Yeah. But that happened was that’s [unintelligible 35:40] no more. I’m not afraid anymore. I says I can get a job because—and then I got a-a job—a friend of mine was retiring over in, uh, Caroline County.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: Oh, the [unintelligible 35:56]. She said, “Vera, I can fix it so you can get this job, okay?”

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: And she did.

Oloye Adeyemon: In?

Vera Allen: Caroline County.

Oloye Adeyemon: In Virginia?

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: But didn’t you have to leave the state?

Vera Allen: Yeah. Well, I—yeah, left the state for a while, went to North Carolina.

Oloye Adeyemon: You weren’t able to even teach in Caroline County, right?

Vera Allen: That’s right. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Because they had put the word out that you weren’t—

Vera Allen: Yeah. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: - to be hired anywhere in Virginia.

Vera Allen: Yeah. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: So—

Vera Allen: Yeah. I would—I—that’s right. I forgot. I went to North Carolina and worked there about five years.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: But they were nice people. That was a-a good experience and-and—

Oloye Adeyemon: That was a hardship on your family [crosstalk 36:31]—

Vera Allen: Yeah. It was a hardship. My husband was here ’cause—and some weekends I would come home, and some I couldn’t because—

Oloye Adeyemon: So you didn’t get home every weekend?

Vera Allen: No. All—no, no. We’re—most weekends, but some I didn’t because—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - they had things going on—

Oloye Adeyemon: Special [crosstalk 36:43]—

Vera Allen: - Saturdays, I know. And I went to church. The people I lived with were Methodist. I went to do—with them to church.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: And-and then that family died. I—and don’t you know I inherited most of what they had.

Oloye Adeyemon: They felt that strongly about you?

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: They left me their home, and—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - they had two homes. They left me one and their church one and left me a car and everything that was in the house. So I sold the house there [unintelligible 37:12] movers. Got someone and got a van to bring some things, you know.

Oloye Adeyemon: So when people study this history, they really need to understand all the ramifications of this. They need to understand the—that while the students who, uh, walked out that day—

Vera Allen: Hmm.

Oloye Adeyemon: - took a big risk—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - and brought about a great change.

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: But that a lot of people were affected for a whole generation—

Vera Allen: That’s—

Oloye Adeyemon: - and even beyond, I guess because—

Vera Allen: That’s right. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: - fellows that didn’t make—

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: - their education—

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: - I guess it affected their children.

Vera Allen: That’s right. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Can you talk a little bit about—

Vera Allen: Some of ’em never got back to school. They-they’ve been out—say, for an example, somebody was in the second grade and—a-and then the five years, and-and coming back and to be in the second grade, you know. But—it-it-it really was a hardship, much harder than you could imagine, you know, so—but some of ’em did—some of ’em did come back and tough it out, and some did not.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: But some were able to go to other places with the relatives and friends who took them in.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. Was there—did-did students have any difficulty who were known, known students? Did they have any difficulty goin’ out of the county, say, across the county line? Was there any, uh, difficulty in them simply going there and-and—

Vera Allen: Well, it depends. Some-some principals worked nicely with it, and some didn’t even have anything. Now, here, right in Cumberland, Cumberland took some of the people. [Unintelligible 38:49] and Charlottesville took some of the people that didn’t drive over still. Some counties—but some couldn’t do it. Some, the superintendents did not allow it.

Oloye Adeyemon: So that period when the schools were closed here, that was a real tough period—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - for a lot of families.

Vera Allen: Yes. That’s right, real tough.

Oloye Adeyemon: And some of the children of these people that didn’t go to school, did-did it affect the parents who didn’t get their education when the schools were closed? Do you think it affected their attitude about education?

Vera Allen: Yeah. I think so.

Oloye Adeyemon: In what way?

Vera Allen: Well, it-it made such a gap in there, they just, uh—I don’t know how to say it. I see—you see, our parents are able to help the children with their homework and all, and-and as much as they went to school themselves. If they didn’t go to school, then they don’t have any connection, but if they lost that period, then that means that they couldn’t help—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - the children, see?

Oloye Adeyemon: With the integration here, I understand that, um, the schools closed because there was a de-desegregation order—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - and that was the response to it.

Vera Allen: Hmm.

Oloye Adeyemon: Now, when the schools finally became integrated, they were integrated through the federal intervention—not integrated. But, um—that’s not what I wanna say. When the-when the Black students were able to go to school—

Vera Allen: Mm-hmm.

Oloye Adeyemon: - initially, it was before the school system opened back up. It was federal in-intervention, wasn’t it?

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: What—explain that to me.

Vera Allen: But-but we had some other systems in Virginia to close their schools, but they didn’t-didn’t stay closed very long.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. But these stayed closed here?

Vera Allen: At the—these—this is the only place in the whole United States that schools ever stayed cl-closed that length of time.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: But they had pla—little places out in Norfolk have a few days, and—who else? I believe [unintelligible 40:54] had a few days, but that’s over there with the University of Virginia, and they hold—got a few, but just a few days.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: And-and we have a film that we made, and Will and I had helped to make—them make. We went all to Charlottesville and-and-and [unintelligible 41:10] the gram—ground beneath our feet or something like that.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: And—

Oloye Adeyemon: They talked about that period.

Vera Allen: Huh?

Oloye Adeyemon: It talks about that period.

Vera Allen: Yes. Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: There were some free schools—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - that-that opened, and blacks were able to go to. But that was through some federal intervention. That was not the state—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - or the counties.

Vera Allen: No. That was federal division and—with the Kennedy Program.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: Kennedy’s gave money—

Oloye Adeyemon: To provide education—

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: - here in Prince Edward County.

Vera Allen: They ga—they came here.

Oloye Adeyemon: So—

Vera Allen: They gave us some money—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - and gave our church some money.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. So when that happened, the students that were able to go to school at that time were in the county, uh, returned, Black students, now there were whites that were not able to afford to go to, uh, Prince Edward Academy. Is that correct?

Vera Allen: Yeah. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Did they come to the free schools?

Vera Allen: Yes. We got a few. We were didn’t—

Oloye Adeyemon: So—

Vera Allen: - didn’t get very many.

Oloye Adeyemon: So there were some whites in—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - in schools.

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: And these would’ve been whites—

Vera Allen: And one man said even—let’s see. How did he say it? About his-his, uh, Santa Claus, he—he hadn’t paid his, um, tuition. This is a white parent—hadn’t paid his child’s tuition ’cause he was poor, but he was trying. And at Christmas time, um, his little boy got a bicycle and said—they told him, “Well, you could’ve used that money to pay your child’s tuition. Why did you buy him a bicycle?”

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: Well, if he—he just moved on out of the county, you know. He was just tryin’ to stick his [unintelligible 42:39], which is all right, you know, as far as we were concerned. We didn’t mind that at all. But there was a whole lot of sticking going on.

Oloye Adeyemon: But—

Vera Allen: But the Cumberland, uh, didn’t—uh, Cumberland was very good, very receptive. [Unintelligible 42:54]—

Oloye Adeyemon: In terms of integration?

Vera Allen: Yeah. Yes. And-and [unintelligible 42:58] teddy. And they took some of our teachers and gave ’em jobs and took some of our children too.

Oloye Adeyemon: Right. ’Cause—that’s right. Your teach—all the teachers lost their jobs [crosstalk 43:04]—

Vera Allen: Yeah. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: - when the schools closed, right?

Vera Allen: And we had to go somewhere looking for jobs.

Oloye Adeyemon: I mean, the white teachers were able to go to work at the Prince Edward Academy, so it wasn’t—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - hard—

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: - on those families.

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Right. So—but definitely ’cause I—people weren’t sure that I’ve spoken with in the past. There definitely were a few white students at the free schools.

Vera Allen: Yes. That’s right. There were.

Oloye Adeyemon: And you taught there?

Vera Allen: Yes. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Female Voice: You weren’t—you didn’t teach. You were an administrator.

Oloye Adeyemon: Administrator? I’m sorry.

Female Voice: You were principal.

Oloye Adeyemon: You were the principal?

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: Sorry.

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Sorry. Okay. So you were the principal of the free school.

Vera Allen: Mm-hmm.

Oloye Adeyemon: And the—and so it was a high school?

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: And this was all in the-in the building Moton, uh—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - high school building? That was the free—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - school?

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Female Voice: It was both build—it was in both buildings, wasn’t it?

Oloye Adeyemon: And elementary was across the street?

Female Voice: It was in Mary Branch, too—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: Okay.

Female Voice: - ’cause that’s where your office is.

Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. So both—

Vera Allen: Yeah. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: - both buildings open?

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: Well, I really appreciate all of this that you—

Vera Allen: Well, I hope it’s been easy to understand and follow. I hope.

Oloye Adeyemon: Yeah. No. It’s-it’s perfectly clear, and-and we’re gonna-we’re gonna footnote it so it’ll even be clearer. And I’d like to, um, talk with you again, but in the next interview, I’d like to talk about what happened after integration and your efforts to commemorate these events—

Vera Allen: Mm-hmm.

Oloye Adeyemon: - through the—through your-through your-your organization’s work to save the building and your continued work with the Moton Museum and anything else that you think we need to know about this period and any suggestions that you have for educators who are gonna be listenin’ to these tapes about, uh, what they might be able to salvage from the earlier period because obviously there was some things—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - among us. Thank you very much.

Vera Allen: Teachers just—teachers might not have gone to college as much, but they were strong, and they were interested.

Oloye Adeyemon: Thank you.

Duration:

44 minutes, 53 seconds

Allen attended Virginia State College where she majored in social studies and went on to become an educator for 43 years as a teacher, principal and later an assistant to the superintendent. She was an educator in Prince Edward County, Va., during the Davis v. County School Board case. She discusses her experiences as an educator during the case and the role of the Forrester Council of Women in improvement efforts in the segregated county.

Brown v. Board of Education Oral Histories

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Oral History Interview with Vera Allen

Oloye Adeyemon: Brown v. Board oral history collection, Prince Edward County, Virginia, school segregation to segregation interviews. Interviewee: Mrs. Vera Allen. Interviewer: Oloye Adeyemon for the National Park Service. Interview conducted in the home of Mrs. Allen in Farmville, Virginia, on August 30th, 2001. These interviews are made possible through the Brown v. Board Oral History Research Project funded by the National Park Service for the summer of 2001 as part of the Brown v. Board Oral History Research Project. Mrs. Allen, what is your full name?

Vera Allen: My full name is Vera Jones Allen.

Oloye Adeyemon: And what is your birthdate?

Vera Allen: December 21st, 1913.

Oloye Adeyemon: And where were you born?

Vera Allen: In Charles City, Virginia.

Oloye Adeyemon: And what are your parents’ names?

Vera Allen: My—Julius Jones and Edna Brown Jones.

Oloye Adeyemon: And were they born in Charles City?

Vera Allen: Yes. Both of them.

Oloye Adeyemon: Do you have brothers and sisters?

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: What are their names?

Vera Allen: I had, uh, two sisters and four brothers.

Oloye Adeyemon: And what were their names?

Vera Allen: Oldest brother was named Irvin, Harold, Herman, and Garland. My sister was Wilda and Iva.

Oloye Adeyemon: What did your parents do for a living?

Vera Allen: My father was a businessman. He didn’t believe in working for anybody but yourself—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - and he had several businesses like a grocery store and a fish market and a boarding house and a series of things. His whole life, yeah, he don’t work for anybody, make your own jobs.

Oloye Adeyemon: All right.

Vera Allen: And that he did.

Oloye Adeyemon: All right.

Vera Allen: And he took good care of us.

Oloye Adeyemon: And your mother, what did she do?

Vera Allen: My mother was a housewife.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: She helped with the businesses but generally a housewife.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. And what do you do for a living?

Vera Allen: I’ve been in public education for 43 years in everything. I started with, uh, elementary school. And I went all the way to being assistant to the superintendent.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: That—

Oloye Adeyemon: I see.

Vera Allen: So that’s what I retired from.

Oloye Adeyemon: So you were teaching at [unintelligible 02:38]?

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: And your husband owned a funeral parlor here in Farmville?

Vera Allen: Yes. He taught a little while first. He finished college, but he didn’t like it very much, and so he—afterward, opened a funeral home.

Oloye Adeyemon: What did he teach?

Vera Allen: He taught elementary school, too.

Oloye Adeyemon: And the name of the funeral parlor was?

Vera Allen: It was E B Allen Funeral Home.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: And back to my husband’s teaching, he taught in elementary school, and then he taught, uh, vocational agriculture in high school for a while—

Oloye Adeyemon: All right.

Vera Allen: - especially with returned veterans.

Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. And has the—is the funeral, uh, home still in operation today?

Vera Allen: Yes. It is.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. And do—does your family still run it?

Vera Allen: Yes. It still has its original name.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. Uh, you’ve also been active in civil groups as well, haven’t you?

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: Uh, what are some of those groups?

Vera Allen: Well, almost anything, church, civic organizations, and within them our women’s organizations here that was organized in 1920, the Martha E. Forrester Council of Women, and that’s still functioning. I’m president of it right now.

Oloye Adeyemon: Is it true that that was one of the first of its type in the country?

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: Can you tell us—

Vera Allen: And the—

Oloye Adeyemon: - a little bit about it?

Vera Allen: - and the longest, uh—well, they were interested in—well, first creek, uh, maintaining harmony among the races. They—there was never any violence, never anything of that nature in connection with that. And then they were interested in, uh, education. And even though they had the four or five different objectives, education had been the one that they worked on the longest. And all the way to the end—still working on it. Anything in discrepancies, anything that they see in it, they go to the board and talk about it.

Oloye Adeyemon: Who founded it?

Vera Allen: Um, it was founded by Mrs. Martha E. Forrester from Richmond. She was among the first Afro-American teachers to be hired in the city of Richmond. But, uh, she had one daughter who married and came here. And in Richmond, you couldn’t, uh, teach if you were married. And so she came here to live. And she saw all these needs that we had in the county, so she just took charge and organized with 20 women, and they were all women with families, who [unintelligible 05:13], but they all were very devoted and very devout to the cause of that.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: And we had—we have had as many as 50 members, but we don’t have that many now. And the men could only be just members if they—you know, wi—they had wives in there. But now we have one or two—two or three paying members.

Oloye Adeyemon: That are men?

Vera Allen: And we still, um, with the national organization.

Oloye Adeyemon: What is the national organization?

Vera Allen: Uh, National Council of-of-of Colored Women.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: But we-we dropped that “colored”—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - a-after a while. We just—we’re just the National Council—the Martha E. Forrester Council of Women.

Oloye Adeyemon: I see.

Vera Allen: But one time, we were colored women.

Oloye Adeyemon: I understand.

Vera Allen: But we’re not that way anymore.

Oloye Adeyemon: Was your husband’s mother a member?

Vera Allen: Yes. She was one of the first members. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: She’s a native of Farmville, and she’s first on the list. She was an Allen, and A’s—they were in, you know, alphabetical arrange. She’s first on the list.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. What was her name?

Vera Allen: Huh?

Oloye Adeyemon: What was her name? Your husband’s [crosstalk 06:21]?

Vera Allen: Her name-her name was Ida Miller.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. And you joined at a very early point after—

Vera Allen: Very early because I—then I took care of the-of the women. We had three leading women in the—Miss Forrester had two very good friends, women her age, uh, uh, Mrs. Miller, uh, and, uh, Mrs. Hock. Mrs. Hock’s husband was a minister. And, uh, they were very good friends, and I drove them around, took them around, you know, I drove all of ’em.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. What year did you join?

Vera Allen: I’m-I’m not so sure very sure exactly what year I joined. I—the late ’30s, I believe.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: That’s the best I can guess right now.

Oloye Adeyemon: What were some of the early things that they did in relationship to the schools and education?

Vera Allen: Well, at that particular time, uh, Prince Edward didn’t make any provisions for secondary education. They just—for Black people, you just went to elementary school, and then you didn’t go anywhere else. And, uh, when I that, the people now who didn’t remember, I say, “Well, my husband was one of those people because he couldn’t finish high school here.” He went to Cumberland. His parents bought him a car, and he took some other people along, and he went [unintelligible 07:38] so he could finish. And then went on to a better college.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: But, see, in Charles City, when I come here, we had had a-a secondary school, so it surprised me to see a place this size without one and-and then a little place—Charles is a country place, and we have a high school—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - and we could go to college.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. What college did you go to? Or did—

Vera Allen: Virginia State College.

Oloye Adeyemon: It was not that far away?

Vera Allen: Huh?

Oloye Adeyemon: It was not that far away from where you were?

Vera Allen: No. It isn’t, and it was the only one that’s available in the state for us. We had no way—no—we didn’t have any choices. Of course, Hampton Institute was organized for us—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - but it was an expensive school—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - and it was operated by white people, but it was organized for us—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - and still organized.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: But we have a-a number of people from here who go there, but we didn’t go. We went to Virginia State.

Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. So Virginia State was not as expensive to go to at that time?

Vera Allen: No. It wasn’t so expensive. What—we called it expensive, but it really wasn’t ’cause I-I don’t think we paid over 25 or $26 a-a month, and, you know, we had to do our own laundry and keep our own rooms and everything, but we thought that was a little bit of money. But that was hard to get for families, you know, that didn’t have much income.

Oloye Adeyemon: I understand.

Vera Allen: And then they gave us some help, too. If you-if you didn’t have the money, they gave you little jobs like work in the dining room and helping in the laundry and—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - all that, so working in the-in the dormitories.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: But they made provisions for you. They seldom turned anybody away. You got to be very bad to be turned away, you know. And it was—and since it was operated by the state, so.

Oloye Adeyemon: So by it’s being operated by the state, you had a little—there was some subsidy there, whereas it wasn’t in Hampton?

Vera Allen: Yeah. Yeah. That’s right. This is true.

Oloye Adeyemon: Okay.

Vera Allen: And Hampton still now is the most expensive school in the state, but it’s a good school.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: And we—a number of people who go there, but it’s a very, very strong school—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - but very expensive school too.

Oloye Adeyemon: Makes sense. So when you came to live in Farmville, you had already graduated with—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - from the—

Vera Allen: And then taught a year.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. And taught a year before you came?

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: When you came with your—were you already married when you came to—

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: - came to Farmville? When you came to live in Farmville, you didn’t start teaching at that time in Farmville, did you? When you first arrived, you-you weren’t teaching here in town?

Vera Allen: No. That’s right. I was in the county—

Oloye Adeyemon: Yes.

Vera Allen: - but it was all the same school system, see?

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: It was, uh, it—Prince Edward County, and that meant the town of Farmville and Prince Edward. It was all one, see?

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: We just had one superintendent, but it was one school division.

Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. I wanna come back to that. But I wanted to ask another question about the Martha E. Forrester, uh, Council of Women before we move on. Um, they—what-what role did they play in getting the high school? How—exactly how did that come about?

Vera Allen: They just kept on goin’ to the school board and-and-and-and asking them to do it.

Oloye Adeyemon: Uh-huh.

Vera Allen: Just kept on going, and they kept promising and not doing it, but they kept on going. Mrs. Forrester was a-a very persistent woman. She looked like a pioneer woman. You know, she dressed—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - a little differently from us.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: But she was a very strong woman, a very intelligent woman, and a very persistent woman. And she found some good, strong women here. And I look sometime at the dist—uh, those people who, um, they were all mothers. They had families, and some of them had jobs, you know, but they followed her all the time. She was very trustworthy and very nice to deal with.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: But she didn’t, um, mind being persistent, you know.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: She was always there. She was very, very strong.

Oloye Adeyemon: Did the Martha E. Forrester Council women actually raise some of the money to get the school built?

Vera Allen: Yes. They did, yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: How did they go about that?

Vera Allen: Well, just had programs and different donations. People just give what—you give a little money. They were—you know, buy books for the children and everything.

Oloye Adeyemon: So—

Vera Allen: So sometimes if there were a lot of children, even years after that, who didn’t have hardly clothes to wear, and then—and some of them didn’t have any materials like books, you know. And I was listening to a report just recently that, uh, Black teachers had how many hundreds of dollars out of their own salaries that they had to use to buy m—so they would have teaching materials.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: And how come they just had [unintelligible 12:30], just had it within the last week.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: Of course, I knew about it, but I mean—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - just to have them to come with those statistics now just—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - was a little surprising.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So when the school was built, it was really a result of the Martha E. Forrester Council of Women, uh, persistently staying on the school—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - board about it. But it—when it was built, it was actually built with a combination of funds from the county and funds that the Forrester Council of Women had—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - raised themselves.

Vera Allen: Yes. Now, which school are you talking about? D—we had that building across the other side of Main or-or the high school?

Oloye Adeyemon: Wh-which was the first building that they had built?

Vera Allen: The first one was across the high school, but they had the, um, elementary section on the first floor, and they had secondary on the second floor, but, you know, it wasn’t room enough for anybody—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - and they just had it, and they-they didn’t have all the subjects that they needed either. Th-that’s why they kept being persistent to get a-a secondary school—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - ’cause by that time, I tell you, some of the—our students were goin’ over in Cumberland so they could finish.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. What year was it when they were successful in getting this high school built, approximately?

Vera Allen: Uh, late ’30s.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Late ’30s. And—

Vera Allen: [Unintelligible 13:56] should’ve been able to tell you ’cause same time it was in their class.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. And so it was built, and now students, Black students here in Prince Edward County, had a high school in town that they could come to?

Vera Allen: Yeah. That’s right. But it wasn’t big enough.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: It-it was a nice little building, you know, very nicely built. The first we’d had, and we were proud of it, but it just wasn’t enough space in it for our children. And this is what made the—made [unintelligible 14:27] to strike.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So this building was the high school until what point when the other high school was built?

Vera Allen: The one across the street? I told you it was—

Oloye Adeyemon: Yes.

Vera Allen: - upstairs. That was the high school until we built that one across the street.

Oloye Adeyemon: And how long a period was that in between those two?

Vera Allen: I’m not sure the exact time. I don’t know. I would-I would say 8 to 10 years.

Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. So for quite a while—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - students had to go to that two-story building even—

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: - though it was very crowded?

Vera Allen: Yeah. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: When the new high school was built, it’s—it, too, quickly became overcrowded.

Vera Allen: Yes. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Okay.

Vera Allen: It only—eight classrooms, and it was-it was very crowded.

Oloye Adeyemon: Was this because it hadn’t been built to accommodate all the students, or was there an increase in the population? Why did—why’d the schools become overcrowded so quickly?

Vera Allen: I’ve often wondered. I don’t know. I don’t know why. They-they knew they didn’t have enough room at the other building, and maybe that’s all the money they wanted to spend—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - and because, uh, uh, a nicely built building, you know, they had a-a real contract done.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: And even when we’ve had something like that recently, he was up there one time, and I told him. I-I said—uh, he still has a-a business here in town. And I said, “Well, I’m glad you all built this building because it was a nice—” I say, “You built it brick by brick. Any other time I see, you brought the whole building on the truck.”

Oloye Adeyemon: So is it correct, then, that the conditions that existed that the students were protesting against in ’51 were conditions that also were present in the two-story building and the Forrester Council of Women, early on, had been trying to bring attention to the same thing that the students later were—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - successful in bringing—

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: - national attention to?

Vera Allen: That’s right. That’s right. That’s exactly right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Has the role that the Forrester Council of Women, uh, played to your—in your mind been adequately recognized?

Vera Allen: Then, I-I—maybe not now, but I think then it was.

Oloye Adeyemon: What about—

Vera Allen: But—

Oloye Adeyemon: - today?

Vera Allen: - but even so now, we, uh, we were—we want to get it up because we-we still think there are circumstances or conditions that we need to speak to.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. And I’m asking that—I-I realize that I’m an outsider and people here know the history very well, but this collection is gonna be looked at by people around the country, and I don’t think a lot of people will realize, uh, the role that the Forrester Council of Women played—

Vera Allen: Very strong.

Oloye Adeyemon: - in this.

Vera Allen: And that’s why I say we were-we were—the, uh, uh, [unintelligible 17:40] women is-is-is a national organization. It’s—it has a district, a local, a district, and a national affiliation. And we have always affiliated, even though the national affiliation is not as active as it used to be. But when the time came, this time to pay our dues, the members said, “Yes. We’re gonna pay. We gonna still, even though there-there are not as many organizations active, but we gonna [unintelligible 18:06] because we’ve always been there, and we still want to be there.” And they pay those dues—

Oloye Adeyemon: Besides your—

Vera Allen: - every year.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Besides your efforts to get that new high school, uh, what other things over the years was the Forrester-Forrester Council of Women involved in as far as education is concerned?

Vera Allen: Well, all school matters, you know. Um, when I said all school matters, I mean, the press—hiring personnel for-for the schools, you know, jobs for our people if they wanted to work here. So, an example, if you were here, and you wanted a job in the school, and they didn’t give you one, we would-we would go for you to—we’d go before them and ask if they hire you if we-if we thought that you—

Oloye Adeyemon: You were qualified.

Vera Allen: Yes. And could do the work.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: They speak the most—lay—we were speaking to most things. And at that time, we didn’t ha—weren’t paying anything hardly, but we always paid our members all the way to the national every year.

Oloye Adeyemon: How much aware was the national of what you were doing in these areas durin’ that time, and how supportive was the national organization?

Vera Allen: Ver-very active. Very—they recognized us because even when things started going downhill with the, uh—at the national level, when we were trying to decide whether we were gonna still affiliate, I called the little lady who had been president and talked to her about it, and she just begged us not to give up. Just [unintelligible 19:46] please function the same way. We—if we had any questions, they would be glad to answer. The first time I called her, she wasn’t at home. She’d gone to New York to attend to some business. But when she came back, she called me—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - and asked us not to give it up.

Oloye Adeyemon: The national organization was pretty—

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: - proud-proud of what you were doing.

Vera Allen: Yes. Yes. They can—could count on us.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. That’s great. So when you came—

Female Voice: Talk about the gifts that you all gave the schools, Mom—

Vera Allen: Oh, yeah.

Female Voice: - with curtains.

Vera Allen: Yeah. We bought the piano for the auditorium. We bought the curtains for the stage—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - you know, all those extra things that the county couldn’t afford to buy. We-we brought those.

Oloye Adeyemon: This is in the second high school?

Vera Allen: Yes. Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: So you played a very active role?

Vera Allen: Yes. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: And these were things that-that based on the separate but equal—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - they should’ve been doin’ because they were doing it for white schools—

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: - but they weren’t.

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: And so you supplemented those—

Female Voice: I think you all bought something—bought curtains in the first building, too.

Vera Allen: Yeah. We bought—yeah. That’s right. We did. We bought—

Female Voice: First [crosstalk 20:54]—

Vera Allen: That’s right, we did.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: We-we bought curtains for the first building to [unintelligible 20:58], um, and then when we went to the new building, we bought curtains over there again. And—

Female Voice: And a piano.

Vera Allen: And a—yeah, and a piano.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. So they—

Female Voice: Baby grand.

Oloye Adeyemon: So—oh, baby grand?

Female Voice: A baby grand.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. Wow. That’s-that’s great.

Vera Allen: Classy, isn’t it?

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Very. What, um, wh—were the, um, qualifications of white teachers at that time? What were the qualifications of Black teachers? Was there a difference?

Vera Allen: Yes. Because they didn’t—even in going to school, they didn’t recommend but two years to us. They-they called it at that time a “normal” certificate, see? And if you’re goin’ to send your children—Black children to college, that’s all you had to send them. And I told you my father went somewhere one day, and somebody told him you can [unintelligible 21:51] four-year. He said you’re going four, too.

Oloye Adeyemon: All right.

Vera Allen: But-but we-we didn’t know that in the—I well—didn’t always know exactly how much they were telling the white people. That-that’s what it was for us. And then we started going four, too.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: But it was a long time. Well, a lot—a right long—not a very long time before we were going four.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. So, in your case, how many years were you able to go?

Vera Allen: Four.

Oloye Adeyemon: And what did you take? What-what did you major in?

Vera Allen: I took, uh—I-I was a social studies—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - but the first year I taught, I was glad to get out because I was a little young, for the children in my classroom was just as old as I was, you know. You know, I-I was finishing early, and the—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - the children in the class would—boys were driving buses and—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - and I said that if I ever get outta this, I’m gonna do something else, and I did. I came back and got myself some elementary education. That’s what I—it said my children were—they were staying at home on Saturdays with somebody else, and I’m going to school every Saturday morning—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - to get-get that straight. And I’m glad I did because it helped me with some other jobs too, you know. And then I worked in—uh, got a job. Uh, they were looking for some people to be supervisors of the schools, you know.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: Well, that helped me to get a better job, a higher-paying job.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: And I’d always moved up a little bit.

Oloye Adeyemon: So—

Vera Allen: [crosstalk 23:30] workin’ all the time.

Oloye Adeyemon: So their normal degree was like an associate degree today.

Vera Allen: Yeah. Yeah. That’s right, two years.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. So—

Vera Allen: And that’s all we were getting. And-and then, sometimes they—we—they didn’t even that, just maybe—they just finished high school—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - and, you know, and didn’t have any teachers, and they got jobs too.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. What were-what were the, uh, qualifications? What was required of the white teachers at that time?

Vera Allen: Well, they said—they didn’t make the difference, you know, when they advertised it, but we-we did—we-we thought—we didn’t know there was a difference. Now, I remember when we had got a new superintendent. He brought with him some white teachers, and one of those white teachers got a—was hired when I was. When I found out she was makin’ more money than I was, I called his hand.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: And I told him. I said, “I already have my master’s degree, and she’s just workin’ on hers.”

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. And she was getting paid more than you?

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: What year was that, approximately?

Vera Allen: Let’s see. That we—oh, it’s been about 25 years ago.

Oloye Adeyemon: Did he correct the situation?

Vera Allen: Yes. Yes. He did. Yes. He did.

Oloye Adeyemon: You didn’t have to get the Forrester Council of Women involved, did you? [Laughter 24:46].

Vera Allen: No. He knew I knew what I was talkin’ about, lookin’ right in his hand.

Oloye Adeyemon: Maybe he just knew you were a member. So—

Vera Allen: He took me in his office to work with him after that and tried to hide much more.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: But that was all right, too.

Oloye Adeyemon: Was there a difference in the curriculum in the white schools and the Black schools?

Vera Allen: Well, this is one—something I always like to tell, and it’s the truth. Uh, we didn’t even get—we didn’t ever get—we didn’t get any new textbooks, Black people didn’t. When-when the state said, uh, “These books that you’re using now are out—they have to go,” we got those books.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: And I thought that was a terrible thing. I still think it is. So we never had new textbooks.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. And these books would’ve been books that white students had already used?

Vera Allen: Yeah. Yeah. Had used and-and-and the state said they can get new ones, you know.

Oloye Adeyemon: So what we’re-what we’re dealin’ with here is not only a used book but an outdated curriculum.

Vera Allen: Yes. That’s right. This is right. That’s right. It was some little time before we noticed that there better bookstore downtown, and when we got [unintelligible 26:04] books, we had to go down into the store and get these books. And then, um, somebody else laughed and said, “Well, that was—she didn’t mind the books because it’s—the white children marked their right answers in some of ’em, you know, so they didn’t have to study.” How you thought about that?

Oloye Adeyemon: So was there a difference also in the courses that were available?

Vera Allen: Yes. Because when we were over in this other building here, over here at the first high school, we didn’t have all the courses. We didn’t have all the science courses, you know. And [unintelligible 26:43]—I guess we got them all after we got in the new school, but we didn’t have ’em over here.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: We had math, and we—and, uh—

Female Voice: Didn’t have foreign language either, did you?

Vera Allen: No. No, foreign language, no.

Oloye Adeyemon: And when was foreign language introduced to the Black students?

Vera Allen: Well-well, there before we got—and then we get French—

Female Voice: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: Did we get Latin?

Female Voice: Every now and then.

Vera Allen: Mm-hmm.

Oloye Adeyemon: But this was a long time before this was introduced?

Vera Allen: Yes. Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: What about science labs? Were they equipped with—

Vera Allen: No. We didn’t get very much scot—we got general science, made a course in general science. And every time I look to the sky and even when the sun’s settin’, I remember I was doin’ a unit with the children on weather—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - you know—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - I was real good with that one—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - ’cause I learn—I had learned it from my momma. She was really telling weather.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: She didn’t learn it out of a book.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: But it was-it was true, though.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: See, the sun’s setting, and if it sits in a gray cloud, you know—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - the next day we gonna have [unintelligible 27:39] weather. Watch it sometimes.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: It’s true.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. It’s good. So you got some other [unintelligible 27:45] in school as well.

Vera Allen: Yeah. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: With the, uh, labs, in the white schools, they were pretty well equipped with—

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: - with equipment—

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: - to do experiments.

Vera Allen: That’s right. Now, back in the day, when they did school up here, they didn’t want us to buy this school up here—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - in the first place. There was a school about two blocks over, a white school.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: Well, the first thing they did with that was to tear it down—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - and thinking that we would-we would want-we would want this one.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: But we did.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Hmm. So there was a difference in the curriculum. There was a difference in the courses. There—

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: - were difference in the supplies—

Vera Allen: Co-course offerings, yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: I understand they didn’t have a gymnasium. They didn’t have a—

Vera Allen: No. No.

Oloye Adeyemon: - cafeteria.

Vera Allen: No. No.

Oloye Adeyemon: And these were things that the white schools—

Vera Allen: Yes. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: - had. So the schools, in fact, were definitely separate—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - and unequal.

Vera Allen: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: And who said that this wasn’t? One of the judges that said it could not—and I think the sign is hanging in this building r—up here right now. No-no such thing as, you know, bein’ equal.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. So with the, um, buses, children coming to high school had to come into Farmville from—

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: - other surrounding areas.

Vera Allen: Yes. And, see, and Farmville’s at the end of the county.

Oloye Adeyemon: Oh, it is?

Vera Allen: And-and they-and they are a long ways to come.

Oloye Adeyemon: Are we at the west end or the east end?

Vera Allen: We—I guess this is southern [unintelligible 29:19].

Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. Southern.

Vera Allen: No. No. South-south and north. This is, uh, north, you know.

Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. So one of the things, then, that students had to do was find a way to get to school.

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: Were buses pr-provided—

Vera Allen: Yes. Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - for-for the children to go on?

Vera Allen: Yeah. We didn’t have real school buses, just anybody who had a bus, and then we—offering us the rides, you know, and then they got buses.

Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. So initially, there were no school buses [crosstalk 29:42]—

Vera Allen: Huh-uh. No.

Oloye Adeyemon: So it might’ve been families bringing children?

Vera Allen: Yeah. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: That’s true.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. So I guess we’ve talked about some of the, uh, shortcomings, but I’d lie—now like to talk about one of the strips because consistently—

Vera Allen: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Oloye Adeyemon: - throughout the interviews in South Carolina, Delaware, and D.C., consistently, the children have praised their teachers. They have indicated that, looking back at it, their teachers were able to perform miracles.

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Can you talk about the ways in which the teachers were creative and ingenious and motivated their students and—

Vera Allen: They took—

Oloye Adeyemon: - and—

Vera Allen: - they took time with you if-if it was something in-in arithmetic, showing an example you didn’t quite understand. And there were maybe two or three in that group. We didn’t have two grades and—or anything like that because teachers hadn’t learned how to do that. But they would take those children off to the side. And sometime, take some stronger students to work with these children, show them how to do this math problem or to understand this—I mean, [unintelligible 30:54] foreign language or whatever it was.

Oloye Adeyemon: Would you say there’s a difference between education then and education now, especially for Black children, was the attitude of their teachers—

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: - and how-how concerned the teachers—

Vera Allen: Yes. Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: - were about their learning?

Vera Allen: Yes. They were always anxious to-to help us, you know. Never had any problems with—and-and-and very few discipline problems—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - very few. They were very anxious to be there.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. And the parents were concerned.

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: I mean, you had a lot of support from parents.

Vera Allen: Yes. Yes. Very, very good support.

Oloye Adeyemon: Would—

Vera Allen: And then—and even when the schools have closed and-and parents had to take children away, a lot of times that they got the, you know, offerings to—from people who were willing to take their children. We had children to go away from here and go all the way through high school with us.

Oloye Adeyemon: This was when the schools were closed?

Vera Allen: Yes. Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: So by and large, then, you know, the strength of those schools at that time was tea—were the teachers. The teachers were the strength of that because—

Vera Allen: Yes. Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: - the teachers, even though they didn’t have all the supplies and resources—

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: - they themselves were concerned about teaching and concerned—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - about their students.

Vera Allen: And children learning.

Oloye Adeyemon: And they were part of the community.

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: They sometimes were relatives of the students. They were members of the church.

Vera Allen: We-we were required—I remember when-when I first started teaching. We were required almost to go to church, you know, to go over there and meet people, and I thought that was a good strength [unintelligible 32:26].

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Would you say that during that period that parents were much more concerned about their children’s education and much more involved than now?

Vera Allen: I think much more involved and much more concerned, yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. So all around—

Vera Allen: I—and then the too—I wonder sometime, though, if-if concern and the environment would, you know, might be based on the fact that it’s—things going on in schools now that parents are not—can’t do. They don’t understand, you know. One [unintelligible 32:58], maybe they didn’t know—have any foreign language. They can’t do anything to help the children, you know, because they don’t n—haven’t had it.

Female Voice: Mm-hmm.

Oloye Adeyemon: That’s great. So when the, uh, events occurred, you know, and the schools, uh, the-the walkout took place.

Vera Allen: Mm-hmm.

Oloye Adeyemon: You weren’t teaching in Farmville at the time.

Vera Allen: Huh-uh. No.

Oloye Adeyemon: Where were you at when that happened?

Vera Allen: I think I was over in Cumberland, I guess.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. And what was your reaction when you heard about it, particularly since your daughter was [crosstalk 33:35]—

Vera Allen: Well, I-well, I was shocked because, you know, sh-she left all that knowing to go to school. You know, if I had known differently, uh—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - and, uh, didn’t know anything about it. And then I came back home that evening, walked out.

Oloye Adeyemon: Uh-huh. You were surprised. How did you feel as a mother about that occurring and you not knowing?

Vera Allen: I was frightened to death because, uh, you couldn’t make these white people believe that I didn’t know it, you know. First thing they thought we put-put them up to it, you know.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: We had—they had done their own planning, their own scheming—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - or whatever [unintelligible 34:12] walkout.

Oloye Adeyemon: Now, you were in the school system.

Vera Allen: Mm-hmm.

Oloye Adeyemon: Did any of the teachers indicate that they knew ahead of time?

Vera Allen: Uh, not-not right away, but way late, way late. I mean, principal’s wife said she had even given ’em some advice—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - but we didn’t know that for years.

Oloye Adeyemon: He didn’t know it either. The principal didn’t know it?

Vera Allen: No. They sent him downtown, you know, he wasn’t there.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. So the principal didn’t know that his wife knew.

Vera Allen: That’s right. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. What about the teachers in the school? Did any of them know ahead of time?

Vera Allen: I don’t think they did because—

Oloye Adeyemon: No?

Vera Allen: - they said the—uh, when-when they—uh, announced over the PA system that, you know, all teachers get your things and go, and the children [unintelligible 34:52] so and so, and says they just got up just like they were the children, you know. They just obeyed. There was one, uh, one or two other, and they had these, uh, [unintelligible 35:01] shacks out in the yard. Well, some of those people didn’t move because they were in-in-in the main building.

Oloye Adeyemon: Uh-huh.

Vera Allen: But they just-just obeyed and went home.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Did you—

Vera Allen: But somebody had called downtown and told the superintendent we’re comin’.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. So even though you were a teacher and even though they knew—it just felt that you had put it up to it, you really weren’t against what they were doing—

Vera Allen: No. No.

Oloye Adeyemon: - at all.

Vera Allen: No.

Oloye Adeyemon: Were you proud of ’em?

Vera Allen: Yeah. I was. ’Cause that’s what I told somebody. I was scared to death.

Oloye Adeyemon: Before for your job?

Vera Allen: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: Okay.

Vera Allen: And about the children. But I—but there—

Oloye Adeyemon: You thought there would be [unintelligible 35:37] against them as well.

Vera Allen: Yeah. But that happened was that’s [unintelligible 35:40] no more. I’m not afraid anymore. I says I can get a job because—and then I got a-a job—a friend of mine was retiring over in, uh, Caroline County.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: Oh, the [unintelligible 35:56]. She said, “Vera, I can fix it so you can get this job, okay?”

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: And she did.

Oloye Adeyemon: In?

Vera Allen: Caroline County.

Oloye Adeyemon: In Virginia?

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: But didn’t you have to leave the state?

Vera Allen: Yeah. Well, I—yeah, left the state for a while, went to North Carolina.

Oloye Adeyemon: You weren’t able to even teach in Caroline County, right?

Vera Allen: That’s right. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Because they had put the word out that you weren’t—

Vera Allen: Yeah. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: - to be hired anywhere in Virginia.

Vera Allen: Yeah. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: So—

Vera Allen: Yeah. I would—I—that’s right. I forgot. I went to North Carolina and worked there about five years.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: But they were nice people. That was a-a good experience and-and—

Oloye Adeyemon: That was a hardship on your family [crosstalk 36:31]—

Vera Allen: Yeah. It was a hardship. My husband was here ’cause—and some weekends I would come home, and some I couldn’t because—

Oloye Adeyemon: So you didn’t get home every weekend?

Vera Allen: No. All—no, no. We’re—most weekends, but some I didn’t because—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - they had things going on—

Oloye Adeyemon: Special [crosstalk 36:43]—

Vera Allen: - Saturdays, I know. And I went to church. The people I lived with were Methodist. I went to do—with them to church.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: And-and then that family died. I—and don’t you know I inherited most of what they had.

Oloye Adeyemon: They felt that strongly about you?

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: They left me their home, and—

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm.

Vera Allen: - they had two homes. They left me one and their church one and left me a car and everything that was in the house. So I sold the house there [unintelligible 37:12] movers. Got someone and got a van to bring some things, you know.

Oloye Adeyemon: So when people study this history, they really need to understand all the ramifications of this. They need to understand the—that while the students who, uh, walked out that day—

Vera Allen: Hmm.

Oloye Adeyemon: - took a big risk—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - and brought about a great change.

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: But that a lot of people were affected for a whole generation—

Vera Allen: That’s—

Oloye Adeyemon: - and even beyond, I guess because—

Vera Allen: That’s right. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: - fellows that didn’t make—

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: - their education—

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: - I guess it affected their children.

Vera Allen: That’s right. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Can you talk a little bit about—

Vera Allen: Some of ’em never got back to school. They-they’ve been out—say, for an example, somebody was in the second grade and—a-and then the five years, and-and coming back and to be in the second grade, you know. But—it-it-it really was a hardship, much harder than you could imagine, you know, so—but some of ’em did—some of ’em did come back and tough it out, and some did not.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: But some were able to go to other places with the relatives and friends who took them in.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. Was there—did-did students have any difficulty who were known, known students? Did they have any difficulty goin’ out of the county, say, across the county line? Was there any, uh, difficulty in them simply going there and-and—

Vera Allen: Well, it depends. Some-some principals worked nicely with it, and some didn’t even have anything. Now, here, right in Cumberland, Cumberland took some of the people. [Unintelligible 38:49] and Charlottesville took some of the people that didn’t drive over still. Some counties—but some couldn’t do it. Some, the superintendents did not allow it.

Oloye Adeyemon: So that period when the schools were closed here, that was a real tough period—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - for a lot of families.

Vera Allen: Yes. That’s right, real tough.

Oloye Adeyemon: And some of the children of these people that didn’t go to school, did-did it affect the parents who didn’t get their education when the schools were closed? Do you think it affected their attitude about education?

Vera Allen: Yeah. I think so.

Oloye Adeyemon: In what way?

Vera Allen: Well, it-it made such a gap in there, they just, uh—I don’t know how to say it. I see—you see, our parents are able to help the children with their homework and all, and-and as much as they went to school themselves. If they didn’t go to school, then they don’t have any connection, but if they lost that period, then that means that they couldn’t help—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - the children, see?

Oloye Adeyemon: With the integration here, I understand that, um, the schools closed because there was a de-desegregation order—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - and that was the response to it.

Vera Allen: Hmm.

Oloye Adeyemon: Now, when the schools finally became integrated, they were integrated through the federal intervention—not integrated. But, um—that’s not what I wanna say. When the-when the Black students were able to go to school—

Vera Allen: Mm-hmm.

Oloye Adeyemon: - initially, it was before the school system opened back up. It was federal in-intervention, wasn’t it?

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: What—explain that to me.

Vera Allen: But-but we had some other systems in Virginia to close their schools, but they didn’t-didn’t stay closed very long.

Oloye Adeyemon: Hmm. But these stayed closed here?

Vera Allen: At the—these—this is the only place in the whole United States that schools ever stayed cl-closed that length of time.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: But they had pla—little places out in Norfolk have a few days, and—who else? I believe [unintelligible 40:54] had a few days, but that’s over there with the University of Virginia, and they hold—got a few, but just a few days.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: And-and we have a film that we made, and Will and I had helped to make—them make. We went all to Charlottesville and-and-and [unintelligible 41:10] the gram—ground beneath our feet or something like that.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: And—

Oloye Adeyemon: They talked about that period.

Vera Allen: Huh?

Oloye Adeyemon: It talks about that period.

Vera Allen: Yes. Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: There were some free schools—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - that-that opened, and blacks were able to go to. But that was through some federal intervention. That was not the state—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - or the counties.

Vera Allen: No. That was federal division and—with the Kennedy Program.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: Kennedy’s gave money—

Oloye Adeyemon: To provide education—

Vera Allen: Yes.

Oloye Adeyemon: - here in Prince Edward County.

Vera Allen: They ga—they came here.

Oloye Adeyemon: So—

Vera Allen: They gave us some money—

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: - and gave our church some money.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. So when that happened, the students that were able to go to school at that time were in the county, uh, returned, Black students, now there were whites that were not able to afford to go to, uh, Prince Edward Academy. Is that correct?

Vera Allen: Yeah. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Did they come to the free schools?

Vera Allen: Yes. We got a few. We were didn’t—

Oloye Adeyemon: So—

Vera Allen: - didn’t get very many.

Oloye Adeyemon: So there were some whites in—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - in schools.

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: And these would’ve been whites—

Vera Allen: And one man said even—let’s see. How did he say it? About his-his, uh, Santa Claus, he—he hadn’t paid his, um, tuition. This is a white parent—hadn’t paid his child’s tuition ’cause he was poor, but he was trying. And at Christmas time, um, his little boy got a bicycle and said—they told him, “Well, you could’ve used that money to pay your child’s tuition. Why did you buy him a bicycle?”

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Vera Allen: Well, if he—he just moved on out of the county, you know. He was just tryin’ to stick his [unintelligible 42:39], which is all right, you know, as far as we were concerned. We didn’t mind that at all. But there was a whole lot of sticking going on.

Oloye Adeyemon: But—

Vera Allen: But the Cumberland, uh, didn’t—uh, Cumberland was very good, very receptive. [Unintelligible 42:54]—

Oloye Adeyemon: In terms of integration?

Vera Allen: Yeah. Yes. And-and [unintelligible 42:58] teddy. And they took some of our teachers and gave ’em jobs and took some of our children too.

Oloye Adeyemon: Right. ’Cause—that’s right. Your teach—all the teachers lost their jobs [crosstalk 43:04]—

Vera Allen: Yeah. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: - when the schools closed, right?

Vera Allen: And we had to go somewhere looking for jobs.

Oloye Adeyemon: I mean, the white teachers were able to go to work at the Prince Edward Academy, so it wasn’t—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - hard—

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: - on those families.

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Right. So—but definitely ’cause I—people weren’t sure that I’ve spoken with in the past. There definitely were a few white students at the free schools.

Vera Allen: Yes. That’s right. There were.

Oloye Adeyemon: And you taught there?

Vera Allen: Yes. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.

Female Voice: You weren’t—you didn’t teach. You were an administrator.

Oloye Adeyemon: Administrator? I’m sorry.

Female Voice: You were principal.

Oloye Adeyemon: You were the principal?

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: Sorry.

Vera Allen: That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: Sorry. Okay. So you were the principal of the free school.

Vera Allen: Mm-hmm.

Oloye Adeyemon: And the—and so it was a high school?

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: And this was all in the-in the building Moton, uh—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - high school building? That was the free—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - school?

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Female Voice: It was both build—it was in both buildings, wasn’t it?

Oloye Adeyemon: And elementary was across the street?

Female Voice: It was in Mary Branch, too—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: Okay.

Female Voice: - ’cause that’s where your office is.

Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. So both—

Vera Allen: Yeah. That’s right.

Oloye Adeyemon: - both buildings open?

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: Well, I really appreciate all of this that you—

Vera Allen: Well, I hope it’s been easy to understand and follow. I hope.

Oloye Adeyemon: Yeah. No. It’s-it’s perfectly clear, and-and we’re gonna-we’re gonna footnote it so it’ll even be clearer. And I’d like to, um, talk with you again, but in the next interview, I’d like to talk about what happened after integration and your efforts to commemorate these events—

Vera Allen: Mm-hmm.

Oloye Adeyemon: - through the—through your-through your-your organization’s work to save the building and your continued work with the Moton Museum and anything else that you think we need to know about this period and any suggestions that you have for educators who are gonna be listenin’ to these tapes about, uh, what they might be able to salvage from the earlier period because obviously there was some things—

Vera Allen: Yeah.

Oloye Adeyemon: - among us. Thank you very much.

Vera Allen: Teachers just—teachers might not have gone to college as much, but they were strong, and they were interested.

Oloye Adeyemon: Thank you.