Audio
Oral History Interview with Nancy Suggs
Transcript
[Pause 00:00 - 00:12]
Oloye Adeyemon: Brown versus Board oral-history collection, Washington, D.C., segregation—the segregation interviews. Interviewee—this is Nancye Suggs, director of the Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives. Interviewer, Oloye Adeyemon for the National Parks Service. Interview conducted at the Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives in Washington, D.C., on August 15th, 2001. These interviews are made possible through the Brown versus Board Oral History Resource Project funded by the National Parks Service in the summer of 2001 and is part of the Brown versus Board of Education National Historic Site Oral History Project. So-so [fading voice 00:58].
Nancye Suggs: Nancye Turner Suggs.
Oloye Adeyemon: And what were your parents’ names?
Nancye Suggs: My father was William Matthews Turner. My mother was Nancy Griswold Petty 01:10.
Oloye Adeyemon: Were they born here in Washington, D.C.?
Nancye Suggs: My mother was born here. My father was not.
Oloye Adeyemon: Where was he born?
Nancye Suggs: [Sighs] I think my father was born in Indiana.
Oloye Adeyemon: Yeah? What’d he do for a living?
Nancye Suggs: Um, my father was in World War II. When he came out of the service, he, uh, worked for a car dealership and ultimately went into show business—
Oloye Adeyemon: Hm. What’d he do?
Nancye Suggs: - as a comedian.
Oloye Adeyemon: Ah, did he do national—
Nancye Suggs: He did national work, um, at Sullivan and—
Oloye Adeyemon: Really?
Nancye Suggs: - Tonight Show, and-and he died very suddenly at a very young age.
Oloye Adeyemon: And what’d your mother do for a living?
Nancye Suggs: My mother worked for the government.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm.
Nancye Suggs: She, uh, joined the workforce during the war and stayed with the government until her retirement.
Oloye Adeyemon: What’d she do?
Nancye Suggs: Uh, my mother worked, uh, for the Civil Service Commission, personnel areas, and then went to the, um, uh, Airways Modernization Board, which was a precursor to the Federal Aviation Agency.
Oloye Adeyemon: Were you-you and your brothers and sisters born here in Washington, D.C.?
Nancye Suggs: I had one brother, yes, and we were both born here.
Oloye Adeyemon: What is your birthday?
Nancye Suggs: My birthday was July 1st, 1943.
Oloye Adeyemon: And what was your brother’s name?
Nancye Suggs: My brother’s name was Jay Craig Turner.
Oloye Adeyemon: Was he an older brother or a younger brother?
Nancye Suggs: No, younger. He was born in 1953.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay, and what do you do for a living?
Nancye Suggs: I’m now the director of the Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives, but I’ve been with the public schools in the city of Washington for 35 years.
Oloye Adeyemon: And in what capacity?
Nancye Suggs: All different administrative jobs.
Oloye Adeyemon: Such as?
Nancye Suggs: Uh, I started, um, with the, uh, procurement branch and went to the Division of Finance and then ultimately was transferred here to Sumner [fading voice 03:00].
Oloye Adeyemon: And you also went to school here?
Nancye Suggs: Went to school here in Washington for most of my, uh, school life.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. What section of the city did you grow up in?
Nancye Suggs: Gro—I grew up all over. I was fortunate. I lived in-in, uh, southeast Washington as a young child, uh, and started school at the Kimball Elementary School in kindergarten. Then we mo—
Oloye Adeyemon: Now, that was the section of the city where, uh, [unintelligible 03:30] lived, who, uh, had to travel to the northeast, um, to junior high school. Um, what year did you go into junior high school?
Nancye Suggs: I went into junior high school, uh—I have to start counting back here. Uh, in about, uh, ’55, 1955.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay, so you went to, um—was it Phila—sos—
Nancye Suggs: No, no, I only lived in southeast for a short time.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay, so you weren’t still in southeast?
Nancye Suggs: Well, I-I lived there for a long time, but I was a little, teeny girl, and then I went to, uh-I went to kindergarten at Kimball.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: And then we moved over near 16th, uh, Street, uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: Was that in northeast?
Nancye Suggs: Uh, northwest Washington, and I went to the Raymond Elementary School, uh, for, uh, second through sixth grade.
Oloye Adeyemon: And where was Raymond located?
Nancye Suggs: Raymond was located in 10th and Spring Road.
Oloye Adeyemon: Where was Kimball located?
Nancye Suggs: Kimball was located, uh, uh, off of Benning Road, uh, near, uh, uh, 32nd and D Street. It was near Fort Dupont Park.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay, and you went to junior high school from—
Nancye Suggs: At Gordon Junior High.
Oloye Adeyemon: Still northe—northwest?
Nancye Suggs: That was northwest at 35th and T. That’s in, uh, uh—near Glover Park and Georgetown area.
Oloye Adeyemon: And what high school did you go to?
Nancye Suggs: Then I went to private school for high school. I came back into the city and went to D.C. Teachers College.
Oloye Adeyemon: So you graduated and then went elsewhere for-for the training?
Nancye Suggs: Yeah, my-my family moved to Bethesda when I was in high school, and I graduated from Gordon in ninth grade. We moved to Bethesda, and, um, the high school I would’ve been assigned to at that time was very, very big, and, um, my family decided I would do better in a smaller school, so I went to a small private school.
Oloye Adeyemon: In-in—
Nancye Suggs: In Bethesda.
Oloye Adeyemon: In—yeah. And once you graduated, what’d you do?
Nancye Suggs: Then I came back into the city and went to D.C. Teachers College—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: - which—it was administrated by the public schools.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: Uh, back in those days, before UDC and Federal City College, we had our own teachers college that was administered by the public school system. Prior to desegregation, there were two teachers colleges. Wilson was the white school. Miner, named for Myrtilla Miner, was the Black teachers college, and they were both administered by the public school.
Oloye Adeyemon: Did you know Dr. Paul Cooke at that time?
Nancye Suggs: Yes, I did. He was president of D.C. Teachers College.
Oloye Adeyemon: Right. Of the entire college?
Nancye Suggs: That’s correct.
Oloye Adeyemon: And he had formerly been the head of, um, the Black teachers college.
Nancye Suggs: He had taught in the Black teachers college.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm, for years and years. So after teachers college, you then went to the school system?
Nancye Suggs: That’s correct.
Oloye Adeyemon: But not as a teacher?
Nancye Suggs: Not as a teacher.
Oloye Adeyemon: With the procurement?
Nancye Suggs: I went into the procurement branch, then the finance branch.
Oloye Adeyemon: And was that where you remained until you retired?
Nancye Suggs: And, uh, the-then on straight through.
Oloye Adeyemon: So you were transferred here to Sumner—
Nancye Suggs: When I worked for the school system, this building—uh, while it’s not, uh, kept up by the school system, there’re four professional people who work here who’re paid by the school system.
Oloye Adeyemon: I see. Which four are those?
Nancye Suggs: And I’m the director. We have a museum specialist, Mr. John Pyon 07:24. We have the archivist, Mrs. Judy Capersa 07:27, and we have a part-time exhibit curator, Mrs. Harriet Lesser 07:32.
Oloye Adeyemon: I see. So going back to your experiences in the schools, uh, talk for a moment, if you would, about segregation in Washington, D.C., as far as your remember it as a child during the years you were attending elementary school.
Nancye Suggs: Washington was a very unusual city. Uh, it was considered Southern, but the federal government was located here. The president lives here. Um, and the neighborhoods were basically not segregated. Uh, growing up in Washington, all my life I played with white children.
Oloye Adeyemon: But then not the schools—
Nancye Suggs: We went to separate schools until 1954, but we played together and lived in the same areas. Um—
Oloye Adeyemon: Now-now, was that—
Nancye Suggs: I would call it—uh, I call it growing up in a schizophrenic arrangement. [Laughter]
Oloye Adeyemon: Now, were all neighborhoods like that or just the ones that you lived in?
Nancye Suggs: Mostly all of them. There were only a few neighborhoods, very few, that you could really say—
Oloye Adeyemon: Were solidly Black or—
Nancye Suggs: - were solidly Black or white. Um—
Oloye Adeyemon: Where were they?
Nancye Suggs: Spring Valley, which is off of Massachusetts Avenue, and far northeast. Actually, when that community was built, they said who could live there. They determined who could live there.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: Uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: So it was solidly—
Nancye Suggs: So, I mean, it was not only solidly white but—
Oloye Adeyemon: But only certain whites.
Nancye Suggs: - only certain white people. You-you know, um—
Oloye Adeyemon: How did that affect—
Nancye Suggs: Ledroit Park around Howard—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: - was almost totally a Black community, very historic community. Very, um, uh, well-educated people lived there. Uh, doctors, lawyers, dentists, professors, educators lived in that area.
Oloye Adeyemon: How did the residential patterns affect segregation in the city? What-what impact did it have, or did it have an impact on the nature of segregation, since there is at least, to some degree, social interaction between the races?
Nancye Suggs: Well, I think in the-in the Deep South, you had this—really, a dividing line. Remember we used to talk people came from the wrong side of the tracks?
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: Well, I think there was actually a real dividing line, where Black people lived on this side; white people lived over here. That was never the case here. There was always a lotta social interaction, um, uh, even back to the 1800s.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: Uh, there was a gentleman that grew up here in Washington. His name was James Wormley. His family—
Oloye Adeyemon: How do you spell his last name?
Nancye Suggs: - lived there. W-O-R-M-L-E-Y. Mr. Wormley, um, went through D.C. public schools, worked in, uh, hotels and restaurants, saved his money, traveled to Europe to see how their very fancy hotels and restaurants were operated, came back to Washington, bought a farm, grew his own vegetables and owned a hotel at the corner of 15th and 8th Street.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: Uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: Was he African-American?
Nancye Suggs: He was African-American, but his hotel was for whites.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm.
Nancye Suggs: Senator Sumner lived there, we know—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: - for part of his time in the Senate.
Oloye Adeyemon: He’s the one the school is named—
Nancye Suggs: The-the school is named for. And James Wormley was-was considered to be, uh, not only a fine, upstanding citizen. He was a wonderful businessman and entrepreneur. He had the only working elevator and working ha—telephone. His hotel was the only hotel that had both a working elevator and telephone at the time [fading voice 11:27].
Oloye Adeyemon: In Washington?
Nancye Suggs: In Washington. Um, he was a friend to many politicians—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm.
Nancye Suggs: - and one of the most famous, um, incidents in po-politics took places in his hotel. The result was the Wormley Agreement, which settled the disputed election in 1880—
Oloye Adeyemon: Wow.
Nancye Suggs: - and-and, uh, which mirrors our—just our past election.
Oloye Adeyemon: Right. That was under—
Nancye Suggs: So there were people in the city—
Oloye Adeyemon: That was over the Electoral College?
Nancye Suggs: - yes, who-who-who, uh, uh—there was a Black community here that was established, uh, over Ledroit Park, U Street. The people had their own culture, their own society, their own businesses—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: - and, um, there were stores in Washington where they could shop. So there wasn’t this—
Oloye Adeyemon: I understand.
Nancye Suggs: - quite strict segregation that there was in the Deep South.
Oloye Adeyemon: So—but nonetheless, there is segregation. And you said, for example, uh, the hotel that he built was patronized by whites.
Nancye Suggs: But he-he—
Oloye Adeyemon: He didn’t really have a choice, if whites were going to go there, of having Blacks there because there were no integrated hotels in the city.
Nancye Suggs: No.
Oloye Adeyemon: So it’s interesting that, you know—
Nancye Suggs: But it’s interesting because most Black hotels for Black persons—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: - were owned by African-American persons.
Oloye Adeyemon: And even one of the ones that whites—one of the outstanding hotels for whites was—
Nancye Suggs: Was owned by this gentleman.
Oloye Adeyemon: - uh, owned [crosstalk 12:56]. Interesting. Uh, what, as a child, do you remember about segregated [fading voice 13:04]?
Nancye Suggs: Well, you know, my family, uh, particularly my father, never called attention to what people’s ethnic or religious background was. It really wasn’t of interest to him.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: He kind of treated everybody as they came along so that I really, uh, felt it-it was kind of a schizophrenic environment. You played with white children.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: We, um, interacted in that way, but we couldn’t go to the swimming pool together in the summer. We couldn’t go to school together. When the fall came, all-all your Black friends went to one school, and you-you and your white friends went to another.
Oloye Adeyemon: How early were you aware that this was something that was mandated?
Nancye Suggs: I think I was about, um—it-it—in third grade.
Oloye Adeyemon: What happened at that time? What—
Nancye Suggs: What happened was that the court case came up. Uh, Brown vs. Board of Education was the one I was aware of.
Oloye Adeyemon: Now, what year would that have been?
Nancye Suggs: It was in, I guess, ’50-’53 or ’54, when the fir—the case first started.
Oloye Adeyemon: What grade were you in?
Nancye Suggs: I was about third or fourth grade. I was a school patrol, and I remember vividly going to school, having patrol, then all our patrols, you know, walk to school together, and a Black man coming to—up to us on Spring Road. And he said to me—
Oloye Adeyemon: You were still in southeast?
Nancye Suggs: I was in northwest—
Oloye Adeyemon: You were in north—
Nancye Suggs: - up in Raymond School. And the gentleman came up to me and-and-and our patrol friends. It was very interesting. We were a mixed group of patrols. There were no Black children because, of course, we all went to a white school. There was myself. There was a Jewish girl. There was a, uh, Asian boy and-and another boy.
Oloye Adeyemon: All were attending the white school?
Nancye Suggs: Patrols that—we were all in school. And this African-American gentleman came up and introduced himself to us as a reporter for the Washington Afro-American, which was the Black newspaper.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: And he said, “Are you aware that the court case was settled yesterday”—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: - “and that next year you will be going to school with Black children?”
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: And we said, no, we didn’t know anything about that.
Oloye Adeyemon: Did that stimulate a conversation after he—
Nancye Suggs: And he s—yes. He said, “Well, we-we’d like to know—the newspaper would like to know what you all think about going to school with Black children next year.” And our various responses were, well, my friend Mary or Joe or Sam or whoever—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: - we play together in the afternoon. We’re gonna be able to go to school together and play on the playground. Um, I remember the Asian boy was a champion yo-yo. He always got the championship at the yo-yo thing, and he said, “Oh, well, my friend, uh, Sam and I will be able to, uh, do the yo-yo thing together.” And so there was a great deal of interest because we all thought, great. We won’t just play with our friends after school or in the summer. We’ll be able to walk to school together. We’ll be in school together. We’ll have recess. We’ll be able to eat lunch.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: So we were all—thought, fine, you know? It was great. There wasn’t any controversy. There wasn’t any, “Oh, I don’t wanna go to school with them.” There was nothing like that.
Oloye Adeyemon: There were whites in the city did feel that way, though.
Nancye Suggs: Uh, oh, I’m sure there were. I’m sure there were.
Oloye Adeyemon: Did you ever-did you ever have occasion to get a sense of how they were looking at it, what bothered them about it?
Nancye Suggs: Oh, I’m sure that the friends of my mother and grandmother were.
Oloye Adeyemon: Did you happen to overhear conversations?
Nancye Suggs: Oh, yes, we’re-we’re—you know, they thought, well, this is going to be the beginning and the end, you know? What’s gonna happen?
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. So are you-are—in your experience, it was more adults that had problems with the children?
Nancye Suggs: Oh, I think so. I think very, very definitely. Most of the children that-that I played with as a young person—uh, we had an Indian family—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: - in our block. Uh, they—
Oloye Adeyemon: What school did they go to?
Nancye Suggs: They went to Raymond with me.
Oloye Adeyemon: The white school.
Nancye Suggs: They were from India. They were dark people.
Oloye Adeyemon: But they were-they were allowed to go—
Nancye Suggs: They were people of color—
Oloye Adeyemon: Right, they—
Nancye Suggs: - but they went to the school. And for a child my age, we never understood that.
Oloye Adeyemon: [Laughter]
Nancye Suggs: That didn’t make any sense. And, um, I remember this-this Indian fellow, we used to love to go to his house because he was the first kid in our neighborhood that got a television.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: And their mother and father had one of those old console 17:47 TVs with the round screens, you know?
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: Um, it was a Zenith or something.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: Thought it was great. So we really—a-and the group that I played with for the most part—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: - there was never any, uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: Problem that—just—
Nancye Suggs: - discussion about it.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Now, it took—
Nancye Suggs: [Coughs]
Oloye Adeyemon: Well, it took some years. You were long out of school before it was full integration in Washington, D.C., because it took some years for it to be implemented. Is that true?
Nancye Suggs: Well, I think one of the reasons it—well, what you have to understand is that the demographics started to change. After World War II there was a big influx of population in Washington. Uh, the government was opened up to people of color to work. No longer did a person of color have to be an elevator operator or a food-service worker. Uh, so everything began to change at the same time. The schools were integrated. The city’s demographic changed. Um, the federal government, although we didn’t have what we call equal-opportunity employment until much later, began to open up, uh, to Blacks. So [clears throat] all things were changing at once, and, um, the school—the next year, I went to school with Black children who lived in my neighborhood.
Oloye Adeyemon: [Crosstalk 19:16]
Nancye Suggs: That was a fact. I went—
Oloye Adeyemon: Uh, so it-so it did happen right away?
Nancye Suggs: It did happen right away.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay, so you did experience that.
Nancye Suggs: But—
Oloye Adeyemon: It was desegregation but not integration.
Nancye Suggs: But it—right, because what happened is you still went to your neighborhood school.
Oloye Adeyemon: So if there were no Blacks in your neighborhood, there were no Black schools.
Nancye Suggs: Hood—then there were no Blacks at your school.
Oloye Adeyemon: So it was more likely to have been evident in the high schools and junior high schools than the elementary schools—
Nancye Suggs: In the—
Oloye Adeyemon: - which would’ve been a more neighborhood nature. So—
Nancye Suggs: The-the-the neighborhood schools, but you have to remember most of the neighborhoods were integrated. So only if you lived in a-in a enclave like Ledroit Park, where—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: - it was mostly Black would you have a mostly Black school.
Oloye Adeyemon: I understand.
Nancye Suggs: What they didn’t do right away was to move the teachers and principals around—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm.
Nancye Suggs: - so that at Raymond School, I, in fact, went to school with Black children, but I didn’t have any Black teachers.
Oloye Adeyemon: I understand.
Nancye Suggs: And that came later, when somebody woke up and said, “Look, now you’ve got to make this an equal distribution of people, and you’ve got to have these Black teachers spread throughout the city.”
Oloye Adeyemon: I’d like to go back, um, to get a sense of what the attitudes of the preceding generation might’ve been. Uh, can you share with me some of the things, not so much your family or even your friends said, but just that you heard from adults, white adults, uh, before and during that period that would give us some sense of how people who were growin’ up in Washington under segregation might have felt about it and might’ve felt about the [fading voice 20:52]?
Nancye Suggs: Well, I think that [clears throat] change of this very nature is hard for people, no matter what it is. And I think that change, uh, makes people fearful that they’re losing control of what’s happening. And I think that was one of the big fears, that they didn’t know what to expect because they felt they had lost control of things.
Oloye Adeyemon: What were some of the preconceived notions that they had about [fading voice 21:20]?
Nancye Suggs: I-I guess, um, uh, that for people who are really racist, uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: Of which we can safely assume that many here in the Washington area—
Nancye Suggs: Oh, I-I’m sure there were. Um, they didn’t want any of their rights and privileges to be interfered with, you know? It’s okay for you to be equal, as long as you’re not gonna interfere with what I’m doing, and I think that was basically it. Then there were some people who were really racist, and those were the folks that, um, uh, really had this ingrained hate of people that were unlike them. And those are the people who rose up then, when—if you lived down the street from them during segregation, everything was fine.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: But the minute we integrated the schools and the facilities and restaurants and all these other things, then-then that’s when people started defacing people’s property.
Oloye Adeyemon: Can you talk about that? What were some of those kinds of things?
Nancye Suggs: Uh, oh, yeah, a lot of those things happened, um, because somehow there was a fear factor that was—that rose up. It’s hard for me to—
Oloye Adeyemon: So we’re not talking about defacing people’s property the—integrating the neighborhood. It might be defacing—
Nancye Suggs: No, they lived their whole—
Oloye Adeyemon: - people’s property who’ve been longtime neighbors—
Nancye Suggs: Right.
Oloye Adeyemon: - out of a frustration and resentment over change.
Nancye Suggs: ’Cause all-yeah, all of a sudden you had the same rights that I did.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: You were livin’ next-door to me, and everything was fine because-because you weren’t any threat to me.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm.
Nancye Suggs: You couldn’t take my job. Your kid couldn’t go to my kid’s school. All of a sudden now things began to change, and people started to become afraid.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm.
Nancye Suggs: Some of them moved away—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: - to the suburbs.
Oloye Adeyemon: ’Cause there was a great change in the demographics since—
Nancye Suggs: Yeah, then the demographics changed.
Oloye Adeyemon: Went from minority Black to majority Black.
Nancye Suggs: To majority Black.
Oloye Adeyemon: And we—it can be, you know, assumed that that was in large part because of these changes.
Nancye Suggs: Oh, I think it was. I think it—I think there were many things that played into this. The war was over. Uh, Korea was over, and there were more jobs. Homes were being built in s—the suburbs, where there had been no homes, and people wanted to move upward and outward. And some people did it just because they had a better job. They had—they were able to move. Uh, they could buy what they considered to be a better house or a bigger house. Uh, and then there were those who moved because they were really afraid. They looked around, and there were 5 white people—wha—5 Black people in their neighborhood, and they looked around again, and there were 25.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: And then all of a sudden, they said, “I don’t wanna be the minority. I’m gonna move.” Uh, so the ru—and then-and then there was the guy who didn’t have the education, didn’t have the money, had to stay in the neighborhood, who really didn’t like Black people, and that was the guy you had to look out for because he was the one who was gonna trespass, deface your property, burn a cross in your yard and create a commotion.
Oloye Adeyemon: And these kinds of things did occur in the city.
Nancye Suggs: And they did occur. They occurred on a-uh, on a, uh, limited basis, but they did occur. And, uh, the major disturbance that we had in this city didn’t come until Dr. King’s death. We didn’t have any major disturbances.
Oloye Adeyemon: Now, there had been—
Nancye Suggs: Even during integration, we didn’t have any major disturbances.
Oloye Adeyemon: Now, earlier in the history of the city, there had been riots.
Nancye Suggs: Uh, for different—
Oloye Adeyemon: Racial riots I’m saying earlier.
Nancye Suggs: Right.
Oloye Adeyemon: You know, you-you—
Nancye Suggs: Right. But integration, we never had any major upheaval.
Oloye Adeyemon: Major, okay.
Nancye Suggs: It was-it was a minor, uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: What can you say, both from your personal experience and as much as you can, speaking perhaps for white students and parents during your period, what, in fact, what were the changes that occurred in the education that whites received and the educational environment with desegregation in the schools?
Nancye Suggs: Well, I think one thing you have to understand about the public schools here in Washington: We had the best public schools in the country, and we particularly had the best schools for Blacks. People in the South particularly wanted to send their children here to go to school because our schools were so good. And so you had families, uh, from the South that had relatives here. They would send their children here. You even had people that, while they didn’t have a relative, they decided that the schools were so good, they wanted to rent a room from somebody who’d be willing to let their child live in their home—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: - so that they could go to our schools.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm.
Nancye Suggs: Um, we talked earlier about the, uh, Department of the Interior overseeing the Black schools for many years, and we talked about the comparison with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. They never interfered with the administration of our schools because they were wonderful.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: They had educators, not only just teachers; I mean educators. People were dedicated to teaching—
Oloye Adeyemon: They were qualified.
Nancye Suggs: - and-and were qualified, were intelligent and were, uh, fine people.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: So they had no problems with our schools, basically.
Oloye Adeyemon: Yeah, but I guess my question—uh, because from you, who can maybe give a little bit more insight—again, not just your personal experience, but as best we can, what might have the students—the white perspective at that time from the Black perspective. And I guess my question is, by and large, what was the assessment in the white community of the schools after desegregation?
Nancye Suggs: Oh, I think-I think that what you heard was, [clears throat] “Well, our schools are not gonna be as good.”
Oloye Adeyemon: What did actually people say after that occurred? Did they continue to feel that way?
Nancye Suggs: Oh, yes. And, of course, their, uh, uh, assessment in some ways became true—
Oloye Adeyemon: And why? Why did it?
Nancye Suggs: - but not because the schools were desegregated. There were all these other things was happening at the same time.
Oloye Adeyemon: Such as?
Nancye Suggs: Well, discipline, for one thing. Uh, we never had discipline problems in-in the days when I was in school.
Oloye Adeyemon: Why did they occur?
Nancye Suggs: And that was because if your teacher called you down for something that you did, you got called down at school, and you got ha—punished at home. Your mother never went to the school and accused the teacher of picking on you or, uh-or making up a story about you or—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: No. There was a-there was an alignment between the parent and the school so that there was a-a-a discipline that carried over.
Oloye Adeyemon: How does that change?
Nancye Suggs: It changed e-changed everywhere, and it changed mostly during the ’60s, where, uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: So you’re sayin’ this was a-a effect of the times?
Nancye Suggs: I think it was. I think it had nothing to do with desegregation.
Oloye Adeyemon: Right, or-or race? It was just—
Nancye Suggs: No, it was a-it was a-it was a—
Oloye Adeyemon: It was society, so—
Nancye Suggs: - societal change. It had to do with fewer mothers being in the home. Both parents were working. There wasn’t supervision at home.
Oloye Adeyemon: Were there other things that you think were changes that were occurring in society that impacted the school environment as well?
Nancye Suggs: Well, we had-we had the sexual revolution. We had drugs coming into the cities, uh, not just to certain neighborhoods or parts of-of, uh, society but everywhere.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: And all of these things had an impact on-on education. S—the war in Vietnam had a big, uh, uh, effect on the way we viewed things. Uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: How would you—how did you—uh, what did you observe in the, uh, preparation for, you know, the subject matter, um, with Black students who were entering your school for the first time? When they came in, how did they fare as far as keeping up with-uh, with—
Nancye Suggs: Well, that was what was very interesting. We had such a fine Black school system that when the schools were integrated, there wasn’t any problem about any group lagging behind another group because they had a fine foundation, education. Uh, and when I went to junior high school, I had a Black history teacher. I had, uh, a Black math teacher, and I had a Black art teacher. Her name was Delilah Pierce. I don’t know if you know about her, but she is one of the premier Black women artists in the United States.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: She died a few years ago, but in the last 10 to 12 years prior to her death, she was recognized, uh, in the art world in the United States—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: - as being one of the premier Black women artists.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: She was my teacher in junior high school.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm, mm.
Nancye Suggs: So the teachers and the students were prepared.
Oloye Adeyemon: So when you look back at teaching qualifications, at least of those Black teachers that you had, you were exposed to—
Nancye Suggs: Oh, yes. There was never any—
Oloye Adeyemon: They—
Nancye Suggs: There was never any doubt for a moment that these people weren’t as good or better than the white teachers. Um, another thing that came into play during that time—uh, when-when I was at the teachers college, in order for you to become a tenured teacher in the city of Washington, you had to pass a national teachers exam.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: You also had to speak what they called standard American speech—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: - and you had to pass a test.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm.
Nancye Suggs: Uh, that all went out the window.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm.
Nancye Suggs: Uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: Why?
Nancye Suggs: Well, uh, one reason was we got a teachers union. Now, it’s a funny thing. As things evolved, uh, we’re back to-to having tenure. You have to meet certain qualifications, but there was a period when all of them went out the window.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. Some of the Black students wore uniforms to school. Did the white students wear uniforms?
Nancye Suggs: Uh, that is a recent—fairly recent, uh, evolution in public education—
Oloye Adeyemon: Were—
Nancye Suggs: - in the past 15 years or so, where student populations and-and parents can elect their children to wear uniforms.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay. I may’ve misunderstood that. So to your knowledge, in the Black schools during segregation, those—
Nancye Suggs: Well, it may’ve been in the ’20s and ’30s.
Oloye Adeyemon: I see.
Nancye Suggs: But durin’ the period when I was in school in the ’40s and ’50s, uh, that wasn’t the case.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Mm, what d—I mean, we-we sometimes can speculate. That’s sometimes all we can do, uh, or usually all we can do. But looking back at it, uh, how would you compare the education you got in the integrated schools in Washington and the education that you probably would’ve gotten if things had continued [fading voice 34:00]?
Nancye Suggs: I-I think in the time period that I was in school, there would’ve been no difference because education at that time was viewed in an entirely different way. We talk about children first and-and putting education on the front burner and the—we talk about it, but that’s about all we do is talk about it. In the days when I was in school and prior to my entering school, when my mother was in school and my grandmother was in school, children really were priority, and education was really, uh, first. Um, so the teachers were considered in the same league with a doctor, a lawyer or an accountant. It was a profession; it wasn’t a job.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: And people took pride in being p—teachers, and they were well prepared. They took pride in learning. They never stopped. It wasn’t because you wanted to continue as a teacher or you wanted to continue your tenure. It was because you wanted to learn, and you wanted to impart what you learned to the child that was in your classroom.
Oloye Adeyemon: That raises a-a-an issue that’s come up many times in interviews. Uh, you spoke of it as a profession that was well respected, but prior to desegregation and after desegregation, uh, pe—uh, teachers unfortunately have not been rewarded in financial compensation—
Nancye Suggs: Mm-hmm.
Oloye Adeyemon: - like other professionals. Would you say that the lack of compensation, particularly at a time when many of the teachers, particularly at elementary schools, were wo-women, that many of your better teachers who had been there because of their commitment to education, uh, over time might’ve left the schools ’cause of the fact of the salaries were lagging behind the area [crosstalk 36:00]?
Nancye Suggs: Oh, I think so. I think a lot of things came into play, but one of the big things was there was also not a—not only equal opportunity for people of color. It was equal opportunity for women. Women could now step out and become a doctor or a lawyer or an accountant. They could enter the business world. So opportunities were opening up for everyone, and, um, as-as all this evolution was occurring, uh, the really respect for-for the teacher and the school system—
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay.
Nancye Suggs: - was declining. And people said, “Who needs this? I could make two or three times the money and be in an atmosphere where I’m gonna be respected as an individual.”
Oloye Adeyemon: So during that period, one of the things that might’ve happened that changed the education environment was a lot of older, qualified teachers leaving.
Nancye Suggs: Yeah. Absolutely.
Oloye Adeyemon: Wasn’t it also, uh, more difficult in—I don’t know if—to what extent that was—that—in Washington and many of the country, busing was the primary [crosstalk 37:07]—
Nancye Suggs: We-we never had busing here in Washington.
Oloye Adeyemon: [Crosstalk 37:09]
Nancye Suggs: We don’t bus our students, never did. Um, we had neighborhood schools, and our school system was built in clusters, to a great extent, so there was a grade school, a junior high and a high school in clusters.
Oloye Adeyemon: All right, ’cause in some places that had an additional effect—
Nancye Suggs: Right.
Oloye Adeyemon: - that it was no longer [fading voice 37:29] the school—
Nancye Suggs: The only busing we ever did was for special-education children who needed transportation to get to school, uh, because of physical or mental disability. Uh, and that was to take them to a school that it could accommodate them. Um, after integration occurred, what did happen was we were able to open up some of our schools that had special programs so that if you lived in southeast but you wanted to go to Wilson High School in northwest because of a special curriculum that they had, if you were accepted in the curriculum, you were able to go.
Oloye Adeyemon: Right.
Nancye Suggs: We couldn’t bus you—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: - because we don’t operate that way, but what we did do was provide, back in those days, tokens—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: - now the SPARE 38:19 cards for the subway.
Oloye Adeyemon: So were the schools throughout D.C. pretty much the same in terms of integration of the races, or was there a disparity? Was there, you know, differences between—were certain schools—even though the system was desegregated, how integrated was-was the D.C. school system?
Nancye Suggs: Well, it-it-it wasn’t integrated because our population became about 95 percent Black, and—
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. And it was never a regional solution to—
Nancye Suggs: - it was nothin’ we could do.
Oloye Adeyemon: Was a regional solution to—
Nancye Suggs: - uh, because even if we bused white children to Black parts of the city, we didn’t have enough to go around, and way—it just wasn’t, uh, feasible.
Oloye Adeyemon: And it wasn’t—it was never a regional solution ever?
Nancye Suggs: N-no.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay, so—
Nancye Suggs: And-and, you know, we mentioned earlier about separate but equal.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: That was the intent, but everybody understands that it was never separate but equal.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: I think the Black schools always had to struggle hard, uh, in terms of-of getting books and papers and repairs and those kinda things. But they were never less equal in the amount of education they received and the amount of knowledge they had.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay, so do you think the true intent of the Supreme Court decision was realized?
Nancye Suggs: Oh, I think it was realized here. Uh, but you have to understand it wasn’t realized because of the law. It was realized because people wanted it to happen.
Oloye Adeyemon: Okay, so—
Nancye Suggs: The people made it happen. The law didn’t make it happen.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. So given the conditions then of the D.C. schools and the condition where they’ve invested in the country, and today, where it’s a struggle just to be certified, what happened?
Nancye Suggs: Uh—
Oloye Adeyemon: And it has to be, I take it, something more than just the social-societal changes that occurred everywhere because it seems that there’s a greater difference here in D.C. between the schools then and now than in other areas of the country. And that even includes the Black schools then and now. So what, in a sense, went wrong, or what-what-what [crosstalk 40:44]?
Nancye Suggs: Well, I think part of what went wrong was that there was no accountability.
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm. Of whose [crosstalk 40:49]?
Nancye Suggs: The-the-the-the mayor, board of education, the city council weren’t accountable to anybody because the Congress doesn’t really care about the people of D.C.
Oloye Adeyemon: That’s a—
Nancye Suggs: I think we have to be very clear about that. They don’t care. They have no reason to care, unless it’s gonna impact them or their children, and they don’t send their kids to D.C. public school.
Oloye Adeyemon: But, again, this is not something that’s significantly different between then and now. They did-they—uh, or-or did it change? And, in other words, was Congress any more concerned about D.C. being successful—
Nancye Suggs: But s-see, though—but-but they were accountable back in the time that the—
Oloye Adeyemon: Congress was?
Nancye Suggs: - that-that the-that the commissioners were appointed by the president.
Oloye Adeyemon: I see. I see.
Nancye Suggs: Oh, yeah. When we started electing—uh, the-the-they patted us on the head and said, “Okay, all right, we’re gonna let you elect your mayor and your school board. You just go on, long as you don’t bother anybody.”
Oloye Adeyemon: Mm-hmm.
Nancye Suggs: And, um, this was a new deal for the people here. We never had that privilege before. Um, there were people who wanted to be elected, and I believe in my heart that at the beginning, their motivation was good. But something happens to people—
Oloye Adeyemon: You mean elected officials?
Nancye Suggs: Yeah. Something happens to people.
Oloye Adeyemon: Well, why did this not happen in cities that traditionally had elected their officials? What-what—
Nancye Suggs: Well, I think it-it has happened. I think we’re seeing that all the time in the news, where power corrupts people, and they do—
Oloye Adeyemon: Um—
Nancye Suggs: - all kinds of very strange things. But all of a sudden, we were running our own show here, but we weren’t quite sure how to run it. But we didn’t wanna ask anybody because we didn’t want anybody to know we didn’t really know. And, um, nobody was held accountable, and so things began to deteriorate, and all of a sudden, one day people looked up and realized the extent to which they had deteriorated.
Oloye Adeyemon: Yeah. So perhaps part of what people struggled with then was something—and I’ve even heard it said by some that was more like a decolonization process that—
Nancye Suggs: Mm.
Oloye Adeyemon: - maybe there—a certain dependency on others ’cause at one point you didn’t have any voter say.
Nancye Suggs: Right.
Oloye Adeyemon: And then when you got it, you know, perhaps at least initially, people were not taking as active a role, and there’s people might [crosstalk 43:12] other places—
Nancye Suggs: They really didn’t know what to do. And that’s changing. You can see it all around. People are becoming, uh, more interested in what’s occurring in their neighborhood. Uh, they’re holding this mayor accountable when things go wrong.
Oloye Adeyemon: Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. You said earlier that you don’t think your education was compromised in any way through, uh, going to school at an integrated school.
Nancye Suggs: No.
Oloye Adeyemon: Did you benefit in any way?
Nancye Suggs: Of course.
Oloye Adeyemon: [Crosstalk 43:42] how?
Nancye Suggs: Because you—in order to-to-to live in the world we-we have now, you have got to understand the culture and the history and customs of all kinds of people. You can’t do that if you don’t live around them, go to school with them, interact with them. I’m really not gonna be able to learn about your culture if all I ever got to do was play with you for two hours after school. Once you go to school with people, have them in your home, uh, attend cultural events, uh, where you celebrate your culture, I celebrate mine, you learn about me, I learn about you, it had to be beneficial, and it was for everybody who lived here.
Oloye Adeyemon: Thank you so much, you know, for sharing both your experience and also your point of view ’cause that’s important, too. I appreciate it.
Nancye Suggs: Thank you. Thank you for coming.
[End of Audio]
Description
Brown versus Board oral-history collection, Washington, D.C., segregation—the segregation interviews. Interviewee—this is Nancye Suggs, director of the Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives. Interviewer, Oloye Adeyemon for the National Parks Service. Interview conducted at the Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives in Washington, D.C., on August 15th, 2001.
Date Created
01/13/2024
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