Oral+History+Questions

Terry T. (uncle)

1. How old were you during the Civil Rights Movement? I'm sorry to say that I may have been too young to appreciate the civil rights movement.

2. What sort of grade school did you attend and was it segregated? In grade school, 1st thru 8th grade, I attended an all white catholic school , and my only memories were that which I saw on television with marches and rioting. But during those years, I never watched news on tv.

3. What was some of your parents opinions of the movement? I'm certain my father had more interest, as he was a strong backer of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Again, I was too young to understand what was going on. We lived in a different world than you do now. My only interests were sports and girls. We sure didn't have computers to see what was going on in the world.

4. What was your high school like and was it different? In high school, after attending Pius H.S. , which was predominently white , I went to Washington H.S. which was maybe 60% black. It took alot of getting use to. There was alot of small fights between blacks and whites at school, and on the way home from school.

5. What is something significant you remember or something that happened in school? I remember staying home from school on occasion because of riots. I was punched and kicked by a large group of black girls as I returned from lunch one day. It really didn't effect me all that much until I realized that some of the black players on my basketball team, who I considered friends, were walking behind me and did nothing to stop it. That bothered me a good deal.

6. Was there segregation at your school? There was segregation at school in that, other than on sport teams or in the classroom , whites hung with whites and blacks with blacks.

7. What were some things you remember hearing about during the time? I remember hearing about the NAACP quite a bit then, but really never paid that much attention to it. I remember black kids putting their fists in the air to indicate "black power", but again, it didn't alienate us any more or less than we already were.

THANK YOU UNCLE TERRY!!! :)