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Transcript of interview with Hughie and Greta Mills by Claytee White, April 7, 2011

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2011-04-07

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Hughie and Greta Mills spent their childhoods in Charlestown, West Virginia. Fate would bring them together years later in New York City. They married in 1954. Both Hughie and Greta talk about achieving a better life through education and perseverance. He became an educator and she a librarian. In 1989, the couple relocated to Las Vegas, seeing the weather and retirement lifestyle here to their liking. During this interview they describe their lives, individually and as a couple, and how they embraced life and living in Las Vegas as a retired, African- American couple.

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[Transcript of interview with Hughie and Greta Mills by Claytee White, April 7, 2011]. Mills, Hughie and Greta Interview, 2011 April 7. OH-01303. [Transcript.] Oral History Research Center, Special Collections & Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada.

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An Interview with Hughie E. & Greta Mills An Oral History Conducted by Claytee D. White The Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ©The Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2007 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV - University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Editors: Barbara Tabach and Gloria Homol Transcribers: Kristin Hicks and Laurie Boetcher Interviewers and Project Assistants: Barbara Tabach and Claytee D. White ii The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of Dr. Harold Boyer and the Library Advisory Committee. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank the university for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases photographic sources accompany the individual interviews. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project. Additional transcripts may be found under that series title. Claytee D. White, Project Director Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University Nevada, Las Vegas iii Table of Contents Hughie Mills talks of childhood growing up in West Virginia; father was a coal miner and mother a housewife and mother to five. Attended segregated schools. First integrated school was in graduate school in New York. His chore at home was shopping for widows, which he was not allowed to be paid for. College was delayed due to finances and then because of the military draft 1-5 Greta was born in Charleston, West Virginia, the oldest of four children. Tells how her father was politically active and instilled a value for education; mother was a domestic worker. Explains that she and Hughie came to Las Vegas when one of her younger brothers retired here in the 1970s. She tells about college, return of veterans. Story of voting and about his military experience; stationed in Paris for six months, then England and his return to the states 5-12 Hughie talks about starting college on the GI Bill, increased enrollment, shortage of books. Greta retells the story of how they met, which begins with her seeking and not getting a teaching position in Charleston, marrying her college boyfriend who was killed in Korea. She had moved to New York with his family; she tells the story of crossing paths with hometown friend Hughie and the two began dating and married 12-18 Hughie tells how he got to New York, living there; working at R.J. Reynolds and their "black sales force". Story about Amsterdam Newspaper. Recalls how he finally got hired in a community relations job at Columbia, increasing the number of black students there, learning to raise money through foundations 19-22 Greta shares her employment story, going to college; how she got position as assistant librarian at American Journal of Nursing Company. Talks about the government wanting black students to go to library school and beginning grad school at the age of 41. She takes a librarian position at their daughter's school in spite of Hughie's run ins with the board 23-29 Session 2 starts with the sharing of Hughie's letter from Columbia conferring professorship. Discuss how they retired and moved to Las Vegas. Formed a social-charity group of other black couples called Scorpios Club. Talk about local AARP chapter; Hughie stopping smoking; friendship with J. David Hoggard 30-39 Mentions Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, and acquaintances from those organizations; Tee to Green golf tournaments; changes in racial attitudes; churches; jobs/volunteering after retirement; involvement in Osher Lifetime Learning Institute which includes art, jazz among other topics 40-54 Appendix articles and memorabilia iv Preface Hughie and Greta Mills spent their childhoods in Charlestown, West Virginia. Fate would bring them together years later in New York City. They married in 1954. Both Hughie and Greta talk about achieving a better life through education and perseverance. He became an educator and she a librarian. In 1989, the couple relocated to Las Vegas, seeing the weather and retirement lifestyle here to their liking. During this interview they describe their lives, individually and as a couple, and how they embraced life and living in Las Vegas as a retired, African- American couple. v/ivnij mj i uiv i lu:jL,ruwi i viiii i L,I\ n i unijV Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project Use Agreement Name of Narrator: ^ }jij£,ijl£: CT . ^7 / l^l. < Name of Interviewer: C-tAYTe.J). Wff/T£~ We, die above named, give to ib^^al History Research Center of UNLV, die recorded interview(s) initiated on 7/ 7LZCtf as an unrestricted gift, to be used for such scholarly and educational purposes as shall be determined, and transfer to die University of Nevada Las Vegas, legal tide and all literary property rights including copyright. Tliis gift does not preclude die right of die interviewer, as a representative of UNLV, to use die recordings and related materials for scholarly pursuits. There will be no compensation for any interviews. Date Library Special Collections 4505 Maryland Parkway, Box 457010, Las Vegas, Nevada 89154-7070 (702) 895-2222 ORAL HISTORY RESEARCH CENTER AT UNLV Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project Use Agreement Name of Narrator: nfcfftfcTA L*. tA ^ C.V-S, Name of Interviewer: ^ < J ^ ) . T £ ~ We, tlie above named, givofib tl(e Oral History Research Center of UNLV, the recorded interview(s) initiated on -mim— as an unrestricted gift, to be used for such scholarly and educational flbre^ses as shall be determined, and transfer to die University of Nevada Las Vegas, legal tide and all literary property rights including copyright. This gift does not preclude die right of die interviewer, as a representative of UNLV, to use die recordings and related materials for scholarly pursuits. There will be no compensation for any interviews. Signature of Narrator Date Library Special Collections 4505 Maryland Parkway, Box 457010, Las Vegas, Nevada 89154-7070 (702) 895-2222 This is Clay tee White. It is April 7th, 2011. I'm in the home of Greta and Hughie Mills. So how are you today? Doing well. Greta (italics) : Very well. Thank you. Great. And Hughie, I want you to spell your first name for me. H-U-G-H-I-E. And Greta? Greta, G-R-E-T-A. Wonderful. So we're going to get started by just talking first about your early life. I want you to tell me a little — and you may do this in any order that you like — I want you to tell me a little about your early life, your family, what your parents did for a living, in any way you'd like to tell that. Hughie: My dad was a coal miner. I'm one of five children born and then he semi-adopted another boy during my brother's traveling around with the Scouts. He traveled back and forth to the coal mines every day, like 35 miles each way, so he could stay at home. Through the deepest part of the Depression, though, he and some other coal miners rented what they call a shanty and he stayed there during the week and came home on weekends. Where is this? We were living in Charleston, West Virginia, and he commuted to two or three different places. One was Montgomery and one was in Turkey Knob. So he worked at three or four different coal mines. My mother was a housewife. With as many as five or six of us to take care of, she was very, very involved with keeping the household going. We all had a chore to do. We all—four of us, anyway—were involved. They wanted us to be involved with music. So four of us were in the high school band. Elementary school was like three minutes from where we lived. But the junior high school was what we called uptown. That was from the seventh grade. We had to ride the bus and often walked about six-miles. Graduated there into high school, which was also uptown. The high school was closer than the junior high school was. So the city bus gave us bus passes so we could ride the buses. We all graduated high school. My dad says you've got one of two choices; you go to school or you go to work. 1 And did he mean in the coal mine? I quit school and he took me to the coal mines and I worked for three days. He shook me on Friday, let s go, boy. I said I ain't going, Dad. He said what you mean I ain't going? I said I'm going back to school. He said go back to sleep, boy. And I never missed another day in school. My brother older than I also worked in the coal mines for a few days. I had a happy childhood, aware that we couldn't go to the library. We couldn't go to the municipal auditorium. We couldn't go to the swimming pool. But that didn't really bother us as much because we had known nothing else. I guess when I was about 15 or 16 years old, about three of the men in charge that were people oriented opened a swimming pool on the river about ten miles, I guess, from where we lived. They had lifeguards and, also, we used to go to ~ what do they call it? What was the name of the place? Willow Bend. Willow Bend. They call it Willow Bend Country Club. They had horseshoes and swimming. So that was our outlet for swimming. But we played softball. A block from where I lived was the junior high school, and it was built very much later in our life. But that area was the field where we played softball and baseball. When the circus would come to town, the circus was put up there. So everybody from town came there. Were the schools integrated? No. The schools were not integrated. In fact, my total education was in segregated schools from elementary and junior high, high school and then I went in the military and came back to college. It was also segregated. Not until graduate school did you have — That's right. Not until I went to New York to graduate school was that integrated and did I meet integration. It didn't upset me or I wasn't challenged by it. I just moved right in and took that as a part of my life. But I had a happy childhood. Good. Give me the names of your siblings and your parents. My mother's name was Mabel. I'm a junior, but I never, ever write it down, named after my dad. Now, I was the third son and I was named after my dad. How did you qualify? 2 I guess my mom named the others and my dad probably put his foot down. I want one named after me. That's what I believe. It was never announced, but I think that's the way it happened. And then I have a brother born after I was. His father is really one of the old-fashion men who wanted a junior. Even when we were married, then, he kept wondering when would I have another Hughie; that he wanted the name to go on. Yes. I think a lot of men feel that way. Yes. Well, I didn't. I didn't. Because you didn't enjoy being a junior yourself. Well, actually it didn't make that much difference. There was no preference given to me because I was named after my daddy. We all had chores that we had to do before we'd go out to play. And what was your chore? Going to the store for the widows. Oh, wonderful. My dad made sure that every widow in the neighborhood was well taken care of by his sons. And if Mrs. Morris wanted her lawn cut, we cut it. If Mrs. Washington wanted her pear trees trimmed or her laundry moved — she did laundry — one of us did it. We were not supposed to take a coin, not a coin. We lived on what was First Avenue. It was the first street from the river, the Kanawha River. Ours was the first street from the river. Then later on they built a boulevard that went the length of Charleston. It was Kanawha Boulevard. But from First Avenue to Third Avenue was our playground area, only place we could go because the one block over was the elementary school and they had a playground there. But every widow on First Avenue got free whatever she needed -- grocery store, lawn cut. Any errand needed to be run; one of us did it. And it was no, no, I ain't going to do it, Ms. Morris. No. When they called, you went with it. We had to accept it as a fact. It was some of the things that we had to do. I didn't object to going to school. In fact, I looked forward to it. We had all teachers; naturally black schools, all black teachers. They instilled in us the desire to get an education. I mean from the first through the sixth grade. Then when we went to junior high school, her aunt taught in the junior high school I went to. They instilled the same thing. Then when we got to high 3 school that was really the turning point because we had fantastic teachers, fantastic teachers. In high school we had a high school band. Dr. Maude Wanzer Lane. She was the music teacher, but she was director of the band. In fact, we played at the World's Fair in 1939. In New York? The World's Fair in New York in 1939. I graduated in 1941. Couldn't go to college because finances. Coal miner with five kids didn't have the finances. And your brother was in college then in Storer College. Yeah, my brother was in college in Storer College. Is that the oldest brother? No. The second one. The second one went to college. And what was the name of the school? Storer College. Hapers Ferry, West Virginia. It's up in the panhandle near Pennsylvania. So I couldn't go to college while he was in college. Then the war came along and all of us went to the service the same time. You were drafted. How did that happen? We were drafted. The whole family was drafted at the same time? Raphael, Marvin, Hughie ~ not at the same time. As we became of age. My oldest brother is Raphael, Marvin, Hughie and then Lionel, as well as June, the one that we took in as a brother. He also went to the military. Aren't there some ~ We thought so. Maybe it's about combat. That was white folks. Oh. So you knew what I was getting ready to ask. I know. They wouldn't take all of the children. Yeah. But my mother had five stars in the window at once. 4 Oh, but that was after, because World War II they took them and the five brothers that were killed. They made a movie on it. [The Sullivans, 1944] Oh, maybe that's when it started. Yeah. That's when it started. During World War II these five boys were in the navy, I think, and they all were killed. And so then they said never again. So that's what I was thinking about. What size was the town you were born? Charleston is the capital of West Virginia. Forty-five thousand people when we were coming up. Okay. Wow. So Greta, tell me about your childhood and growing up. Actually I'm the oldest of four children. There were two boys and two girls, I and then two boys and then a sister. Unfortunately my sister lived only five years. She was the prettiest one of us. We all still miss her as she came down with multiple sclerosis and died within six months' time. However, growing up was wonderful, again, just as Hughie says. I was born in Charleston, West Virginia, the capital. My father was always very active in politics. My father belonged to the Republican Party, the Young Republican Club as they called it in the 20s and 30s. Right. The Party of Lincoln. Yes. He could not understand why every black person was not Republican because Lincoln freed the slaves. Exactly. We heard this constantly. And he was a ward boss. So we had many meetings in the house at election time. He was also the man who gave the two dollars to those for their votes outside. Now, are you talking about poll taxes? No. No. To vote Republican you get two dollars. We were constantly told: I better not ever hear of you selling your vote, but he was willing to pay for anyone else. I thought he would die when my grandmother, his mother, actually went out to vote. He got his mother to go vote and then she wanted the two dollars. And no way. Of course, she was so upset with her son that he wouldn't give her two dollars. He thought this was the most disgraceful thing. However, he was willing to buy 5 any vote he could for the Republican Party. I love it. My dad had a saying that if it's bad weather the Republicans will not come out. So the night before election I can remember going to bed praying for a beautiful day so the Republicans will win and so my dad can get a better job because my dad was really politically involved and his jobs were based on the Republican Party. He had several good jobs in Charleston, West Virginia. During the war when most of the young men left, he was even appointed a city policeman. But then when the war ended, he lost his job there. But whatever jobs were available within the city. And finally his last days it was a Republican administration that he had a state job there in Charleston. My mother stayed at home those early years, but then she went to work because there were times that dad couldn't get a job if the Democrats were in and my mother had to go out and work. What kind of work did your mom do? She did domestic work and, as I said, finally she worked with the family who owned the furniture store. He had a French chef and they taught mother to cook and serve the meals. We children delighted when mother would come home at night. Whatever was left over she could bring home. We all loved the cheese souffle, even if it were cold when she brought it home. I mean whatever little cheese souffle; that was the main one. So I think I grew up finally when we were married. I had to make a cheese souffle because this is living. Did your mom teach you how to cook? Oh, yes. Oh, she's a super cook. So give me the names of your brothers and sister. My brothers are Charles Edward Tuck and Wesley Thomas Tuck and my sister was Nancy Jane Tuck. It's three years between each of us. My kid brother as I call him, Wesley Thomas, did 23 years in the military. His last tour of duty was NellisAir Force Base. So he retired here and that's how we came to visit him in the 70s and decided this is a nice place to retire. So we returned on several occasions, and finally in the 80s that's how we decided to move here. Of course, I was on the border in growing up in Charleston. My parents didn't have a lot of money. But my father had been born in Charleston, West Virginia, also, and never wanted to leave. 6 I always after college named him like Emily Dickinson; that her biography could be summed up in three sentences — born in Amherst; lived in Amherst; and died in Amherst. Well, my dad was born in Charleston, lived in Charleston, and died in Charleston. He instilled in us higher education. And this is what I always say; you've got to with a child from infancy talk about college. Don't expect them to become teenagers and say I'm going to college. My dad always said I was going college. Of course, his plan was that I would go and then I would help to support the brother and in turn the two of us — it would go down the line like that. It didn't work out like that, however. But that was his dream. That's great. That is wonderful. So you knew each other all along. Yes, we did. Well, yes and no. We lived a block apart at one time. So we knew each other all the time. We knew each other, yeah. And I naturally was four and a halfyears younger than he. So he was in the service. When he came back I had at that point turned 17 and gone to college at West Virginia State, which is only eight or ten miles from Charleston in June of1946. And September of'46 all of these veterans came to the campus. Oh, we were — We took over. We were a college of500 students, but in September of1946 we were 1800 students. All of the veterans returned. As I have said on many occasions, we girls grew up overnight. And you don't have to explain that. No, no. No. She wasn't my girlfriend in college. No, no. No, we weren't. She was too nice. Well, I'll take that as a compliment. Tell me about the military. Go ahead. P ardon me. He had been deprived for four years in the military. And so all of these girls on the campus — he had a different girlfriend everywhere. That's all I'll say. 7 I had a car. Oh, you had a car, too. Okay. That's all I'll say. All right. Now, you can ask him the next question. But she mentioned politics. One incident I'll never forget. When I went to vote for the first time one of the big Charlestownians, Dr. Hopson, who was a black doctor in town and a Democrat, he came in the little polling booth with me and I put him out. I says, you can't come in here. When I got home the message had already gotten to First Avenue that you put Doc Hopson out of the polling place. I said, oh, my dad's going to kill me. You know what he said? Proud of you, son. Wonderful. Was your father a Democrat or Republican? I don't know. Democrat. He was a Democrat. I think he was a Democrat. My dad never talked politics. Okay. Did you vote Democrat or Republican that first time? I voted Democrat the first time. Okay. Good. But I put him out of the polling booth. And then people said, you put Doc Hopson out of the polling booth. And my father was so proud. My first election was [Dwight] Eisenhower for President. I called Dad that night. Oh, Eisenhower won, isn't that great? And I voted Republican until [Richard] Nixon. And the first time Nixon ran I voted for him. After that I wondered how could I ever have voted — So Roosevelt made no difference? To most blacks in West Virginia [Franklin] Roosevelt made the difference, yes. Yes. Yes. The difference. The difference. Oh, yes. That was the turning point for most blacks. Yes. But not your father? Not my father. No. 8 He never changed. Why did I say I prayedfor a beautiful day so the Republicans will come out to vote? Because if they don't, the Democrats are getting in. He never changed. In fact, when he'd come to visit in New York, it was politics and he was still a Republican right down the line. Wow. You want military? Yes, tell me about the military. Horrible experience. Still segregated. That's one of the reasons that I was told about the two of you. Yeah. It was still segregated. I was inducted in Kentucky, Camp Campbell, Kentucky, as were all of the rest of us from Charleston. Got on the train with the blinds down and went down to New Orleans. Now, why were the blinds down? They reputedly had white folks shooting at black soldiers as they went on the train. So they pulled the blinds down so they didn't know. Even the white soldiers had the blinds pulled down so they didn't know whether it was white or black. So I was in a port battalion, loading and unloading ships. I went overseas to England. Where did you have your basic training? In New Orleans, loading and unloading ships. That's where we had the basic. That was our job, unloading ships, really, because they would come to New Orleans and we unloaded them, whatever was on them. So I went overseas in a port battalion. We landed two days after D-Day and ended up as our location in Cherbourg, France, because it was a port city. So we loaded and unloaded ships 24 hours a day. They had three shifts, eight-hour shifts, and they rotated, so you didn't do the same shift all the time. So I think we went like six weeks and then rotate six weeks and rotate. After the Battle of the Bulge, the 761st Tank Battalion, which was the only black fighting outfit in Europe, had an article in the Stars and Stripes that they needed replacements. So I inveigled a couple of buddies of mine; let's do it, let's do it, let's do it. Big mistake. But we did. We went over. I ended the war there in the tank battalion. So before you tell me about that, so once you had seen Paris, what was — I didn't stay there but six months. That was the only — I won't say that — but a period in my life 9 where I felt like a human being. Explain that. Color in France was nothing. It didn't mean a thing because they had the Sinhalese and all of the black folks that had been coming to France for years and years and years. So we were not a novelty. We were novel when we went to Germany; no, in England. [There was] a man named Garrison. We were playing softball. It was in May. It was cool and we were playing ball. But Garrison took his shirt off. And one of the little girls — he's like that all over. Garrison, we never let him forget that. Yeah. So to them it was something new. There were not that many black people in England. But France, no, we were not a novelty in France. I stayed over there until the war was over. I didn't have enough points because when I had changed from the port battalion to the 761st, I had to start from scratch on building up points. What points? For each month you served in an area of the military you got points. When the war was over, those with the most points went home first. So when I transferred from the port battalion to the 761st, I lost my points. I had to start from scratch again. I even lost my rank. I was reduced ~ I wasn't a big deal. I was a corporal and then I had to go back to private. So I had to accumulate more points. So when the war was over, I was on the tail end of going home. So there was a French culture course offered and I applied for that and I stayed in Paris for six months. That was really wonderful. It was wonderful. I mean in terms of interacting with people on an equal level without any fears. Did you learn to speak French? A little. I could make myself understood after about six or seven weeks. It came pretty easy because that's all you hear. But at Cherbourg they had, for the GIs that were there, English teachers and then they had a course in French that we all took. So I learned to speak it fairly well. Then when that was over I went back to England and came back from England. I've been still wondering to myself I don't know why they sent me back to England before I came home, but I went back to England and I came back home from England in February '46. I actually stayed as long as I could. That was one of the things Dad pushed the education, so hey, I can do it now and I let somebody else pay for it. And so that was my military. Now, something happened in the military that you talked about in class here in the program. 10 None of the experiences were good. Was it experienced in England or was it perhaps with the 761st? I think it's something with the 761st. Well, one of the things that impressed me, or that depressed me. We led advance for the infantry. If there were problems that impeded the infantry from advancing, we went in and cleaned it up. So give me an example. Say they have pillboxes set up that are attacking the infantry. We went in and destroyed the pillboxes. What is a pillbox? It is a fortification that the Germans used. So we went in to destroy them. Then the infantry could go through. But what ticked us off was when the town was taken, the reporters who were embedded with the infantry would go right past us. All of the newsreels you saw in America was the white guys taking over a town. And we had cleaned it out. Not once, not one time did we ever have a newsperson stop and talk to us. These were American news people? American news people. And I had been — for several times I saw it when I watched — what's his name on CBS?... The one on "60 Minutes." Oh. Andy Rooney. Andy Rooney. Andy Rooney was a reporter for the Stars and Stripes. I've been saying I'm going to write him a letter and ask him if he ever talked to black troops. I know he didn't. You should write him a letter and have him do that at the end of "60 Minutes." Well, I'm going to probably do that because he was one of the reporters. I mean I didn't know him. I never saw him. Right. But they would come up and go right past us and talk to the infantry. The infantrymen would like kiss our behinds because of what we did. But you never saw in a newsreel ~ in fact, when they had the movie "Patton," you didn't see a black person in that movie. And we were Patton's glory, supposedly. I wasn't with them then. But they said when I've got an outfit that we need another tank battalion; we've got one, but they're black. He said I didn't ask for color, I asked for fighting men. 11 And the dedication that they had and the fighting spirit that we have, we knew we had to succeed. Did you hear anything about the Tuskegee Airmen as you were serving? No. No one ever talked about them? No. No. We heard that they were training them. But once we got into our thing, we didn't hear a thing. We didn't even know until we got back home that there was the 99th Pursuit Squadron. One of our teachers at West Virginia State had been in it. And one of the students. And one of the students. We called him Mr. Death. He was such a thin person, Whitehead, John Whitehead. John Whitehead. John would say I'll see you a little later. He was still in the reserve. He would come over and fly over the campus, zoom, and go back, because Wright-Patt was only like, what, only a hundred miles from Charleston. Wright-Patterson Air Base. Air base was only a hundred miles from Charleston. So he was one of the -- and Roscoe Brown. You may have heard of him. Oh, yeah. He was at West Virginia State, also. So when the war ended and I went back to Paris that was, as I said, I felt like I could walk the streets and nobody ever looked back at me. You're just another person here. You could be a Frenchman as long as you say "bonjour." So when I got back home, I was discharged in Maryland and had to go through Washington, D.C. to get the train from Washington to Charleston. They had a restaurant in the station. I went over to get something to eat, and they told me I couldn't eat in there. I had a couple of dummy hand grenades. Well, the powder had been taken out of them. So I was furious that I couldn't eat there. So I saw the bellman or the porter and I asked him what time does the train leave? He said, you'll hear two minutes before it pulls out. I said okay. So I lay around the restaurant. And I took this hand grenade out when I heard it and I hollered grenade and threw it in the restaurant. I'm surprised you made it back to Charleston. Well, now, I got on the train. All the blacks were in one coach, right behind the engine. So when we 12 got to Virginia, the police came onboard. One of you boys threw a grenade in the ~ everybody was mum. Nobody said a word. Good. And they wouldn't have been able to identify you, anyway. No. It was black. It was all black. We all looked alike. That's right. That was my coming home. So when I came home then I started school right away. So then your father didn't have to say coal mine? No, no, no. Interesting story. Mom said dad came home from work one day and said all my sons are gone, all of my sons. That impacted on him. He was proud of us that we had served. And we all came home. My oldest brother was injured in Italy. He had his kneecap wounded and rather than do an operation they made the leg stiff. He walked with a stiff leg and that affected his spine. I think that led to his death. He died ~ how many years ago? Well, he was 70, though. So tell me what it was like when all those military men came to campus. Oh, they haven't been in adult life. They wanted everything to change. We were a small college in the village eight or ten miles from the city. So, of course, they controlled us totally. I mean we were still children. We couldn't even hold hands on the campus. I remember that. Yes. And these guys just wanted to change everything. They were going to do what they wanted to do, hold hands. Of course, they had problems getting books and all of those things. Their money — Because there were so many? Their money didn't come. The government didn't — Oh, okay. For everything they decided they would have a ~ Walk out. When books, they couldn't get them, they — what did you do? We boycotted the bookstore. 13 And you've got to realize, though, just as I told our daughter when we took her down there in 1969, it was our black world there and we knew no difference. It was wonderful to see everyone in eve