Interview with Geneva Pope

              Harford Living Treasure 
Geneva Pope
Interviewee:	Geneva Pope (GP)
Interviewer:	Cleo Cole (CC)
Today is July 18, 1997, and we're talking to Geneva Pope, former student of the Bel Air Colored High School.
CC	What years did you go there?
GP	Nineteen forty-four to nineteen forty-seven when I graduated.
CC	You graduated there...
GP Yes.
CC	in 1947. 
GP Yes.
CC	How large was your graduating class?
GP	There were about ten of us in my graduating class.
CC	Mmm hmm. And where was the school at that time?
GP	Located on Hays Street where the building sits now.
CC	The, uh, Public Works building?
GP Yes. CC Ok.
GP	Yes. The little green building.
CC	Did you always go to school there? Where did you have elementary school?
GP	I went to elementary school in Baltimore City.
CC Ok.
 
GP	A large catholic elementary school. St. Peter Clavis. It still exists now. Uh, when
mother, when my family moved to Edgewood, I attended Bel Air Colored High School. I was then in the ninth grade. St Peter davis went to the eight grade. At Bel Air Colored High, the eighth grade there had a subject - Biology. So when I entered the ninth grade, I was not able to get Biology as one of the Chemistry courses there.
CC	Mmm hmm. So what other subjects then did you have?
GP Well, we had Math. Mr. Moore, he was an excellent Math teacher. There was nothing that he did not know. Home Economics, which I really enjoyed. We did home canning, chicken, fresh sausage meat, vegetables, fruit. I was never successful in canning because if someone's
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	jar was going to break in the pressure cooker, it was always my jar. I would lose
a jar every week during canning season. But still I would keep canning, keep enjoying it, and bringing my, what was left of my jars home to Mother. We did sewing. I made my baby brother his first romper suit, which Mother was very proud of my accomplishments in Home Ec. One project we had was to design a room. Mrs. Carrie Johnson, our Home Ec teacher, she was very thorough in whatever she taught. And I decided to design a living room. The legs of my furniture, I remember, they were stick macaroni pieces, and I painted those like a stain and used cardboard for my tables, decorated. They were my tables in my living room. I used ribbon for my drapes. I had a friend, Mrs. Miles in Edgewood; she had a hobby of making living room furniture. I had her to make me a
 
miniature sofa and two chairs. The project turned out really fabulous and we were all really proud of the projects until we had to store the projects.
CC Mmmhmm.
GP	And we had to use paste - not, we didn't have any glue. So we mixed flour and 
water to make our paste. And what happened, the mice got in my [Chuckles] unit and just completely destroyed - that was the end of my project - completely destroyed; ate it, just ate it to pieces. So that was the end of living room project. [Chuckles]
CC	And so that was with Home Economics.
GP	That was with Home Economics. Yes.
CC	How many rooms were in the school?
GP	I think there were about four - well, there was a home economics - I think there
were about four rooms. A room Mr. Moore had for Math, Social Studies and then we went to the adjoining building for English...
CC	Where was this?
GP	and Music. The adjoining building was right down the hill, so to speak. We had 
Music, that was Mrs. Kane's room, English, Math, and Science down there. Chemistry was a major science course there. One chemistry experiment I remember doing, we had to test hair shampoos for alkalis. And Halo was the shampoo with the least alkalis.
CC Mmm.
GP	They don't make Halo anymore, but I bought Halo for years after that. That was 
the only shampoo I would use because I knew, not depending on
 
advertisements, I knew that Halo was the best shampoo on the market at the time.
CC	Where, you said the adjoining building was down the street. It's no longer in Bel 
Air?
GP	No, it does not exist there now.
CC	Where, where was it?
GP	Oh, it was about a hundred yards from the existing building now.
CC Ok.
GP	Mmm hmm.
CC	Right, right on that same spot, there?
GP	Yes, yes, yes, yes.
CC	So there were two buildings then for the high school. Were there more than one
class in a room or did you go from room to room to your des...
GP We went from room to room but there was only one class held in each room. Other classes were held at the firehouse up on a Bond Street. The boys had Shop up there. Ames Church held a couple classes there. New Hope Church held a couple classes there.
CC	Yes, wasn't there some, yes, I was going to say, wasn't there some classes held 
at the Baptist Church there?
GP	Yes, Yes, the classes were held all around Bel Air.
CC	Well, those were all high school classes?
GP	Some, no, elementary, there were some elementary classes there. Mmm hmrn.
CC Ok.
 
GP	But see I never attended the elementary. Mmm hmm.
CC	QK. So coming from Edgewood how did you get to school.
GP	Now, that's quite a story. We would get to Bel Air the best way that we could 
when we first started out. The children from Magnolia would walk over to Edgewood and Trimble Roads. We would catch a "Workers" Bus from Edgewood. They got off at 8 o'clock in the morning, and we would catch that bus. I still remember the bus driver's name. I can see his face. His name was Russell. He ushered us to the back of the bus. That was my first experience in the segregated bus because coming from Baltimore, we rode the trolleys and the whatever, and we did not experience that. So, our fare was twenty-five cents. I don't know whether it was twenty-five cents one way or twenty-five cents round trip, but we could not even afford that. So my daddy went to this NAACP - he was quite active in NAACP and the PTAs in the Harford County - and he got the fare for us donated - I don' t remember if it was all of the fare or part of the fare, the twenty-five cents - to pay our fare to go to Bel Air. We would go to Bel Air and we would get off the bus across from the courthouse at Preston Stationary which...
CC Mmmhmm
GP	no longer exists there now. Then we would walk down Office Street, on down to 
our school, and that's where we picked the bus up in the evening. Then after a while, we did have bus transportation.
CC	County bus, the school bus?
 
GP Yea, yes. There were other school buses coming from other areas to Bel Air High, but we did not have one from Edgewood. You understand that projects were only built in about 1942 or '43, so they weren't even on the map, I don't think. So that's how we got from Edgewood to Bel Air at that time.
CC	So you had to really rely on just that worker's bus?
CF	Yes, yes, whatever way we could.
CC	And that worker's bus was for what, for who?
CF	From, for the employees from Edgewood Arsenal taking them to Bel Air.
CC Oh,ok.
CF	And, we would sit and watch the white students get on their school bus going to 
Bel Air High School.
CC	Uh huh.
GP	Mmm hmm. As I said, the children from Magnolia - we didn't have it as bad as
they did, because when they would come from Magnolia just about three miles to Edgewood, they would have to catch a ride with someone who was working at Edgewood, doing day's work or something
CC Mmmhmm.
CF	and catch a ride that way or else walk from Magnolia to Trimble Road. You know, 
six or seven o'clock in the morning, whatever time they could catch a ride from Magnolia, that's how they got to school.
CC	How many of your brothers and sisters attended that or did they, when you were 
attending.
 
GP	Theresa attended Bel Air High School but she ended up one of the first classes
going to Central Consolidated. CC Ok.
GP	My other brothers and sisters went to Magnolia Elementary. Eloise at the time 
was in high school, and she boarded at St. Francis Academy.
CC	That's my alma mater, you know.
GP	Yea. So, Anne, my younger sister, she went to the academy also. She completed
her education at St. Francis Academy. My sister, Marie, she drove, she would ride the train to Baltimore to Douglass High. So that's how we - Eloise, Marie, and myself, we were in high school. When I came out of eighth grade and arrived in Edgewood with my family, Mother asked me if I wanted to go back to Baltimore, to St. Francis Academy, and personally, I thought, it was just too expensive for Mother and Daddy because Eloise was already there. So I said no, I would go to Bel Air. And I did and made myself quite contented. When I went to Bel Air, I was like the new kid on the block.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	From the city. And one of the things that really surprised me was the language
the kids used - the profanity - because I was not used to that and it struck me quite odd when I heard it. But then, I kind of got used to it and didn't pay it any mind. Some of the teachers had a student they would pick and said if someone uses profanity, they would be fined a nickel, or two cents, whatever the amount was and this person would be the collector and collect the money from the
 
student who was cursing and using profanity. It wasn't all that bad but still strange to me to hear all that because I did not hear it at St. Peter's.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	Naturally. And, that's how - that's who my family, that's where they went to
school.
CC	What was the building like? What was the school building itself like?
GP	It was a wooden building - it's quite dilapidated now. As a matter of fact, the
superintendent said the building was not fit for animals! He actually said that. The dairy cows had better facilities than we had at the school. We had to go outside to the restrooms. Our school books were hand-me-downs from the white schools. The children, we had to clean up the books before we could use them. And "clean up the books" I mean erase any racial slurs that were written in the books by the white students from Bel Air before we could use the books and enjoy them and study out of them.
CC	How about the heating?
CF Well, the heating was just your potbelly stoves. When the young boys would come to school in the mornings and some of the bus drivers - I remember one bus driver in particular, Floyd Ruff. They would have to make the fires in the school to get the room heated before we could go out to get, before the students could actually get started. That's how that was done. They had to make the fires in the rooms. Just like, just heat them like you would in your home. I imagine some of the fires were banked all night but not participating in that, I don't recall,
 
but I assume some of the fires - I remember how we did at home - we would
bank the fires overnight.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	But the boys in the school and you know, you were taking a couple of hours of
their study time away to heat the school.
CC	Mmm hmm.
CF So you can imagine how much they learned but all, they also prospered very
well.
CC	Well, what about the immediate area around the school? Was it, was it really built
up, or was it right in the middle of town or was...
GP	It was kind of in the middle of the black neighborhood. The Negro - we were 
called colored at one time, the Negro and all that.
CC	'Cause Bond Street was the...
CF Yes.
CC	But that was Hays Street...
CF	That, that was Hays Street, yes.
CC Yes.
GP	And it was like an open season for the neighborhood people,
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	a congregating place.
CC	Mmm hmm.
 
GP At lunchtime, at recess, young folks would come off the streets to the school grounds and shoot balls or play dodgeball, whatever we did for recreation. So it was like an open, relaxed atmosphere around the school grounds.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	I really don't remember any fights or anything like that, but it was like an open
atmosphere around the school. The young fellas who were out of school -
CC	So there was recreation then around the school?
GP	Yes, yes.
CC	Ok. Was there a ball field or what did the yards look like?
GP	Not a legal ball field. There was the girls - we played softball and volleyball. Mr.
Moore was in charge of track.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	Dodgeball. Not a lot of big, athletic equipment.
CC	Did you participate in any of them?
OP	I played a little softball and a little volleyball. I was not very athletic, no. I was not
very athletic.
CC	You're something like me. I don't like to get hit by the ball. [Laughter]
GP	I kind of had bad ankles. I was not very athletic. I would get out and, you know,
venture and try. Yea.
CC	What about some of the holidays that you observed?
OP	One of the big days was May Day in May. Wrapping the Maypole. That was a
big, festive thing. We would, there would be a pole and we would have like
 
streamers coming around and sing a song and go entwine and that carried over to Central - wrapping of the Maypole - that was very big there.
CC	It was May Day, right? First, first of May?
GP	Yea, that was May Day and of course, there were always plays being performed.
The students would have, put on plays and they would be performed at the church. And, of course, you always had a large black attendance of the neighborhood people, attending the plays and all. That always went over very well. I think we had, would have about two plays a year. I can't really recall but going to Bel Air Colored was - one day I passed the school after I was quite grown. I had a couple of my kids with me. And I passed the school and I literally kicked the building 'cause I was mad. 'Cause I had been deprived. Not that it was the building's fault but I had, just got up some anger. I was deprived of so much education. We did not have a clerical class, and I was always interested in clerical work. Mr. Moore had a small portable typewriter which he took upon himself to let me practice on which I did pretty well on, enough to be like a sort of a school secretary for a while. And I was editor of my class paper, which we had to do typing, so I didn't do too bad on the typewriter. But we had no facilities for typing, and it was like a narrow hallway where his office was and the library with books on either side, and that's where I would practice my typing. He would even let me bring my typewriter home. That was the only access I had to a typewriter. No shorthand or filing lessons or nothing like that. Nothing. Nothing. But that's why I kicked the building. [Laughter]
CC	What was your graduation ceremony like?
 
CF Umm.
CC	What year was it, first? 
GP 1947.
CC	1947. You're coming up with an-, a class reunion then, aren't you?
GP	Well, we've had, we've had two, no, we had the one big one.
CC	This is, was '47. This is what, 50 years?
GP	We had the combined reunion for Bel Air Colored and Central Consolidated.
CC	Mmm hmm.
CF	In 1991. Then we had one in 1993, and we're preparing to have one in 1998. Bel
Air Colored High School and Central Consolidated and this year we are adding "and friends."
CC	Mmm hmm.
CF	We already have reservations at East Wind for 1998.
CC	Mmm hmm. Mmm hmm.
CF	We've sent out letters and all, so this is an ongoing thing.
CC	But this is your fiftieth year of graduation.
CF	Yes, yes, it is. Yes. Yes, it is my fiftieth year of graduation. [Laughter] Yes, it is.
CC Ok.
CF	Uh huh.
CC	Uh, but what was the ceremony like?
GP We would have, naturally we had to have the dignitaries from the Board of Education and Percy Williams was the School Superintendent, I think, at that time. And of course, Mr. Moore was the principal. I was fortunate enough to be
 
valedictorian in my class, and I received a scholarship for $50. I understand that
$50 was supposed to have gone to James France	because he
was promised monies from another association. And whether he ever got that other money, I do not know for a fact. But I was awarded the $50 for the
scholarship, and I attended Cortez Peters. Well, for my graduating class we
made yellow and blue dresses. A real pretty, blue, soft cotton material. We made them in the Home Ec room. They came out really nice. We made a beautiful showing. The graduating class, of course, because the seniors always think, you
know, they're really hot stuff
CC	[Laughter]
GP	above the lower class people. But it, it was quite, quite an experience. Mother
and I shopped for my prom dress. We went all over Baltimore. We could not find
a dress. We got off the bus and went to Brager's and Gutman's, or either Julius Gutman's, one of the two stores - Brager's or Julius & Gutman's...
CC	Brager's. . .was a
GP	They were two separate stores.
CC	Yes. It was Brager, Brager Isenberg? Wasn't it Brager Isenberg?
GP	Bragers ... and then there was another store Julius Gutman.
CC	Gutman. Mmm hmm.
GP	Gutman. Ok. While we were walking down Howard Street, we saw this beautiful
white and black dress. And I says, "Oh, boy, that's the prettiest dress I've ever seen." So we went all over Lexington Street, nothing else satisfied us, so we
went back and bought that dress. That was my prom dress.
 
CC	Where was the prom held?
GP	Right in the, the prom was held right in the school and my husband, Olie, took
me to my junior prom and senior prom and next year we'll be married fifty years. So, we've raised nine children, eight girls and one boy, one daughter deceased, Geneva. She was a twin with Genevieve. She had lupus and she passed ten years ago, but we have nine children, eighteen grands, three great-grands. [Chuckles] We, I tracked our family tree back to seven generations.
CC	Tell me about one particular friend of yours.
GP	Well, I...
CC	From school.
GP Well, I'll call him my mentor. James. James Bransquith. James Bransquith was
the type of student, he did not have to study, I thought. But James could go toe to toe with Mr. Moore on any subject. In history class, he remembered dates and events right off the top of his head. And he and Mr. Moore could sit there and just discuss the current events and argue, you know, for hours. And I wanted to be like James - to answer questions like James. So, to accomplish this, I had to study and memorize at night. I had to do my homework, but it paid off. And every time James raised his hand up, my hand went up too. [Laughs] So, he was my mentor in school. I was like going to do whatever James could do, I could do too, you know. I had to study harder than he did but I did it.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	Like I said I was on the honor roll. James and I were on the honor roll in our
senior year, and that was quite an accomplishment. So, I did keep up with him.
 
CC	Isn't it good always to have someone in your class that you can pit your wits
against?
GP Yes, yes, yes. And I, I enjoyed algebra that Mr. Moore taught because the algebra, the longer the equation got, it was like a challenge, the more I enjoyed it. I don't remember much about algebra now, but I enjoyed algebra the way Mr. Moore taught it. It wasn't like teaching out of a manual. He taught so much from memory, and he could just whip through stuff and get you so involved and so interested, you had no choice but to learn.
CC Mmm hmm. Mmm hmm. Then tell me about a teacher that you, that you, in particular, that you remember.
GP	Like I said, Mr. Moore, he was, he was great in all the subjects. Mrs. Johnson, 
my Home Ec teacher, she was very thorough. She went through, we did the body, the workings of the body, the skin, layers, all the health courses and, uh, she did and excellent job, I thought, in Home Ec.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	And Mrs. Kane, she was there and she was our English teacher.
CC	What was her first name?
GP	Sarah T. Kane.
CC	Sarah Kane, ok.
GP	Mmm hmm. She was our English teacher and our music teacher also. There was
one incident in music. All of my classmates knew that I could not sing, but I could mouth away and get by with it. But this one particular day Miss Kane decided to track down who was getting the class off key. So she said, "Everyone, be quiet,"
 
and she was testing each one one by one to find out. So when she got to me she says, "Geneva, stand aside and be quiet for awhile," after listening to me sing the scale. So then my secret was out with Miss Kane but all the students knew that I couldn't sing. But, uh, then we had the Tonettes, the small black musical instrument. It was about six or seven inches long.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	And I did master it. I was pretty good in the Tonette. I really enjoyed it. It was
quite an accomplishment. The upper class, some of, I guess, well, I know, Mrs. Kane instructed some of the upper class with the saxophone and some of them really got good, you know, playing the sax.
CC	Where did they get the instruments?
GP	I imagine the parents bought them.
CC	They bought them?
GP	Mmm hmm. Yea. There weren't that many. A few, a few played the sax.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	Maybe two or three.
CC Were you ever employed outside of school? Did you have to work outside of
school?
GP I remember I was never fortunate enough to attend the Penn Relays. I would hear the students talking about it. Going to the Penn Relays.
CC Mmmmmm.
GP	I would work.
CC	Mmm hmm.
 
GP	Day's work. Helping Mother out. At that time, my Daddy was in the hospital sick.
Ok, we'll get back to the Penn Relay. I recall the students going to the Penn Relay on Saturday whenever the event took place, once or twice a year but it seems as though, I had this day's work I was obligated to to bring money home
because at that time, Daddy was sick in the hospital and we would do days work for about three or four dollars a day, I guess, whatever it was. It was three or four more dollars than what Mother had at home. So, Mother never had to ask us for our money. We did the days work at the white folks' home and brought the money home and just gave it to Mother and that was it. And if you wanted something, you asked Mother for the money or to buy it, if you didn't get it, you didn't get it. The money wasn't there. You just did not get what, you know, whatever you needed. You got what you needed, the necessities, but no, I was not able to attend the Penn Relay, and even to this day, I have not gone up there. I have heard a lot of interesting talk about it, the fanfare and all this camaraderie with the friends and meeting there once a year and all, but I never
experienced that. And I did miss that.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	I regret not having gone, but at that time two or three dollars was more important.
CC	Do you remember any of the white folks that you worked for at that time?
GP	One was Mrs. Satterfield. I remember her name off the top of my head. She was
a woman called the Cabbage Patch. Where the elementary...
CC	Was this in Bel Air or in...?
GP	No, this was in Edgewood.
 
CC	In Edgewood.
GP Yea, there was a Lt. Dozier on the post I worked for. They are the two names that pop off the top of my head.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP I would go there on Saturdays and clean the house, wash the clothes on the washboard, and iron the clothes, and that type of thing. Just did days work.
CC	What kind of family chores did you have then? I mean, if you worked out side the 
home, then I am quite sure that you had a lot of work to do in the home, right?
GP	Oh, yes, yes. We all had our responsibilities at home. I remember during the 
summer I was, I went to the, what we called CD - Cafeteria and Dormitories down Trimble Road on Nuttal Avenue.. .Trimble Road, Edgewood Road, or Nuttal Avenue.
CC	Cafeteria and what?
GP	Dormitories.
CC Ok.
GP	Where the people stayed who worked on the post. 
CC Ok.
GP	They would come to the cafeteria and get their breakfast in the morning. There
was a Mr. Cosby Hawkins who made the best pancakes, the most perfect pancakes I've ever seen. He worked, he was the cook there at the cafeteria. There was one manager, her name was Helen, who entrusted me with all the money in the cafeteria, everyday. We worked, I think, from like six to eleven and then we would go back at three o'clock, and when we closed at eleven she
 
entrusted me with all the money in the cash register to bring home. And I remember, I had to be no more than sixteen or seventeen then, and then I would
go back at three o'clock with all this money and it never phased me, never bothered me about the money. I'd bring it home and put it on my bureau,
whatever, then time for me to go back to work, I would take the money back. And I did that in the summer. Cafeteria work at the cafeteria.
CC	What grade were you in then?
GP	I think I was in the tenth grade. See, we only went to the eleventh grade.
CC	You only went to the eleventh grade.
OP	Only went to the eleventh grade.
CC	Did, didn't the, did the school year follow the farming season? How long did you
go to school?
OP	Well, that, that was the reason that we only went to the eleventh grade because 
the boys, young boys were needed at home and the whites said that was all the
education that you needed.
CC	Did the white students go to the twelfth grade?
OP	Yes, yes. Yes, they did.
CC	But the black students went to the eleventh grade.
OP Yes.
CC	And they didn't change that until the consolidated school?
GP Correct.
CC	Mmm hmm. How close were the school ties to the churches?
 
GP	Oh, they were extremely close. That's how they existed. Yea, because, see, we
used the schools for classrooms and the cohesiveness of that could not be broken. We had our plays there, we had our graduation there.
CC	The churches, you mean?
GP	Yea, the churches, yea.
CC	Uh huh, uh huh.
GP	I mean they were an integral part of the black community. There was no getting
around it. It was just an automatic thing.
CC	And it wasn't only the AME church, it was the Baptist church too?
GP	Yes, yes, uh huh. Well, there were two churches, New Hope and AMES, yes.
CC	AMES. Were you closer though to AMES because of the proximity of...
GP Yes.
CC	the school to the church, right?
GP	Yes, yes, yes. Mmm hmm.
CC	What kind of supplies did they have in schools? Did they have globes and maps
and all the type of things that you...?
GP	I imagine, I imagine we had a few maps and globes but nothing real extensive. 
Chemistry - we had some test tubes and Bunsen burners, I remember.
CC	You did have a chemistry lab?
GP	Yea, it, well, it was right in the classroom. Mrs. Kane would store the stuff in the
closet.
CC	It was a chemistry table then.
 
GP Yes, yes, yes, yes, uh huh. And, she had a piano in the room for our music. There were not a lot of, uh, there was not a lot of equipment. Like I said, we got what was left over from the white schools.
CC	Mmm hmm. Mmm hmm.
GP	When the school was initially built, money from Mrs. Moore, Mr. Moore's mother,
Mrs. Hannah Moore...
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP She initially furnished the Home Ec room with her own personal money and school desks for the students.
CC	What did you have in that Home Ec room?
GP	I remember long tables, about two sewing machines...
CC	Two, for all these students?
GP Yea, probably one stove, maybe two stoves. I remember one stove. I can't visualize the kitchen too well. I remember the long tables. We would go to the A & F, we called it "uptown" on Main Street...
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	Miss Johnson would give us money. We would go there and buy whatever food
supplies we needed to...
CC	The students had to do this themselves?
GP	cook. The students would go up to Main Street...
CC	Mmm hmm.
 
CF to the A & P and purchase the food for lunch from the A & P. I guess Miss Johnson had a certain fund and we would bring it back.... [Side One of Tape Ended]
CC	Now you were talking about lunch and how you had to go up town and pack, and 
buy foods for lunch.
GP Yea.
CC	Now was this lunch to be served to all the children, or was this a part of your 
Home Economics class?
CF	This was part of our Home Economics class. So after the cooking in Home Ec
was done, we would go, someone was picked to go from room to room to read the menu to the other classes. And they would tell us whatever we want, uh, whatever they wanted. Maybe one class would want four spaghetti dinners, maybe one class would want ten hot dogs - whatever it would be. But we had to go and read the menu to them. I don't remember whether we actually took their orders or just informing them of what we were having for lunch. And, but, they
didn't serve...
CC	And this was the only hot meal then that was served at the school? There was no
other...
GP Yes.
CC	Well, those students that didn't buy from the cafeteria brought their lunches?
CF	Yes. Yes, they brought their lunch.
CC And how much was the lunches? Do you remember how much the lunches
were?
 
GP	I don't remember - maybe ten or fifteen cents. Probably not even that much then.
CC Uhhuh.
GP	Mmm hmm.
CC	Picture the school in, as a close community. Could you talk about that
relationship between the parents and the school.. .and your teachers?
GP	Well, like I said, my father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Spriggs, they were very 
much a part of the PTA. Daddy got involved in most everything. The NAACP which were our two main organizations. As a matter of fact, they would call Mr. Spriggs, the black mayor of Edgewod.
CC	Give his full name.
GP	Mr. James A. Spriggs, Senior.
CC	And your mom?
GP	Mom is Madeline Spriggs.
CC Ok.
GP And they would call Daddy the black mayor of Edgewood. Mother and Daddy
were very, with other people, Mr. Bines, other people were very helpful in the desegregation of the schools. They went to court for quite a while fighting the desegregation in Harford County. We have one picture of Mother leaving the court with - I can't recall his name at the time - one of the court sessions with Mr. Bines - Mrs. Marlene Banks. They were all very instrumental in getting the desegregation done in the county. When it was finally allowed, well, I'm jumping ahead now to, uh, after I'm grown and have my family. But, uh, this is the early 50's, when desegregation was allowed. Daddy had gone to the people in the
 
neighborhood, in the community of Harford County to get them to sign their children up to go to the white schools. We were only allowed to have so many children in the schools as a gradual thing. Most people were afraid of this because it was a new challenge and they didn't know what would happen to their kids in the schools. They had to wait and see, but all of Daddy's grandchildren, us girls, we put our children in the schools, which worked out fairly well. And that was the beginning of - they went to Edgewood Elementary. Mr. Carney, his name pops in my mind, was the principal over there at that time as I recall. I'm pretty sure that's his name.
CC	This is in the early '50s. Is this after the Desegregation Act of '53?
GP	Yes, yes. Uh huh. Um, so that's how the desegregation in Harford County really
got started.
CC Didn't I see a picture of your mother walking up the White House steps on something?
GP	That's, uh, yes, I have those pictures. In fact, I just finished a big presentation 
with my family in Houston, Texas, on our family history. We went back to 18... went back to 1800.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP And I told my family members that this is the 231st anniversary of the
nd
independence of the United States and in the year 2000, it would be the 232,
uh,
CC	Mmm hmm.
 
CF	My fore parents on my father's side would have been married 200 years in the
year 2000.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	Which makes my fore parents 23 years younger than the independence [CC &
GP in unison] of the United States.
CC	Mmm hmm. 
GP Yea.
CC	So, what are, do you have any other, other than the PTA and the NAACP, that 
the parents were really involved in? Did they work with the schools? Were they, uh, work with the teachers? What happened when the teachers, say, had to go to
a parent about a student? What happened?
CF	Well, that was very wrong to see because the teachers were our councilors, they 
were parents, they were mentors, and if you did something in school, you knew you were going to be corrected by a teacher. There was no such thing as a parent come to school says, "You shouldn't have said that to my Johnny and Mary." No, that was not even thought of. Like I say, it takes a whole village to
raise one child.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	That was the concept. You just automatically. The discipline - I think they, they
would get whipped.
CC	They'd get whipped.
CF	Yea, l,I...
CC	Corporal punishment, huh?
 
GP	Yea, I, I think, now. [Laughter] I would think they would get a couple of whips.
Yes, yes, a couple of lashes. I would aim to think they would get a couple - I, never got any but, uh, I would believe they would get a couple of lashes on their behinds or something.
CC	Was, there was no such thing as a detention or anything like that, like they do 
today?
GP	No, no, not that I recall. There was punishment, I'm sure.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	You were probably kept away from recess, that type of thing, but no real strong
punishment as I can remember.
CC	And, in all the recollections of the students we've talked with, I don't hear them, 
any of them talk about corporal punishment.
GP	If they did, it was appreciated, if they did get corporal punishment. They seemed 
to have appreciated it, but I don't hear any ill talk about what Mrs. So and So did to me. I could have beat him and this, that, and the other.
CC	Mmm hmm. Mmm hmm.
CF	But, uh, it was all done in just and they appreciated it. Whatever was done to
them in correction, the students appreciated.
CC	How many teachers were there? Do you remember how many teachers were in 
your school?
GP	I do have a list of the teachers who were there. Ah, you see the different grades 
were added.
CC	Mmm hmm.
 
GP	Mr. Moore, at one time...
CC	Steve Moore...
GP	Yea, Mr. Steve Moore, at one time, he taught all the classes, but you just went to
the ninth grade at that point. Then in 1937, this is before my time, uh, Mrs. Sara Taylor Kane was employed for the teaching of English and sciences. There were just two sciences taught - Biology and Chemistry. And Mr. Moore taught all the Math classes and Social Studies. And there was a Mr. Dennis Noble who taught Math and Science in the morning at Havre de Grace High. That was the first high school established in the county - Havre de Grace High. And he would come in the afternoons on Mondays and Fridays and teach Shop. Then later, Mr. William C. Wright, he was a graduate of Princess Anne College, and he later taught Shop classes, and that was held at the old firehouse up on Bond Street in Bel Air.
CC	Mmm. So, uh, so Havre de Grace and Bel Air shared teachers.
GP Yes.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	Yes, yes. Mmm hmm. I wasn't aware of that until later...
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	'Cause like I said that happened in 19,
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	... uh, 37, I think it was. Uh huh.
CC	Mmm hmm. Mmm hmm.
GP	You were talking about the New Hope Baptist Church on Alice Ann Street. There
were two classrooms there and one classroom at AMES United Methodist.
 
CC	Mmm hmm. And then one at the firehouse.
GP Yes, yes, yes. Mmm hmm. And some of the elementary teachers were Miss
Fanny Jackson, Mrs. Mildred Noble, Mrs. Maddie	. And joining 
the high school staff we had Miss Gladys Williams who is a sister of Dr. Percy Williams, she taught eight grade Core, Miss Cornelia Ruff, she taught seventh grade Core, Mrs. Mary Read Tithe, she taught ninth grade Core. And then it was at the end of the 1946 school year, Mrs. Kane left and went to Indian Head, Maryland. That was her home. And her vacancy was filled by Mary Bond Berry, who previously had attended Bel Air Colored High, completed her college course at Morgan, came back and taught her students and is still in the school system as we speak today. She was assigned English and Social Studies and Biology which
CC	She taught in the old school?
GP	Yes. She went to the old school, she taught in the old school, has some of her
students that she taught have gone and taught 30 years themselves in school and have retired. And she is still teaching, yes.
Mrs. Emma Johnson was a Home Ec teacher and Miss Marlene Banks was a Home Ec teacher. The teachers at Bel Air High, they were dedicated and worked hard as teachers counselors to insure the students received the best education possible.
CC	We talked about how you got back and forth to school on the, uh, the uh, work 
bus, but what happened when it was bad snows and bad weather. How did you get to school? Did you
 
GP	We had to walk down Trimble Road
CC	You went to school anyway.
GP	And went to school anyway, yes, yes, yes, mmm hmm. I can't remember snow
days, school closing...
CC	School didn't close for snow days?
GP	I can't, I cannot recall that, no. Now peCCaps, they did but I cannot recall that.
We went to school. Period. Everyday.
CC	I know, I went to, uh, Towson, and uh, my aunt had a restaurant...
GP	Mmm hmm.
CC	And the kids would leave the school and go to the restaurant at lunchtime.
GP	Mmm hmm.
CC	Uh, did, were you able, I know Mrs. Moore had a restaurant. Did you ever have
to go up there to, for lunches, or?
GP	Yes, yes, there was a luncheonette and...
CC	Luncheonette. Yea.
GP	And Mrs. Moore's place, yea.
CC Yes.
GP	We would frequent those places. Get those good hot dogs for lunches and all, 
and the sandwiches.
CC	Uh huh.
GP	I can't recall the lady who operated what we called the luncheonette.
CC	Luncheonette, right.
GP	But it was a neat little hang out for the students.
 
CC	Uh huh.
GP Yes, we had out little place there. Mmm hmm. The, uh, dances after the, the "hops", that was an integral part of our activity on Friday nights. We had, I don't know how often we had the hops.
CC	Mmm hmm.
CF	I guess they were called Record Hops, and we would do our dances of the era
then and have great fun, and that was one of the things we looked forward to. I remember one incident, my sister, Marie, and I had worked that summer and we were able to accumulate this mass, uh, wardrobe. Five outfits a piece!
[Laughter]
She going to Douglass High in Baltimore and I was going to Bel Air Colored High. So we had it all figured out. We could change our outfits, of ten outfits between us, and we could wear something different everyday. But then she got to the point she wanted to stop this little procedure. OK. Fine, no problem. Of course, it was no problem because she left early and I left late and I got home before she did. So I was still continuing to wear . . [Laughter] wear her clothes. So this one outfit she had was a beautiful, gray peppered skirt, floral skirt and gray sweater, and some gray beads. I can still see the outfit now. Well, I wore it to school this one day. We had a hop that night, and she was insisting on wearing this outfit. And I did everything I could to tell her the reason she could not wear it. It was, it was dirty, it was this, it was that, she didn't look right in it. And, she [Laughter] still insisted on wearing this outfit. And with me just wearing it that day and, I mean, you're talking about maybe 50 kids, and they all knew what each other had on,
 
so I finally had to tell her that I wore it to school that day.. .which that [Laughter] did not go over very well, needless to say. [Laughter] So that, then that..." Mother, I told you not to let Geneva wear my clothes no more." And that went on and on, so that was the end of our sharing of our wardrobe for a while. [Laughter]
CC	Were you assigned a lot of homework?
GP	Yes, yes we were because our English class. We had to do a lot of memorizing.
Then when Mrs. Bond came, our Poetry and Prose, we would have to listen, Mrs. Bond would mark a "X" on the floor. "X" would mark the spot. And we would have to stand there and recite our poetry that we had memorized, and you had better memorize because, uh, if you did not, you were really taken down and embarrassed so that, that was quite a challenge. You had to memorize those poems. Whenever Mrs. Kane, when she left, whenever Mrs. Bond gave it to you for homework you would have, we would have, I imagine, a certain amount of time, maybe a week or two to do, to do the memorizing. But we would have to stand before the class and one by one recite that poetry. And we did it.
CC Mmmhmm.
GP	Yea. Yea, we did it. Mmm hmm.
CC	What was your favorite subject?
GP	Math, and I liked it because Math was a challenge, and after I understood
Algebra, it was like a breeze - after I understood it. And, I really enjoyed Algebra, the challenge of Math. English. Uh, I liked English, it was, English is still is a complicated subject. I took English once after I was grown, and I told the instructor, the college instructor, I said, "You know, you have destroyed
 
everything I ever knew about English." This is, uh, English is really a tough subject to master. But I enjoyed English, and I understood it while I was taking it in school, the diagrams and your, uh, nouns, your subjects, your adverbs, and so forth and on. Yea, I, I enjoyed English. Yes. I think I enjoyed school.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	I enjoyed my subjects. I had some very dear friends in school. Our class was
very small. Like I said, there was twelve, but as I look on this picture, I see there are thirteen of us. William, he is still with us.
CC William?
GP	He attended our reunion. William Smith. Uh, Charles Watters. My daughter 
married his nephew. Calvin Green, he's the organist. He's done very well at Fairview Church. He has a garage business. Paul Lester is deceased.
	Wilson is deceased. James	, my mentor. He's living 
in Minneapolis, and he has two daughters that are lawyers. He's done, you know, quite well with - his children have done quite well. Going to the girls. Ida Mae
Watters. I'm not sure about her. 	 Wise. I'm not sure about
	Wise. Marilyn Norman who just lost two sisters recently.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	I'm going to attend her retirement party from Perry Point next Sunday.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	And that's quite an achievement, and I would not miss that for anything because
she's a dear friend and a classmate. Mary - what was her last name? I don't know off the top of my head. She's in Baltimore. She attended some of our, she
 
attended our first reunion we had. 'Course, this is myself, Geneva. Elizabeth Green, she has retired from APG; and Bertha Harris, she has retired from Havre de Grace Hospital. She worked there. She was employed there in a custodial capacity. So these are my students, my, uh, my, my fellow classmates.
CC Well, I was just about to ask you, did you keep in touch with any of your classmates? And I see that you have.
GP	Yes. Bill and I, yes, like Ida Mae came to our reunion, Mary came to the reunion, 
Elizabeth came. So we had, let me see: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, seven out of twelve. That wasn't bad.
CC	That's not a bad average at all.
GP	No, no, no. That's not bad.
CC	What about your fellow - your teachers?
GP	Oh, yes, we had teachers. In fact, one of the teachers who taught
CC	Do you still keep in touch with them?
GP	Yes. I have some beautiful, I have a couple of beautiful letters from Mrs. Kane
who taught us. The lady that Mary Berry replaced.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP When they had the affair for Mary Berry, Mrs. Kane came to her affair, her function.
CC Mmmmmm.
GP	And that was quite an honor, too. Mrs. Kane taught Mary, now remember. Mrs. 
Kane taught Mary; Mary completed four years of college and came back and took Mrs. Kane's position.
 
CC	Ok. I have Mrs. Kane here to interview. How old is she, and is she still in the
area?
GP	She's at Indian Head.
CC	Indian Head. Ok.
GP	Yes, yes, she's at Indian Head.
CC	My, my daughter lives there.
GP	Yes. The other young lady's name I could not remember was, uh, Mary Gilbert.
CC Ok.
GP	Mmm hmm. She's in Baltimore. As a matter of fact, this is my, uh, school's.. .my 
graduation program.
CC	No kidding!
GP	Oh yea.
CC	Aren't you something?
GP	I have my original newspaper from school which was given to me by, mmm, I'll
think of her name in a minute. Umm, her name slips my mind. But she gave me my, she gave me the original school paper.
CC Mmm hmm. Now I have, I think, one last question. Or maybe two. When you were in high school, what did you want more than anything else to do, when you finished school?
GP	To be a secretary, I think.
CC	Did you do it?
GP	Yes. I didn't do it right away. I did not get a secretary position until 1972.
CC	Oh my!
 
[Laughter]
GP	I had taken the test at Edgewood, for clerical test, throughout the years. I would 
pass one part and fail the written part. It was a 10-minute test. The first five minutes I would do fine. The next five minutes my hands would be all butter. One day, my, I was home sick and I had a broken ankle and I was in Bel Air at the unemployment office. And I decided to go past the unemployment office, just take this test, just a walk-in test. I took it and passed with flying colors. Before when I would take my test, I would set up an appointment and practice all weekend and get myself all worked up with nerves pills and whatever, you know, and be all butterflies after the first five minutes. When I did the walk-in test, I passed it with flying colors. I was working in a restaurant, an Italian restaurant. I worked there for eighteen years in between having my children. That's when I, worked there for eighteen years and, like I said, in 1972 I finally passed the test and it took them a year to call me. When I finally got the letter that I was being considered for this position, I thought it was a joke. I couldn't believe it. So, not a joke but I really didn't.. .it took so long for it to happen I was really, you know, in shock. So anyway, I was hired in 1972 as a secretary on the Post and I stayed there until my retirement in '82 when I developed a very bad back. So I've been retired since '82.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	So I did reach my goal as a, as a secretary.
CC	You did.. .good, good. And one last question. What is your very best memory of
attending Bel Air Colored School?
 
GP Oh, gee, there are so many good memories, other than the time I kicked the school. [Laughter] But there, there are so many fond memories of the teachers, the closeness, how they took you under their wing when you had a problem, how they made you learn. There was no excuse. I cannot learn this, I cannot learn that. The close friends, the camaraderie and it was just all good feelings.. .the Hops, the closeness in the Home Ec room with Mrs. Johnson. I was very fond of her, and I thought she did an excellent job teaching Home Ec and health. She didn't have any children of her own, but yet she was very up on children's problems, home problems, health problems, whatever the correct word for it, was for it at that time. But she taught us well. All the teachers taught us well, yes. They made us walk a straight line.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	As I said, so many of the students from Bel Air Colored High have done so well.
It's unbelievable how they have achieved coming from their meager beginnings, so to speak.
CC	Pride.
GP Yes. CC Pride!
GP	Mmm hmm. Yea, it took a lot of pride and struggle. That's one of the things I
talked about in my presentation I did at my grandson's school. I, I spoke with him about, he was here one day and I was telling him things that my mother and father had done, which I try to do each chance that I get with the children. And he was so interested in it, he says, "Grandma, will you come to school and talk to
 
my class?" So I said, "Sure. About what?" and he says, "About Grandma and what she did. You know, getting," he didn't know what the word was, "getting the black children into the white schools and all of that." So I did and his class was very receptive. And I talked about the projects where we lived which he had a black, no he had a white teacher. There was one black teacher there who could not visualize where the projects were in Edgewood, the Heights.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	I can see why she could not because they no longer exist.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	And I had to explain to her where the 7-11 was, where the road, was, where the
projects existed and all that...
CC	Was that Battle Street?
GP	Yes, that was Battle Street. And they just sat there in awe of the things that I told
them about. I did quite a big display on pictures and family struggle and pride. That was one thing I emphasized on. Uh, then the teacher was so impressed, she asked me to do another presentation for the entire fourth grade. So this
occasion, the entire cafeteria was filled with students and teachers.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP So, they were, it went over quite well. They were quite impressed with the presentation. The one picture that the kids really got carried away with, I have a
picture of myself and Ali, Mohammed Ali... CC Yes.
 
GP	Yes, and when they saw that, boy, I really got their attention! [Laughter] They told
my grandson, "Derek, your grandmama's pretty cool," you know. That picture with Mohammed Ali... And the kids, they were so confused about the information I was giving them. I had pictures of slave homes and, uh, my, my grandfather, and they wanted to know if my mother was a slave. They could not comprehend that length of time, the years. And it was all quite awesome to them, hearing all this from a person who had participated in the integration of schools.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	And I told them that... I kept referring to Derek because it was his class and they
could relate to him... had it not been for his great-grandparents, he would not be in the school where he is today and some of the other people who worked with my parents who fought for desegregation. If it were not for these forebearers and living where they are today, I said, Derek's aunt walked and protest signs for integrated homes in Harford County, and he would not be living in an integrated neighborhood where he is now, where he is living today, had it not been for his aunt helping with hundreds of other people to put on this demonstration for equal housing. And that was part of all the struggle that Derek's ancestors participated in.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	So they could really relate to him.
CC	Mmm hmm.
GP	Mmm hmm.
 
CC	Ok. Now, anything that you would like to.. .the floor is yours. We have some more
tapes.
OP	This is the history of Be[ Air Colored High. The history of this building dates back 
to the time when it was an elementary school for grades one through seven with Mr. Stanley Saunders as teacher. The only way that colored children could get a high school education at that time was to go to Baltimore City or to Cambridge. These colleges, like Princess Anne on the Eastern Shore, Morgan State College, Virginia State in Hampton, had high school programs but parents had to pay for their children to attend. And Mr. Saunders, knowing the family and the parents of the students, knew they could not afford to do this. So he initiated some eighth grade courses into the Bel Air Elementary curriculum. This practice continued for several years, but he was told by the Board of Education at this point that it was necessary for boys and girls to be educated beyond the seventh and eighth grades. They suddenly changed their minds. By January 3 of 1935, two rooms had been added onto the Bel Air Elementary School and opened to 22 eighth grade students with Mr. Stephen P. Moore, who was a graduate of Mecklen University of Pennsylvania, and employed as the teacher. He taught all subjects because he was the only teacher there; and by the fall of 1936, a ninth grade was added. So Stephen P. Moore then taught eighth and ninth grades. Things were going well, but two grades were not enough. Mrs. Hannah Moore, his mother, recognized this so she went to the Board of Education and asked for more rooms and was told they could not find land in all of Bel Air, but there was a grant in the county from the Rosenwald Educations Foundation. Now this
 
Rosenwald Foundation - I'd like to tell you something about it. The Rosenwald Foundation was a Nashville based philanthropic organization founded by Julius Rosenwald. He lived from 1862 to 1932. Mr. Rosenwald became interested in rural black education after a visit to Tuskegee Institute in 1911. He was, at that time, president of Sears, Roebuck, Inc. The Foundation always required matching funds from the community. Now this is what Mrs. Moore did. And the school system. It stressed cooperation with the county school board and emphasized black and white community cooperation. Contributions were made to every level of black education, and grants were made to students for advanced study. In 1928, Rosenwald endowed the Foundation with 200,000 shares of Sears, Roebuck stock. It was at that time, Chairman of the Board, he was at that time Chairman of the Board. In order to prevent the Foundation from hoarding the money, he ordered that it all had to be spent within 25 years of his death.
When he died in 19	 
[End of Tape]
CC	Start that sentence over again.
GP	Yes. He was, at that time, Chairman of the Board. In order to prevent the
Foundation from hoarding the money, he ordered that it all had to be spent within twenty-five years of his death. When he died in 1932, 5,367 school buildings had been built. Between 1924 and 1935, the present building supplemented the old building on January 3,1935. So that's a history of the Rosenwald Foundation that Mrs. Moore matched to buy the school building. They further stated - the Board of Education - further stated that they had no available funds. Mrs. Moore got
 
very busy. She was an energetic woman and she knew what was what around Bel Air. They could not get much by her. She knew where to get land so she purchased the land that adjoined the existing school property for the sum of $1000 out of her money. In addition, she matched the money from the Rosenwald Fund, dollar for dollar. Not a penny from the school board. They did not contribute one dime toward the project. The only money put forth by the board was for text books, teachers' salaries. Quite frequently, the books they received were used once and had to be cleaned with the racial slurs from the other schools. Mrs. Moore also equipped the school with modern Home Economic rooms and she provided the students with desks; and whatever was needed in the school, she would purchase herself. She continued to make additional contributions to the school to insure that the students would receive the best education facilities that money could provide at that time. When the tenth grade was added in 1937, Mr. Moore had all he could handle as far as teaching. Mrs. Sara Taylor Kane was employed for the teaching of English and the sciences. Just the two science classes were taught - Biology and Chemistry. Mr. Moore then taught all the Math and Social Studies classes. I'm probably repeating some of this information. I want to make sure it is there and it's understood who did what. And Mr. Dennis Noble, he taught Math and Science in the morning at Havre de Grace High School, like I said, uh, which was the first high school in the county. In the afternoons, he would come to Bel Air and teach on Mondays and Fridays. The Shop training that Mr. Rice also took up. Later, all one room elementary schools were closed in the county. So this meant a greater
 
elementary school population. Other buildings in the area were used to accommodate all these different students, which meant all the elementary students were either attending Bel Air, or Havre de Grace Elementary School. And like I said before, there was New Hope Church on Alice Ann Street, two class rooms; one classroom at Ames United Methodist Church. Some of the elementary teachers - Mrs. Fanny Jackson, as I mentioned before, Mrs. Noble,
Mrs. Maddie   	. And then joining our 
high school staff, we had Miss Gladys Williams who taught the eighth grade Core and Mrs. Cornelius Ruff who taught the seventh grade Core, Mrs. Mary Reid Tittle, ninth grade. So that's about it of how the school progressed.
CC	When you really stop to think that the, all of the black students, with the size of 
Hat-ford County, all of the black students, either went to either Havre de Grace
GP Yea.
CC	or Bel Air. 
GP Yes.
CC	That is an awful lot... 
GP Yes.
CC	Of territory to cover.
GP	Yes, it was.
CC	It's a wonder that our black students are educated.
GP Yes. Yes, yes, but they are quite accomplished people. Yes. Here's another
interesting point. Only three of the 21 youth who started in 1935 finished high school there in 1938. They were Bernice Williams, now deceased;
 
	Jones, who attended our first reunion in '91, and Leopold Smith.
I just heard from him again recently, this year. He lives in Pennsylvania. However, those who did not finish should not be regarded as idle students, unwilling to work and study. The wages were low then and there was no bus transportation; hence, some were forced to drop out not of their own will. Many of them walked five or six miles to school each day. Just think of the zeal and determination that they had to seek an education. Getting an education was difficult for most students. Building conditions were deplorable, yet school was enjoyed. The teachers were committed, dedicated, and caring persons through all adversities. The students also had fun. They had a track coach, Mr. Moore. He did that also. Some of the outstanding athletes were Ruby Bonds, Marguerite Stewart, dance Jackson, Warnell Lester, and John Pike Watters, just to name a very few. We had a Field Day like May Day once a year in the spring. Our activities were just plain ole dodgeball, volleyball, Relays, and field events. Very simple activities.
CC	Did you ever go to Morgan? Was that a part of the Field Day? Remember we
used to go to Morgan once a year when all of the schools competed?
GP	I think I went there once. Yes, yes. I think I recall going there once. Mmm hmm. 
Yea. Well, during Senior Class Day, the seniors would read the Class Will and the Valedictorian would speak. That's how we survived at Bel Air Colored High School as far as I can remember.
CC Wonderful.
GP	Thank you.
 
CC	Thank you.