Church Hill - Dr. Jean Harris Ellis
Virginia Black History Archives
Church Hill Oral History Project
Transcript of interview with Dr. Jean Harris Ellis, conducted September 29, 1982 by Akida T. Mensah.
This is a taped interview with Dr. Jean Harris Ellis, better known as Dr. Jean Harris. Dr. Harris, the first black admitted to the Medical College of Virginia and the first woman, or black, to serve on the Cabinet of a Virginia Governor, has agreed to share her remembrances of growing up in Richmond's Church Hill section. She is the daughter of the late Vernon J. Harris and credits her father's influence amongst other influences as shaping her life and philosophy.
I = Interviewer
N = Narrator
I - Dr. Harris, where were you born?
N - I was born in Richmond, Virginia, at home, at what was then 2900 Q Street. I was born up over a drugstore in what now we tend to characterize or call black ghettoes. But at that time, we never saw that as a ghetto. We lived in a community of people of varying needs, many of whom were poor, but I don't think at that time that we recognized poverty because everybody lived very much on the same level. And since we were circumscribed in activities, that is, by being very strong values of segregation and discrimination at that time we tended not to be able to compare ourselves as children with children of needs. Therefore, my playmates came right out of my neighborhood. Many of those playmates have gone on to achieve high office such as Senator Doug Wilder who lived only three blocks from me at that time. Many of them have moved and have achieved in other areas of endeavor outside of the City of Richmond. But by and large, I think the importance of that early experience was that we all grew up in a community which really cared.
I - When were you born?
N - I was born November 24, 1931.
I - And your parents?
N - My father was Vernon Joseph Jackson Harris, a physician who practiced in the community, a family practitioner and my mother was Jean Pace Harris who was an Atlantan transplant to Richmond.
I - And what school did you attend, elementary school?
N - I attended George Mason Elementary School, and ...
I - Who was the principal at the time that you attended?
N - Joseph T. Bright was the principal when I was there.
I - What kind of person was Mr. Bright?
N - From the perspective of a child he was a marvel. He was a very generous man who was stern and who maintained order and discipline in that school. On the other hand, like all of the teachers and parents, friends in our community he was caring of the peoples who were his charges at that time. All of the individuals with whom I came in contact during my early and formative years whether they were my mother's friends, relatives, teachers, principal, members of my church - everyone took an interest in exhorting all of us as young people to excellence, and instilling in us a sense of responsibility for the well being of future generations of black people.
I - Who were some of your classmates?
N - I mentioned Doug Wilder because he stands out. He was Peck's bad boy at that time. Joyce Hayes, who married Herman Melvern was a classmate. She was my very best friend. We. were very, very close all the way through elementary school and well into high school. I can remember the young girl who lived across the street from George Mason, Mary Harris. I lost track of Mary, but I, she was a friend, a very dear friend at that time. The Prices, Mary Stewart, and Estelle Price, her sisters, the Mannings, the whole family as you'd know a very big family, funeral directors, lived in that communtiy and that whole family were playmates of milne. Carolyn Booker Washington who teaches in the Richmond Public Schools at this time again was a very close friend throughout my childhood. Wilder Dickerson who married name eludes me at the moment,... Yes that's it, Hood, and working in the City as a social worker was also a friend. Neblett, Jane, was a friend during those times. Jane did not go to George Mason but you know we had friends outside of our immediate neighborhood. But these were some of the people, Eggleston, Jane Eggleston was again one of those who I had an association with in those early years. And the list goes on and on.
I - Who were some of your teachers?
N -The one who immediately comes to mind, and I think I was fortunate, I had some very good teachers, Mrs. Anthony Malloy. And that reminds me, Tony her son was also a classmate, but Mrs. Malloy first grade teachers or somewhere near about, and I remember her as being a stricking and beautiful woman and she helped me to shape my whole future approach to learning and I think that is the key that the young mind receptive and uncluttered in that first entry to formal education.The teacher who takes that mind and who instills in i,t the formal education, the eagerness to learn, is a very important individual at a very impressionistic point.
I - I seem to remember that she lived in your neighborhood, Mrs. Malloy.
N -Yes, she did. She lived in the neighborhood and taught at George Mason.
I - Right, who were some of your others?
N - Mrs... That's high school. My mind was skipped up. I was trying to think of Mrs .... I'm drawing a blank. I can see her face so well at this point. Eula Mae White and I was trying again, an individual I think of those who put a stamp and during the time when I was getting somewhere around the fifth or sixth grade. I was working with the school safety patrol and she worked with the school safety patrol. She was the sponsor and I was elected captain of that patrol and in working with her she helped me to deal and to see the responsibility you have in terms of leadership and in terms of not abrogating that leadership because you then become models for others and all of those characteristics and I think that she was very, very good about this.
I - Were there any male teachers in your early education that impressed you?
N - I cannot remember male teachers in my elementary education. That's why I think Joe Bright stands up, because he was the male model in that we were surrounded by females who I think traditionally had had a rather nurturing effect upon small children. And I guess Joe Bright fulfilled that role which is the male figure which imparts a whole different set of values, I can't recall any other male teachers at that time.
I - What other activities, you mentioned safety patrol, what other activities did you participate in?
N - As it relates to school, black children at that time did not have the advantages of choice for extracurricular activities. We were limited not only by just the dollars available for education, which means that we did not have teachers who could devote time to specific activities, as such as my daughter enjoys now. She has a variety of things. I think it is very typical for her choose ometimes; there is field hockey, or track or what have xou. When I was in elementary school we did have traveling music teachers who would come from one school to the other on appointed days and we would have singing and learn a little about music therapy. I mean theory, and so forth. But until high school there was not even band and the team sports such as football are, were available only in the higher levels of our educational experience, again, high school. We didn't even have baseball teams. Our extracurricular activities took place outside of school and were generally organized by parents or provided through the Richmond Department of Recreation. Now my extracurricular activities included the advantages I had, by private music lessons, being able to participate through the Richmond Department of Recreation. In playing the piano for organized small child activities at the Oakwood and other playgrounds, we tended to create into generate our own activities and to organize small group functions which served the purposes that now the more organized formal activities available within our junior high, high schools.
I - The May Day plays, seemingly have become a thing of the past. Did you participate in any May Day plays?
N - Oh yes, those were big events and they were big events in part because of the joy of any spring day, and the preparations to celebrate spring in May, but also because there were so few choices otherwise that the whole school focused on the, upon the Christmas, Easter and May Day productions. There were other special events, such as Thanksgiving, but there weren't well I guess what I am saying there were no ongoing participatory activities, available for children beyond the traditional school day.
I - Earlier you mentioned Senator Wilder being the Peck's bad boy. In what way was he the Peck's bad boy?
N - He was mischievous. He was always gifted with the ability to speak. He had a golden tongue and he was also very mischievous fellow and he was, he not only teased, but he was a practical joker. He has always had a great sense of humor and I think that as I recall those early days he was the one who was always being chastised for talking out of turn in class. Or if there was any mischief under way he always seemed to be a part of it.
I - We've talked some about your elementary school life. Could we talk some about your parents and the homes that shaping your life and some about your neifhborhood?
N - My parents were very important in shaping the way in which I have approached my whole life and career. My father was my model. He was my idol. He was a man who was gentle in nature, who cared deeply about the community in which he practiced and who instilled those virtues of caring and of responsibility. My earliest recollections of him were, even prior to entering school, he would take us with him as he made his rounds. At that time doctors did house calls and he would take me and then later my sister and me with him as he made those house calls. And we would sit outside. Now at that time Church Hill was not quite as expanded as it is now. Homes have been built subsequent to the time that we lived there and those areas which are now Woodville, etc. were pretty rural and in fact, when we went out there would be cows and chickens and goats and horses tied in yards. In fact goats used to wander up and down the street of 29th and Q and frequently came into our yard. Livestock as you know as much a part of our everyday existence as anything else. But my father use to on occasion allow us to sit on the front porch of homes in the summertime, particularly because it would be so hot that we would be sitting on the front porch and there was something interesting he would say come and look at this and tell us how you would take care of that, like boil. We learned a lot, very basic self care. Furthermore his patients use to sit and talk to us. To me this was very good, you know it. became an enriching experience because they represented such a range of ages, secondly it became a stimulationto going to medicine, to following the footsteps. I saw that he was held in great love and he was doing, quote "good." And this was a different kind of way he was helping people and people responded to that. My mother was a quiet fireball. She had a deep concern about the status of blacks. From her we learned first pride, pride in being black and I say that because it was important at that time to take pride in being oneself, because all around us we were being suppressed and we were being told that we were inferior. We'd pick up the paper, we used to read the Afro religiously, every Thursday. And everywhere there were stories about discrimination. We'd go downtown and there were water fountains that said both colored and white.
We'd go into stores and there were certain stores at that time that did not like blacks to come in and try on certain articles of clothing particularly hats and dresses. You could buy them off the rack but you couldn't try them on. We had a very small library, the Rosa D. Bowser Library which is about the size of this room in which we are sitting today. And yet that was the colored library. There was this great big white library that we could not enter. If we wanted a book that wasn't in Rosa D. Bowser someone had to order it and we would go to pick it up at Rosa D. Bowser. Rosa D. Bowser had to order it from the white library downtown. Now all around that doesn't mention the streetcars. Where we had to sit on the back, all these things I'm saying to you, that you are somehow inferior, different, not worthy of notice. In the home it was necessary, therefore, to counter that and to say, "you are important," and but that you also have a mission to be the best that you are and to fight against these things and in breaking down those barriers, to open the doors for your children and your children's children. This was just the environment in which I grew up.
Now my mother, I said she was quiet, fireball she was because she refused to accept the indignities and in her own way, long before the mass of civil rights marches, she was doing things in this City which opened doors and at least created a sensitivity and awareness. An example, in elementary school, we received the hand-me-down books from the other white schools. Frequently those books were dirty, they were written in, the covers were broken, they were not worthy of re-use. But the whites' schools got the new books, we got the old ones. My mother decided that she had had enough of the dirty textbooks that I brought in. I could not learn because frequently problems were assigned on a page that was missing. She went down to the Richmond City School Board and took the book and it was a Math book, I will never forget. She says, I will not accept this and she created such a fury nobody had ever done this before that consternation I will tell you that we got new books. My mother took us downtown before the integration of lunch counters and sat at the Woolworths Store with my sister on one side and me on the other and ordered. The clerk behind the counter was so taken aback she really didn't know what to do. She did not know how to handle this brown woman and two brown children sitting there and the whites on either side looked and then in embarrassment looked straight ahead, no one wanted to deal with this. We were served. And she did this repeatedly and they never knew what to do. So rather than create a great bruhaha they would serve us. My mother took us, I will never forget it, into Charles' Department Store. They had a colored fountain and white fountain, water fountain, and she took us to the white water fountain to drink and a woman came running up and said you can't drink there and my mother said "drink", and she looked her dead in the eyes, said "Why?" and the woman walked away. But it was the presence in which she did this "Why?" And she went into Montaldo's when Montaldo's would not sell, let blacks come in bought clothes and she went in and bought clothes. She went in Thalhimer's and I remember I was with her one day. She went in to try on a hat and the woman said you can't try on that hat, we don't let colored people try on hats and my mother had a very sharp tongue and she just gave her a tongue lashing and tried on the hat and said I don't think I need it and walked away. But anyway these were the kinds of things she would, I think the prototype of perhaps women throughout the South who might have been doing this, but the movement itself hadn't coalesced. But if you didn't have that kind of spirit and you didn't have that kind of model for being able to stand up for your own rights, then I don't think that we would have finally got tired and had enough of a mass, a critical mass of people in the 1960's to have pulled it all off. But that was going on, you know before.
I - It is rumored that Joseph Hodes was in some ways influential in getting your father into medicine or at least that your father worked for him for a time. Did you know him at all?
N - Yes. Joe Hodes did play a very significant role in our very early and formative years. Because my father worked there from the time that he went to Normal School he left Seven Pines and use to walk to Richmond every morning in order to go to Normal School. Then in the afternoons he worked at Joe Hodes and before returning to Seven Pines, this makes for a very long day, but Joe Hodes became the financial support for my father's being able to afford his education because it is my understanding that he had to partially pay for or paid for his education beyond elementary school. He had to make some contribution to it. Furthermore he came from a large family that could not afford to release any single member because of the poverty in which they lived. It was a farming family. His contributions to that family, his ability to earn an income, while pursuing an education, his contribution financially to their well being provided the umbrella under which he could be released from farming to pursue higher education. When he died we found a book which my brother has that showed that documented each payday, what he earned from Joe Hodes. And it is a very revealing document and I wish that I had it with me because when you look at the pittance which he was really paid, or which was paid in those days, it is remarkable that he was able to pursue an advanced education. But he was very, very thrifty and in that book he documented what he was paid, what he took home and gave to his parents, what he had saved for himself and how he extended it and he always managed to save. Very, very thrifty.
I - What about Joe Hodes himself? What kind of person would you say he was? Did you have that opportunity to see him or to know him?
N - Yes. My recollections of Joe Hodes is that twice a year, certainly in the fall just before school opened, we went over to buy all of our school supplies undergarments, sweaters, etc. My sister and I and in the spring of the year, we went for a similar ritual in terms of no longer long socks, but short socks, and that sort of thing. He was he was, I think a not, what, he lived upstairs too. Over his store, so he was in essence a part of that community, for the many years that he lived upstairs. So he understood the problems of a community and he did participate to a degree in them, but still he was separate in, apart.it's very difficult that type line which makes you a part of but yet apart from, and that is the type.
I - So you pretty much saw him as a person who was in the community but in some ways not in the community?
N - Yes. I think that is the reflection of the schizophrenia of having a different pigment.
I - What was his background? I've heard that he might have been German, he might have been French. Was it, do you know?
N - I really don't know.
I - So generally, how would you describe the nieghborhood, inclusive of Joe Hodes? What would you say characterizes that neighborhood?
N - One must remember the four corners, in one corner there was a theatre, Bill Robinson which was the principal source of recreation for the whole community. One could go to the movie and on Saturdays, all of us young people off to watch the westerns. On the other corner there were several small commercial establishments including the shoe repair shop, a dry cleaners, I can't remember what else, but they were black owned. They were there. Then on the third corner there was Joe Department Store which provided the dry goods, much of the wearing apparel for all of the neighborhood, particularly the children and on the corner in which we lived, there was downstairs the Robinson Drugstore which was black owned, and my father's office which was a part of that same building and behind the drugstore, but it had a separate entrance and the entrance to our upstairs over the drugstore's apartment. There were many small antebellum homes in that community, basically in need of repair but owned by individuals who did not want to live in that community. Therefore, not having a vested interest in the maintenance and therefore that property deteriorated with time. Very few blacks owned their homes and to this day those homes which were black homes still stand out because those were the homes that were maintained in as good repair as possible. The community of individuals however, circumscribedby the picket fence of segregation tended to be a rather cohesive community. Young people growing up in that community lacked opportunity. I recall the teenage boys with no recreation hanging around those four corners in which Igrew up in fact during the early years thosethat were not old enough to be drafted say sixteen, seventeen, not quite oldenough to go into the armed services were attracted to that corner like flies. I guess because of the lights, the drugstore was open late at night, it was a place that you could go at that time, ice cream. The drugstore use to sell ice cream and other things and you could go for ice cream. But they use to also what, fight with one another. I think looking back as much a reflection of the need to release tensions, pinned up tensions, because too young to work jobs, too young to go into the armed services. Approaching that period of life in which the realities of absence of choice and opportunities really weigh out. It gradually during the 1940's assumed a reputation of being quoted as a bad corner, the police use to come and patrol and all, but these were not really bad boys, they were young people who were pinned and captured by a lack of alternatives. Many of them later were drafted and went on to other things.
I - Let's talk some about you, when did you decide you wanted to be a doctor?
N - Oh very early. Following I guess it was grade school. And again, it was my father, he was my idol. I wanted to emulate him, to follow in his footsteps.
I - So after George Mason, you went on to Armstrong? What year did you go to Armstrong?
N - 1941.
I - And what was that like?
N - Armstrong was quite an experience. It was quite different from elementary school in terms of substance, greater freedom. Secondly there was more team participation, sports, football was the big sport. (end of tape side one)
I -We were talking about the football heroes, or the athletic heroes in high school.
N - The other thing is that high school, there was since high schools draw from a larger geographical area, there were people who came from other sections of the City who had different experiences and exposures. And this leads to,a cross fertilization in terms of ideas and there is a rapid growth of course. High school corresponds with one of the second most rapid period of growth in an individual's life, which is adolescence. So high school was a very exciting experience. Those of us who went to high school in those days again were thrust into an environment in which there was an anticipation that we would go on to college and now I say that recognizing fully that at that time there were two major black high schools. Armstrong was the college preparatory and Maggie Walker at that time was viewed as vocational school, The weeding out had taken place before one was admitted to one or the other. Therefore, the environment in which one found oneself at Armstrong was an environment in which everyone had the same expectations about their life. They were going on to college, they were going into professions, they were all going to do great things and go out and conquer the world.
I - You mentioned heroes, could you mention a few of these athletic heroes?
N - One who comes to immediately to mind was Corbett who was a star on the football field and William Corbett and he was, wherever he walked there would be a flock of charming young ladies tailing along behind. That is the image I always have of Bill Corbett. He used to hold court on the steps. He would sit, there was one of the landings at Armstrong that had a window and he would sitthere and like, you know, great Prince Valiant or King Arthur. And that there would be his whole bevy of ladies standing around vying for attention and regaling him with stories. Another that comes to mind quickly is Edward Wood who was again not only a good student, but a very charming young man, who went on to medical school, practice somewhere in New York State at this time. But Eddie was alsofrequently followed, by all I'd say adoring females who saw in this I guess the first black heroes, because it certainly didn't happen in the theatres, in the movies that we saw. We didn't have them depicted in magazines because there was no Ebony or Jet at that time, so it was the development I think it was an important phase of the development, that there were blacks who could carry that hero image.
I - Who was the principal at Armstrong during your time?
N - Let me think, because we had a white principal. I remember he Townsend. He was later replaced by, let me just think, who was the first black principal? I'm drawing a blank right now.
I - Mr. Peterson. George Peterson. What teachdrs influence you most at Armstrong?
N - Banks, Brown who teaches chemistry. He lives right down here. He is retired now and I can't remember his first name. Edwina Sharpe, very important, and Bowles, Eloise Bowles Washington very, very significant people, and good teachers, and who had visions and very important in shaping my life.
I - So now high school and you go on to college. What college did you..?
N - Went to Virginia Union University and you know Virginia Union is a very unique environment. I think it represents the black college and it represents an environment which we desperately need as blacks today and one which if we use it, it's going to have a major impact. I say that because the black college took material which would not have been accepted anywhere else except in a black college. Molded it, educated it, nurtured it thrust it out into the world with a hard slap up the back and said you can do it,go forth and do. That is important, because coming as we did from an inferioreducational experience without the stamina and the vision of those teachers thatwe encountered in college, many of us would not have been able to come forth. The black college again, I use that word nurturing because it is important throughout the educational process we had that nurturing in elementary school, in high school and on the black campus. The teachers cared if you didn't do well.It was a personal thing with them. They kept you back, they talked to you,they encouraged you, they thrd`tened you, they would just not accept, no theywould not accept poor performance, if they felt that you could do it. I think there are many black achievers today who achieved because of that environment and it's quite different from being in a big educational setting where you are just one face among many and nobody gives a hoot, it's up to you whether you do it. They said it's up to you, but we're gonna help you and it is that which makes the difference, attitude. Now Virginia Union was also unique because it had some white teachers there. To this day, I am amazed that they stayed because the salaries were considerably below anything that they could have commanded elsewhere. Black colleges have always been poor. The obstacles that they faced in educating students who came from very diverse backgrounds were very different levels of ability and educational experiences was also a real challenge. And yet they destituted their futures in educating us. And that was the first experience I've had that there were whites who were concerned about me as a then Negro, a colored, and whether I would succeed. The very first time that I had ever been exposed to friendly whites.
I - I saw a news article, I believe at Mrs. Katie Flanagan, that in your junior year you were accepted as a student to MCV.
N - Yes that is correct.
I - What was that like?
N - Well, I decided to be a physician. We applied to Howard, Meharry and the Medical College of Virginia. My parents, with my sister coming into college felt that there was little hope of my being accepted at the Medical College of Virginia. But if it were possible to stay at home it would assist them financially in continuing to support me in Medical School, my sister in college, because Medical School is quite expensive, it always has been quite expensive. I was expected to roam free, the choice then came down to one of finances. If you would recall, the Supreme Court decision which opened all schools did not, was not handed down until 1954. But in 1951 the Medical College of Virginia seeing the handwriting on the wall or for reasons other than that, looked at me as having the potential to successfully compete in that environment, so I became the first black accepted in the Medical School of Virginia. That was an experience, beyond description. It was the first time that I had ever functioned in a white environment. And I have laughed with some of my classmates in later years that I could not tell them apart for the first six to eight weeks. That's true. I never, I've never been in the company of more than one or two whites, and those whites were at Virginia Union. No contact. It was an entirely different culture from the culture in which I had grown up. The teachers viewed me as a very unique specimen. Their expectationsof my ability were an unknown, untried entity, and we are just going to you know, benign neglect is what I received. My classmates coming principal from the state of Virginia and from the same kinds of segregated society that I had, did not know what to expect of me either. The only blacks they had seen had been principally in their kitchens. Bringing all this together in an educational setting led to a very interesting and a series of four years for all of us. Some of those experiences and feelings may be captured in a couple more illustrations. One, on the first neuroanatomy examination. Neuroanatomy is a very difficult subject. Most students do not do well. On the first neuroanatomy examination I made a 96. The whole department of anatomy was informed, they stood back, they could not believe this. One of my professors came to me and said you had a 96, with all that that implied in his voice and face, that they could not believe that a black could think. I had penetrated their own stereotypical barriers of what Negroes were like. Two, when we were selecting our partners for the dissection they were concerned that I would not be selected, so they placed me in a group so that that would negate the whole selection process. Usually individuals would select their friends. We'd all get together as a nice. I got along well with my group. Our cadaver rotted; we had to get a new cadaver. One of my classmates said to me, "Gee, I hope we get us a big fat nigger mammy"; then he went absolutely red, everything went quiet and I said, "Do you think that one will be easier to dissect than the one we have now?" which was a white male, and he couldn't answer. But I took it with a certain degree of equanimity. The whole class was embarrassed. Later he came to me in the corridor, as I was standing at the locker, he said, "I hope you will forgive me, I wasn't thinking." My classmates when studying late at night would go to the Skull and Bones. Two or three times I went to the Skull and Bones with a group. We were never accosted. Sure we were stared at. On a third occasion, fourth or whatever it was, when there and the manager said, "We don't serve niggers here" and the whole group said, "You don't serve us here," and turned away. But that was months into the program, but by that time the images had begun to form, so that we were, you know they began to feel I was a part of that community. In the area of fraternities there were seven girls in my class. Girls would still have to fight the battle of sex discrimination. Our teachers, as well as the boys in the class, let it be known that they considered us intruders. And we were taking up a slot that should have rightfully gone to another man. The girls, therefore, banded together and tended to study together because the boys excluded us. Except where it was necessary to include us, such as in dissection, we didn't all dissect the same cadaver, we were scattered about, but where possible they just didn't bother to help us or to associate with. There was a sorority, the sorority was formed to provide support for the girls, because they were excluded. When the invitations went out I was not among those invited. Two of the girls refused to join, again we by this time had linkages, these are the smal things that eventually began to break down. They said we will not join. Later skipping through the early years, when H went on to the wards, by that time I had established myself as an independent individual no different from any of the other classmates, except in terms of color. They assigned me to West Hospital, what is now MCV Hospital. White patients would not believe that I was black; they tried to make me into everything. Had I been down to Miami. "Boy you've been down there a long time.' Was I puerto Rican, was I Spanish. It was all kind of things. But never in the four years of medical training nor the successive years of internship and two years of residency that I was at the Medical College of Virginia was I discriminated against, in terms of assignments. I worked on both the white wards and the black wards. I delivered white babies and black babies. I did my surgical training on white patients and black patients and it was a good experience for MCV as well as for me and it certainly was a good experience for those white patients who would otherwise never have seen a black physician. And of course they never saw me as a student, or as an intern. They saw me as a quote "physician" which made a difference in terms of their perception of black ability.
I - I understand that you met your husband at the Medical College.
N - Well it goes back earlier than that. My husband was a mischief maker when he was young too. I met him when I was in high school. In high school my mother had the great ambition right after I got through high school that I was going to be a concert pianist. And she had invested a fair amount of time and money and energy. And insuring that I would play well. And I did play well. In fact as a young person I gave concerts up and down the East Coast. Philipa Duke Charlotte was my biggest competititon. Because you know she was a great pianist, in fact I think she was better than I was. But at one of these concerts my husband, my future husband, came backstage and told my mother that he was a composer. Now he was a very striking young man. He had just returned from the army and he had been at the concert and he was a music lover and he told my mother that he wanted to meet me because he was a composer and my mother was struck with this imposing young man with all this culture who was a musician, who had a great future of some kind lying ahead of him. But she invited him to our home. The Sunday that he was to arrive, and this is his second characteristic, he is never on time, the Sunday that he was to arrive I waited and waited and waited and finally my mother said, well I'm going to bed. And I was up playing records and I looked out the window and lo and behold I saw this young man getting out of this car and I said oh that is the young man. I had to hurriedly and put on my clothes and go, you know, to the door looking as though everything was in order. But he was arriving rather late, what was late in those days, nine o'clock, and he walked in and he sat in the living room where we had a piano on which I practiced assiduously several hours a day and talked for awhile and then I said, my mother said that you are a composer and that you are writing a symphony. He said yes I am and I said can you share that. And he said well I haven't finished it yet. And I said well would you just play the theme and with great urgency he sat at the piano and with one hand and maybe two fingers etched out the theme for his unfinished symphony which is to his day 30 years later, still unfinished. But that was the beginning. Now he was at Virginia Union at that time and when I went to Virginia Union we shared several classes together. Math which was one. Now he was a great practical joker and in Math class he sat behind me and he would, well one thing he did which my mother didn't appreciate, I still wore plaits in those days, he cut off one of my plaits one day. The other another time, he collected a big water bug and he put it in an envelope in my wallet. They heard my screams all over campus. So you could see what kind of relationship we had, I wasn't very fond of him. The third thing he did, the thing that really started my noticing him was, he was trying to marry me off to Charles Blue. Now Charles Blue was a very nice young guy who was a chemistry major and who played the organ. I played the piano for the choir and I was also a chemistry major and he thought that Charles Blue and I ought to make a very good couple, so then being the matchmaker that he was, he was trying to interest me in Charles Blue and Blue in me. And unsuccessful because I begin to want to wonder what is he doing, and then I begin to notice him. And that's how the relation began.
I - And as a result of that marriage, you have children?
N - I have three children and three daughters and one of whom is in college now, one of whom is handicapped and in special school, and one who is in the Richmond Public School at this time.
I - And their names?
N - They are Karen Denise who goes to Virginia Commonwealth University, Pamela Diane is the middle child and Cynthia Suzanne who is at Marshall Walker.
I - That is very very interesting about your husband and so on, the early relationship. You are a person from Church Hill who has attained a degree of recognition in terms of being the first black to be admitted to the Medical College of Virginila. In your early life did you envision anything of this nature happening to you? Were you the confident I will conquer the world type or was there something that you hadn't anticipated?
N - I did not anticipate it. I believed that I could do anything, I really believed that, I set my mind to it, I could do it, but I never in my wildest dreams anticipatedthe advances that blacks as a group would make it. Or that I as an individual would make. I saw the kinds of achievements which I have experienced in my lifetime as coming true during my children's and grandchildren's lifetime. In my lifetime I feel I have been fortunate to be standing in the right place when the train comes by. Many, many times. I have had enriching and personal hopes, experiences which have allowed me not nly to have been the first black at Medical College of Virginia but also to be the first woman, first black in a Governor's Cabinet. To work closely with two presidents of the United States and right now I am on a presidential task force. I was on one of Jimmy Carter, I too have dined and to have collaborated with both state and federal judges, other dignitaries, public officials, to have functioned as the representative of this country in international meetings in my sphere of influence, health. To have experienced a very rich and varied group of people from all races. I feel very fortunate and I say never would I have seen this as even as a graduate from the Medical College of Virginia, never anticipated the kinds of experiences I've had.
I - This may seem like an impertinent question but I think my reason will become evident. How much older are you than your sister?
N - Four years.
I - I ask that question because in talking to her, there seems to be a great deal of respect even, maybe, or was there rivalry? Now I can envision, I have an older brother, so I can understand the respect ne had for a sibling who is a few years older. But was there a, what amazes me that there seems to have been no hint of competitiveness or jealousy laybe. Was the relationship one that from your perspective void of competitiveness or..?
N - Oh, I think there is always sibling rivalry but it's the form that it takes that is important. Diane coming along behind me and always the second and third, fourth child, there is a pace setter. There is someone ahead of them. And they are frequently judged in light of whoever it was that was ahead. Throughout her earlier years she had to contend with the fact that her older sister had gone off, or gone ahead of her. Therefore, in order to become the person she was, she had to carve out respect for her own uniqueness, her own ability.
I think this is illustrated in the choice of occupations. At one time, she thought of becoming a physician, but as she came along she says, "no,I will become a dentist." And I think it was a good choice for her, a very good choice. First of all, she had the skills, she has in her hands, things that I don't have. She has that ability to find this as an art of doing, therefore, manipulation of the hand takes a fine skill. Fine hand. Secondly, her talents in the area of line and form, you know she draws well, she use to model and make little things and she always had that ability. So it was a good choice for her and it was also a field of gain. There aren't many women, I think when Diane decided to become a dentist there were twelve women dentists in the United States. Now I don't know how many there are, there is still a very small level of women proportionally in medicine that dentistry has come along a little slower. But if, you know, she had not struggled very early on to define her own uniqueness and her own identity, it is possible that she would not be the unique individual that she is, and so when we talk about a rivalry, yes there was rivalry but it wasn't a rivalry against any individual but in the sense that I must use this energy to define me, who am I.
I - You had a brother. Did he grow up with you all you know in the family setting and how was he in terms of the rivalry, the finding self, and so on?
N - My father was married twice. His first wife died and then there were two children by that marriage. The, my brother, lived with us when we were growing up, but he was sufficiently older. (end side 2 of tape)
I - And we were talking about your brother and
N - Yes, you know, a difference of four or five years is a greater order of magnitude than four or five years when you are thirty, because in adulthood their interests a lot are going to be more similar. But when you are five years old and nine year old has greater dexterity and able to, more self sufficient than you five year old, those differences are magnified in childhood, and even though the difference in age was not that great. It was a sufficient magnitude when we were very young that he functioned in an entirely different sphere of friends and influence, for instance, he was a teenager when I still about eight or nine years of age. So he had his gang, young male friends and they did things that yound adolescent males do.He was, I think we were fortunate again that as a family we are very small , but we are close. The early impressions I have of Vernon is that he was really quote, "big brother." Now you didn't quite understand him in the sense that he was as I said already involved in activities outside of the home, which we were so small, we were still as children involved in the activities within the home. Later as we were beginning to expand out- side of the home, he was going away to school. He went to Howard, so he was again the shadow, he was there, and he was apart but he was also with a small ]la", |??
I - a part. The development, your development, in Church Hill, when the influences of your parents, your teachers and those that you came in contact with, prepared you for what I consider, and I'm sure many others, a rather interesting, and a very important career. In looking back over that, the developmental period, are there things that you wished you could have done differently, or are there things that you still perceive as needing to be done?
N - Let's deal with the first. There is only one thing I think I would have done differently. When I graduated from Medical School, seven of my teachers felt that I had such potential that I should study abroad on the continent. And, in fact, several of them wrote letters to colleagues. One of them I remember was to Octagon Institute in Paris and two letters went there and I was invited to go. By that time I had decided that I was going to get married, don't regret the marriage, but I always wondered whether what would have happened, how would it have been shaped differently if I had taken advantage then. I don't really I think on balance if I look at my life, there is not much I would change. I think it has all worked out, very well, the fact is I've enjoyed it greatly. I've always said my goodness, if I die tomorrow, I'd say God it's been a good trip. It's really been good and I would not, could not regret any of it. The only thing that I would regret is not having completed some hings that I might like to see happen, many of those things have already happened.
I am greatly encouraged by the number of young black minds that I see everywhere today, whether it's in the media, health, education, whether in the social and helping services, whether it's medicine and the healing professions, or business. All around me I see these young people and I feel good and I really feel good because I feel as though they are standing on my shoulders, that I have really in what ways, small ways, as an individual I have been able to open doors and there are a lot of "me's" around in these United States and so when they are standing on all of our collective shoulders, the fact is that if we hadn't been ready to sacrifice and butt our heads against the wall and to prepare and to excell, then it would have been more difficult, it wouldn't have come as fast. I mean, laws, you can change a law, but if you haven't got somebody to walk through that door, the door may as well remain shut. It's closed, but it's just unlocked. I saying, if that door is open The second thing that also makes me feel very good is I see more women who are into a variety and spectrum of activities, that were traditionally quote "all male."
Now I say that because what we need as a race, we need minds, it doesn't make any difference what sex they are and so we cannot afford to waste a mind. That is the slogan of the United Negro College and I believe in it fervently. We cannot afford to waste a mind. I cannot think there are things that you know, we are notyou pick up the front page of the Richmond Newspapers,so are there things going to be done, yes. A whole lot of things and they are defined everyday. I am now in a position as vice president of a multinational conglomerate. I did not see this 25 years ago, my parents did not see it, 30, 40, 50 years ago. I look at my presence, at that level, of policy, as an opportunity to create not just for one, but for tens of thousands who will march through that door in the next 10, 15, 20 years. I'm using that metaphorically because there aren't that many blacks at that level and there are certainly not that many women at that level and the door is open. It's a small door, but there are gonna be more because I'm there, not just in this corporation, but as I come in contact with other people and function efficiently, others are going to do the same.
I - Would you care to nam the corporation?
N - Yes, I don't mind. Everybody knows I'm Vice President of Control Data Corp.
I - And you say this has been an enjoyable experience as well.
N - It is and it is quite different from anything that I have ever done before. And it is a major mid-career change. Because I am not in the field of medicine, I am in the field of policy, in a computer company that has an interest in people. Because it does operate educational programs and it's the software component of the corporation that is involved in education. It's involved in community health services and economic development.
I - Well I want to thank you for taking this time to allow me this interview. If there are other things that you feel important to mention, I want you to feel free to do that.
N - No, I can't think of anything in particular. The only thing I would like to clarify was that statement, disturbs me, I couldn't think of any male teachers. I really could not think of any males who taught me personally, but there were male teachers and they included Mr. Kersey.
I - Would this be Frank Kersey?
N - Yes.
I - Well.
N - They were in the background. I think that their presence was important. Perhaps let me say one last thing. I think the presence of males in the teaching profession is important because there are young boys coming through that system also. And you need the male image.
I - Well again, I would like to thank you. It has certainly been a pleasure to me doing this interview and I hope you continue success in your endeavors.
N - Thank you.
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