Oral history interview with Barbara Wesley Baker, 2011

HT: Today is October 9, 2011. I'm at Silver Spring, Maryland with Barbara W. Baker and we're here to conduct an oral history interview for [The University of North Carolina at Greensboro Institutional Memory Collection's] African American Institutional Memory Project. Thank you so much for agreeing to see me today. If you'll give me your full name, we'll use that as a sort of a test, as well, on the tape recorder.

BB: Yes, my name is Barbara Ann Wesley Baker.

HT: Let's start off the interview by my asking you about your background: such as where you were born, a little bit about your family, and that sort of thing.

BB: I was born in Concord, North Carolina, at Cabarrus Memorial Hospital. I lived in Kannapolis, North Carolina from birth until I left for college. And then I, of course, moved to UNCG [The University of North Carolina at Greensboro] in 1965. My father was a Methodist minister and my mother was a school teacher. She taught in the Kannapolis public schools at the black high 00:01:00school, elementary through high school, Union School. She taught fifth grade.

HT: And did you have any siblings?

BB: I have two brothers, two older brothers, who both went to A&T [North Carolina A&T State University]. So I was sort of oriented to go to Greensboro. And my piano and organ teacher was Charles Johnson Blue who was on the faculty at A&T. My father was working on his master's degree at A&T. My mother had a master's from A&T also. My father was working on his master's degree and took a music class from Professor Charles Johnson Blue and he asked him if he would come to Kannapolis and teach his daughter, you know, organ and piano. And he said yes. So every week he would drive from Greensboro to Kannapolis and teach at the local Lutheran church where I was the organist and that's how I sort of got back to going to-I was thinking I was going to go to A&T to study with him. 00:02:00He said "No". At A&T you'll get a very good education but you won't get a lot of music, and what you want-what you need-because I'm the only organ teacher there." and whatever, and so he said, "You should go to UNCG." So I auditioned for UNCG and I got in and so I went to UNCG.

HT: Did you apply anywhere else?

BB: No. Foolish.

HT: [laughs] Now, had you always been musically inclined?

BB: Yes, yes. My father-When I was in my mother's womb, my father touched her stomach and said, "Lord, let this child be musical. Let her play and sing." I don't know if he knew I was a girl or not but that's what he told me. So, I came out playing and singing. [laughter]

HT: And I suppose you took music lessons when you were very small.

BB: Well, I-In Kannapolis we were limited in terms of music teachers. There was one music teacher, one, who was actually a white person and he would come to our 00:03:00house. I started taking piano when I was five and he would come to our house and teach me and both my brothers piano. And I got through John Thompson's piano book, Book One, and then Mr. Mullins, that was his name, and then he stopped coming. I don't know why; I don't know what happened but I continued to play and when I was in high school my father took me to Livingstone College [in Salisbury, North Carolina], where he and my mother are alumni of, and asked the choir teacher there if she would teach me voice and she did. And I had-this was the-About that time I think I was a freshman in high school, maybe in eighth 00:04:00grade, maybe junior high. My father was moved-His church was moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina; that's where he was assigned to preach. But my brothers played football and I was in the band in Kannapolis and my mother taught at the high school, at the school in Kannapolis, so we didn't move with him. He moved but we would go down on the weekends and I, of course, was the organist at his church. And then he asked Mr. Blue if he would come from Greensboro to Fayetteville on the weekends to teach me and Mr. Blue said if you will get, you know, five or six students, I will come. So every Saturday at eight o'clock on the dot Mr. Blue would drive up to our house and the church was next door to the parsonage and he would teach in the church. And my mother would always make him lunch and dinner and he would teach the students, including me, piano and organ. So that's how I got to study piano and organ with a really fine organ teacher because there were no organ teachers that taught black students 00:05:00that I knew of in Kannapolis. I mean this was in the early '60s so it just wasn't going to happen. And luckily I had access to the Lutheran church which had-They had a Hammond organ and so Mr. Blue would come down and teach me on that organ. And then we-When my dad got moved to Fayetteville, he bought-they bought a new organ for the church, an electronic organ for the church, so I'd have an instrument to play and the church needed an organ anyway so-But as I recall, I am indebted-my music career is strongly indebted to Mr. Blue because of his willingness to come. I don't know many teachers who would give up their Saturday, every Saturday, clockwork, every Saturday.

HT: And that was quite a drive, too.

BB: Back in those days, yes, because there weren't many superhighways that 00:06:00connected Greensboro to Fayetteville. You had to go out-is it [Route] 32 through Sanford?-and go all that way and go around through the country and all around, but he showed up in his little red Ford.

HT: He certainly was a dedicated teacher.

BB: He really was; he was a wonderful man. And he insisted that I apply to UNCG, so I did.

HT: And no regrets?

BB: Well, none yet. [laughter]

HT: What were your favorite high school subjects?

BB: Well, there was no music in my high school so-But the principal asked a lady, Mrs. Miller, who was the second grade teacher, she played the piano. She had gone to Bennett, [College in Greensboro, North Carolina] and she played the piano. And he asked her to form a choir and he asked the French teacher, who sang, to conduct the choir. She had no training in conducting, and Mrs. Miller had no training in, you know, conducting a choir either and she read some and she played a lot by ear and so we sang in the choir and back in those days, 00:07:00every class sang. Every classroom teacher had music to teach so, you know, they had those basal textbooks and in every class there was a period for singing in the school day. So my mother, she taught-Actually she used the theory book from Oberlin Conservatory to teach her classes theory so they could, you know, get a little music. And every teacher, you know, that they put on the records and we would sing with the records because there was nobody who could play the piano except me. I think I may have been the only person in my school who played the piano. So whenever they needed music they always came to me and said "We need you to play for this program." So I was always called out to go play for a program, or, you know, do something. But we had tons of a cappella singing. In fact we didn't have any-There were very few assemblies so we would have sing-offs. The classes would sing against each other. So every class would get their song together and we would go to the auditorium and they would say "Okay, 00:08:00Miss Fisher's fourth grade class and Miss Johnson's ninth grade class, time to sing." And we would sing. So, singing was a big part of my life: my parents sang; my father played the piano some; my mother played the piano; and singing was a large part of my life. And that was really what I-I really wanted to be a dentist until I took chemistry. [laughter] I thought, well, I should be a dentist. I love-In the days when I was in high school, the county would send around a dentist to, you know, give people dental care in the schools and so they would always ask a few of us students to be his assistant and I was one of the assistants and at one point he let me pull some little tooth that was going to fall out if you touched it. He let me get the little things and turn it and twist it and to pull that tooth out and I thought, "That's what I want to be." So and then I took chemistry and I thought, "I don't really like chemistry." They said, "Well, you can't be a dentist if you don't like chemistry." So I 00:09:00thought well, I was only good at music; that was really my best. I mean, I was okay at-I finished very high in my class, like third or fourth in my class. So it wasn't I was not a good student, I just-The things that I really liked-I liked English and literature but I really loved music and so, but since there was no music-like I never took a music class in high school at all like the kids that I taught. They could take theory; they could take music history; they could take recording technology; they could take piano, guitar; they could take orchestra, choir, band, you know. They had lots of options, but I had none of those options when I was in high school.

HT: Things have changed quite a bit in the last forty years.

BB: Yes, they have. And unfortunately they are going backwards now: the music teachers are under attack and every time there is a budget crunch, the music teachers are always the first to go. And you know, I pity them-I really do-that 00:10:00they are under such stress.

HT: I think that's probably true for all of the arts.

BB: Yes, it is. And phys ed, I mean who would ever think of getting rid of physical education? You know, the memories you have of being in high school and elementary school and middle school are [of being] out playing ball, or dodge ball or you know, track or doing something physical, so anyway. So that was my non-education in Kannapolis North Carolina. In Kannapolis there was a black high school, Carver High School, George Washington Carver High School, that went from grades one through twelve and that was the only school in Kannapolis-at the time when I was there-for black kids. And I graduated Carver in 1965.

HT: And it was not integrated.

BB: No. They didn't integrate until 1967 and the kids, some kids from Carver, 00:11:00went to A.L. Brown High School.

HT: And A. L. Brown is another high school?

BB: It is THE high school of Kannapolis.

HT: It is the high school. Right. I would imagine Kannapolis at that time was a mill town.

BB: It was a mill town, a segregated mill town-

HT: And of course all that's-

BB: -a segregated mill town. The blacks lived in certain sections and much of the mill housing was owned by Cannon Mills and they paid their rent to Cannon Mills and at much of the time when I was growing up, only men-only black men could work in the mill and the women would be maids, domestics of the white mill workers. So if you lived in Kannapolis in the '40s and '50s you could be a mill worker and still have a cleaning lady and a cook and, you know, even though you worked in the mill. Because they had no other-there were no other industries that would hire black women and you couldn't work in the mills, so you know, you 00:12:00took domestic work. And then-I don't remember the year, but it was before-I think it was before I graduated from high school or shortly thereafter-the mill integrated and allowed women, black women, to work. So all those white ladies lost their maids because they went to the mill where they could make better money. And Kannapolis was truly a segregated town; we couldn't go-There was a black theater and there was a white theater. If you want to pause this for a moment I have something I can show you.

HT: Okay.

BB: So anyway Kannapolis was a very insular place to grow up in because all the black people went to the same high school from grades one through twelve, so-and my mother taught at that high school and she taught many of the people who were my classmates' parents. My mother taught and so it was really fun, kind of interesting, because they knew her before she married my dad and I could tell 00:13:00who-When they called her Miss Graeber, I knew they were one of her older students and when they called her Mrs. Wesley, I knew they were one of the later students. But on the faculty-there were about thirty-nine of them-almost everybody had a master's degree from someplace and, because the schools were segregated in North Carolina, they went to Temple [University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]; they went to Iowa; they went to NYU [New York University]; they went to Minnesota. I mean they went to big-named, fine universities to get their graduate degrees so they were really wonderful teachers and because they cared so much about us, they just wouldn't-They just refused to allow us to fail and from that little high school-My graduating class at the time I graduated in 1965 was the largest graduating class they had ever had: sixty. Because they, you know, they knew you from day one until you graduated. They knew your parents, 00:14:00you know. I think they had two principals: Professor Reid was our principal and then he died and then Mr. Taylor became the principal. But I had Professor Reid all the way through so I had the same principal, who knew me, he knew all my uncles [and] he had taught all of my mother's siblings except for one.

HT: It was like one big family.

BB: It really was and it came down to they instilled in us a desire the desire to do our best but also to represent our race because they were like, you know, "You have to be really good because you're going to go up against competition and you don't want to fail. They'll say, 'All black people do that.'" And then I got to UNCG and I had the most racist health teacher you ever want to have, I don't even remember her name, she was Miss somebody. She wasn't married and they said her parents had given the school land with the stipulation that their daughter teach there. So she was not, you know, the highest-prepared person to be teaching us and she would single me out every class period, every day I went 00:15:00to health. And you know you had to take health as a freshman. She would say things like, "Negroes eat the internal organs of all of the animals that they eat. Isn't that so, Miss Wesley?" And I would say, "I don't know; I only know what my family eats and I don't like, you know, chittlings." Or I don't like-And then she would talk about prairie oysters and I had no clue what prairie oysters were. I didn't find out what they were until I was married and living in Baltimore and they were having a bull roast. And they were talking about prairie [oysters] and I thought "What in the world are those?" You know. So it was like she just singled me out every day. But then I had a phys ed teacher who recognized that I was a very fine athlete and this teacher-I think she was a graduate student as well as our, you know, first year teacher. She had been ranked number three in Arizona in tennis and she chose me to be her partner. So 00:16:00every class period it was Barbara and the teacher and I don't even remember her name but, so I got to play tennis a lot. I still love tennis to this day; I watch all of the tennis matches, and on my bucket list is to go to all four of the Opens and I'm close to it. But I had those kinds of experiences, those wonderful, magical experiences that-Because when I grew up, there were very few things that you could do that were on television, but I could watch tennis on television so I watched Pancho Gonzales and some of the-Rod Laver and all of those. I watched all of those matches and it's like you would internalize their movements and their-You know, it's like they prepared me to be a good tennis player. And I had good instincts and I was a good athlete, so you know, she chose me to be her partner and that was a good thing. And then I ran into Dr. Cox, Richard Cox. He is perhaps the most outstanding person at UNCG that shaped 00:17:00my life and I contribute all my success to him.

HT: Is Dr. Cox still alive?

BB: He's still alive. I just ran into him in a conference in Chicago this past March. He lives on Guilford Street. He-and I've heard other black students who came after me say the same thing-He was as fair, he was as straight as an exclamation point. He was as fair to every student as he could be and he recognized your talent no matter what color you were, what size you were, what you looked like or what you smelled like or what you did or what color your eyes were. He gave me free voice lessons if I was-He made a deal with me. One summer I was in summer school and I always loved to sing in the choir. Remember, I was an organ principle so I wasn't even a choir major or a conducting major and he said "I'll teach you voice if you'll be the music librarian for the summer 00:18:00class." I said, "Oh, absolutely." So I looked forward to my voice lessons and I even got to babysit for him once or twice and he was just a very-a man of principle and I never felt any-I never felt any curious reactions from Dr. Cox at any point.

HT: Did you take classes from him for all four years?

BB: I did. I was in the choir all four years and I took-he gave us-I took a little-It was sort of like a watered-down diction class for those of us who were not going to be singers-like "diction for non-singers"-because I was an organ principle and I wish I had taken more diction from him. In fact, that's probably my most sad sorry memory that I didn't take more classes from Dr. Cox. He was a 00:19:00wonderful teacher and he was just fair and he gave you the sense-and he was hard and he made you work; he made you want to work and he made you feel that your talent was what was important so you had to develop your talent. And he was dry; he wasn't warm, fuzzy, and cuddly. He was, you know, he was about the business of teaching and he was the quintessential academic professor which is: he wanted his students to learn to love whatever it was they were studying and he encouraged them in very subtle ways. He was my bridge partner on the choir tours on the bus and one time I got very excited because he had played something and he'd missed one of my signals and I said something that was unkind. And he called me aside later and said, "Miss Wesley, would you not speak to me like 00:20:00that in front of the other girls." And I went, "Oh, Dr. Cox, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to" you know. You know how you just "Oh, that was a stupid move" or something like that; something just spontaneous but he never held it against me. He just called me aside and said "Miss Wes-" And he called all of us by our last names, so it was never "Barbara"; it was always "Miss Wesley, would you please, you know, not fuss at me in front of the other girls." And I was like "Oh, Dr. Cox, I am so sorry." I mean, I just felt awful. He came to my wedding when I got married in 1973. He was just-I tried-He was the one professor-and Barbara Bair, my music education teacher until she died-that I kind of kept up with because they seemed to be concerned about my growth and development. And I had some interesting experiences my freshman year. Gordon Wilson was the organ teacher 00:21:00and he threw me out of his studio. Mr. Cousins, I forget-[M. Thomas Cousins, Jr.], I don't know, he was one of the theory teachers and he was a lovely person and I went to him and said, "Dr. Wilson has thrown me out of his studio and I'm an organ major and I don't have anybody to study with." He went to him and talked to him and he let me back in his studio.

HT: What happened?

BB: Well, he was upset with me because I had joined up to work on tech crew for the opera and he told me that freshmen had no business doing anything but doing their studies. And I was an organ major and I was playing at a lesson in his studio. And he was beating on the organ to keep the time but I was so distracted by his hand going up I asked him if he could stop beating on the organ. Well, 00:22:00that didn't work too well. You know, it come down I couldn't play, I was so busy watching. I mean, I'm-I have a very sensitive startle effect and just the, you know, the going up and it caught my eye and I was nervous to start with and I just couldn't play. So anyway, he put me out of his studio. But anyway, he was only there for one year and then Kathryn Esky came. And I was never a good organist and I admit that. The reason I'm a good choir director is because I was a rotten organist so I got to do what I really liked, which is conducting choirs. But she was very strict with us. We could not wear pants to our lessons with her. She had gone to UNCG and she had gone there in the old days-I think like class of '49 or something, I don't know, '48-and she just-You know there was no compromise. She was, in her way, a good organist but she and I didn't 00:23:00quite hit it off together and I don't think-It was not a race issue at all, I don't think that was it. I just think, you know, I wasn't a good organist so she probably wasn't happy with my work. She could tell I was musical and I, you know, I tried, but I didn't have the kind of background that lots of other kids had where they worked on pipe organs and they'd had years and years of piano and, you know, that kind of thing. So I was sort of starting with a handicap and so anyway. So anyway as it turned out, singing became my passion. When I was a freshman, Barbara Bair and I judged the Ted Mack Amateur Hour auditions and they were awful and Barbara said to me, "How old are you?" I said, "I'm seventeen." She said, "Well, you can audition because you know, the cutoff is eighteen." And so she encouraged me to audition and I, of course, I won. So I won the Ted Mack 00:24:00Amateur Hour auditions and I got to go to the Greensboro Auditorium and perform and that was kind of fun. And because I could play by ear as well as read music, the junior class, which was Susan McDonald's class, would come to me-They'd get me out of bed. I'd be asleep and they would come to my room, wake me up and say "We need you to come and play this song for us." They'd say "We don't have any music but here is the recording." So they would play the recording; I would listen to the recording; and then I would sort of put together a piano accompaniment, you know, to accompany whatever it was they were doing. So I kind of became good friends with those class members because I was their pianist, even though there were people who were music majors in that class. That was Yvonne Cheek Johnson's class-[coughs] Excuse me. Who else was a music major from that period? I don't remember [coughs] Excuse me. I don't remember who else-Can you pause and just let me get some water?

Susan was my-Susan 00:25:00[McDonald] and Portia Carvalho were my dorm junior residents and the reason I wear my pinkie ring from UNCG is because Susan McDonald had a pinkie ring and I thought, "Wow, that's really cool." And Portia was a wild child but fun and so nice and so kind and just-I think she was from New Jersey or someplace. I don't remember where she was from but wherever she was from she had had a very liberal upbringing so there was no hint of, you know, separation between the black kids and the white kids. I lived in Hinshaw Dorm and I can recall my first few months there the white girls would come to my room and one girl said to me-I had all my recordings, my records all around the ledge-there was an upper ledge of the room, so I had all, you know, [Alexander] Brailowsky, and E. Power Biggs and, 00:26:00you know, all the organists and all the piano-Brahms and Beethoven and Rachmaninoff and Chopin-so they would come into my room and see all these records and then one girl asked me in particular; she said, "Do you take 'shars'?" And I said, "What?" She said, "do you take 'shars'?" And I said, "'Shars,' what are 'shars'?" She said, "You know, 'shars.'" She was asking me if I took showers.

HT: Oh, my gosh.

BB: And I said, "Yes, I do. I take baths as well." And she was from the mountains; I can't remember the little town she was from. Up past, way past Asheville, like close-way on the farthest end of New-the farthest end of the state, west. Closer to Nashville, than to Raleigh. And they had just never seen 00:27:00black people who were on the same level as they were. And both my parents had master's degrees. My father was a chaplain in the army. My mother had taught physics at a college in Alabama and could not get a job in North Carolina because no schools in North Carolina taught black people physics, and in high school at that time when she was teaching, in the thirties. And that's why I remember the astronaut who got killed on the first shuttle-[Ronald E. McNair] who went to A&T; he was a graduate. He had to go get his doctorate from someplace else because there were no physics PhD programs in the state of North Carolina that would admit black people. So you see, you guys have come a long way, just in my lifetime.

HT: Oh my gosh, yes.

BB: When I first went to UNCG the boys went to Carolina [University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill] and the girls went to WC [Woman's College]. When I applied, it was WC; when I got there, it was Woman's College. And I remember they did the cattle call, you know, when they loaded up twelve busloads of 00:28:00freshman girls and rode us over to Chapel Hill and then we would step off the bus and the guys would grab you and say "Okay, I'll take this one" and "I'll take that one" and it was frightening, you know, to see these guys standing there waiting to grab you when you got off the bus. And they were very-I think there were a couple of day students at Chapel Hill for girls, but I don't think they had girl's dormitories at that time, in '65. And then by '67 or '68, I think things had changed and they started men and women off. But those were interesting days and we didn't have the civil rights. It has just passed in '65-the civil rights laws-but they hadn't been implemented everywhere, you know. So again, in Kannapolis things were still segregated and at UNCG my freshman year I roomed with a black girl-Rae Heritage I think her last name was, from 00:29:00Tillery, North Carolina. And I don't know that Rae graduated from UNCG but she was my roommate. And the second year I was supposed to room with Meredith Marcellus, who was white, and the university wouldn't allow me to room with her. We drew lots and she went down-you know, how you used to go-Well, you may not know, but you would go to the lottery and stand in line and wait to get a dorm-a room in the dorm of your choice. And we wanted to live in Grogan, so she went. We got the room in Grogan [Residence Hall] so when we left school our freshman year, she and I were to room together. By the time I came back to school the beginning of my sophomore year, they told Meredith she could not room with me. So they gave me a black roommate. Now it worked out fine, but can you imagine?

HT: Things have changed quite a bit.

BB: I hope so. I hope so. Those were not fun days. I mean those were-and Meredith was, she was mad at UNCG from that day forward, I think. And by my 00:30:00junior year, I-In summer school I think I roomed with Betty Ann Myatt and then my junior year I roomed with Ursula Cargill. And Ursula Cargill married Daniel Wall so she was Ursula Wall and she and I are still friends today. She lives in Madrid, [Spain] and that's who I was visiting this past summer in Madrid. But I don't remember too many racial incidents per se because the music kids were pretty insular. I mean, you spent your life in the [Brown] Music Building.

HT: Just like the theater people do.

BB: Yes. Yes. You know, you don't have a lot of time for anything else, nothing extraneous. You've got to go practice. The English majors could take their papers with them and take their books to Chapel Hill and go spend the weekend in Chapel Hill. We couldn't do that because you can't take an organ with you or a 00:31:00piano with you, you know, and you had to practice. So the choir was really a wonderful nucleus for me because I loved singing and Dr. Cox was such a fabulous choir director. And he took us to conferences and things like that and we got to, you know, sing for important events. It was a really the years of my awakening to what being a music person could be. And I remember '68, the riots came and they closed the school. I think it was the year Greensboro got the, you know, the All-American City [award] and there was-I think it was in Look or Life-there was a picture of a guy sitting on a tank in front of the "Welcome to 00:32:00Greensboro, All American City" [sign] because of the riots.

HT: This was after Martin Luther King, [Jr.] was killed ?

BB: Yes, April. That April. Things were pretty tense on campus then. Your friends were your friends but I knew girls who lived in Kannapolis and they never offered me a ride home. They never offered to do anything with me. I mean, our lives were separate. They had their friends, their Kannapolis friends. There was one music major whose sister lived in Kannapolis and she was always saying well, you should go, you know, when I come to visit my sister, you know. That never happened. We just-Our lives were separate and not until I went back for my fortieth reunion did I run into one of the girls and we discovered we're both from Kannapolis. Now you say, "Barbara, how can that be?" Well, we went to 00:33:00separate high schools and we didn't interact. We didn't live in the same dorms so we didn't interact. We didn't have the same major so-I was, you know, one of five thousand girls on that campus and if you didn't do musical things or interact with me then you didn't-you may not have known me. Although I was voted outstanding senior in my senior year, one of the twelve outstanding seniors my senior year which I was surprised, pleasantly surprised with, you know. I don't think you know how people see you but it was kind of nice.

HT: And that was-You were voted by your fellow classmates?

BB: Yes.

HT: That's wonderful.

BB: Yes. So, anyway. What else?

HT: Were you a member of the Neo-Black Society because it's just starting about '68 so-

BB: Yes. I don't remember, frankly. It was not a big part of my life because I 00:34:00was in the Music Building all the time. Did I support them, yes. Did I wear an afro, yes. But I didn't hold office or committee chair or anything like that. But some of my friends did. You had to have discretionary time to do that kind of stuff. And I didn't. I was really-

HT: Okay. You said you spent most of your life in the Brown Building.

BB: I did. I did.

HT: Now was the Brown Annex built by that time you were there?

BB: Yes it was. My senior year it was built. Finished. By the time it opened it was already too small.

HT: Right. And of course, I'm sure you saw the new Music Building.

BB: I saw it when I went back for my fortieth reunion. And I have to say this, and I don't mind saying it on this tape, you guys have to do a better job of welcoming the alumni back when they come back for reunions. Who are the 00:35:00strongest people-your advocates: alumni. Who would want their children to go to UNCG: alumni. I felt like we were an interruption to the university when we came and '69 so in 2009 is when I went back. The chancellor did not come and speak to us. She spokes to the fifties, the people who came in the fifties. They had a big to-do and their lunch and all that stuff. We got relegated to some room somewhere. We didn't feel special at all. I mean, I'm a music major so-I'm used to going to the Yale reunions, class reunions, because my husband had been class of '61, so when I went back with him to his Yale reunions, my ex-husband, had come back to his Yale reunions. I mean, the chancellor would have a convocation and speak to everybody and answer questions from the alums and have an organ recital and the Whiffenpoofs were singing and the Baker's Dozens were singing and the, you know, all the a cappella groups were singing everywhere. There was, 00:36:00you know, theater going on and it was on a weekend and it was a big deal, you know. You had access to any-They had a tent for his-They would have tents-They would have a shore dinner with lobster and steak and, you know, stuff for all the class members and they had gifts, you know, raincoats and hats and umbrellas to give and things from Yale and Yale's insignatures and I mean, just-And I got to UNCG and I had to beg the lady to give me a UNCG pen. There weren't enough to go around. I said, "You're going to give me one of those pens. I came all the way down here from Silver Spring, Maryland. You've got to give me a pen." So she said, "Okay, here's one." She found one and gave it to my friend but it was like we were stepchildren and you know, [at Yale] the best professors would give lectures and you would go. And so we got a lecture; we had some lectures and then we went to one lecture, the person didn't show up. So I was like, give me a break, you know. I hope, they-and I wrote-we wrote-Marty Barber and I wrote up 00:37:00our concerns about this and I hope things have taken a different turn. But it was as if we were-This is not about race at all; it's just about how do you celebrate somebody's fortieth anniversary. Forty is a big year; a lot of people don't live to see their fortieth anniversary of anything. And if you take the time and the money to come down there you expect to have some-At least, you know, give us a concert. Give us a-We did have the English teacher who wrote. He came and read-We had a little banquet and he came and read a chapter of his book. And I remember his was "Ain't Gone Dance No More with No Big Fat Woman." And, you know, I bought the book; I was so impressed with him. But I said to him, you know, during the lecture, I said, "There are many of my sisters in here who don't know what "doing the bump" is. So he called me up and said, "Well, let's show them how to do the bump." So we had to do "the bump," so we [did] "the bump" for the group. But it was as if-It was piddley, you know what I mean. 00:38:00It was as if they did as little as possible but "we did it." They sent us to a dining hall. Now see, when I was at UNCG they had the main dining hall and now there are all these little, you know, satellites or whatever, I don't know. And you go in one room and there's a room over there and there's a room there and nobody knew where to go, which line to go in, where to even-We didn't know. I mean, couldn't you assign guides for us to lead us around, to escort us, to have a special place for the reunion. People, no matter what year you were, like "Give us a separate place so the reunion people can have a place to go." And you know, it was just non-thinking about what is the impact of this. You know, you get a bunch of people who are coming here and you just turn them loose on campus. Well, I don't need to go down there and spend my money to be turned 00:39:00loose on campus. I can walk around for free, you know? And I just thought they didn't make it seem like it was really special and to have it-I think we had like April-It was in April, as I recall. Well, you know, people aren't-They're still in school if you have young children. It was the wrong time of the year. Most reunions they have, the Yale ones, they have [it] after they've done graduation in June and they have it like the first week after graduation. That kind of thing, so the graduate children can come back with you parents, if you want them to, or college visits and all that stuff. So it's just like I thought, "They don't know how to do this yet." And I hope you've gotten better at it because I was very disappointed and I won't go back to my forty-fifth if that's all to the program but it's like why should I spend the time and the energy and the money to come down and-I mean, they didn't even like-Luckily the girl that 00:40:00was with me-I don't remember her name-was a music-something in the development in music-and she made sure that I got to go see the Music Building, the new Music Building. There are tons of buildings that are there now that weren't there when we were there. And so, you know, you want to show off the university so that people can bring their children, their grandchildren to come to UNCG and to support the university. Well, I thought "These people don't want my money. They're not treating me like they're really-They're not wooing me as if they really want me to contribute to this university and that's a-I mean, when I go to the Yale reunions it's like, Oh, yes, we get the big dogs. The president comes out; they bring all their Nobel laureates and all their big dogs to come and give lectures. You know, the Howard Blooms and-I mean, they just bring the big dogs, you know, to say "Look. Come on, you folks. Suck it up and give us some money." or "Come back and send your children here" And when I got to UNCG 00:41:00it was like "Well, if you want to, you can go over there and, you know, get something to eat." You know, the atmosphere wasn't festive at all; it wasn't even congratulatory or celebratory. It was just: "Well, okay, you're here. Do what you can; see what you can see and go home." You know, it's as if the univer-I mean, no-I have my-I had -When Miriam [Bradley] was here I showed her my white UNCG bag, the empty bag that I got.

HT: Nothing inside.

BB: No. [laughter] Give me a break. I thought, you know, when I go to Yale, they're so good. They give you umbrellas. Of course the class pays extra to make sure that everybody has a souvenir and they have their little year emblazoned on-but I thought you get a Yale umbrella, '61, you get a baseball cap and a 00:42:00jacket and you know, nice stuff. So what's wrong with UNCG?. They didn't even want to give us a pen. And then when we're supposed to go-I did go to one of the things on your-You have a farming program where the kids volunteer to go work on a farm and raise organic vegetables like that kind of thing, and I went to that and that was very good, very good. I enjoyed it you know. But then I was going to another session and we waited and waited and waited.

HT: Which session was that?

BB: I don't even remember what session it was but nobody showed up to teach us. I thought "Wow." There was a political science guy-I went to his lecture and he was very good. And I just thought the least you could do is give us your top people. And woo us a little bit to open our purses to give you some money. And I must admit, I left the reunion thinking "Well, if that's all they think of me, 00:43:00forget them." You know. And I thought, "I still wear my ring." So UNCG is a big part of my success but when I went back as an alum to celebrate my forty years-Because I thought I had just gone through some botherations in my life and I thought "Well, I'm going to go because forty is a big, an important number and a lot of people-" I think that I was the only black student that came back.

HT: Do you remember how many people came back at all?

BB: In my class?

HT: Yes. For the fortieth, yes.

BB: There were about fifty of us, I think. Yes.

HT: I know for years the big push has always been to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary.

BB: Yes, but what if people don't make it to fifty and if there's no tradition of going to the tenth or the twentieth or twenty-fifth?

HT: Right, or the twentieth or twenty-fifth and so on. Right.

BB: If there's no tradition to go then do you think they're going to make it to the fiftieth? I mean, well. Some people did it but it seems to me the push ought to be to get the young people to come back because they're the ones who may leave their children to come back to UNCG as alums. There's where the push ought to be. And, yes, don't ignore the fifties; that's important. And those fifties, you're proud of those. Every school recognizes the fiftieth year because that's quite a major accomplishment. But forty is pretty darn good, too. But if you don't have a good time at forty you're not thinking about coming back at fifty or forty-five. And all those letters that say "Send us money; leave us [something] in your will." Duh! I was pleased to meet Jaylee and Gilbert Mead. I applied to their foundation when I was teaching at Eleanor Roosevelt and they 00:45:00awarded me nine thousand dollars to buy risers for my school. They gave us a grant and then I didn't even know [about] Jaylee's connection with UNCG until the jazz band came up about five years ago and the Meads had a reception at their Watergate apartment for, you know, special alums so I got invited. So I got there and then I mentioned to her that her foundation-that she and her husband's foundation had given me this money and they were very excited. "Oh, look. We've got somebody that got our foundation money." I don't think they're still doing that now but it was just-I mean it was a serendipitous event and that I happened to meet her, you know. At her apartment at the Watergate. So, oh! This is really nice, you know. But I just thought they don't-they didn't-UNCG-It's as if you guys keep missing opportunities to grow, to do the 00:46:00small things so that they can become the big things. You know that passage in the bible that says "Be faithful over a few things so that you can be ruler over many" and I remember, it was in-There were three UNCG music graduates who were giving sessions at the National American Choral Directors Association Convention in Chicago; Dr. Cox asked the music department to have a reception for UNCG at the-since three of your graduates were the headliners and the school said no.

HT: And when was this?

BB: I'm trying to remember. It was in the '90s. It was in the late '90s, maybe like '98 or around in there.

HT: Any reason given why, do you recall?

BB: Oh, I don't know. He didn't-That wasn't for me to know or to even ask. It's just that it wasn't done. And the Temple people and the Florida, the Florida State people-I mean everybody celebrates. Even if they don't have anybody on the program, they're having receptions for their graduates all over the place. And here, we had three who were doing-I did the high school reading session; I did a conference, a panel, and I did something else at that conference. I was the high school person that they had picked me to do all this stuff. And Janet [Funderburk] Galvan was doing some sessions and so was somebody else-I can't remember-a guy, I can't remember. But all three of us from UNCG were in positions of great visibility at a national convention and our school doesn't 00:48:00have a reception. So we get to go to Temple's reception and we get to go to [laughter] Iowa's reception with our friends, you know. And it's like, how do you build networks, how do you connect the dots? Well, you have to have social things and outreach and you have to be intentional about it. You can't just say, "Well, let's hope they run into each other and they'll figure out they all went to UNCG and they'll be real happy about that." It doesn't work that way and I daresay that you've missed lots of opportunities for alums to support programs that you need great support for because the outreach has been nonexistent or not thoughtful. I mean, people don't respond to-Well, I don't know. I don't want to 00:49:00get into that. I just know that those are the kind of times when we would celebrate, when we could celebrate UNCG and know that you know, it had done-UNCG gives you a really good education and, if you were a woman, they gave you lots more than just a good education. They gave you a chance to excel and to find your voice and to learn how to compete and to find yourself and I'm sure it does that for all the students that come through there. I've recommended many kids to go to UNCG when I was teaching. I always started with UNCG and said "Well, you know you could check out UNCG if you're looking for a small liberal arts kind of-check out UNCG. It's got a good program." I'm telling my nieces and nephews. But my cousins and nephews went to Worcester because the recruiter came and 00:50:00said, "Let me know what I can do. Here is extra material." Here's this and this and the other so I sent my children where the minority recruiter came and said, "I'll be happy to look out-If they come to my school, I'll be sure to watch over them and keep you informed on how they're doing." So a young man that came to my program his senior year-He was in my choir for one year. He wanted to marry the choir president who was a real pretty little girl. I said to him, "Well, her father's not going to let her marry a bum. So you have to make something of yourself." And he said, "Well, Doc how do I do that?" "Well, you need to go to college." He said, "How do I do that?" I said, "Let me call some folks." I called the lady at Worcester. She sent us an application. We got that kid in Worcester. He is now a software program owner; he developed software and one of the guys that started Google now works for him and he gave me an all-expense 00:51:00paid trip to Hawaii when I [retired], first class. Because he said, "Doc, you were one of the angels that I encountered that helped me, you know." Well, UNCG could make a lot of difference to a lot of people if they would do more with their outreach. And I know this is probably part of it, is to start here.

HT: Well, I'm wondering if it's because it's a state supported school. That could be one of the problems. I don't know.

BB: I don't know. I just know that in my dealings and in my career, there's been Dr. Cox and before Barbara Bair died, Barbara Bair. And really that was it. And, 00:52:00you know, I had no reason to go back home, I had no-There was no invitation. And, as I said to Miriam, I've taught-Like I said, I just got back from teaching in Scotland. I was invited by the Scottish Association of Music Educators to come and be their headliner and to teach in some schools. I taught 445 elementary school students from 10 o'clock until 2 o'clock with a forty-five minute lunch break on one day. I've taught in Italy; I was asked to come and be the headliner to teach a session. Bob Chilcott from the King Singers and Simon Carrington-Simon Carrington had been there once before me and they needed somebody to teach gospel so they said "Well, you need to get Barbara Baker to come and teach." So they invited me to come to Mondovi, Italy and I was their, 00:53:00you know, their headliner to teach all these people who didn't speak English how to sing gospel music and they sang gospel music. I mean, I do a lot of things that are kind of noteworthy and I was fortunate. My school had a sister school in Fulda, Germany-Eleanor Roosevelt [High School] had a sister school in Fulda, Germany, Winfriedschule. And on one of our trips their choir director arranged for us to go to Eisenstaedt, [Germany] to the Bachhaus and, because he was such a famous person in Germany, he spoke to the persons at-"Let her play the piano." So I got to play Bach's-one of the pianofortes in the Bachhaus. And my children were singing "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" and I'm sitting there playing for them and I said, "Somebody take a picture of this black girl from Kannapolis, North Carolina, playing Bach's piano." And it was the kind of, you know, very 00:54:00exciting thing. So I get invited to do things in a lot of places and, you know, and I don't want to say I'm famous, but I get to do a lot of interesting things in a lot of interesting places and there's no reason that UNCG couldn't have invited me to come back and speak to their music ed. people. I've been famous for a long time. You know, you look at my record at Eleanor Roosevelt High School. You know, people still talk about my program even though I've been retired and it's like I taught at-I mean, I taught at a lot of places and stuff [but] my school doesn't recognize anything that I do and I'm not saying this so you can invite me, I'm just saying there seems to be-And I don't know; this is not a race issue at all. This is just, we're focused in on our students here in 00:55:00North Carolina and at UNCG and that's that. And it's like the school needs to start looking more outward and say "How can we expand our network and how do we network with our alums? What are they doing? They're doing interesting things." That's why I'm so proud that you all are doing this oral history project because I daresay the graduates from my years are all successful people.

HT: Very much so.

BB: You know and you don't get to be successful if you're asleep, a shrinking violet or you have not gone through the fire and we went through the fire at UNCG. Nobody gave us-We couldn't get anything because we were pretty; we couldn't get anything because we were nice. And if anything, you got a harder way because you were who you were. Despite all that we're still standing and we 00:56:00did all right.

HT: You sure did. I know, I've looked at-Because there weren't that many black students in the sixties and it's just amazing the accomplishments these girls did, because it was mainly girls in the sixties. It's just absolutely amazing.

BB: Yes. And UNCG gave us a good education. So that's not-I'm not saying that, you know, you guys failed, not at all. We are who we are because of what we've been through and I thank you for recognizing the fact that our time at UNCG is a lot different than the kids who go there today. And I remember I was a terrible slouch when I was in college because I'd finally got away from my mother telling me to come clean my room and my roommate was worse than I was. At least I would make the bed. And Miss Duff was our housemother at Hinshaw and she grounded us. 00:57:00She said, "You cannot leave this room until it's clean." And so she came back. We had to stay home and clean our room and all this kind of stuff. So I mean, And just-I remember the frantic drive trying to get down the-What's that little street in the middle of the college campus?

HT: College Avenue?

BB: Yes, trying to get down that street to get to Grogan [Residence Hall] before 12 o'clock midnight. I mean, those were the days. I don't know, do they still have curfews now?

HT: No. Not to my knowledge. I don't think so.

BB: You know it's like-You know, I think you've got two minutes before they would lock that door. And you know you were scared to death that we weren't going to make it. If somebody's car broke down, we were in trouble. Oh Lord, please deliver us. You know, get us home back to the college. Those were really fun days and we started the coffee house, Four Faces, the coffee house in-What's the alumni center?

HT: The Alumni House?

BB: No, it's next to the Alumni House. It's the big sort of central place.

HT: Elliott Center?

BB: Elliott, yes.

HT: Elliott University Center.

BB: David Giddens and Emmylou Winter, Diana Barefoot and I, our freshman year, would go down and sing and there was a painting of four faces in the background so we called the coffee house "Four Faces Coffee House." And of course Emmylou Winter-not Emmylou Winter, Emmylou Harris, that's her name, Emmylou Harris-went on to become quite famous. And I wonder if the university has ever reached out to her?

HT: She's been back on campus a couple of times.

BB: Good. Good, good. And David Giddens actually started that. I don't know if he's ever gotten any play or anything for doing it but he actually started that 00:59:00coffee house. And it was fun because, you know, there were lots of kids who played guitar and back in those days folk music was a big deal and I had never seen anybody play a twelve-string guitar until I saw Emmylou Harris play hers. Because-To my knowledge, nobody in my high school played a guitar, to my knowledge. They just-My high school was just not into music. And because there was no music teacher-we had a band teacher who really wasn't a trained band teacher. He had played with Louis Armstrong in New Orleans as a trumpet player and he was a math teacher, so he came back to teach math and they said "Well, start a band" and so he did. But there was no teaching us how to read notes or-I mean, I was the only person in the band that could read. And I didn't really want to get in the band. The only reason I got in the band was because they got new uniforms so I thought, "I've got to get in that thing because they've got