Oral history interview with Karen Lynn Parker, 2012

ST: Today is Sunday, December 9, 2012. My name is Sarah Turner. I am the oral history interviewer for the African American Institutional Memory Project. I'm at the home of-

KP: Karen Parker.

ST: Thank you, Ms. Parker, for letting me come over today. We really like to start the interviews by just framing your life, so can you start, maybe, with when you were born and where, and a little bit about your family.

KP: I was born December 21, 1943 in Salisbury, North Carolina. My parents were from Rowan County [North Carolina]. My mom was from Salisbury proper and dad was from Spencer. It was the city people and the country people, and my mom frequently let us know [that] the Parkers were country. And my parents were teachers. They taught here and there in little schools in little jurisdictions 00:01:00and places you never heard of. Dad would be this way a hundred miles, and mom would be that way a hundred miles, and so usually I was staying with somebody close to where my mom was. Then finally dad got a job in Winston-Salem, and he stayed there at the [Simon G.] Atkins High School in Winston-Salem, which was, of course, all-black then, and he stayed there until when the schools desegregated. Of course he went to whatever school was in-I can't remember what schools my dad and mom were in, but both of them ended up at desegregated schools before they retired. So I was the child of two teachers, and that was very fortunate in that appreciation for education was there. Mom had a master's from University of Michigan, and Dad, from Columbia [University], so there was quite an emphasis on education. Now my brother went to Phillips Exeter Academy.

ST: Phillips what?

KP: Phillips Exeter, E-X-E-T-E-R. One of his classmates was David Eisenhower, and then he went to Harvard [University], then he got his master's at MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology], and he got his doctorate at Berkeley [University of California, Berkeley]. Then he went to Duke [University] Medical School and got his MD there. I think my brother was a perpetual student, frankly.

ST: Quite the achiever.

KP: Yes, he was good at being a student. I don't about anything else, but he was good at being a student.

ST: And was it just the two of you?

KP: Just the two of us.

ST: And were you older or younger?

KP: I'm the older by four years and eight months.

ST: And your parents, their master's degrees were in education or were they in-

KP: Dad's was in education, and mom's was in French.

ST: So what-Did your mother obviously teach French?

KP: Yes.

ST: What about your father?

KP: He taught various-biology. He taught physics. I think he didn't teach chemistry, but he did biology and physics. It changed from year to year. I suppose, you know, did they need a physics teacher this year, or did they need a biology teacher this year; so it varied.

ST: And how old were you when you moved to Winston-Salem?

KP: Probably-I think about five. I'm sure it was about five; I was five years old.

ST: Can you tell me about your life before you went to college: about high school, things you were interested in, what you liked to study?

KP: I was-We, of course, went to an all-black high school, and that's the way it was then. The blacks lived pretty much on one side of Winston-Salem.

ST: Did you go to Atkins High School?

KP: Yes, I went to Atkins. I was valedictorian in 1961. There was the county school for blacks, Carver High School. Those were the people that lived out in the sticks (rural areas), more or less, which are no longer the sticks, of course. And that's the way life was. You accepted it for what it was. Now, I didn't accept it in the sense that it was not right, and my parents had backed that up for years and years. I remember when I first learned about segregation. I think I was about five or six, about six, and I could read. I had a mother who was a teacher; of course I could read. There was an ad in the paper for some Disney thing at the Carolina Theater-Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck-and I said, "Mom, I want to go to this." She said, "You can't go." And I said, "Why not?" And she 00:05:00said, "Because we're Negro." And I went, "And what does that have to do with it?" And she explained that's just the way it is. I protested. That's not right, and I was quite angry about it. And I stayed pissed off about it so that by the time I was in college, I had an opportunity to do something about it, of course I was going to participate in whatever there was to do something about it. So that was my first realization, and that's just the way life was. The other part of segregation is [that] a lot of what you learned was survival, because basically you had no rights under the law. They might have been on the books, you know, but if a white person came up against a black person, the white person always won. We all knew that, so the thing was not to get into that situation. Try not to get the cop's attention so if he's having a bad day, he won't give 00:06:00you a ticket because he always wins. So that was what growing up was like. I was interested in a lot of things. I was very interested in travel, very early on. I know that-I remember that I probably had an aptitude for English and literature, and I was terrible in math, absolutely awful. I don't know how I managed to get out of high school.

ST: You couldn't have been that terrible if you were valedictorian.

KP: Everything else balanced out. And then in college, at the time, we didn't have to-If you didn't take math, you could take Greek, Latin, logic, or statistics, and I took Homeric Greek over at Woman's College. It was one of my favorite classes. Cool-a great professor by the name of Francis Lane. He was 00:07:00very funny.

ST: Francis Lane. And why did you choose Woman's College, initially.

KP: Well, basically a couple of things were going on. It was just at the time-It was after the Greensboro Sit-Ins-the Greensboro Four. It was just about the time things were starting to open up with the Kennedy administration. People started looking at life a little bit differently at that time, and there were more people enrolling-When I say "more people," it was usually one person in every university in the South, maybe two. But there was more of that going on, and there was a sense that more of it was welcome. Plus, by the time I came through, there were already black women at UNCG. My parents kind of wanted me to go into 00:08:00an all-female environment, because they would keep a lid on me. They didn't keep as much of a lid as my parents wanted them to, but that was their thing. And if I didn't go there, they wanted me to go to Bennett [College], which was also all women, all females-black, but all female. I certainly didn't want to go there, but we were under the impression that we would get a better education at the predominantly white universities because more money had been put into the education programs and into schools, so we would have more opportunities and certainly more opportunities when you graduated with that on your resume as opposed to an HBCU [Historical Black Colleges and Universities].

ST: Did you apply to any other schools besides Woman's College and Bennett?

KP: No.

ST: That was it.

KP: Yes. If I did, I certainly don't remember.

ST: Well, can you tell me about your first day when you moved into Woman's College?

KP: I can tell you. I don't know whether it was the first day or what, but the horror of-First of all-you've heard this from other people-the blacks were moved into Coit Hall on the first floor next to the house mother, who was Frances Falk, and I guess she had been used to previous black girls moving in, so she was the expert, I guess. And the second thing was, there were five of us, and they put three of us in one room and two in another. I was-I guess their reasoning was-I was put in a room with two girls from Charlotte-that we were both big-city, and the other two were from Lenoir and Mocksville, so that I was probably more suited to be in with the two girls from Charlotte. However, it was 00:10:00the other way around is the way it should have been. I was more akin to the two girls from Lenoir and Mocksville. Those two girls from Charlotte, of course, ganged up on me because they were both from Charlotte, and I was-I mean they were tough. They were some tough girls, and I had no background; I had no preparation for dealing with people like that, none whatsoever. I got so freaked out about it-and it wasn't the school; it was them-that I wanted to drop out. I wanted to go home, and my parents went and found somebody-a minister in Greensboro that we knew in common-to talk me into staying, which obviously I did stay. But the tough part was just dealing with those two girls because they had me at any point. And, of course, they thought I was simple-minded and Lord knows what else. You know, very naive compared to them.

ST: Did you ever try to get like a room switch or-

KP: No, I never did. I don't know whether we-I'm sure it occurred to me; I don't know whether I thought it was possible so I don't think I ever made the effort.

ST: Do you remember moving into campus-like moving into your dorm room? Did your parents come with you?

KP: Yes, they were with me, and we all moved in there together. There were three beds; one was bunk beds, and I got the top bunk, which was alright with me because I liked the top bunk. I don't know how I managed to get the top bunk, but I did. I think it was because they didn't want the top bunk. And it was something. You know, the space in the closet was an issue, and all of that. But I remember my parents were with me, of course, and other than that, I remember very little about it. All I know is I was there.

ST: Had you visited campus before you actually showed up there on the first day?

KP: I don't think so. I have no recall of that, and I always-When I say I have no recall, there are a lot of things that went on in my life that I don't remember fine details of, because a whole lot of stuff happened. Especially in a certain period, a lot of stuff happened, so no, I don't recall ever having done that before.

ST: And did you transfer to UNC [University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill] as a junior?

KP: As a junior.

ST: So where did you live your sophomore year?

KP: Mendenhall [Residence Hall].

ST: And who did you live with at that point?

KP: Her name was Linda Lee-of course, she was black-and we had-She had been a day student, what was called a "day student," as a freshman and decided she wanted to live on campus, and she-We had met up before, and pretty much decided freshman year that we would be roommates. Her sister was Myrna [Colley] Lee, who is-Everybody knows who Myrna Lee is: the famous Myrna Lee.

ST: And was that a better living situation?

KP: Oh, yes.

ST: And were you still separated in Mendenhall, or were you mixed?

KP: No, we were mixed. We could live-We were on various floors and stuff, so we were not restricted to-

ST: So it was just as a freshman.

KP: Just as a freshman. And then, you know, the next year, the next freshmen came in, and they all went to-The blacks all were in Coit [Hall] on the first floor, next to Frances Falk. I do remember one thing about her though: She was very proper, because all women in those days were very proper and very Southern-belleish, you know. A lady does this. We have all these rules. And of course the housemother had to exemplify all of that, and we had lights out at ten o'clock, or ten-thirty or something for freshmen. And of course, we were wide awake, and so we would get out our flashlights and play Bid Whist [card game].

ST: And is that a-

KP: It's a card game. And somewhere I guess, it's in the black culture of the time. It probably still is. Bid Whist was a very commonly played game, along with Hearts and Pinochle. But Bid Whist was big, but it was very akin to Bridge. And we would get out the flashlights and play cards, and finally one night she caught us, and she stood in the door and said, "I just don't understand you people." I don't think she said, "You people" because that's fighting words. She might have said "you folks" or something, because we didn't zero in on it. "I don't understand you and that game." "That game," apparently they had trouble with that before, because we were playing "that game." So that's probably one of my key memories of Frances Falk.

ST: Do you know how you spell her name?

KP: She was, of course, Frances, E-S, and F-A-L-K.

ST: Yes, because we like to know for our transcripts. Do you have any more memories of living in the dorm?

KP: Yes, I remember what a nice-Of course there were more than the two rooms with the blacks on the hall. There were white girls on the hall, and I remember at one point, all of us sitting in the middle of the hall, white and black. Of course people smoked then; it was very common.

ST: And you could smoke in your room?

KP: In your room, yes.

ST: Wow, talk about being proper.

KP: And we were sitting out in the hall, smoking; we were sitting in a circle, sort of. I guess, we were supposed to be having a pow-wow or something in Indian fashion-Indians forgive me, but we were ignorant back then-and we're sitting around, and we were passing around a cigarette like it was a peace pipe. And I 00:16:00was amazed that the white girls were sharing the same cigarette, which was, you know-Generally with the whole segregation thing, if you touched a black person, something terrible was going to happen to you. And oh, my God, you know. We're swapping germs here. And that just stood out. I don't know exactly why we did that; it was not that we didn't get along with them or anything. Probably in most cases, it was not a case of not getting along with, but they-We were foreign to them, so therefore they avoided us. But some of the girls, if you ended up in the bathroom and stuff, you know, you had to get to know them. You were in relatively close quarters, and I only remember one name. Her name was Paula, and she got married at the end of freshman year, and we gave a shower for 00:17:00her. All of us came to the shower, and all of us participated in that. Getting a ring and getting married was a big deal then. As a matter of fact, you were kind of a failure if you didn't have one by the time you graduated. And by sophomore year, I figured out I had to have one, too, which I managed to do. I didn't marry him, but-Oh, I married him thirty-five years later, but at the time I did not marry him. I don't want to yell at the cat, but she-

ST: She's so lively; I love it. My cat's lazy. I mean, did you enjoy going to UNCG?

KP: It was challenging.

ST: Do you mean socially or academically?

KP: Socially, no; academically, I didn't have any problems. Strangely enough, I 00:18:00made the Dean's List first semester; I was in freshman honors. I remember a world history class; we had an exam-the first exam, first written exam, the one for the semester grade-and we came in and the results [unclear] so I got an A and a C, and everybody else gets an F. And I was the A, and I do remember what the question was, and it was something like: "Martin Luther succeeded where others failed because of his religious fervor and dedication. And it just said comment on that." And, of course, most people wrote the obvious-agreed with it-and I said, "No, Martin Luther was lucky because the German princes at the time happened to side with him. He had events on his side. Where others had 00:19:00failed, he happened to be in the right time period." Which was what the professor was looking for. And the very next semester, he had a similar type question; it was the same thing: I got an A. I don't know whether anybody else did. I don't think there were any others at that time either. So I decided, sort of, that history was my thing, more or less.

ST: Do you remember any of your history professors or any of your professors, in general?

KP: I think his name was [Lenoir] Wright. His last name was Wright, W-R-I-G-H-T. He looked like he was ancient to me, but he was out on the tennis court playing tennis. "He's awfully old to be playing tennis." Of course, when you're nineteen or twenty years old, anybody who is forty years old is ancient. Anybody with gray hair is truly ancient, so I don't know how old he was, but he seemed ancient to me.

ST: Well, it's interesting that you were okay in school. We've heard a lot of 00:20:00stories of the African American students really struggling to adjust from the schools that they had gone to. You know, they were the valedictorians; or they had always made As-to the rigorous-I mean a lot of students struggle in general, going to college-and that change-but the black students really said that they struggled probably more than the average student did, because, you know, they went to biology class, and their biology class in high school didn't have a microscope, and then they automatically assumed they knew how to use one, or things like that. Do you have any thoughts on why you didn't have that problem, or why you seemed to have an easier adjustment into college?

KP: I think maybe our high school preparation might have been a little better, being in a city. Also I had two teachers for parents. That was definitely-You know, we had books and encyclopedias and stuff around the house, where interest in things-the opportunity for interest in things-was there, while a lot of kids 00:21:00just didn't have that at home. Schools didn't have it, and they didn't have it either, you know, so you were going from-You're starting down here and trying to get way up there, and it takes some time. Some things I had an aptitude for. I had taken Advanced Placement in English, and so I went into sophomore English. A lot of the black students from other schools had no opportunity for Advanced Placement. And we had to go from Atkins over to Reynolds High-the white high school-to take advanced placement, and there were only-There were three blacks, and maybe three or four whites in that advanced placement class, but it was not available at our school. We were able to go over there and take it. Of course, a lot of Negro students (as we were at the time) just didn't have that opportunity.

ST: And you went just for that one class and then came back to your school.

KP: Yes.

ST: What was it like, going over to Reynolds?

KP: There was some resentment in that we couldn't go to the same restroom as everybody else.

ST: Were there separate restrooms?

KP: There were separate restrooms.

ST: They had-

KP: They had to designate something, and we went over on the school bus-the three of us, all by our lonesome-and we got along with the teacher. Her name was Mozelle Stephenson, S-T-E-P-H-E-N-

ST: How do you spell Mozelle, M-O-Z?

KP: M-O-Z-E-L-L-E. And she was reasonable. I didn't get the feeling that she was identified with us in any way, but she was reasonable. And we got along with the white students okay. We chatted and talked and stuff, there was no problem there. One time she took us all down to Chapel Hill to see an Archibald MacLeish 00:23:00play. It was a play or a program on Archibald MacLeish, the playwright, and we all went in the car together, all of us, and-No, wait a minute. I take that back. There were the three blacks in the same car, because I just remembered where everybody was sitting. There was one male-he was sitting in the front-and I and another of the black girls were in the back. That might have been just us who went to that.

ST: Who drove?

KP: The teacher.

ST: So the teacher was-

KP: Yes, she took us down there.

ST: Wow.

KP: And we sat in the balcony. I don't know whether that was deliberate or what, but we sat in the balcony, probably deliberate. And what else do I remember 00:24:00about campus? I remember a lot of the little silly things they did for freshmen, you know Hats Off Day and-

ST: This was back at Woman's College? Hats Off Day?

KP: Yes, it used to be Rat Day, and that's when sophomores could pick on freshmen, and they decided that "Rat Day" was very negative; calling people rats was very negative, so they made it "Hats Off Day" which was even sillier. And the sophomores could still pick on the freshmen, but they couldn't pick on them as severely as they had in previous years. It was, you know-Before it had been akin to hazing. I'm just trying to think: generally speaking, the year that I got on the Dean's List-this is what I could not understand-the white girls couldn't figure out how I got on the Dean's List. I remember when they went out 00:25:00to the bulletin board-it was right outside our room-and I mean, there were the squeals of disbelief. "Karen Parker, how did she manage to get on the Dean's List?" Well, I obviously paid more attention to my class than you did. We had a biology teacher named Virginia Gangstad, G-A-N-G, and I think it was S-T-A-D, and not S-T-E-A-D. She taught class like kindergarten. "This is a what, class? This is a larynx. Spell it. Now pronounce after me; it's not a 'laRNyx,' it's a laRYnx." And you know: "What is this, class? This is a snail. Pronounce after me: snail." She taught everything just like that. But the thing was, she told 00:26:00you everything she wanted you to know. It was as simple as it could be; all you had to do was follow it. Write it down. And the other students resented it so much that most of them blocked it out. It was as simple as all you had to do was pay attention. She was telling you, and it couldn't have been more simple. So I remember I had one biology teacher by the name of [Martin] Roeder-I forget what his first name was. Biology seminar. I remember taking the M.M., the Minnesota Multiphasic [Personality Inventory], whatever it is-psychology, psychological test-and doing poorly on it. Of course, I knew that before I took it. And I guess I was neurotic, and I agreed with that, that I was. And thinking of-Oh, yes, we had a health teacher-I forgot what her name was-she had a strange 00:27:00presentation like saying, "Men(t)al health is vi(t)ally important." She had a thing with "nt," and we used to laugh about her. She would do sort of racial-she would have to amend her speech every now and then. She'd get into some near-racial things, you know, or if there's a black student in the class, she might be insulting somebody if she said the wrong thing, and she'd have to bite her tongue every now and then. Of problem teachers, I think that's the closest I can remember to it. Nobody-No teacher got up and said, "I've declared I'm against you." Some of the blacks down at Chapel Hill got that, absolutely got a declaration-Somebody was told, "No nigger is going to get an A in my class." It 00:28:00was announced in front of the whole class. Things like that happened, and there were no repercussions for a professor saying things like that. I didn't get any of that, but there were students who did. I don't remember-As a matter of fact, most of the teachers in both places were very reasonable people. They treated you like anybody else, and they had the same expectations of you. There was an American history teacher by the name of Converse Close; I remember him. Close was spelled C-L-O-S-E, and Converse, like Converse sneakers. There was an English literature teacher named-JoAnne was her first name, and I cannot remember her last name right now, but I had her class at eight in the morning and that was terrible. I am no good at eight in the morning; I'm a night owl anyway, and I was awful and I did poorly. Okay, poorly is relative. Let's say, 00:29:00if I got a B, I should have gotten an A; if I got a C, I should have gotten a B; if it had not been at eight o'clock in the morning. So I didn't function well at eight o'clock in the morning. That was very difficult.

ST: Did you get to the point at Woman's College where you picked a major?

KP: No, I had no idea. Now, see, this is one thing: at that time the number of opportunities for Negroes in the South were very few. There were no businesses to speak of; very few people going into medicine, hardly anybody into law, and you had to go out of state somewhere to do it. And after you got it, you probably didn't want to practice in some two-bit hometown, which is the way our towns were back then. There were just no opportunities, and about the best thing 00:30:00I could think of doing-the only thing I could think of doing-was becoming a teacher. There was room for black teachers, and teachers made a little bit more money than everybody else. And I didn't want to be an English teacher. I was going to be an English teacher probably; I did not want to be an English teacher. I didn't want to teach anything. I got saved by-on the Winston-Salem paper there was a black reporter by the name of Luix-and he spelled it L-U-I-X-Overbea, O-V-E-R-B-E-A, and he had gotten me to sub for him one summer when he was on vacation. He told me I had the talent for it, and then he got me into the newspaper's intern program.

ST: And this was at the Winston-Salem Journal?

KP: Yes. And then he said, "You know, you should apply for journalism school in Chapel Hill." And I went, "Great idea" because I certainly didn't have any focus 00:31:00at UNCG. So I was pleased to go down there because I was-at least there was something I knew about that already. By the time I got down there, there were a lot of things I knew already from having worked in the newspaper business, more so than other students applying and entering. And you could transfer down as a junior, and that's what I did. And thank God for Luix Overbea because I don't know what would have become of me. Everything that has happened positive in my life, everything I've become, came from the fact that I went to UNC Journalism School. I don't know what my life would have been like otherwise, but I know that everything has stemmed from the fact that I went to school there, and, of course, being on that campus, period, with its opportunities and its focus.

ST: How did you know-I guess Mr.-Luix is a man-How did you know Mr. Overbea?

KP: Everybody knew Mr. Overbea. He covered the black community, so he was over at our high school; he was over at people's churches. Everybody knew Mr. Overbea, and he really covered the community. He covered all of the community, so we all knew who he was. And you had to have a black person to sub for him when he went on vacation. There was an English teacher he had had previously and, for some reason, she couldn't do it that year, and he was desperate so he gave me a two-day, two-night crash course and left for two weeks. And my first pages and things I did looked awful, but at least I was on my way.

ST: And was this during the summer?

KP: Yes.

ST: Between freshman and sophomore year?

KP: Between freshman and sophomore.

ST: So you prepared to-You probably applied sophomore year to go your junior 00:33:00year. And what did your parents think about this change?

KP: They thought it was wonderful because they respected him. Some previous things-I had wanted to be a fashion designer at one point-and they didn't want me to do that. I think they were probably fearful of the challenge or whatever; that I would have to go to New York City and go to Pratt Institute or someplace like that. Maybe they didn't think I had the aptitude for it-or whatever-but they weren't much into that. But when Overbea suggested I go to journalism school, they thought that was cool.

ST: And what did you classmates think about you transferring? Did you ever speak about it with them?

KP: I'm sure I did. I don't recall anything about it, one way or the other, as it being any kind of an issue or a big deal.

ST: And during this time, you couldn't go to Carolina, or you couldn't go to UNC 00:34:00as a freshman woman anyway. That's why Woman's College existed. Could you go as a sophomore?

KP: No, you couldn't go unless you were a junior. The only women that went at that time were women who lived in Chapel Hill, or if you had a major that started freshman year, and that was very few things. Other than that, you went there in junior year. And I do remember the male-female ratio was twelve males to one female. If you didn't have a date, it was because you didn't want one. A little different now.

ST: Yes. Very much so. And so were you the first-I've read a little bit about your bio. You were the first African American to graduate.

KP: Undergrad.

ST: Undergrad. Were you the first enrolled?

KP: I don't know. I don't know of anyone else, but I don't know.

ST: And you were the first male or female.

KP: No.

ST: Just female.

KP: The first black male to go through undergrad, graduated in 1961. His name was David Dansby. He lives here in Greensboro. He's an attorney. You spell it D-A-N-S-B-Y. I'm a newspaper person so I spell things.

ST: Oh, I love it.

KP: And my graduating class was five guys and me-one of them was my cousin-so there were very few of us on campus, but after that each class behind us got increasingly larger in the number of blacks.

ST: Did you have a room with another black student? Was there another girl that you lived with?

KP: I was in a room by myself down there, and a white girl I knew up at UNCG-She was majoring in journalism, too, and we had known each other. We picketed 00:36:00together or something up there, and she was in a room with three, and she said, "Oh, what the heck. Why don't I move in with you. We get along fine." And I said, "Yeah, we do." And so she did. And that was cool until her parents found out about it, and-boy-holy hell broke out. Oh, my goodness. And it became a campus incident, and it affected policy for the next year. I'm serious. Up until then there were blacks and whites, black males and white males rooming together. The next year they re-segregated everybody, and if you were, by agreement, living-had a roommate who was black or white, your parents had to sign a permission slip. You know, "My daughter, Karen, Negro, to room with Louise 00:37:00Ambrosiana who is white." And her parents had to do the same thing. And when I discovered that this had happened, that they had re-segregated everybody, I went to the Daily Tar Heel and they exposed it. At the time that was absolutely against the law; you couldn't do that. That was their reaction to the incident with me and Joanne [Johnston], and they punished her for moving without permission, but we became very good friends. I just talked to her a couple of days-We talk all the time. We go visit each other. She lives in Tacoma. We visit each other, we talk no more than every three weeks apart, and we've been friends all these years.

ST: She went to Woman's College. And what was her last name?

KP: Johnston, J-O-A-N-N-E, Johnston. She hated all the silly rules like I did. We were two of a kind that way; we were not much for rules. She went to Honor 00:38:00Court in her prom dress and long gloves.

ST: And was she from the South?

KP: I think she had been born in Jersey or something, but her parents had been living in Winston, and they had moved back to New Jersey by the time we got down to Chapel Hill, but basically she was a Southerner. She went all through high school in Winston-Salem. But she didn't think like the typical white Southerner, by any means.

ST: What dorm did you live in at UNC?

KP: Cobb [Residence Hall]. Well, first year I was at West Cobb and second year I was at East Cobb. And the Cobb-We have the Cobb reunion there, eight of us. We have a Cobb reunion every few years. All of us are still-in that group of eight-are still close friends. We talk frequently and visit. Some of the best, 00:39:00coolest people and the most honorable people I've ever met. And, of course, we're on the same wave length now. It's cool. Mostly from Chapel Hill. Of course I knew Joanne from before. I don't have any really close friends out of Woman's College as I did in Chapel Hill. I don't think there was as much the opportunity. You know, freshmen pretty much stayed with freshmen; sophomores stayed with-You know, you really didn't associate with the other classes that much. It didn't seem to happen.

ST: Do you stay in touch with anyone from Woman's College?

KP: Alice [Garrett Brown], of course; she's the only one. I don't know what ever happened to those two girls that terrorized me. They terrorized me-I'm not kidding-my freshman year. I've heard that they've since gone on and finished and 00:40:00are alive and fine, last I heard, but I don't know anything about them. Alice's roommate-I have seen her since we graduated, of course, and she and Alice-

ST: And what was her name?

KP: Sina McGimpsey [Reid]. She spelled it S-I-N-A, and you've heard of her.

ST: Yes.

KP: And I hear about her through Alice, but that's the extent of my-Oh, and Poinsettia [Galloway Peterson]-I don't know what her maiden name was. She was a year behind me. I didn't know her in school so much as she married one of my Chapel Hill classmates, and we keep running into each other at events.

ST: Okay, Poinsettia Galloway Peterson.

KP: Yes.

ST: She lives in Maryland.

KP: Yes. I just saw her recently. I see her at least once a year, sometimes 00:41:00twice a year, at UNC events. She comes with her husband. ST: I guess you transferred before Woman's College became UNCG. KP: Yes.

ST: So there were never any men on campus when you went there.

KP: No, heaven forbid!

ST: Can you tell me about your experience in the dining halls? Do you have any memories about Woman's College dining halls?

KP: No, nothing in particular. I liked to have breakfast with Linner Ward, because she didn't like bacon and I loved bacon. I'd get her bacon. You've probably heard of Linner Ward. Her sister was one of those-Minnie Ward-who terrorized me freshman year. Minnie Ward and Mamie Davis; those were the Charlotte terrorists. I don't mind calling them that either, because they were-to me anyway. I don't remember anything in particular about people sitting 00:42:00there. Usually you were with another black person, just sort of out of habit. I was with my roommate most of the time. Sometimes a white girl was sitting with us, you know, all depending on what was going on. There were white girls