Oral history interview with Sudie Sides, 2018

Scott Hinshaw: Today is Tuesday, November 20th, 2018. My name is Scott Hinshaw and I am in Jackson Library on the telephone with Sudie Sides, Class of 1961. We are here to conduct an oral history interview for the UNCG Institutional Memory Collection.

Scott Hinshaw: Good afternoon. I'd like to start-

Sudie Sides: Oh, good afternoon.

Scott Hinshaw: I'd like to start the interview by asking you about your background. Can you tell me when and where you were born?

Sudie Sides: I was born in Oxford, North Carolina. Well, actually in Henderson, North Carolina, July 1, 1939.

Scott Hinshaw: Can you tell me a little bit about your parents and your family?

Sudie Sides: Yeah, my grandparents lived in Oxford, North Carolina. My mother came from a family, he was a merchant. His name was JR Avery in Oxford, North Carolina. And my father came from a family of tobacco farmers, and they lived in 00:01:00Berea and in Oxford. He didn't have much money. He kind of married up, I guess they would say in those days. And they were both lovely people, not educated. They did not go to high school. Mother went to a business school. Daddy, I'm not even sure he graduated high school because every year, one of the boys, he came from a big family, they both came from big families, one of the boys would take off a year from school and help with the tobacco harvest. So I'm not sure that he even finished high school, but no more education than high school. Nor did Mother. So my sister and I were the first people in our family to go to college, 00:02:00except for an older cousin. She was the first, and then we were the next to go to college.

Sudie Sides: Daddy was in the Army in World War II, and that's when we moved to Ohio. So I think that Mother was the oldest of about seven kids, I think. And Daddy was kind of in the middle of a family of six or seven children. So, big, big families. Very Southern on my dad's side and I never knew my maternal grandfather, but I knew maternal grandmother. And her name was Sudie, and I was named for her. It's a family name, not short for anything. That's the whole name.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah, it's a very original name. I like it.

Sudie Sides: Yeah, I know, but I think it's kind of a North Carolina name.

Scott Hinshaw: Huh, okay.

Sudie Sides: But everybody, "Where'd you get that name?" And, "Is that short for something?"

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah.

Sudie Sides: It's an interesting name.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah. It is, very much so.

Scott Hinshaw: So you moved to Ohio quite early in your life then?

Sudie Sides: Right, yes five, and my sister was seven and a half. We started off there in kind of a one room because it was during the War and housing was very precious to come by, very difficult. Then after we left that place, we moved to a small apartment on the Main Street of our town in Ohio. It was Osborn at the time. It became Fairborn later. It was great for me as a kid because I could just look out the window, see everything that went on in the town because we 00:04:00live at the apartment.

Sudie Sides: My mother worked in the grocery store below the apartment. My dad as I say was in the Army and my sister was in school, and I was kind of left home most of the time by myself. I mean Mother was right downstairs, so it wasn't dangerous but occasionally I would sneak out and kind of get out down on the street and meet the street people. I mean it would be horrific today because they were some oddballs, but I kind of made friends at an early age with some of the crazy people on the street. And enjoyed it. They liked me back. And Mr. And Mrs. Apple and the Lawnings, these were the people who lived in the apartment building, and they would check on me all day. I kind of got around it. I was kind of a rascal.

Scott Hinshaw: Sounds great.

Sudie Sides: Yeah, it was.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah, since you weren't in North Carolina all that long, do you 00:05:00remember that much about sort of life in North Carolina before you moved to Ohio?

Sudie Sides: I do. We went back every summer.

Scott Hinshaw: Okay.

Sudie Sides: And occasionally at Christmas. And we would spend a lot of time there. We always stayed at my Grandma Avery's because she had a great big house near a tobacco barn. I remembered it's no longer there, and we would visit my paternal grandparents and they lived in a small apartment. I loved them. They were my favorite. I know you're not supposed to have favorite grandparents, but I did. My grandfather was just so delightful. I don't know what was the matter with him. I never figured it out, but I never remember him doing anything. He had been a carpenter as well as a farmer. But my memories of him are all just 00:06:00kind of sitting on the front porch smoking, rolling cigarettes and smoking them, watching the world go by. And telling stories, and he was quite wonderful. His name was June, for Junious.

Scott Hinshaw: Oh.

Sudie Sides: And my Grandma Duncan, I think of her with so much pleasure because I knew her until late in my life. I didn't know my Grandma Avery that long because she died when I was a sophomore in college but Grandma Duncan was just, oh she was wonderful. She'd been a midwife in Berea and lots of kids were named after her. Betty, or Elizabeth and she was a Slaughter. She was related later on to Frank Slaughter and Enos Slaughter and that whole branch of the family. The 00:07:00Slaughters and the Duncans were my grandfather's family.

Sudie Sides: She was a wonderful cook. The house just always smelled of pork, and she cooked it just perfectly. We would always whenever we would go she would take us to her closet and show us the dress she wanted to be buried in. Of course, it changed as she grew older and bigger and all that kind of stuff. But that was her. And Granddaddy was just quiet and told stories, and I like to think that I'm more like her than anybody else I guess. She's a very strong woman, and I just loved her very much.

Scott Hinshaw: Wow, sounds like you do.

Sudie Sides: So we got plenty of Southerness and Daddy never stopped being a 00:08:00Southerner. He had a Southern accent to the day he died. Now Mother, she kind of left her Southern accent behind, but he never could. And whenever he was in the Army and his group would have barbecues ever summer, and he would do it the old fashioned North Carolina way. He would dig a hole and roast the pig and chop it up and have North Carolina barbecue and there is nothing, as you know, as good as North Carolina barbecue.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah. Right. And it's-

Sudie Sides: We had a lot of the food and culture of the South with us all the time.

Scott Hinshaw: Wow. That's awesome. So can you tell me where you went to high school?

Sudie Sides: Yeah, I went to Fairborn High School. We were the Fairborn Flyers because Fairborn is right next to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. So we were always kind of near the Air Force Base and the influence of that. I couldn't 00:09:00tell you how many people were there. Probably about a 100 in my class. So not a big school, but quite a good school. It's funny because I ended up majoring in history, but my history preparation was not nearly as good as my English. I had a fabulous English teacher, Miriam Keeler and I guess she was just my role model, and I think she was the person that kind of even made me think about being a teacher because I was so inspired by her. Of course, I had a crush on her son who went to high school there. They lived on the base because her husband was a General. She was just wonderful.

Scott Hinshaw: That's great to hear.

Sudie Sides: I had a good high school experience. I was in the band. I played the French horn. I was in the orchestra. I was in singing groups. I was president of my class, all that kind of stuff. I was pretty hotsy-totsy in high school.

Scott Hinshaw: Sound great. So it sounds like English and history were your favorite subjects in high school?

Sudie Sides: Absolutely. Anything that would allow me to read books. I think being alone in that apartment ... you know I started reading pretty early. I don't know how or why, but I did, and then I remember in first grade, we didn't have kindergarten but in first grade I won a little contest for reading. Reading just became the work of my life, and it still is.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah. So after you graduated high school, did you know you were 00:11:00going to go to college? Did you want to go to college?

Sudie Sides: Yes, it was just sort of never a question in my family, which I really accredit them because since they hadn't had that experience, but it was just from day one, we were going to go to college. That was never a question, even though we had very little money, but we were going to go to college, both my sister and I. Neither one got into Duke, which was our first choice, and my sister took it really hard. I didn't much care. I ended up going to the Woman's College and that was not where I really wanted to go. I wanted to go to a college called Wooster, in Ohio, Presbyterian College. I had been there for a lot of summer things with the Presbyterian Church and I loved it. I was pretty 00:12:00spiritual at that point in my life, certainly no longer, but I just always associated it with kind of being close to God. So I wanted to go to Wooster, but Wooster was pretty expensive. It was kind of out of the money. Woman's College was a very affordable college.

Scott Hinshaw: Okay, even being out of state? I don't know if that was an issue back then.

Sudie Sides: It was, yeah.

Scott Hinshaw: Okay.

Sudie Sides: But even then, I can't remember what the tuition was, but it was by today's standard, it was doable.

Scott Hinshaw: Any kind of fears or anything? Obviously you were used to coming to North Carolina to see family every Christmas. But you know, going to college in North Carolina, you're not getting into Wooster. Did you consider other 00:13:00places in Ohio?

Sudie Sides: No, not really. My sister had gone to Woman's College too, so she was a few years ahead of me. And I had visited and everything. I felt pretty comfortable going there. I don't know if you know, but I was pretty socially conservative and politically conservative when I went to college.

Scott Hinshaw: Okay.

Sudie Sides: So going South, it wasn't like today when kids say, "Oh, I'm going to the South", and I know it's going to be really different from California. Ohio was a pretty conservative place. There were no African Americans in our town. It was all a white town. I was ready to go South. I didn't have any sense 00:14:00of that it was going to be strange or different.

Scott Hinshaw: Okay. Well, can you tell me about your transition from high school to college? Do you think your high school prepared you well for college?

Sudie Sides: Yes, I do, mainly in the reading category because I had been such a reader. So I just sort of moved right in, in terms of the program there. My hardest subjects were the sciences, which sort of made sense. Science and math were never my strong points in high school and certainly not in college. And I was a senior I made Phi Beta Kappa, so I didn't have any difficulty in the academic part of all. And I had such wonderful professors. Oh my God, they were just incredible.

Scott Hinshaw: What was your major?

Sudie Sides: History with a minor with ... At that time to be an English major, 00:15:00you had to take something, what was it called? Comprehensive something where you did ... It was all a joke, from Beowulf to Virginia Woolf. I didn't take that. I had the hours for an English major, but not that one course that we needed to have. I'll never figure out why I majored in history. But I think it was because it was more of a challenge than English was for me. It also had something to do with I just loved the professors. I was sitting in the Pine Room one day and Richard Bardolph, whom I was in a course with at that time, he came through the Pine Room, and I just remember, I'm sure he loved it that I just rushed up to him and said, "Dr. Bardolph, I'm going to major in history." And he looked at 00:16:00me, like big deal, you know. But to me it was a big deal because I was announcing to this very, very important professor in my mind, that I was going to major in history.

Sudie Sides: And I loved it. The only history class that ever kind of did me in ... There was a visiting professor who taught German history, and I could not get it because it went way back. It was the Guelfs and the Ghibellines and that's the only history class in my life that I ever got a C in.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah, yep.

Sudie Sides: I just didn't get it.

Scott Hinshaw: Did you have any other favorite professors?

Sudie Sides: About a gazillion. Let's see, Dr. Pfaff and he was wonderful. He taught an intellectual history class, and it was just so different. What he 00:17:00would do exam time is he would put a word on the board. It could be socialism. It could be nationalism, whatever. Then you would just start, and you would just write and just take as long as you wanted. It was kind of a badge of honor to take six or seven hours to write your exam.

Scott Hinshaw: Oh my gosh.

Sudie Sides: I'm not even sure if he ever read them, but it was just so much fun. One thing I think about a lot these days as we see the rise of nationalism everywhere, and I just remember his cautionary tale about nationalism and how it was the breeder of so many wars and how it was such a destructive force in the world. I think about him. I can almost hear his voice, but he was fabulous. And Bardolph-

Scott Hinshaw: And just to clarify, this was Eugene Pfaff? Is that what you said?

Sudie Sides: Yeah, yes. And Bardolph was wonderful. Dr. Current and he taught Civil War and Reconstruction and American Foreign Policy. I think he was a pretty big influence on my life. Vera Largent was a wonderful historian. She just made it come alive. She used to talk about if we ever went to Paris, we had to walk the French Revolution. You know it's just that kind of thing. She just made it very alive. I had a wonderful English prof, Gene Gagen, who I had for Milton. A whole course in Milton. I'm not even sure you can do that anymore, have a whole course in Milton.

Scott Hinshaw: Right.

Sudie Sides: But it was great. Randall Jarrell, he was such a wonderful teacher. We all sort of had crushes on him because he was so glamorous and he and his wife drove around in a little sports car. They played tennis right behind the dorm that I lived in, Jamison freshman and junior year. They were just incredible, and you know glamorous. He was such a wonderful poetry teacher. I had a lifelong love of poetry as a result of him. It's strange that, I don't know if you know the North Carolina poet and novelist Heather Ross Miller. She was in our class.

Scott Hinshaw: Okay.

Sudie Sides: She was a wonderful poet, even in college. She has recently, I 00:20:00guess it was two years ago, she published a book about writing poetry with Randall Jarrell. He supported her in her early career of being a writer. Strangely enough, she and I have kind of reconnected in the last 10 years or so and it's been wonderful. Email, I haven't seen her, but a very lovely email correspondence that we've had over the years. I've now read everything she's ever written I think, which is a lot of stuff.

Scott Hinshaw: Well this is skipping ahead in the questions, but do you ever make it back for reunions?

Sudie Sides: No, I'm not a reunion person. I've never been to high school reunions. I've never been. Number one, in that there's a Jarrell poem called Sad Heart at the Supermarket and he sees somebody in the poem. The person sees 00:21:00somebody they haven't seen in a long time and that person says to them, "Oh you haven't changed." And then the poet says, "Oh, you haven't looked." I've always thought about that. I guess I sort of want people to remember me as I was rather than as I am now. The people that I keep up with, I keep up with, but the same with high school. I've kept up with my best friends, and I kept up with my college friends, mainly by mail. But I didn't go back for reunions.

Scott Hinshaw: Well that's great that you keep up with them.

Sudie Sides: Oh, yeah, not so many but that's sort of my style. I've always had a few good friends, not tons.

Scott Hinshaw: Yep. Well you say your sister went to Woman's College. She's a couple years older than you.

Sudie Sides: Yeah.

Scott Hinshaw: I was going to ask you about your first days on campus but that 00:22:00might have been your first experience with campus was with her. I don't know, maybe you visiting her or something.

Sudie Sides: Yes it was, it was. I went down to do my college visits when I was a junior and senior. And I went to classes, and it was wonderful. I just remember there was a girl in her class. Her name was Laura Lingle and she was so interesting. She was very dramatic. I think she may have been a drama major. I just remember going to a class with my sister and Laura Lingle was also in that class, and she was stretched out and said, "Oh my God, I am so bored" in the class. And I said, "Oh my, how sophisticated." So everybody seemed very sophisticated because they were juniors. Yeah they were juniors when I was a freshman. I was very comfortable. I don't remember ever being really 00:23:00uncomfortable there.

Scott Hinshaw: And you've mentioned-

Sudie Sides: So I guess I did feel comfortable when I went. Yeah.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah, that's great. It obviously probably helps that you have a sibling there too.

Sudie Sides: Oh yeah, yeah.

Scott Hinshaw: So you told me already that you lived in Jamison. Did you live in another dorm or was it just Jamison?

Sudie Sides: Is there a dorm named Cotton Hall?

Scott Hinshaw: Yep.

Sudie Sides: I think I lived at Cotton my sophomore year, and then Jamison my junior year. I was the resident assistant. Miss, oh what was her name. Oh my God I can't believe I'm forgetting her name because she was wonderful. My sister was a big politician. She was the president of the school in her senior year, and she had been in Jamison. Cunningham, Miss Cunningham was the name of the house 00:24:00mother and she was just a wonderful, warm person. Then I was the resident assistant at Jamison and my sister had been that as well. I never thought Miss C. liked me quite as much as she liked my sister. She was great, and so I had a very good experience.

Sudie Sides: And I really cannot remember where I lived in my senior year, but I had a roommate who got married in senior year and I do remember that for the second semester of my senior year, I had a room all to myself, which I just thought was so incredible.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah, that's nice.

Sudie Sides: It was just wonderful, yes.

Scott Hinshaw: I don't think you've mentioned your sister's name. Would you mention her name?

Sudie Sides: Peggy. Peggy Duncan, Peggy Duncan.

Scott Hinshaw: Thank you.

Sudie Sides: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Scott Hinshaw: Can you tell me a little bit about what dorm life was like?

Sudie Sides: Well I had a funny roommate the first year. We had absolutely nothing in common. She was a P.E. major and I was sort of with the black stocking crowd. I don't know if you know what I mean by that but black turtlenecks, black stockings. Very literary, very-

Scott Hinshaw: Right, yeah 60's.

Sudie Sides: ... pseudo-intellectual all that kind of stuff. But it was fun. She was not. She was just sort of kind of a farm girl. Very nice, but just not what I expected. So I didn't hang with her that very much. There was an interesting young woman across the hall. I won't go into her things, but yeah I just met 00:26:00such interesting people. There were a whole lot of girls from New York and they had sort of the secret of ... I think one of the secrets of this school is that here were a lot of young women from all around the country, it wasn't just North Carolina. Many of them had been rejected by some of the Woman's Colleges on the East coast, so sort of the Seven Sisters. And so they'd come here. It was a fabulous group of people who did not ever act like rejects from any college. But they were smart, they were funny.

Sudie Sides: Dorm life was great. We had all these rules. We had to be in by a certain time. No drinking, no smoking, all that sort of thing. I hung out in the 00:27:00library mostly on weeknights. The worst thing though was they would round us up, in freshman year, and they would take us over to Chapel Hill for a kind of ice breaking with boys. I was always just so undone by those. I was never real popular with boys. I was going to have to depend on my brains in life, certainly not my looks. And I did remember one thing that Dr. Pfaff always said. He said one of those things about learning, and reading, and understanding history is no matter how much you're going to love your partner, and there are going to be a 00:28:00lot of long winter nights in your life, and you're going to want to have somebody to talk with about stuff.

Scott Hinshaw: That's good. Yeah.

Sudie Sides: I remember that forever. It's a piece of great wisdom.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah. Yeah.

Sudie Sides: But I was never real popular with boys. I do remember at one of the freshman things I met this very handsome young man. His name was Coleman Barks, who went on to be the translator of Rumi, and very, very popular. I met him again at graduate school, and he got married to a woman I was friends with. I kept up with him for a number of years and then they got divorced, and I didn't keep up with him anymore. But every time I see ... Early on in his career he was considered up and coming young American poet and then somehow he got into Rumi, 00:29:00and he's become the expert on Rumi.

Scott Hinshaw: Cool. What kind of social activities did you enjoy while you were here?

Sudie Sides: Hmm.

Scott Hinshaw: Or extracurricular activities?

Sudie Sides: Well a lot of extracurriculars. I was in student government and representation. I was in the chorus. I was always in the spring play that we did in front of the library. It was a music classical. The one I was in was called the Trojan Women.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah.

Sudie Sides: I just kind of hung around with the more sort of literary crowd. Betty Nash McIver was my best bud, and Jill Gains. But mainly, my really best memories, until say senior year when I got more interested in boys, and junior 00:30:00year too, they were all there on campus. I didn't go off campus very much. You know we dated in Greensboro and that sort of thing but it was just the stuff around school that I liked. I really liked college a lot.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah, that's great.

Sudie Sides: I liked the social scene and we would always ... I don't know the last time I was there, let's see I'm trying to think. It's when I gave that little lecture, at the Duncan Woman's History Lecture. My sister started that. What year that was? Anyway, it was called The Corner and had shops-

Scott Hinshaw: Oh right, yeah. On Tate Street.

Sudie Sides: ... it had movie theaters and yeah. We hung out there and Betty Nash and I, we would hang out at her grandma's house. Betty Nash had some kind of condition that she couldn't eat certain things and so she took her meals off campus at her grandmother's place.

Scott Hinshaw: Right.

Sudie Sides: And her grandmother lived right down there at The Corner. And we loved to go there because she was ... Talk about a sophisticated woman. A much older woman, but she drank, she smoked, she played cards. She was just tired. You look at her and say, "I want to be like her when I'm old." She was wonderful. She was great.

Scott Hinshaw: That sounds great.

Sudie Sides: Yeah.

Scott Hinshaw: Do you recall any of the campus traditions, like Rat Day or Jacket Day, or Ring Day or anything like that?

Sudie Sides: Uh, no. Rat Day? No, I don't remember that at all. Ring day? No. 00:32:00There was the Golden Chain.

Scott Hinshaw: Yep, Daisy Chain.

Sudie Sides: Yeah, Daisy Chain and certainly I was in that. But I don't have very many recollections of that. My big recollection was the day I was in Miss[Gegan's class and maybe it was Nelson. And somebody came to the door, and they said, Is Sudie Duncan here?" And I went out I was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and that's how they did it-

Scott Hinshaw: Oh yeah, cool.

Sudie Sides: ... is they came around and that was extremely cool.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah, that's neat.

Sudie Sides: And I guess Daisy Chain was something like that too. I can't remember it too well. I think by junior and senior year I think I was kind of beginning to look at a kind of larger world. The National Students Association was getting popular and people within the Civil Rights Movement was kind of 00:33:00beginning. And I was involved in all of that. It's interesting it sort of came to a final closing of the story fairly recently is that the editor of the Daily Tarheel was a guy named Curtis Gans. He spoke to us in the National Students Association and I was just gaga over him. He was such a great speaker and leader in the Civil Rights Movement and so forth. We became friends. I of course wanted to be more than friends but we were always just friends and really close and close for a really, really long time, all of the rest of our life. So I was already kind of moving away from the confines of WC and thinking about Chapel 00:34:00Hill and the larger world and that sort of thing.

Sudie Sides: Interestingly, Curtis and I kept a correspondence and he had an institute in Washington, his own. I think he was the one and only member of his institute but it was for the Education for the American Electorate. He was really involved in national politics and you'd always see him on the nighttime PBS news and that sort of thing.

Scott Hinshaw: Hmm, wow.

Sudie Sides: Then this would now be four years ago. My husband was diagnosed with cancer and it was the year that the San Francisco Giants were involved in the playoffs. So the National League Championships was in St. Louis. And St. 00:35:00Louis was always Curtis's favorite team, and he sent me an email and said, "I think your team is going to win, and I want to go to spring training, but I'm on a short porch." And I asked him what that meant, and he too had been diagnosed with cancer. He died about six months before my husband died.

Scott Hinshaw: Oh, I'm so sorry.

Sudie Sides: We had been corresponding and then there were about five days that I didn't hear from him and I thought, "Well this is it." And I went to the New York Times obituaries and there was a huge obituary for Curtis because he was so much in the world. I last saw when I was back in Virginia with my sister who lives there and we were antiquing. We ran into this woman from Lovettsville, Virginia. I said, "Oh Lovettsville. That's where my friend Curtis was." And she 00:36:00knew him and she showed us where his house was. So I got to sort of see his house and know where he spent his final days and that was very deeply satisfying for me.

Scott Hinshaw: Oh, that's good. Yeah, I'm so sorry.

Scott Hinshaw: This is a great segue though, what you've been talking about. Earlier you said you were quite fairly conservative before you came to, or when you got-

Sudie Sides: Absolutely.

Scott Hinshaw: And so you started talking about the National Students Association and I wanted to ask you about the political atmosphere on campus in the 60's. Can you talk about what happened that made you change?

Sudie Sides: I just learned so much. I mean, the world just opened up to me. Intellectually, once you're smart ... Well I was smart. Once you're intellectually engaged, I think it's very hard to stay conservative. I really do.

Scott Hinshaw: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Sudie Sides: If there was one incident, I was a sophomore I think. The movie, Porgy and Bess was playing down at The Corner. And so I wanted to see Porgy and Bess but it was also being picketed by students because the theater was segregated. I remember I was going to go damn, damn the torpedoes. I was going to see this movie because I loved musical theater. I went in and I was so uncomfortable and right then, and in this little speech that I gave to the Duncan Lecture series, I said it was my come to Jesus moment that I was there in a theater that was segregated watching a movie about black people with all black 00:38:00people in it and I had crossed that picket line to go in there. And I just think from that moment I was like, "That's just crazy." And I never crossed a picket line again in my life.

Sudie Sides: Then I also became involved in the Civil Rights Movement. Somehow I think you have to have a moment in your life. It's kind of a watershed. You say, "That's how I used to be and I'm just not that person anymore."

Scott Hinshaw: Yep.

Sudie Sides: I really think it was my education there that helped me become the person that I became. And of course I would go home and have terrible arguments with my parents.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah.

Sudie Sides: Mainly my father. And he would leave the table in kind of disgust 00:39:00and he just didn't like my politics anymore. We disagreed about a great deal. Man, I'm sure I disappointed them in many ways because I was kind of more on the radical end of politics at that time. And they were good Democrats but they were pretty conservative still, socially I mean. No black person ever came into our house. Somehow they found out I had been going out with a black guy, Charlie Johnson, and they were very upset about that. They were very upset that I was very friendly with a Jewish person, Curtis Gans. I was supposed to stay in my lane and I didn't do that anymore. I really think it was my education which nobody was espousing particularly liberal ideas in the classroom. That wasn't 00:40:00happening but as I say, I was really getting educated in the sense of what I guess that word means. Just kind of bringing out and what it was bringing out was critical thinking. A view of the bigger world and that was WC gave that. I really believe that.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah. So you mentioned the sit-ins just a little bit. So can you tell us sort of how you found out about what was going on?

Sudie Sides: Yeah, we just listened to the radio all the time and of course we were involved in the National Students Association, which had a part in those sit-ins. We were listening to the radio and heard about the first day of the sit-ins and Betty Nash, my friend, and I, decided that we would just go downtown 00:41:00and see what was going on. And that was why we went. We were just curious. It's not as though we were big political things or anything. But we went and we took the bus down and we went to Woolworth's. We were pretty surprised by what we saw. The A&T students who were there and then there were white guys. Most of the stools in the lunch counter were occupied by white guys. And they saw us come in and we were nice college girls and we were very nicely dressed. Before we went down, we stopped at Nana's house. Nana was Betty Nash's very sophisticated grandma.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah.

Sudie Sides: She gave us each a little bit of money and she said, "If anybody stops you down there, just tell them you're buying school supplies." She wanted 00:42:00us to have a back-up. Kind of an alibi-

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah, she was very smart.

Sudie Sides: ... for why we were at Woolworth's that day.

Scott Hinshaw: Yep.

Sudie Sides: And so anyway, we went in and when the guys who were at the counter stools saw us, they got up and they offered us their seats. And I think they probably thought that we were there to support the white people.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah.

Sudie Sides: Betty Nash and I just kind of sat down, and we just looked at each other and didn't say anything. But we got up, and we offered our seats to some black students in the crowd, and they took them and that was that. And then we went on back to the school. But each of us had kind of a good feeling. We had done a little bit. And that's how I guess I've always seen my politics since is I'm going to do whatever I can. And usually it's a little bit. I'm not going to 00:43:00give up my whole summer. I'm not going to give up everything, but I'm going to do a little bit. In the last out here, you know I made phone calls, and the person that I was making phone calls for in Southern California, she won. And that was kind of like, well that's nice. It was a small thing that we did, but it was important to each of us.

Sudie Sides: Years later when I was at the Smithsonian and the Museum of American History and it has the lunch counter there. And when I saw it, I just kind of ... I'm tearing up right now-

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah, yeah.

Sudie Sides: ... just thinking about it.

Scott Hinshaw: I've been there too. It's pretty awesome that's there.

Sudie Sides: Yeah.

Scott Hinshaw: And those are the actual four seats there. That they have.

Sudie Sides: Yes, actual four seats.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah.

Sudie Sides: Yeah.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah, yeah.

Sudie Sides: The guys, I remember their names. I didn't really know them. I knew some of the people at AT&T but not many. They were the leaders, Ezell Blair, 00:44:00David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil. Betty Nash told me that some of the students, I guess some more of the students went down and that they were badly treated when they got back by the Chancellor. Nothing happened to us.

Scott Hinshaw: Right.

Sudie Sides: I guess maybe they were in the newspaper or something and we weren't because it was just kind of quick.

Scott Hinshaw: Right. Yeah.

Sudie Sides: But it was lovely.

Scott Hinshaw: Do you have any idea how long or maybe what day it was that you and Betty went?

Sudie Sides: No. I-

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah, but it was pretty early.

Sudie Sides: I remember it was February of 1960 when the first sit-in started. I guess you could document it by just going back on the history of the Civil Rights Movement, it would be the first day of the sit-in in Greensboro.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah.

Sudie Sides: And that was the first big sit-in.

Scott Hinshaw: Right.

Sudie Sides: Definitely.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah, and so y'all weren't too worried. Obviously they thought you might have been in support of the white folks there so. You know, later on in the sit-in movement people were, and elsewhere were in fear of physical danger, you know. And maybe [crosstalk 00:45:26]-

Sudie Sides: Never felt it.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah.

Sudie Sides: Never felt it at all. As I say, I wouldn't have wanted to go to jail or anything like that. When I was in Chapel Hill, this was the height of the movement. I remember going to ... at that time the Students for a Democratic Society were very big and they were at the heart of organizing a lot of the sit-ins and the marches and that sort of thing. Which I've participated in, in Chapel Hill a lot. And the anti-war movement because that followed right on the 00:46:00heels of the Civil Rights Movement. But I never felt in any danger.

Sudie Sides: I remember Curtis my friend. He said, "I'm very nervous about you participating in this." And I said, "Why?" He said, "You could get hurt." I never had the sense that anything was going to happen to me. And if I had, maybe I wouldn't have done it. But I'm not like a real brave person.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah.

Sudie Sides: I just never had that. And I guess it's because all of my friends were just like me. We were involved. We were part of the Movement in a way. Small may it be. They were my friends and so if one of my friends and the people I loved were doing the same thing, I never felt at all unsafe.

Scott Hinshaw: That's good. Yeah.

Scott Hinshaw: I wanted to ask you a little bit about any administrators or professors again, if you want to talk about any professors you haven't talked about. Do you remember anything about the chancellors that were here when you were here? Gordon Blackwell or Pierson?

Sudie Sides: No I don't. I just remember that they were there.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah.

Sudie Sides: Dean Taylor was the one that I think I remember. My sister because she was president of the student body, she was kind of close with Katherine Taylor and that sort of thing. Usually there would be a kind of musical I think that would happen every spring in which the students would sort of spoof the faculty and the administration. And I do remember one of them was, they did a spoof and it was Whatever Taylor Wants, Taylor Gets, to the tune of Whatever 00:48:00Lola Wants, Lola Gets.

Scott Hinshaw: Right, yeah.

Sudie Sides: They were always fun you know, sort of spoofs that they did. I don't know what they were called, The Follies or something like that.

Scott Hinshaw: Sure.

Sudie Sides: I really don't know what they were called. And my sister just admired her so much. And later there were kind of rumors about her, but that's not relevant to this. It's just the things I heard later on about her. She was a pretty dominant force on campus. Dr. Blackwell I don't really remember. I just didn't have much to do with that part of things, the administration.

Sudie Sides: I do want to mention a professor I think was really important. His 00:49:00name was Warren Ashby and he taught philosophy. I just was gaga over philosophy. And it ends up that I married a guy who was doing his PhD in Philosophy in Chapel Hill. And that was wonderful. And we did like Pop said. We had many things to talk about on a long winter's night.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah, so good advice.

Sudie Sides: Yeah, very good. Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Scott Hinshaw: Well before we move past Woman's College, is there anything else you want to talk about in that era?

Sudie Sides: I'm just trying to think. Just it was a good place to be. We did have a big argument. And this was in the end of my junior year into senior year. 00:50:00That was about, I think it was about raiding dorms and searching in dorms for drink, because that was the thing that girls did. They would sneak in drink. I certainly never did that, but I was very adamant about the fact of privacy and that no, you couldn't do that. And I kind of bucked heads a little bit with Emily Herring, who is now Emily Wilson. Her husband is a big guy, or has been a big ed. Apparently everybody in North Carolina knows Ed Wilson from Wake Forest. But anyway, Emily and I, we were kind of on opposite sides of that. And then everybody expected me to run for student body president against Emily. And I 00:51:00just decided I didn't want to be in politics there anymore.

Scott Hinshaw: Right.

Sudie Sides: As I say, the world was opening up for me. Not just WC. I wanted to take more courses and really concentrate on my academics at that point. I had enough credits to graduate at the end of my first semester but second semester I just took lots of really wonderful courses then.

Scott Hinshaw: Awesome, yeah.

Sudie Sides: That's what I did instead of student government. Emily and I kind of remember that part of our lives differently. But we've kept up. We've maintained a kind of correspondence over the years. More recently the last 10 or 15 years after I went back that time and I saw some people I hadn't seen in a while. She is quite a big writer in North Carolina and she's always like one of 00:52:00the outstanding women in North Carolina. She's gone on to have a really lovely life. And well so have I. Very different kind of lives. Yeah, I do remember that being sort of controversies on campus and that was one of the big ones. And it had to do with the honor code.

Scott Hinshaw: Right. Sure.

Sudie Sides: And that type and stuff. And she did too. She believed in sort of a stricter enforcement than I did. I just kind of wasn't interested in that politics anymore. I was much more interested in kind of expanding beyond WC at that point.

Scott Hinshaw: Sure. Well you've already talked about Chapel Hill a little bit. 00:53:00But can you tell us what you did after Woman's College?

Sudie Sides: Yes. I applied for all kinds of scholarships and I was a candidate for Woodrow Wilson Scholarship, but I didn't get it. I was pretty disappointed in that. So I got something called a Consolidated University Scholarship for graduate work. It was really not very much. If I recall, it was a $1000, which went a lot further than it does today.

Scott Hinshaw: I'm sure.

Sudie Sides: But it still didn't go very far. So I just went off to Chapel Hill to study history. That was just a wonderful experience. I mean it was the Civil Rights Movement. I met my husband there. I loved graduate school because I was falling in love and I love Chapel Hill and if anybody says Chapel Hill, it just 00:54:00you know. It's just kind of a magic place for me.

Sudie Sides: I was so well prepared for graduate school and did well. I earned my master's in a year. And then I went off to teach at Lenoir-Rhyne. That was my first teaching job. And then I came back and I finished everything but the dissertation there. I would teach for a year and then go to school for a year. That's the only way I could afford it. So I taught at Bennett College. My husband was at Woman's College for just a year, teaching philosophy and then we went back to Chapel Hill. I had taught at Bennett. I taught at Bennett. I taught 00:55:00at Lenoir-Rhyne. Then I went to school in between. He got a job at the University of West Florida. It was a new university and so we went there. These were the days when women followed the men and we had gotten married in 1964 in Chapel Hill at the Community Church out there. Is that still there, the Community Church?

Scott Hinshaw: I don't know.

Sudie Sides: I think it was out near Purefoy Road. We lived on Purefoy Road for a while. We were living in town, but we got married at that church, very spontaneously. Three people were there. It was so funny. When my son got married down in LA in 2005, and they got married at sort of a restaurant and had the 00:56:00reception there and there were 50 people. My husband said, "I can't believe my son is having such a big wedding." And it was just like, compared to ours it was big.

Scott Hinshaw: Right, right.

Sudie Sides: Compared to most people's, it was small.

Sudie Sides: Yeah, we lived on Purefoy Road. We walked everywhere. At one point I'd lived in a little rock house on Mallette Street. It's no longer there. And he lived in the Dawson building across the street. We went to Harry's Bar. That was our first date was at Harry's Bar. It was great. My best friend at that point and is still a very dear friend and somebody I see a lot. Rosa Dippenson. 00:57:00She was then, and now she's Rosa Kirkman. She introduced me to him and we all just palled around together. It was very lovely.

Scott Hinshaw: It sounds like it.

Sudie Sides: And open. I mean we lived together long before anybody was kind of living together. But that was you know, that was Chapel Hill. Everything was pretty liberal and open-

Scott Hinshaw: Sure.

Sudie Sides: ... and delightful.

Scott Hinshaw: Sounds great.

Sudie Sides: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Scott Hinshaw: So I have just a couple of wrap-up questions. These are both about Woman's College. So what do you want people to know about your time at Woman's College?

Sudie Sides: I just learned so much. I look back at it and I look at kids and what they're studying now, and I got an unbelievable education. Absolutely unbelievable. I mean I would just put it up next to anybody's degree, whether 00:58:00they go to Harvard, Yale or Princeton, or whatever. That school at that moment in time was absolutely superb. I have never for a minute regretted going there. I just learned so much. And I think there's just something about a woman's college. Everybody talks about finding their voice. I think I found it there.

Scott Hinshaw: Yep.

Sudie Sides: I know I found it there. And I wasn't afraid to speak up because it was all women. I was not intimidated by men. I was not intimidated by the faculty. Anyway I can't think of a better place at that time. I'm not sure what it's like now, but at that time I would say I probably got the best education 00:59:00that you could get anywhere.

Scott Hinshaw: Yep.

Sudie Sides: And I got it there. I just remembered Dr. Hurley. This was a class in English novel. And I think we read like a book a week. I know we read 10 books in a semester and had to write papers on them and I loved it. I absolutely loved it. I've read books that nobody else has ever read, like The Ordeal of Richard Feverel. I mean who reads that? But we read that in that class. It was just exciting. Education opening up those minds is just so incredible. I just loved it. I know that's what made me be a teacher. Even as a teacher, I would 01:00:00always drop in a name of oh, this book on this subject. This is a very good book. Kids would come to me. I had a lovely student who came to me the summer of her senior year. She had just graduated and she came to me and said, "I love how you talk about books." And she said, "Would you just help me write a list of books that I should read this summer before I go to college?" And that was just a great compliment to me.

Sudie Sides: Because I think what I always wanted to do as a teacher, is really what happened to me and that is to teach beyond the subject. You know you teach the subject, but you also teach beyond. And you say if you want to follow this person, here's a good biography you can read or something. And I guess I always wanted to lead people to lifelong learning because that's what WC did for me. 01:01:00I've never stopped learning. I've never stopped studying. I've never stopped reading. I just think it happened there. I think for me it was kind of magical.

Scott Hinshaw: Yep. That's great. My other question, and I think you've partially answered it. But is there anything else you want to say about the impact that Woman's College had on your life?

Sudie Sides: Just that it was extraordinary.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah.

Sudie Sides: It was meaningful. It was deep. It was even profound I would say.

Scott Hinshaw: Yep.

Sudie Sides: I'm just forever grateful for what I learned there and how well it prepared me for the rest of my life. Yeah. I think it was very critically important.

Scott Hinshaw: Great. Well I don't have any more formal questions for you. Is there anything else that you'd like to talk about, or add to the interview?

Sudie Sides: Probably once I get off the phone I'll think of a million.

Scott Hinshaw: Of course.

Sudie Sides: This has been very enjoyable to just sort of remember. And as I say, I made very good friends there. People, Betty Nash and I see each other fairly often.

Scott Hinshaw: Yep, that is great.

Sudie Sides: She's still one of the sharpest, smartest people I've ever known. Jill Gain who's now Jill Caraway. I think she's retired from Wake Forest. And Heather, and Emily and others. Yeah, I made good friends and I learned about friendship. I learned about love. I learned about not just the subject, but as I say, the things I try to communicate as a teacher and I've been a teacher for the rest of my life until I retired, and that's always to move beyond the subject. So, you're always learning something new. And always keeping a mind 01:03:00that's open and flexible, and young at some level.

Scott Hinshaw: Yep, that's great.

Sudie Sides: I've got that all there.

Scott Hinshaw: Yep.

Scott Hinshaw: Well this has been wonderful talking with you.

Sudie Sides: Oh, it's been wonderful to talk.

Scott Hinshaw: I love the University as well so it means a lot to me for having you speak with us today.

Sudie Sides: Did you go there? Did you go there?

Scott Hinshaw: Yes, I got my bachelor's and my master's degree here.

Sudie Sides: Yeah, yeah. Well the last time I was there again for this lecture series, and it was still so beautiful. I always remember coming back from spring vacation. We had a little car and we would drive to Ohio over spring vacation and when we got back all the dogwoods would be in bloom and the azaleas and it was always such a beautiful place to be. As well as all the learning. It's just 01:04:00a beautiful place.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah, I actually have your speech from that event and it was 2010.

Sudie Sides: 2010, that's what I thought. Yeah, yeah. It was a nice event. I had a good time.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah, and it's great that we have the speech here too so I don't know if you sent it to us, but, however it got here it's here and we're glad to have it.

Sudie Sides: Yeah, well I'm glad you do because I reread it the other night, sort of just thinking about this and that and I thought, "That's a pretty good essay."

Scott Hinshaw: Yep.

Sudie Sides: I enjoyed writing it and remembering.

Scott Hinshaw: Yep, okay.

Sudie Sides: And I very much enjoyed this conversation with you and I look forward to just sort of seeing the results of what you're doing. This is all for the archives right?

Scott Hinshaw: Yep, that's correct. University Archives.

Sudie Sides: Well, I'll be very proud to be in there.

Scott Hinshaw: Yeah, well we're glad to have you in it and I want to thank you 01:05:00again for talking with us today.