Phyllis Seabolt Interview Two

Chandler Smith: Okay, would you mind starting off the discussion kind of telling us the story that you told us on Monday about not being able to try on the dress and stuff?

Phyllis Seabolt: I think I was using that as an illustration of the fact that when we were talking about discrimination, we were talking abut the city of Kalamazoo and schools here, and I was remarking that in my hometown, which is 50 miles southwest of here, as a child, I grew up with the same situation that I found when I came to Kalamazoo. And, after all, this was many decades ago. And the dress I was not able to try on was when I was 11 years old. (smiles) As a 00:01:00child of 11, trying on clothes in the store was not a, a usual thing, anyway. But the dress, to me, (clears throat) looked a little large. Pardon me. And that's why I mentioned about trying it on, and she said "no." I think at the time, I assumed it was because I was a child, and when I was told "no," I accepted it as being told to me as an adult, which was not unusual for me to be reprimanded by an adult, and whatever the adult said I took for granted. But as I look back on it now, I realize that it was just part of the culture. 00:02:00Regardless of age, I would not have been able to try on a dress in Dowagiac, Michigan anymore than I could have tried on a dress at that time in the 9-early 1930's in Dowagiac, Michigan, also.

CS: And when, when do you think you came to that conclusion? When, when did you realize that it was partially because of your age, but mostly because of your race, that you weren't allowed to try on the dress?

PS: When I faced the same thing as an adult. (nods) It took a mature look at the situation to realize that it was more than just being told that trying on clothes was an imposition, which I assumed. (nods and smiles)

CS: And was that something that your parents ever tell you this when you were a child growing up in Dowagiac? Did they let you know that you'd face this kind of discrimination?

PS: I, I saw it all the time, but I don't think they particularly made an issue of it. But I always understood there were things that I could not do and things that I could do. And, pardon me, I realized at the time that race was an issue. I have always known that and accepted it as fact, there was no alternative.

CS: And you said that your father would combat racism by having conversations with your, your neighbors on this issue.

PS: (nods) Mhmm.

CS: And he would do so and he would always win friends. How would your mother treat these instances of racism, then?

PS: Similarly. (nods)

CS: Do you have any stories about her? If something--maybe she would treat the particular instance--where she overcame this kind of bigotry?

PS: Well, I would say through her own actions. There were times, when, as growing up, there was a Camp Fire Girls organization in school, and I was not going to the meetings, and I realized I'd never been asked to go to a meeting. And when I came home and said, "what is Camp Fire Girls?" and "everybody's in the class but me," my mother looked into it and she organized a group of Camp 00:05:00Fire Girls so that I would have a chance to be in the organization that I wanted to do. She did the same thing as time went on in Camp Fire Girls. My younger sisters came along and they were girl scouts and did other organizational things that mother organized as they came along, also.

And she, she did kitchen curtains and washed other people's clothing, did jobs like that so that she had money to pay for me to have music lessons and to have 00:06:00elocution lessons, which is a word I haven't even used or heard in a long time. But it was a chance to learn how to speak before groups, and you learn poems and stories to tell. And when there were meetings that were--where it was appropriate for someone to tell a poem, or recite a poem, or tell a story, I had the lessons on how to show joy, expectation, sadness, whatever. You learn how to tell a story with all the gestures and enunciation correctly, and so on and so forth, so that you could entertain adults by performing in front of them. (smiles)

CS: And when your mother was forming these organizations for you, as an alternative, did she face any kind of backlash from the community?

PS: No, not that I was aware of. But, again, my parents did not make an issue of things they found difficult to do in the community. I would overhear a conversation, or in something that was inferred, but there was never any angry talk at home or complaining about situations that they faced. But I was aware. (nods, smiles)

CS: Would you mind telling us a few stories about the family you lived with while you were attending Western Michigan University?

PS: It was the same family that I lived with after I graduated from college and 00:08:00had a job in Kalamazoo. They were friends of the family, happened to be a minister and his wife who had a number of children themselves, and I grew up knowing the family and knowing the children. And when I was faced with having to find a place to live, my parents asked if there was a possibility of rooming with them as a family, as one of their family. And they, of course, said yes. There were many adults in the community who, knowing the situation of housing in the city, were amiable to opening their home to students. And so there was a 00:09:00group that we were always aware of, of people who would allow you to live in their homes, and have kitchen privileges, and a bedroom, so that we could meet our needs other than education that we were getting at uni--at the school.

CS: And you mentioned that you would, only on Sundays you would be able to eat in the kitchen with the rest of the family.

PS: In the dining room.

CS: In the dining room.

PS: Mhmm. (nods).

CS: Excuse me, in the dinning room. Usually you ate in the kitchen.

PS: Yes.

CS: And served them. Can you explain us a little bit about that, how, why, how come the family functioned like that?

PS: That was the custom when you had domestics. Often, if, if people built their 00:10:00homes, they built servants quarters along with the rest of the house. They sometimes had separate entrances, sometimes, it was always the backdoor entrance. And, rooms were built for the people who worked at the home. There were live-in maids and sometimes live-in valets and drivers and whatever the family needed for assistance in their own living. They had household quarters for the servants who lived there, so they provided room and board, and for the 00:11:00people who worked for them. Many times with no pay, but they were provided with a place to live, and with meals. (smiles)

And so, I did not get any pay for living at the house, but I was expected to do the childcare when I was there, to prepare meals and to clean, generally household cleaning, through the week, and Satur--Thursday afternoon was my day off (smiles)--afternoon off. And that time was my own. (nods) I was given a 00:12:00uniform and kept hours according to Western's specified hours for girls to be in after school was over and weekend hours. And so I kept Western's rules at their home and got room and board in exchange for being a domestic during the time that I was not in school.

CS: Did you ever have any trouble managing all that work and your, your school work for the university?

PS: Yes. I set the alarm at five and studied until time to get breakfast for the 00:13:00family, and get dishes done before I left at 7:30 for an 8:00 class. And I walked from the home to class, which was down near the railroad tracks, was my first class of the morning, in what was known as "the Barracks." They were army barracks that were used as classrooms, as a expansion of Western's campus, which was on Oakland Drive Hill. That was the only campus. There were three or four buildings that made up the univ--the school at that time, Western State 00:14:00Teacher's College. (smiles)

CS: And, you also mentioned that you would have to pack your own lunch for school.

PS: Mhmm.

CS: What was--why did you have to do that?

PS: Because, lunch was a quarter, 25 cents, for a malt and a sandwich. And so I would buy the malt and take a peanut butter sandwich to save expenses. (laughs)

CS: And di-did you ever felt, feel like that kind of separated--was that a usual thing with you to not eat the food on campus?

PS: Those who lived in dorms ate in the dorm, students who lived in the city--around the campus there were lots of homes where students could also live as well as dorms--they often took sandwiches. (nods)

CS: And so then it was common for, for lots of different students to live off of campus--it wasn't just the students that weren't allowed to live on campus?

PS: No. If you were watching expenses, you would rent room with other college students on Grant Street and other locations close to what was then Vine Elementary School, which we know now as the Vine Neighborhood. Students still live there (smiles).

CS: I live there, as a matter of fact.

PS: How 'bout that. (smiles)

CS: Yes. Right below campus, actually.

PS: Yes, mhmm.

CS: Very good. Then can you tell us about some of your experiences with professors at Western? Do you think they treated you any differently because of your race or because of you liv--because you lived off of campus?

PS: Not because I lived off campus, particularly. I don't remember any distinct references to racial discrimination. I think there were profs who were--didn't call on me often, but I don't know why that was. It might have been because I didn't offer anything of value (laughs), or it might have been that I just was more shy and reticent as a freshman student. I got more confidence the longer I was in class, and it was very different being in the college class from a small 00:17:00town high school, so I was pretty quiet the first time. And I still kept my grades up, but I was not overly active as a class volunteer.

CS: And what did you study exactly, you said Home Ec.?

PS: I was a Home Ec. major.

CS: And what, what courses did--would you have to take in order to fulfill--to graduate?

PS: I don't remember all the classes, now, but I had classes in meeting the core requirements as everyone else did. And I had classes in the Home Economics Department, like Home Management, Foods and Nutrition, Health, science classes, Biology.

CS: And what, what inspired you to study this?

PS: Because I enjoyed it in high school. And I had (clears throat), excuse me. I had taken some courses in high school in Home Economics, and one of them was doing a home project in childcare, and I had written up my experiences and handed them in to the teacher. The teacher took my papers with her when she went to her state meeting and described the course that she had offered in childcare at our high school, showed them my paper, and I was invited to read the paper at 00:19:00the state meeting. And, I think that was something that encouraged me to go into the field. I did have an interesting experience at that state meeting, however. There were four of us who went with our teacher to Lansing to the state meeting and attended the student sections of the meeting, and I was to read my paper at the evening session of the dinner on Friday night at the hotel. My experience that was different was that I was not allowed to stay at the hotel. And so what were they going to do with me? Couldn't leave me in Dowagiac, drive back, and 00:20:00get me. So, they explained to my parents that I had been given an opportunity to be on the program, and I was a representative from my Home Ec. club to the program, so they asked if we knew anyone in Lansing that I could live with--stay at their home and have meals except for that dinner meal, where I was to speak. My parents had relatives in Lansing, and were writing letters back and forth.

I rode with the group, drop--I was in the car while they were dropped off at the 00:21:00hotel, they drove me to the family that I was staying with, dropped me off, and everyday, we were there Friday, Saturday, the two days they would come get me, they'd parked at the hotel, they'd come get me and take me back to the hotel, I would go to the meetings, and I had lunch that I packed at the friends' home, I had lunch in a room while they had lunch in the area around the hotel. They went to Five and Ten or somewhere and had lunch, and I ate in the, the hotel, in a 00:22:00room, and joined them when we went to the afternoon sessions, spoke at the meal that night and had dinner with them, and they drove me back to the friends' home, stayed over night, and did the same thing on Saturday and came home.

CS: Then, how were you received when you got to the Bureau of Education?

PS: Well, it was a surprise to see me on the program because there were not very many of us from high schools around the area who were at the state meeting as delegates. And, since it was a surprise and kind of unique, afterwards they stood up and clapped, and I sat down, and I was kind of like the surprise entry 00:23:00at the state meeting. (smiles)

CS: Well I'm sure it was a great honor, I'm sure.

PS: Well it was an honor, and one that I enjoyed and took advantage of. I could have refused to go, because of the accommodations I had go through to do that, but I decided, if I, if the paper was good enough for me to be given that honor, I was going to accept it and see what happened. And I did find I was encouraged by the fact that it was accepted and that I was accepted under the 00:24:00circumstances, and I just decided if this is the way life is going to be for me, I will try it and see what happens. So I went into that field at schoo--at Western, and I found it to be interesting, informative, I enjoyed it, I did well, and I graduated with an honor in the department.

CS: And you mentioned in our interview on Monday that you were supposed to live in the house at some point, and they wanted to give you an A and have you live still off campus. Can you explain that to us? What, why you needed to live in that house, and what--

PS: It was called "Home Management House" and it went with a class called "Home Management." Each member of the class had to live there for a semester, and run 00:25:00the home as you would your own home in reality. You were given a food budget, we had to show our expertise in what we had learned in class about keeping up a home, doing laundry, purchasing food, keeping records, keeping accounts, budgeting, as I was saying, and all aspects of living in a home. You lived there and took classes at the same time, but you got the experience of actually doing 00:26:00for that time what you had learned in class about how to do things.

And since there was no living in the dorm, there was no chance to live in the Home Management House, either. And so I was offered, since I had been receiving A's in all of my classwork, it was assumed that I would do well in Home Management House. And since it was not acceptable for minorities to live on the campus, in dormitories, it was assumed that I could not also live in the Home Management House, and I was offered that opportunity. And as I left there, I 00:27:00kinda broke down and I was crying as I went across the campus, I ran into a student in my class and she asked why I was upset and I told her, and she said, "that's stupid. I'll be your roommate." So, we walked back to the Dean's office, talked to her, and she told the girl, "well that's your choice, if you want to do that. I will mention it to the Dean and we'll see." And she came back and said the Dean said, "we'll try it." And so Ruth and I roomed together, and I 00:28:00earned my A. (smiles)

CS: And then, were, so, did that make you the first, first African American to live on campus?

PS: (nods) Mhmm. In the Home Management House.

CS: And--

PS: I think that they began to open up that way, because the next semester was the first one that they opened up the dorms, and so that was the semester before they started allowing girls to live in Spindler Hall, which is next to the Little Theater on the old campus. And, so it was at the beginning of the change in policy at the university.

CS: Do you feel like you've had any part in that? In the, the change of rules?

PS: I think I was in the right place at the right time. (smiles)

CS: And what year was that?

PS: 1946.

CS: And what was--were most of the other students you studied with white?

PS: Mhmm. (nods)

CS: There? Almost all of them?

PS: All of them.

CS: All of them. Then, as a, did you do any traveling across the states as a child and an adult during this time period?

PS: No. It was in the 40's at the end of the war. There was not a lot of extra money. We did not do a lot of traveling back in the 40's. After I was married, in the 50's, and my husband was back from service, we wanted to travel. Things 00:30:00still had not opened up because that was before civil rights laws were passed that made it illegal to discriminate. We wanted to travel but we didn't know how we were going to do that, except the fact that state parks were immune from those laws. And so we decided we'd camp. So we bought a tent, and we camped and went to state parks in lower Michigan, then we got--so we liked to travel that way, and moved--traveled around Michigan going to state parks, tenting, and then 00:31:00we got a travel trailer, and so forth. We were not able to travel freely and stay in hotels or motels until after the civil rights legislation made it unlawful to discriminate.

CS: So, did you ever have any trouble, if you couldn't stay in hotels or motels, did you ever have any trouble getting into campsites? Or did you ever--or was there an experience in which--

PS: No problems at campsites.

CS: Or getting there? I mean, did you ever run into trouble, run out of gas, or stop at a gas station where someone was--

PS: No. Where we paid for gas, our money was good, (smiles) although our color was against us.

CS: Then would you mind telling us what your first day working in the Kalamazoo Public School system was like? When you taught at South.

PS: Well that first day, Mr. Joe Hooker was principal of Vine Junior High, and he and Dr. Norrix agreed that I would be hired at Vine if there was no objection to, by parents of students that I had in the 9th grade. 9th grade at that time was part of what we called "junior high." It was 7-- grade 7, 8, and 9. My 00:33:00graduation certificate for teaching allowed me to teach in secondary schools, which included grades 9 through 12. So, although 9th grade was part of junior high, it was a secondary grade that counted toward graduation since it was 9th grade, and high school is 9 through 12, the students I taught would get a high school certificate, although the class was housed as junior high.

So, parents were not told particularly that I was of color, and I was given a chance to teach at South--at Vine Junior High, 9th grade Home Economics. I 00:34:00taught sewing. And Mr. Hooker was aware that I would be there. He was asked to sit in at the back of the class for part of the day, and the supervisor for Home Economics in the Kalamazoo Public Schools was asked to sit in the other half of the day and watch me teach and see how I did that first day. And they were both pleased and gave me an "okay." So Dr. Norrix said, "we'll continue the rest of the week. If any teachers object let me know"--um--"if any of the parents 00:35:00object, let me know." So, they would then, the rest of that week, come in occasionally, and they visited every class beginning eight in the morning and ending at 3:30 in the afternoon.

So that was an experience that no one had ever had to do before or since, but they satisfied themselves that no parents objected, and they inquired at the parents if they had objected to their students having a black teacher, and no one--actually we were called "negroes" at that time, that terminology had not been acceptable at that time--and no one called in. So, I stayed on at Vine for 00:36:00the three years that they were in operation. In 19--that was '47--in 1950, (coughs) excuse me, Vine Junior High and Washington Junior High went together to form the brand new high--junior high school, South Junior High, on Maple Street. And we moved into South in 1950. I taught then until 1970, when I left the Kalamazoo Public Schools and moved to the university to teach.

CS: So how much different, then, was Western Michigan--you were able to experience and to, to witness all of this--from when, from when you were there until you started teaching there in the 70's?

PS: When I moved to the university, I guess my first reaction was I was surprised at how much the students in 9th grade were very much like the students I had at the beginning (laughs) of their university experience. They were freshmen, and it was unusual for them to be at the university and they were brand new to a school situation, and they were not too different from the 00:38:00students that I had as 9th graders. (smiles) But of course, then as I moved into the university program, I began to have juniors and seniors, and I taught in the Family area and my teaching expanded. I had gone to a school in the meantime, at Michigan State, and so I was prepared to teach at the university level, and I enjoyed the whole experience of teaching, period. All together, I ended up 38 years in the classroom. (smiles)

CS: And what kind of sub--subjects did you teach, at Western Michigan?

PS: I was in the Family and Consumer Services area.

CS: And so an example of a class that you taught?

PS: Human Growth and Development, Marriage and Family.

CS: Then, what, what kind of changes did you notice between the time that, that you--I mean, obviously with the integration of the schools--were, in 1970, were lots of the issues that you'd experienced in, say, 1946 and so going--were those all cleared up or was there still a little bit of tension?

PS: Well, during the years of tension in Kalamazoo before we went to integrating the schools system in Kalamazoo, the public school system, I was still teaching at the junior high level in Kalamazoo. So I was in the school system when 00:40:00students began the cross-busing that was part of Kalamazoo School Desegregation Program. So I was (pauses)--at first when I was moved into Vine, from Vine to South Junior High, we had a 9th grade class of 360 students in the 9th grade. Many of them I had had in 7th and 8th grade also, before they were part of this 00:41:009th grade class. But going into high school from junior high, from my school of 360-some students, there were seven students in that 360-some students that were of color. There were seven African Americans and one Native American student, so there were eight that were not Caucasian students, out of 360 in the 9th grade.

So you can see that the schools were certainly segregated in Kalamazoo because we had many students who were walking to schools, and our housing situation in 00:42:00Kalamazoo accounted for our schools being highly segregated by number. For instance, (pauses, looks down) there were 90% of the black students were concentrated in 5 of, of 29 elementary schools. (pause) So there was a great discrepancy in racial mixtures in our elementary school, and that accounted for the city realizing that we had a very segregated school system and that we 00:43:00needed to desegregate.

CS: And so that led to the cross-busing?

PS: Yes.

CS: And what was your--being able to witness the, the effects of it first-hand --what was your opinion of the cross-busing, sending kids in buses to different areas of the city to the others school?

PS: Well, I began to see more students--I was still at the junior high level, so I did not witness what happened in the high school itself--but in the school where I was, great change happened. Students in my high school-- junior high--class began to, the numbers began to change exactly the year 1971, when 00:44:00they did the program. (nods) It was noticeable, I-- there were a third more students in the 9th grade, compared to seven out of that 300 and some, a third of the number of each class was made up of minority students that year. And the numbers began to change as people moved in and out of districts.

CS: Do you think that program was beneficial to the kids in the school?

PS: Oh, absolutely.

CS: Did you ever witness any--did, did the kids also think that it was beneficial for the most part?

PS: The kids had some problems, depending on the racial, depending on the racial numbers of how many students were in each class as they formed these new classes. There was a great deal of exchanging back and forth and equalizing numbers, and that went on for several years before we began to get a good balance in the schools. Sometimes it was too heavily one way or the other, and you couldn't tell that any effort had been made because of, of some schools that 00:46:00were more fluid in their school populations. Some schools where children's families moved frequently in and out of the district made those numbers change greatly year to year until we began to settle down and, and have a more equal racial balance between black and white in schools, classes. Children reacted, the more they were mixed the harder it was for children to get along. If there were one or two black students in the school, in a class at a time, the 00:47:00relationship was more fluid between the races. The more they began to get equal numbers, then they separated back again into black vs. white in a classroom So kids had a lot of adjusting to do, and they reflected the viewpoints of their parents. And so the whole city had a lot of trauma for a while, and then things began to settle down.

CS: How long was it after the institutional program that things finally settled down?

PS: Probably eight years.

CS: So that would have been just about 1978, and that's when?

PS: Yes.

CS: Then, would you mind giving us a couple examples of your experience in the protests around Kalamazoo during the Civil Rights Era?

PS: The protests were very orderly. When they finally came to the conclusion that "separate but equal" was not separate but equal, it didn't work that way. And in the spring of '71 things began to go into effect. The Gazette reported that there were groups that found, had a lot of opposition to the idea of 00:49:00busing, cross-busing, in the first place. So it was going toward '80 before things really settled down well. But I would say that our protests generally were not ex-explosive at all in Kalamazoo, that they were small flair-ups. And my experience was that I was not involved in anything that was explosive at all. 00:50:00Things were handled rationally.

And the one thing that we saw, that was most indicative of the way we handled it, was that if people did not like the idea of cross-busing, or desegregation, they left the city. And Portage began to grow as a result of desegregation in the city of Kalamazoo. And it's interesting that Portage has its own problems these days, and Portage had a great deal of problems these past few years with 00:51:00drugs, and (pause) personal relationships in their school district, and things that they thought would happen in Kalamazoo, eventually, those kinds of problems that they fought against began to be visible in their own school system, too. So, every community has its problems to solve, and it's a matter of attitudes 00:52:00and relationships, and justice, and we see it on the national level as well as local.

CS: And how would you get involved with these things, how did you find out about them?

PS: Word of mouth, I guess.

CS: Through the school system, or outside of the school?

PS: Both.

CS: Both.

PS: Mhmm.

CS: And your fellow teachers then would also take parts in the--well officially what kind of protests were they?

PS: I am not aware of a great deal of protests.

CS: Then you mentioned you, you lived in Chicago. What years, what year did you move to Chicago?

PS: We went to Chicago because my husband went to school in Chicago, 00:53:00professional school in Chicago. And as a family it was just very difficult. We had a family, a son, and for us to be in Kalamazoo, where I was employed, and in Chicago, where he was a student, meant a lot of traveling back and forth. Breakfast at four in the morning, so that he could drive back to Kal--to Chicago to be in class at eight that morning, leaving Chicago at four in the afternoon and arriving Kalamazoo 7:00 for the weekend. So when he found an apartment for us, we went to Chicago. So for two years we lived there while he finished professional school. However, I was not involved in any part of Chicago life. I 00:54:00was a new mother, with a small baby, with a husband in school. We were living in three rooms in a basement apartment. (laughs) I didn't have any time or energy to get involved in any of the life of Chicago as a big city.

CS: And how, how did the situation in Chicago, in terms of racism and segregation, how did that differ from the situation in Kalamazoo?

PS: I have no idea. (laughs) I was too busy changing diapers and being a mother, and away from any support system of my own. So I was not a part of Chicago life 00:55:00at all. (smiles)

CS: Well that's it, thank you very much.

PS: Oh, you're welcome.