A. This interview was conducted over-the-phone and the only editing that was required was making my voice quieter so that it was the same as Mrs. Tucker’s. I sat in my dorm room where it was quiet and called her. I used the app called TapeACall on my phone to record the interview. Throughout the whole interview, there were no obstacles that occurred.
B. The interviewee that I chose was Josephine Tucker, which is my grandmother. She grew up in Maryville, Tennessee and moved to Greenville where she got married and became a high school teacher. While she grew up, she could either choose to be prejudice or not and chose to follow in her mother’s path in not being discriminative toward any race. While she was in college, she went to a Christian related college that was segregated but felt as though it shouldn’t. She became a high school English teacher in Greenville in 1975 and told me about how there was not very much discrimination within the school system and within Tennessee as a whole. Throughout the interview with her, I learned what it was like, from her perspective, to see the Civil Rights Movement occur and see what it was like to live in a southern state during this movement.
C. During the Civil Rights Movement, Tennessee was a southern state that was like the others in that it had a history of racial segregation, but unlike most of the deep south states, Tennessee was almost seen as a “border” state. Although there was slavery within the state before the Civil War and there was racial segregation that occurred there, most of the state disagreed with segregation and believed that everyone should be equal. This prompted them to integrate the first public school in Clinton, Tennessee, thus leading the forefront for the Civil Rights Movement.
- Civil Rights Movement. (n.d.). Retrieved March 26, 2017, from http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=264
- Civil Rights Movement. (n.d.). Retrieved March 26, 2017, from http://www.tn4me.org/major_cat.cfm/major_id/11/era_id/8
D. Transcript: Mrs. Tucker (Mrs. T)- interviewee and Luke Kelley (LK)- interviewer
LK: Hello
Mrs. T: Hello
LK: Alright this is Luke Kelley conducting and over-the-phone interview with Mrs. Tucker on March 23,2017. So would you prefer this interview to be kept private or open to the public?
Mrs. T: It can be open.
LK: Okay, thank you. So I will start off with the first question, uh, what was it like growing up in Tennessee during a time of segregation that revolved around the civil rights?
Mrs. T: The best I can remember that was during the 50s and 60s. In this part of Tennessee there was some dissention about uh integrating schools but uh I went to school in the 50s and all schools were segregated at the time.
LK: Uh huh, um well could you tell me a little bit more about how like, um, what was it like seeing the schools be desegregated?
Mrs. T: For me personally it was a good thing because I grew up in a family where my mother taught me that we should all be treated equally and have the same rights and that it didn’t matter the color of our skin, that we are all valuable and should be treated with respect.
LK: Now would you say that most people, obviously growing up in a small town in Tennessee, would you say that most people agreed with that view or would uh most people had agreed with uh segregation?
Mrs. T: I think you would have found in various parts of Tennessee uh some of both and there’s three defendant sections in Tennessee, east Tennessee, middle Tennessee, and west Tennessee. I think that most people in west Tennessee were more for uh segregation. Uh middle Tennessee was sort of in the middle and east Tennessee uh was more for um integration.
LK: Uh now why exactly… cause it seems like why would a state be divided um in almost three sections?
Mrs. T: That’s just uh because Tennessee is a long state from the upper east Tennessee corner to the lower west Tennessee corner its uh a little over 700 miles and you have the various areas of the country practically divided up in that one state. Uh we have east Tennessee and it’s just uh a different uh I don’t know community of people.
LK: Yeah. Alright well thank you for that um… so uh what was your profession um as you got older?
Mrs. T: Well my last uh activity was in education. I was a teacher in the high school level, uh English and year book journalism.
LK: And when did you start uh as a high school teacher?
Mrs. T: I started as a high school teacher in 1975.
LK: So by ’75 the schools had already been desegregated.
Mrs. T: They had. It was fully integrated in the Greenville city schools.
LK: Okay. What was it like um, I know you started working after the desegregation; several years after, but could you still see an impact of almost segregation within the school between uh races?
Mrs. T: There was a little of uh it, you know, I think that’s almost impossible to avoid and in any community but uh I was just so pleased that uh that there wasn’t that much dissention on the high school level.
LK: Yeah. Um well were some of the other teachers, did they uh… did they agree or were there certain ones that almost like uh disagreed with um with the desegregation?
Mrs. T: That was something that was not discussed among the teachers that often.
LK: Okay.
Mrs. T: If there was a problem sometimes they would say “well was he or she a black student or a white student” and that was the extent of that, you know.
LK: Yeah. Well yeah I mean that makes sense. I mean I’m sure that if there might had been a little bit of a difference even, you know if you had been working probably 15 years earlier but I could see that by that time, they probably wouldn’t really accept it too much.
Mrs. T: Right… well um I think also that the acceptance has to do with how you, as an adult, grew up, you know, and what communities and so forth whether or not you were uh prejudice toward your teach, I mean uh toward your students.
LK: Yeah, of course. Um so you grew up in Greenville. What was Greenville like uh, being that it’s not too big of a town, what was it like back then during the uh Civil Rights Movement?
Mrs. T: I did not grow up in Greenville. I grew up in Black county in Maryville, Tennessee.
LK: * chuckles * I’m sorry, I thought you grew up in Greenville.
Mrs. T: No I moved to Greenville following uh college.
LK: Okay.
Mrs. T: And I uh married a Greenville uh boy. Uh there was some dissention during the segregation process. I lived in Greenville uh when the schools were integrated so… there were a few problems, um especially I remember a few on the middle school level because it was done in increments starting at the lower grades and working up to doing gradually so it uh made such a big impact on students and the school system as far as uh room for all the students that, you know
LK: Yeah
Mrs. T: to integrate it all at once. But there was separate schools for the uh black students and the white students when I first came to Greenville.
LK: Okay. Um… with the… whenever the civil rights movement was occurring, was there much conflict or rejection within Greenville uh that people were opposed towards the movement that was going on?
Mrs. T: Uh, not a great deal. The was some and you would expect that but uh
LK: Yeah.
Mrs. T: I was pleased that we didn’t have any awful lot of dissention at the time. I think uh my children were in school at the time um and I was not teaching in the system so, uh I just had to listen to what other people said and what was reported in the papers and it was not real extensive.
LK: Well, would there be like, so let’s say you were at the uh like a grocery store or something, would you like… would you just over hear people say uh, you know foul things about the uh African American community if they were, let’s say next to someone or would uh was it really just not nearly as segregated as most people would assume certain southern states were?
Mrs. T: I don’t think it was as segregated as some and and there wasn’t as much prejudice here as in some of the uh more southern states. Uh it was uh, you know a great respect for people um I was just so pleased that I lived in an area where we respected one another and the likes of everyone.
LK: Uh huh. Well that’s important because, you know, we uh when we learned about this, there’s always all these, you know, like we see all the violence that occurred in all of um, you know these protests that occurred, you know in Alabama and all these really southern states and it kind of almost leads us to assume that it was occurring everywhere in the south, whereas it really wasn’t and, you know, it’s great t see that during this time that not everybody, everywhere was really as segregated as most people thought.
Mrs. T: Well could I tell you about one place in Tennessee where the very first uh uh integration took place and that was in Clinton, Tennessee and of course there was a lot of uh dissention over that
LK: Uh huh
Mrs. T: I remember watching on television as certain students and uh were taken to the school and uh the white students standing, yelling at them as they went in and how sad it would be for those students who were forced to go into that situation. I felt really sorry for the black students and then of course uh even in Mississippi and Alabama… uh those, you know those were states where it was uh pretty violent at times.
LK: Yeah. Um well does seeing that happen, like did you have doubt that the movement might not result in how it has or were you confident that the movement would be a success?
Mrs. T: I was hoping it would be a success because I grew up with a mother who uh explained to us that she had her best friend was a black girl and how we should not uh treat them any different than we would treat our white friends and so that was one of the things that I appreciate so much about her. That she did instill in us that we should treat everyone the same. That we all have the same rights.
LK: Well… thank you for that. That’s just, you know, incredible. I think that everyone, even till today, people can take that, you know, something away from that because I feel like even still today there is still relevance of, you know, uh racism that we can see. Um, during uh, do you remember Martin Luther Kings “I have a dream” speech and um how did people around you, around town react to seeing this?
Mrs. T: I remember the Martin Luther King speech and the marches on Washington. Uh… I remember how touched I was by his speech and how I could not keep from crying… and even right now as I think of it , it’s hard for me not to tear up and think about how uh how difficult it must have been for the black people during that time
LK: Yeah
Mrs. T: And I remember uh I taught English on the high school level and I remember reading that speech uh every uh year at uh on Martin Luther King day and uh how much uh, the black students especially, appreciated me and if you don’t mind I would just like to say something personal. I had and I was treated with respect by most of the students but the back students were so respectful.
LK: Yeah
Mrs. T: I think it is a… I think it is a two-way street. If you treat anyone with respect, then they will return that respect.
LK: Well of course and I think that was one of the things, you know, back then obviously implement if I’m wrong here, but you know just most people, you know most white people saw black people as just not being, you know, the same as us whereas in reality we’re all the same and we’re all created equal.
Mrs. T: Right. I agree whole heartedly.
LK: Um. After, just seeing, because you have been alive from the time that, you know, there was desegregation to the civil rights movement and um even since then there has been a lot of movements that occurred. Uh, what was it like seeing uh there now be an African American president that like, would you have ever expected to had seen that, you know, 50 years ago?
Mrs. T: Oh, certainly not and even when it actually happened a lot of people, my peers and the people around here had said “you know I never thought I would see this day”.
LK: Yeah. I mean were most people happy for him or were most people, you know, were they not so sure about um about having President Obama?
Mrs. T: I think that depended on your politics
LK: Yeah
Mrs. T: you know uh I uh obviously there were enough people who felt confident that he would be a good president or he would have not been elected and then the history will be written later and we will find out more about that, you know, as time goes on whether or not he was considered a good president.
LK: Well yeah, you know, I mean we can’t really tell right now cause, you know, I’m sure it probably takes several years to really, you know, before we can judge a president based on what they did so.
Mrs. T: Yes, your right.
LK: Um, would you think of any other events that occurred during the time that really had an impact on you or I guess the people around you
Mrs. T: Well not exact, not really. Not neighborhoods are anything. Uh the last house I lived in was in an integrated neighborhood and uh there were um black families and white families living together in harmony and it was a very good neighborhood and I felt very safe there so um you know I was pleased that I am pleased. I have neighbors who are black that live just across the street from me. It does not bother me and uh and my students that I had that were black, I can see them out in the community and out in town and they will come up and give me a hug and I’m just pleased that they feel comfortable doing that.
LK: Yeah. Well I just, I couldn’t imagine, you know, what it would had been like for all these, you know, the students at Little Rock when they first integrated school. You know I can’t imagine all these people that, you know what they went through and I just, I don’t know. It definitely takes a lot for someone to physically deal with that abuse they did and still keep on going.
Mrs. T: Right. Well uh at the time of integration there was not a lot of that abuse but it was in the history books and they were told about it. Um and uh I, you know, I think it just… was harder for the black students to be integrated than it was for the white students.
LK: Yeah. Um I’m going to have to have maybe one or two more questions, uh their just off the top of my head. Uh… could you, let say going into college back then, was it was there much like was it much easier for white students to get into college or was it still about the same?
Mrs. T: You know I don’t remember that much. I went into college in the middle 50s. I went into a church uh related uh sponsored college. We had no black students at that college, not because they were not welcome because we had other uh nationalities who were dark skinned who attended that college but uh… I really can’t speak to that question because I’m not sure that I experienced it. Okay.
LK: Okay. Um… I’m not sure if I really have any other questions. Is there anything else that you would um like to speak about or talk on?
Mrs. T: Um at this time I’m just pleased that we have come as far as we have. We still have, I’m sure in some areas a long way to go as far as uh giving everyone equal rights and feeling that we are all the same in the sight of God.
LK: Well that’s, you know, that’s the one thing that uh I feel like it’s gonna take a long time because no matter what, there’s always going to be people that’s gonna, you know, think that their race is better than others and that um that because of that their better in that, you know, other people are not so… and obviously I know that we’ve come a long way as country since this time but I can still see it within people around me that, you know, I still see racism even on campus just from um just from certain students that were grown up um that grew up with maybe parents that were racist or something so.
Mrs. T: Right. Well yes and that’s sad. It’s sad for all of us. It really is.
LK: Yeah. Well I thank you very much for uh for this interview um so once again, do you mind if this is public or would you prefer for it to had been private?
Mrs. T: I don’t mind that it’s public at all.
LK: Okay, well Mrs. Tucker I thank you so much for talking to me uh I hope you have a great day and um I guess that’s it.
Mrs. T: Well thank you and you have a great day as well.
LK: Alright, Goodbye.
Mrs. T: Bye.
E. After the interview, I feel as though it went really well. At first I felt a little tense but then started to feel as though the interview started to flow better as it was going. I felt as though I started to go “off script”, the flow picked up and made for a better interview and conversation between my grandmother and I. One thing that I would have done differently would have been to talk a little quieter because I had to do a lot of editing to my voice because I was too loud.