ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH CECELIA T. TUCKER Digital Services Center, Perry Library Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia Part 1: March 6, 2009 by Karen Vaughan   Listen to Interview Part 1: March 6, 2009 | Part 2: March 13, 2009

Vaughan: This is Karen Vaughan. It’s Friday, March 6, 2009 and I’m interviewing Cecelia Tucker as part of the Oral History program at Old Dominion University. Ms. Tucker has been with ODU since 1991 in the Office of Community Relations. I’d like to begin by asking you to talk about your background, about your family, and your early home life.

Tucker: Thank you Karen. I would like to begin by saying that I was born in Martinsville, Virginia, which is out in western Virginia. And that name doesn’t mean anything to a lot of people, but there was a time in my life if I said Martinsville, people associated that with a tragedy that occurred there where seven black men were executed for supposedly raping a white woman. So it was referred to as the “Martinsville Seven.” So people who lived during that time knew that story very, very well. But I grew up in Martinsville [coughs], and I was there until I was in the third grade. My parents were both educators. My mother was a teacher, and my father was a school principal.  I have to also say that my mom wasn’t always allowed to teach as a married woman. There was a time in the history of the state of Virginia, and maybe other states as well, women were not allowed to be married and teach, which seems kind of silly when you think about it, but nevertheless there are lots of women teachers still living who are still single and… because of that. But at any rate, both my parents were educators. We lived in Martinsville until third grade at which time my father was invited to become principal of a school in Southside Virginia. It was formerly a boarding school for Blacks, but it had been bought by the state and it was supposed to be for black children. My father became the first principal of that public school. So we went to Chase City, Virginia, which is where the school was in Mecklenburg County, and it was there that we lived on sort of a college campus. Because it was a boarding school run by Northern Presbyterians, there were dormitories on the campus. Then there was this big house where the principal lived. That is where my father was allowed to live together with my sister and my brother. So we grew up on this beautiful college campus, so to speak. And we remained there until, I think I reached 7th grade. At that time the schools changed – that is the black schools in the county were separated. There was a school built in the east and one in the west, and my father went to the east and that school was called East End High School, and the other school was West End High School. It is interesting that no matter where we went, I never escaped my father as my principal. I didn’t like that especially, but at any rate we went to South Hill, Virginia and he was principal at the East End High School there. My mother being a school teacher had taught my brother and my sister, and so when they entered elementary school they were more advanced than almost any of the other kids, and so they were skipped along.

Vaughan: Were they older than you?

Tucker:  No. They were younger than I, and to be honest with you, when my brother finished high school he was 14. When my sister finished she was 15.  They both went to Hampton University at that very young age. My father was against my brother at age 14 going off to college, but my mother insisted and her insistence prevailed. He went to college. By the time he got to be a senior he had just caught up to himself and dropped out of school.  That’s a long story. We won’t go there. But all during those early years we were subject to segregation. That’s the only life we knew.  And my parents made it a point to protect us as much as they could from that. If we went into any situation and there was some kind of verbal abuse or whatever, they asked us not to say anything. “Don’t confront these people. We’ll handle it.” And that’s the way we spent most of our lives growing up, being protected, and having them to intervene.

Vaughan: Was that difficult for you at any point -- where you didn’t want to just be quiet?

Tucker: Yes. I wanted to speak up. I wanted to say things. And sometimes I did slip and do it. I just couldn’t hold it back. But when we got to South Hill, the town grew smaller, because more and more people in these stores and whatever were not kind to us. And my mother told us we were never to go in there again. And so it just grew so small that there were only a handful of stores where we could go and shop. But my father was highly regarded in that segregated town even though he couldn’t do all the things that all the other people in the town did. But people respected him. As a matter of fact, I found out years later that the head of the Ku Klux Klan in that community was somebody who talked on a weekly basis with my father, you know, in a very respectful way, but he, at night, donned his white and went out and threatened people and did whatever they do. But there were movie theaters in that town where blacks had to sit upstairs and not downstairs. My father would not let us go there. He just told us, “You don’t need to go up to that seven heaven.“  And so we never went to a movie unless we went to Martinsville where I was born and there were people there who owned theaters. By the way, I need to also tell you when I was seven I had an appendectomy and looking back I went to a makeshift operating room in a dilapidated building over a drug store. This is where the room was and that’s where I had my appendix removed. Blacks were not allowed in the hospital.

Vaughan: And did a white person own the drug store and treat it?

Tucker: No.

Vaughan: No. So a black person owned it…

Tucker: Yes.

Vaughan: …and then treated black people upstairs.

Tucker: Yes. I mean they allowed the doctor to go up there and put together as best he could an operating room. And that’s where I had my appendix removed. But those were the conditions that we were living under in those days. And I guess I didn’t know any better.

Vaughan: So did you ever have any moment of awakening where you felt something needed to be done and it was just wrong?

Tucker: Oh yeah! I told you my father and mother both asked us not to confront people, but given the right circumstances I would ask “Why are you doing this to us?”  You know, “What is wrong with us?” And, of course, they would call me all kinds of names in that little country town where I came from they would call you the N word in a minute. The other thing that disturbed me and I wanted to do something about it was you could walk into these little stores and there were these little ugly pickaninnies.  I’m sure you’ve seen them. The black figures…

Vaughan: Yeah.

Tucker: …white lips or big red lips, you know as you walk in you know. It was so degrading and I would always want to know - Why? And even when I came to Norfolk in 1960 there was a store in Norfolk that had one at either side of the door, and I went in there and asked that question – Why? I don’t know if my confrontation had anything to do with it, but they did take them down.

Vaughan: Good.

Tucker: Yeah. Those were the kinds of things that I would do when I was confronted with a situation. I would just raise the question – Why?

Vaughan: Were you involved in any Civil Rights activities in the ‘50s and ‘60s?

Tucker: Yes. When I was in college, the sit-ins began down in Greensboro and it spread to Richmond.  We started to picket department stores like Thalhimers, Miller and Rhodes, because blacks were not allowed to try on clothes, or you know especially hats. You had better not put that hat on your head! We couldn’t…. they had tea rooms in these stores -- we weren’t allowed to sit at those little tables. And so we did, we did a lot of picketing. And my daddy said to me, “You stay out of that! You don’t have any business doing that. You’re going to get yourself killed.”  Well I spent most of my time during those days dodging television cameras because I was right there.

Vaughan: You were afraid what your dad would do?

Tucker: Yeah. I… I… You know, my dad was a very--he was very quiet, but he was deliberate and very forceful. And we stood in fear of him, because I know I think I may have shared with you that at one point my father was almost hanged. And then there was another time where someone pushed him down into a ditch to avoid a carload of whites who were going to run him down in this little country town, Dinwiddie, Virginia. But at any rate, I guess because he knew what was possible he didn’t want me... but I was spat on. I was pushed. I was shoved. All those things that a lot of people talk about that actually happened to me. And we were taught how to react if that kind of thing happened to you. So we were all involved in that kind of thing. The school encouraged us to do that, Virginia Union where I was a student, but of course as I pointed out my father did not want me in that.

Vaughan: What years were you at Virginia Union?

Tucker: I was there from ’56 to ’60.

Vaughan: Okay. And then what about voting and the poll tax, can you talk about that?

Tucker: Well, when I came in here in 1960, I had to register to vote. And so at the time, I was living with relatives in Norfolk County, which is now Chesapeake. And so I had to go to this place out in Chesapeake. It’s really in Great Bridge now to register to vote. Well in order to do that I had to take a literacy test, which meant that you know I had to read a section of the Constitution and interpret that in the questions that they asked. But when I went out there, I went to the door, knocked on the door, and the man told me to go around the back because I was not allowed to enter the front door. So I had to come up some narrow steps and into--and I sat in the man’s kitchen and took the test. And so when--when the test was over and it was clear that I had passed the test, I asked him a question because I write large and I was writing and needed more paper, “YOU DON’T NEED ANY MORE PAPER!”  Oh, he was just so mean. So when it was clear that I had passed the test, I asked him why did he have to talk to me that way. “You get out of here you!” and there was a window open right there where I was sitting and the man who brought me there yelled in, “Get on out of here, Cece!  Get out!” So I came on out. But he was so mean, and I did vote that year. That was… I think that was the year that Kennedy became President. But when I went to vote, I--they couldn’t find my name anywhere and I just knew that man had done that to me, but eventually it was on another sheet of paper and I got to vote.

Vaughan: And then so the literacy tests were part of the voting, and what about the poll tax?  Was that still in use?

Tucker: I’m sure I must have paid a poll tax. I don’t remember. I don’t remember physically doing that and how I did it because I do know that the poll tax was not done away with until I had lived in this community for awhile.   I do know the woman who was involved in that fight, so I must have paid that poll tax.

Vaughan: And was that Evelyn Butts?

Tucker: Yes it was. By the way . . . let’s see, there was something else I was going to say along those lines. I’ve lost that thought but it will come back in a minute, I hope.

Vaughan: Okay. Okay. So obviously education was important to your parents – both educators.

Tucker: Oh!

Vaughan: Did you think of something?

Tucker: Yeah. I did.

Vaughan: Okay.

Tucker: When I came to Norfolk to teach, there was only one school in this town where I could teach high school and that was at Booker T. And the personnel director who interviewed me said, “I don’t have anything to offer you at Booker T, but I would like to put you in a junior high school and then when something opens, I’ll just bring you right on over.” Well I didn’t think that was going to happen. So I was just out of college. I just knew that I’d get another job somewhere, so I just said, “No thank you.” And she picked up the telephone and called the principal, and asked him to make a place for me. So I went over there pushing people around. They did not like that at all. I was not very popular when I went to Booker T, but I’m coming back to that point to say that I taught biology at Booker T. Washington High School. And the woman who headed the department was a woman named Eileen Black Hicks. Now Eileen Hicks was involved in a suit – Equal Pay for Black Teachers. And my father knew that before I even got here. He said, “There’s a woman down there named Eileen Hicks.” And it turned out she was my department chair. But she lost her job fighting for equal pay for black teachers. And, of course, that was all over the state of Virginia. And that’s why he was very much aware of who she was. She was a tough character. I’ll tell you that. She was back at Booker T when I came.

Vaughan: So she had to go up against the school board and the city council.

Tucker: Yeah. Yeah, everybody. Everybody. Fighting for black teachers and equal pay.

Vaughan: What was the outcome? Was she successful?

Tucker: Oh yeah, she was successful.  

Vaughan: She lost her job.

Tucker: She lost her job, but eventually she got it back.

Vaughan: Okay.

Tucker: And so she was chairman of the department – the science department when I went to Booker T. So that was a good mentor. She taught me lots of things, not me personally but just because of who she was and what she does. Everything you did, she said to document it; everything, conversations, whatever. And I do that to this day.

Vaughan: Okay, good. I want to step back a just little and talk about where you went to college. And so obviously education was important to your parents. Was it just a given that you all would go to college?

Tucker: Yeah… No… I… have been talking to a couple of students this week who came in to talk to me for one reason or the other.  And they’re the first in their family to go to college and I was saying to them that, and this in no way was to brag about anything, but I never even questioned whether I would go to college. I knew that I was going. We always talked about it. I never questioned where the money was coming from. I’m sure my parents borrowed the money, but that was of no concern to me. And I was saying that to these students because they don’t know where they’re going to get all of their money. They are working two jobs and the like. So, and I said to them that I will never know if I had had what it was that they had to go on and find my way to get the money and go to college, but they do. They know who they are. They’re very strong people. So yes, education was important. And you know riding here this morning I was thinking, my mother had nine siblings. Seven of them had at least two years of college, and many of them had four. That’s unusual. My father, there were three of them; two of them had four year college.

Vaughan: And were they from the Martinsville area?

Tucker: No. My father’s family was in Richmond. And my mother’s family was in Martinsville, but--and my grandfather worked for a railroad company. I can’t think of the name of it. I guess he was a janitor or something like that and my mother, grandmother, as the saying, expression, was she took in washing. You know. She washed clothes and ironed clothes for white families. That was her livelihood.  And her children went to school. As a matter of fact, when they were young children they went to a boarding school in the town. The church had a boarding school for blacks. You know, education was not a given for black students. That’s just the way it was, and that’s why I guess the state bought that boarding school when the Presbyterians decided to abandon it, you know, because probably the students in the county needed somewhere to go.

Vaughan: And you mentioned that you went to Virginia Union in Richmond.

Tucker: Yeah.

Vaughan: Did you live then on campus?

Tucker: Oh, I did, and very active. Oh, I couldn’t wait to get out of that little country town I was in. But my dad had gone to Virginia Union and that was one of the reasons that I looked at that school. I had really wanted to go to Howard University in Washington where lots of middle class black students went, but my dad told me, “No. You’re not going there. You know because I’m not going to be able to keep up with all the clothes and stuff that you’ll want, you know.” [Laughter]  But, you know, at that time Virginia Union and still is a private school in Norf-in Richmond, so there was a lot expected there. But anyway, it was a Baptist school and very strict about social issues. I mean girls, you know, we had to be in the dormitory by 7:30 and all that crazy stuff.

Vaughan: Did you have to wear dresses to school?

Tucker: Yes. Well we, we could wear pants only on Saturdays. And whenever we went shopping, we had to be dressed, gloves. Can you believe that? It was only when I got to be a senior that I was allowed to go shopping alone, but when I was a freshman four girls had to go at the same time. That was just so stupid – couldn’t ride in a car, couldn’t hold a boy’s hand. You could be put on social probation if you were seen doing stuff like that – Baptist School.

Vaughan: Right. Well, so then ... you went on to graduate school?

Tucker: Yeah, I did.

Vaughan: Where did you go for graduate school?

Tucker: I went to Michigan. I went to Michigan because I belonged to an alumni association – a Virginia Union Alumni Association here in Norfolk. And in that alumni association group was the president of Norfolk State, at the time, who was Dr. Limon Beecher Brookes and also another very prominent school principal who both had gone to Michigan. And they just pushed me and my two girlfriends to apply for graduate school there. And one day the other two called me and said we’ve decided we’re going to do it, so I said well I’m going to do it to so we applied. But in applying a young man who finally became the first black elected to the Virginia Beach City Council, John Perry, said to me, “Cece, you don’t have to pay for this, you know. The state of Virginia has a fund, and if you can get admitted to that school they will pay for it. And that is exactly what happened. I got admitted to Michigan. They paid for my books. They paid for everything. All of that so I would not push the issue of the University of Virginia graduate school.

Vaughan: So you hadn’t actually applied to Virginia?

Tucker: No because everybody knew you weren’t going to get in there anyway. So he just told me to apply that the funds were administered out of Virginia State in Petersburg. And so . . . you know, Karen, looking back now I understand why the teachers at Booker T were so very well qualified and credentialed; because all they had to do was get admitted to some school. The state would pay for it and off they’d go and come back with their masters or whatever. My dad did the same thing. He had his masters in I guess it was school administration. He got that at Columbia, but that’s just the way it was in those days. And so that’s how I was educated and how I went to Michigan, but then after I was at Michigan, that wasn’t all that great either because I don’t think in my whole experience there I ran into another black in the whole, in the whole department that I was in. I only went there during summers, now.  I didn’t take off a whole year and go. I only went during summers.

Vaughan: And were you in biology then.

Tucker: Yeah. Uh-huh.

Vaughan: Uh-huh.

Tucker: And now, Michigan, Ann Arbor was a great place also for me looking back, because that’s where I found my husband. You know, my, my two girlfriends and I were walking from our apartment. By the way, in Michigan a white person had to get the apartment for us. I mean we couldn’t go up there and apply and get an apartment. Somebody else had to do it.

Vaughan: So who did you find to do that?

Tucker: There was a guy that knew one of these girls who had a friend who was willing to do that. So I guess it was a given that that’s the way you did it.

Vaughan: Right. And so was your husband a student also or…

Tucker: My husband was at that time doing his internship. He was in medical school. And so, but the interesting thing is one day we were walking to the grocery store and this car was driving slowly along as we were walking and it was one African-American guy in the car  and he tried to strike up a conversation with us. Well, we were ignoring him, you know. We were from the South, and we’re not gonna talk. He said, “I know you’re from the South because you won’t even talk.” [Laughter] “We know all the black people" -- he didn’t say black, Negroes -- "in this town.” And anyway, he wanted to invite us to a party, and we wanted to go so badly because we wanted to meet other blacks. So he promised to come and pick us up and we were all, we, we agreed that we would go. We got his number and all this and so. We were all dressed waiting there for him to arrive, and he never showed up. And so we were stood up. So the next morning bright and early here he was. And I’ve forgotten what his reason was but it was a reasonable reason. So he put us in his car and took us over to the house where he lived. And there were all graduate students living in this house. And my husband to be just happened to walk through. I just met him, you know, in passing and later on I met him at a party there, but that was our introduction to, I guess, the black social life in Ann Arbor. But the interesting thing is, you know, they had study groups and so forth and I was always left out. Nobody chose to study with me, and you know, but I, I, I did very well for myself.  My grades were good.

Vaughan: What made you decide to become a teacher? Had you considered other careers?

Tucker: I wanted to become a physician. And my daddy insisted that I add the education to my program, to my curriculum, because he said, “Ce, black women doctors? They’re not gonna make, they’re not gonna earn a decent living. You need to be a teacher.” And I mean, I was telling you about all these aunts and so forth that had college. They were all teachers. My aunt on my father’s side was a teacher, so he just felt like that’s the way I needed to make it. And that was another thing I was sharing with my granddaughter the other night. My father told us – that is my sister, my brother, and me – that the best insurance he could give us was a college education. That way he knew that we would be okay. We could take care of ourselves and for us, my sister and me especially, that we would not have to depend on a man. You know, and in those days, you know, that didn’t mean a whole lot to me.

Vaughan:  Right, but he was kind of… had feminist viewpoints.

Tucker: Yeah. He wanted to make sure his girls could take care of themselves.  And at the time, you know, “Yeah, right, okay.” But it makes a lot of sense.

Vaughan: It’s very progressive, I think, for that time.

Tucker: Yeah. Yeah.

Vaughan: I don’t remember my dad telling me that. [Laughter] Okay, so now, go ahead and talk a little bit more about--you started to talk about teaching at Booker T. Tell me a little bit more about starting there and what your experiences were like.

Tucker: Yeah. I started there on the wrong foot. I told you that. They pushed me in there, and pushed some people around, pushed … I don’t think they pushed anybody out… but “Who does she think she is?” You know, the year I went in there, there were sixteen brand new teachers. Fourteen of them had finished Booker T Washington High School. So you know it was an incestuous situation, which I don’t think is very good, but that’s the way it was. So they didn’t bother to give me any orientation or anything like that because everybody else knew their way around. And I looked so young. I would walk out in the hall and I remember the assistant principal, one day shortly after I arrived, asked me, “where was my hall pass?”

Vaughan: He thought you were a student [Laughter].

Tucker: He thought I was a student. But I had very, very good… well actually I say good students. I had lots of very good students and I was allowed to teach some of the . . .  I guess you would call average and above average. We had those below average classes we had to teach too, but I was allowed to teach some of the smarter kids. And those kids did so well. I mean, they went to the top schools when they finished high school, you know. I remembered one time there were two young men who had the highest test scores in the state of Virginia at Booker T. And they went on to Harvard. But I do also remember that when they came back that Christmas various teachers asked them to come and talk to their classes. And in my class a question was raised, “What about your social life?”  They said they didn’t worry about that because they felt like once they could finish their education they could . . . they’d do alright in that department, so…. But I do remember we had very, very good students. For the most part, the students respected the teachers. I could look at a child and they would recoil. Whatever they were doing, “I’m sorry,” you know, but today that is not true. That is not true.

Vaughan: Would you be able to go back and teach high school today?

Tucker: I don’t think so. I don’t think I would want to because you don’t have that kind of respect. No. I don’t think I could do that.

Vaughan: Another question, 1959 was the year that Norfolk desegregated, and so when you arrived at Booker T it was the year after. It was 1960. Do you remember anything about the political and social climate in Norfolk? And also do you remember about conditions – textbooks and things like that – at Booker T at the time? 

Tucker: Well, I mean, as I said earlier textbooks were the same in my high school as they were at Booker T. As a biology teacher, I had very little equipment, no microscopes, and scalpels, and things that you need as a biology teacher, you know. So we went into our pockets as best we could to supplement what we could. I don’t know. It was . . . we did everything we could for our students and they appreciated that. And, and, and as a result which, which to me also means, you know, you don’t have to have everything shiny and glossy. You can still produce a lot from nothing, really. And that was true in college as well. We didn’t have the same kinds of things that they did in the other schools, but I did very well.

Vaughan: Okay. You mentioned that Arlene or Eileen…

Tucker: Eileen Hicks…

Vaughan: … Eileen Hicks was out there advocating for better pay for the African American teachers. Were there people who were going to the City Council trying to get better conditions, better pay?

Tucker: Well see, that had occurred by the time--oh you mean for books and that kind of thing … Oh, always… Always, but nothing, you know, turning a deaf ear, but I can tell you that the building itself – Booker T. Washington High School – was often referred to as a factory, because that is exactly what it looked like. It was in just such bad shape.

Vaughan: Was it formerly a factory or…

Tucker: No.

Vaughan: Oh, okay.

Tucker: But at one point while I was there, the students organized themselves and marched on the school board and things changed after that and they eventually built a new high school for students at Booker T. Yeah, but I remember that very, very well. A lot of people said, “Oh, you all gonna lose your jobs.” You know, and so forth, but it didn’t happen.

Vaughan: Did… some white schools were segregated, well sort of, with a few African-American students. Did Booker T get white students during the ‘60s while you were there? 

Tucker: No.

Vaughan: No.

Tucker: When I left the schools were beginning to desegregate teacher-wide and I remember Hillary Jones who was the father of Jerrauld Jones who is now circuit court judge. He was on the school board and he came over to Booker T and talked to a number of us and he said, “Cece, How would you feel about going to a white school?” I said, “No. I don’t want to do it.” “Why not?” I said, “Because I know you’re trying to take the best teachers to the white schools, but I feel like as a best teacher I need to be here with these kids.” So I was not--and not only that, but there was also an inference at one time and I don’t know that this is really true that they were also trying to get the lighter skinned blacks to go to those schools, but of course I wouldn’t have qualified there, but that’s what I heard.

Vaughan: Yeah. I wouldn’t be surprised.

Tucker: Shortly thereafter however I did leave when I--and never to return.

Vaughan: So what, what made you leave Booker T then? What year was that?

Tucker: ’67. I was pregnant with our first child. My husband wanted me to quit teaching because he grew up in a house where they had maybe about I think they had thirteen altogether. Of course they were staggered and whatever, but he said there was never a time when they were all together or Mama was there or Daddy, and he wanted some stability so he asked if I would consider just being home and being a mom and housewife and of course I didn’t’ want to do that. But he said, “Well I think we need to talk about this more because I don’t want to start a family until you decide to do that.” So once I decided okay this is the way I have to go, I resigned my job and went home and never came back.

Vaughan: Did you and your family then experience any more segregation issues while you were raising your children? Did you….

Tucker: Oh, all the time.

Vaughan: All the time still.

Tucker: All the time. My children started – all started at Norfolk Academy. I don’t know if I mentioned that to you before.

Vaughan: No. Was that primarily white?

Tucker: Indeed.

Vaughan: I mean yeah, okay.

Tucker: My husband was having lunch at Holiday Inn which was at that time the Golden Triangle I think. He was having lunch there. The headmast- not the headmaster, the director of the lower school of Norfolk Academy was sitting there and my husband being as gregarious as he was started a conversation with this gentleman who was sitting not far from him and in their discussion he encouraged, the director did, my husband to have our first child tested for that school. He said that they didn’t have any blacks to speak of and they needed to get going in that arena. And so my daddy did not want us to do that, but we looked at it this way okay here’s an opportunity that we can do something great for our own kids, but even if we live right here where we’re living and our kids went to the local school, the number of blacks in that class would be just about the way it is at Norfolk Academy. So she passed the test and she entered Norfolk Academy. And of course the other two girls were bright girls too and so once one gets in it kind of pulls the others, but they went through a lot.

Vaughan: Were they the only… I mean did they open the doors sort of so that Norfolk Academy would accept more black students?

Tucker: Well when we got there, I think there might have been two other,s and they were in the upper school. But I remember one day going into the school; I was livid because the kids had just gotten their yearbook and their pictures all you could see were their teeth and their eyes. They were black and they were all upset. They were crying. Apparently some kids had teased them and all of this sort of thing. I went in there [she makes a smacking sound] “How come!” You know.  “What is this all about?” And then they, they had these cute little kids you know posed in various candid shots and you know not one of my children. And I said, “And not one candid shot.” And they said, this lady said to me, “Well Mrs. Tucker if you have…” I think at that time, if you had nine out of 1200 something like that those figures I’m not real sure of. She said “you can easily overlook them.” I said, “No! It’s just the opposite. You can’t overlook them. They’re standing out here.” I said, “You’re trying to make a statement.” You know and so when I got home and sat down there and thought about that nine and three of them are mine. This is awful. So I went back and talked to the headmaster and he told me that I was right, that we needed more black kids in there and that if I found any he would… that I should bring them directly to him and that sort of started the process. Norfolk Academy has a huge number of black kids out there now.  But I will also tell you that even while they were there they underwent a lot of hurt, you know. Here’s a little story. They had something that they called the cotillion. Are you familiar with that?

Vaughan: Mmm-hmm.

Tucker: Well my daughter-…

Vaughan: The Norfolk Yacht Club is that the same cotillion?

Tucker: No.

Vaughan: Okay.

Tucker: This is a learning situation where you’re supposedly learning social etiquette. And so my daughter was the only black girl in her class. And Norfolk Academy, I guess it still is—excuse me I’m not really sure but it was segregated by sex at that time up until I think 7th grade. And so all of these girls got that invitation. I know what happened. Whoever was doing it just went right down and got all of the names, but every day my daughter ran to the mailbox looking for an invitation and it didn’t come. And I don’t know whether somebody said something to whoever, but eventually she got an invitation. So we talked about it, my husband and I. We said this is not going to be good, you know. She should not do this.  And so she told her friends that her parents didn’t want her to do it. And then they called me, “Oh, it will be fine. We’ll make sure she gets to dance,” and all of this. So we went to the cotillion which was held down at… on Atlantic Avenue at that … I can’t think of that hotel name there right now.  And I was so nervous about her being dropped off there and going in there in this big room because I had asked the question, “Are there any black boys?” “No.” They didn’t think so because I’m sure they didn’t --you know, they weren’t all that anxious to have her there. I know I hadn’t been home 15 minutes after dropping her off that the telephone rang, “Come get me.” It was so painful. So they went through a lot of stuff like that, just a lot of stuff. And there’s a woman that I know now whose name I won’t call. She taught my kids, all three of them, and she was so mean to them, you know, saying mean things to them. And they would come home and tell me. Sometimes some of the parents would tell me what their kids told them happened to my kids and I would go charging right over there. And one of my daughters played volleyball there and she told me that she was sitting on the bus one day and she overheard two of the coaches talking. I was standing outside of the bus saying goodbye. They were going on a trip. She said one of the coaches said, “Have you met her?” [Laughter] She said, “Well you be careful because you are going to meet her.” And that’s true. I don’t care what happened. I was right there. I, I--you are not going to hurt my children – the way my parents were. So the Norfolk Academy left a lot of scars for my kids. Only one stayed to the very end.  In the 10th grade somehow that’s a transition time for a lot of the students and they left and went to public schools. They went to Maury and one went to California.  For two of the girls, two of my girls, the only one that stayed through 12 was the volleyball player and I think that that teaches you something. It says that, you know if you get knocked down, get up.

Vaughan: Yeah and probably if she was a good volleyball player, anyway…

Tucker: And she was excellent, excellent.

Vaughan: … people wanted her on the team.

Tucker: That’s right. That’s right. But they were the only two that remained, but that same student that remained helped to start the intercultural program that they still have there at Norfolk Academy right now.  So, ‘cause she--it just made her so angry that they never had anything, any books to read by blacks. They never observed Martin Luther King holiday. What else was it that she was very upset about? But anyway, some teacher down there listened to her and eventually it all came together.

Vaughan: Great. That’s good. One thing I was going to ask is what activities were you involved in while you were raising your children? I guess I should say while you were not at the school? [Laughter]

Tucker: Did you see Line in the Sand? [A play by the Virginia Stage Company about the Norfolk 17]

Vaughan: I did.

Tucker: You did!

Vaughan: Yes I did.

Tucker: Good for you! I think it’s still running and I intend to see it this weekend if I can. But Vivian Carter Mason, the woman who was in the forefront of everything that was going on with the black kids around here, she mentored me and invited me to become a member of the Norfolk Committee for the Improvement of Education.  And every year during Black History Month we would have this special program for black kids, you know, teaching them who they were and who the role models around here are, introducing them to …. And that was what I first got involved with. My kids would walk out of the door. I’d walk out right behind them, and I’d be doing things with her and so forth and so on. And I got involved with the Urban League. I was a charter member of this Urban League affiliate here. They had twice tried to bring that organization into the city or into this metropolitan area. And they were stopped by the establishment, because it was felt that they would be--Urban League was going be another NAACP – always stirring up trouble and so forth. [Laughter] But Vivian Mason was the head of that too and that thing went through and I got involved with that. I served on the board. I helped raise money in the beginning for that and eventually got on the staff of the Urban League starting as a program director and from there the executive director left and I became the acting executive director and then when they hired somebody. I then left shortly thereafter and went to do something else. I became an entrepreneur – had a business in the Waterside.

Vaughan: Oh. Okay I didn’t know that.  

Tucker: Yeah, and so--but anyway those were the major things that I was involved with – the Urban League and the Norfolk Committee for the Improvement of Education. Of course, I was a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority and so I was involved with doing those kinds of community activities as well so as I said as soon as my kids were out of the door I was right out there behind them.

Vaughan: I figured that you were doing that and what about the YMCA? What involvement did you have?

Tucker: Well to be honest with you I was also involved with the YWCA. In that time I started to become active with them. We were separated. We were the Phyllis Wheatley YWCA and then there was the Freemason Street YWCA. That was the white Y. And so I worked with the Phyllis Wheatley Y which was housed in a building right across the street from Norfolk State. And we provided, you know, various cultural activities for black girls and eventually after having my children, leaving the teaching, leaving the Urban League, leaving the entrepreneurial situation at the Waterside I was invited to become a part of the HuntonY which is an independent black Y. Well I need to back up. I wasn’t there yet. I wasn’t there yet. I was involved with the YWCA. The Phyllis Wheatley and the Freemason merged because there was a movement in the country that we should do that.

Vaughan: What year was that?

Tucker: You know I don’t remember.

Vaughan: Okay. In the ‘70s? Or ‘80s?

Tucker: I would think so and to eliminate racism. And so I was on the first board of the unified Y’s, but that was a very important step and so eventually . . . well we met down at the Freemason Y.  This is what happened to all black and white organizations that came together. We took on the face of the white organization. Phyllis Wheatley just kind of went away. But after all of this other activity that I was involved in I was at the William A. Hunton Y.  Now that was an independent YMCA which is not associated with most of the other Y’s around in the community, and in the country for that matter.

Vaughan: But it’s still considered a YMCA?

Tucker: It is a YMCA, but it’s an independent and there are very few of them.  This wasn’t--and Norfolk State grew out of that. I mean that’s where they first started to meet and when they became a university. But the Hunton YMCA was formed when--from the national wherever that was. They sent a man into the South to organize colored Y’s, and the William A. Hunton was named for him, Mr. Hunton. And so that organization still exists as an independent Y. Now several years later when I was involved in that there was an opportunity for it to merge with the so-called white Y’s and the board members voted against it. They felt like we’ve got to have some kind of institution that remains ours and that we can work with our kids the way we need to work with them and so forth and so they’re still there as an independent Y. I’m on that board. But they struggled. They don’t have the resources that the other Y’s have and you know the kids are the losers there. But because of our pride we said “No.” And so there they are, you know, they don’t have a swimming pool and stuff like the other Y’s and so we have to do the best we can. But at any rate I was there for awhile as a fundraiser and there was a history of that Y and one of the directors did not pay the back taxes so the IRS was about to close it down so the blacks in the community got together and said, “Go raise this money.” Well they raised almost all of it and then after that just almost nothing so the board asked me, because I was fundraising at the time in the community . . . There’s a whole thing I’ve left out about fundraising in Norfolk Community Hospital, but they asked if I could come over and finish off the fundraising. At the time I was working for an architectural firm. [Laughter]

Vaughan: What were you doing with them?

Tucker: I was marketing director. I was out there trying to get jobs for them. But at any rate, so they said okay I could do that and so I went over there and got all involved in the programming. And in the meantime the Executive Director got a job someplace else so the board asked me if I would serve as acting, so then I became the acting Director of the Hunton YMCA and I stayed there for a number of years until I got a telephone call from the board chair. He said, “Cece, you’re going get a call from the President of Old Dominion University.” And he said, “He’s a new president in town and he’s looking for somebody to work in the community around the university.” And he said, “The description that he gave sounds just like you and to be honest I had to give him your name, but I don’t want you to take the job.” So I waited around and around and around and I never heard anything and I was reading at the same time that there were budget problems, and so I just decided well they’re not going to do this so I just went on about my business and then one day the telephone rang and it was Jim Koch. And he told me that he had been talking around in the community about this position that he needed and he said that my name had come up from both communities – black and white. By the way, I forgot to tell you that I was involved in a lot of white groups as well. But anyway, anyway, this is what he said. So he said, “I’d really like you to come over and let’s talk.” And so I did. I came over here and we talked. And at the time, I cannot think of the man’s name but he was with the Richmond Times Dispatch, and they were going to bring him here as the commencement speaker. There was protest from faculty and people in the community about his coming here. And that was one of the questions he asked me, “What do you think?” I said, “Well you can bring him because you have the right to do that, but you’ll never live it down if you want to change what’s going on around here.” So they did not bring him and he bec--that man became the first President’s Lecture … Lecturer, you know when they started that series. He, he, he became the first speaker. They got somebody else. No, Jim Koch gave that commencement address. That’s how it happened. But that’s basically how I got to Old Dominion. And of course there were over a hundred and fifty people who had applied for that job. I had no idea until it was all over that all of this had happened. And there were legislators calling him and city council people and all of that. And I didn’t know any of that. I guess I would have decided well forget it I know I’ll never… you know, but it came down to two people – me and a gentleman. He had a lot of college experience but no community experience and I was just the opposite. And so they finally decided on me.

Vaughan: Okay, let me step back again before we get to talking about your position here at ODU. You just mentioned that you hadn’t talked about your fundraising activities for the Norfolk Community Hospital. Could you tell me about that?

Tucker: Oh yeah, yeah. Norfolk Community Hospital was a black hospital in this town. It’s only been in the last I would say seven or eight years that it went away.  And it went away because of a number of things – you had younger doctors who had been trained in white medical schools who were not all that excited about being on the staff of a black hospital that didn’t have equipment and resources and so forth.

Vaughan: Was it located in the Atlantic City area of Norfolk down by where Waterside is now?

Tucker: Oh no, no, no, no, no. That hospital is right next to Norfolk State.

Vaughan: Oh okay. Okay.

Tucker: And that’s where my husband practiced when he first came here.

Vaughan: And it was called the Norfolk Community Hospital.

Tucker: Uh-huh. But at any rate I was a very active member of the auxiliary and we had every year a debutante cotillion. This was a different cotillion, but anyway you know we worked with the young ladies for a whole year teaching them etiquette, helping them with scholarships, just a whole bunch of things, but you’ve got to raise money as a debutante and then you would be crowned the queen.  Well I had three girls, one right behind the other, and all three of them went to become the queen, and for three years in succession that’s all I did and I raised altogether over $60,000. And so because I had done all that and people in the community knew that they just . . . and that was fundraising for the hospital and then of course I continued to work with Norfolk Community because I was a member of the auxiliary, and we had to bring money in to help buy equipment and so forth and so on. So that’s how I got to be involved in fundraising, but I didn’t tell you that I became a member also of the day care and child development center which is now called Programs and Places for Children. But it was a day care center run by white women – I mean you know middle and upper middle class women. I always admired them for the kinds of things that they did you know, but I was invited to come and sit on that board because all their kids were black. All their kids were black in this day care . . .

Vaughan: So it was a private thing? It wasn’t a city run or . . .

Tucker: It was United Way, but I was invited to come and sit on that board and, Karen, just the same as it was when I was with the YWCA. Sitting with those women, they knew everything. I just sat there like a sponge and just soaked it up. I was just so thrilled to be there amongst these learned women who were involved in their husbands’ businesses and so forth and so on. And I learned so much. And once you get on one of those boards you know your name goes out and you get to be on . . . So I served on a thousand boards in this town as a result of just getting started.

Vaughan: Okay. [Laughter] When did you sleep?

Tucker: I didn’t. [Laughter]

Vaughan: Well okay so then other thing is... you served on all of these boards, you were on all these committees. You also received lots and lots of awards and recognition for all this community involvement -- Distinguished Leadership Award from the United Negro College Fund, Hampton Roads Black Achievement Award, the first Legacy Award granted by the Urban League, to name a few. Which would you say, which awards or appointments would you say you would be most proud of?

Tucker: To be honest with you I don’t know how to draw that line. I really don’t, but I don’t know how to decide which is most important.

Vaughan: Okay. That’s fine. Do you want to take a little break and then we can start talking about ODU?

Tucker: Okay.

End of Part 1  -- Part 2