Arleen Lawson oral history
- Zoe Marshall: My name is Zoe Marshall. I'm here with Serena Bear and Arleen Lawson. The
- date is March 18th, 2019, and we're at Ms. Lawson's home in Houston, Texas. Do you mind
- just telling us a little bit about yourself, your name, when you got to UT, what year,
- your major, why you went there, things like that?
- Arleen Lawson: My name is Arleen Lawson, and I got to UT in the fall of 1965. I graduated
- from Yates High School here in Houston, and decided to go to UT because my mother had
- been there for some graduate certification for library science. One of the things she
- did one of the summers she was up there was brought us up for a weekend. I was about 12
- or so, and we got to go around campus and look at the campus. We did some things like
- go bowling and other things. That made me have an interest in applying to the University
- of Texas. That's how I wound up there. Serena Bear: That's great.
- Zoe Marshall: What did you decide to major in, and how did you know you wanted to do
- that, or how did you decide that? Arleen Lawson: I was always interested in
- English, and so I started out majoring in psychology, but like all young people ... Let's
- just ignore that. I'll let it ring for a minute. I decided to try to do a double major in English
- and psychology. It turned out I got the degree in English with a lot of psychology credits,
- but was interested in that. I was also interested in behavioral science, and so kind of got
- interested in both, and so that was the reason I majored in that. I didn't go into anything
- like ... Once I graduated I went into industry, and I worked for the oil and gas industry
- mainly in public affairs and human resources. Arleen Lawson: I retired from Exxon Mobile,
- and I was the executive director or the Exxon Mobile's corporate foundation, which was a
- global foundation with a budget of 200 million. We had a huge foundation, and that's what
- I finally did in terms of career. I kind of went into business, which is interesting,
- but I'm sure anyone, any faculty in the Liberal Arts will tell you if you get a degree in
- Liberal Arts you can do anything. I certain am a living embodiment of that, yes.
- Serena Bear: Awesome. Zoe Marshall: When you got on campus what
- was the dynamic? When you got there was there ever any hostility or discomfort you felt
- as a black student? Arleen Lawson: Probably. Let me just say this,
- yes, there was hostility, but it wasn't as covert as the first students who had to go
- there who were cursed at, who were spit upon. Although, my younger sister got spit upon
- in her dorm, so, yes, this still happened, but as covert as it was there. Some of that
- had gone underground. Now, you have to understand in '65 there were on black faculty at the
- University of Texas, so we were very isolated. There were probably less than 200 black students
- there out of a population of 30 or 40 thousand. You can go back and check the numbers.
- Arleen Lawson: We were very isolated. There weren't many black staff members too, even
- on the grounds and things like that. Most of the menial jobs were done by Hispanics.
- You could go for a week at the University of Texas and walk through the campus and never
- see anybody else black, except when you got back to see your roommate. That was the atmosphere.
- At the university. Now, don't get me wrong. We were trying to change some of that. Housing
- was an issue because, as you can imagine, back then they had just begun to integrate
- the dorms, but you didn't have white roommates. You had to have a black roommate if you were
- in a dorm. I didn't live in a dorm. Arleen Lawson: Interesting enough, I lived
- in a house that was an Episcopal house on campus. Now, this was a church. I don't know,
- I haven't walked down there because I've been back to the campus recently. The church may
- have been torn down for progression. It was a very tiny Episcopal church, and next to
- it was a house. We had about probably 30 or 40 girls. They kind of warranted-off the rooms.
- I had a black roommate, but I also had two white roommates. That was something unusual
- too. People were not unfriendly, but they were not friendly either. That would be the
- way I would describe the campus. Serena Bear: Right, that makes sense. Did
- you encounter problems having the two white roommates with you and your other black roommates?
- Arleen Lawson: No, they were nice girls. They were kind of oddballs themselves, kind of
- nerdy types. One was a chemistry major, and I can't remember what the other was, was kind
- of a hippy type back then, which was the 60s. Serena Bear: Normal.
- Arleen Lawson: In the 60s there were hippy types. [inaudible 00:05:44]. We didn't have
- a problem with them. It was interesting, the cooks who cooked there were black. They were
- just thrilled to see us in that house because they had not seen any black students in that
- house ever before, so they were very thrilled. They used to give us extra dessert and stuff,
- so it wasn't bad living. It was an interesting place to be. Now, the rest of the blacks were
- scattered in different dorms. Some of them lived in Almetris, who I know you know about.
- That house, that was full of- Serena Bear: I actually live in that dorm.
- Zoe Marshall: I live in Duren now. Arleen Lawson: All right. Well, that was when
- it was the house. That's been torn down, but a lot of the blacks lived there. It was an
- interesting experience to be in that campus. The black students all got together. I've
- said this before, it didn't matter what year you were in, what Greek organization you belonged
- to, all the blacks socialized together. If there was a party, every black on campus was
- invited. It was an open invitation because there was so few of us, and we knew we had
- to stick together. The socialization of the black students was very open, and probably
- helped all of us because we were linked together being in this big, white institution. You
- can draw strength from each other when you have that kind of environment.
- Serena Bear: Knowing that there wasn't a whole lot of black people at UT when you were going
- to go, did that hold you back, like [crosstalk 00:07:34]?
- Arleen Lawson: No, it didn't. It wasn't something that concerned me as such. In fact, I don't
- even think at the time, I don't know if I was naive or what, but I didn't even think
- about it. I was just happy to be in the school, be accepted, and be able to attend the school.
- I did not think about the fact. Now, you have to understand something back in the early
- 60s, anywhere any black went to a white institution, we were still very small numbers, I don't
- care where you went. Zoe Marshall: That's true.
- Arleen Lawson: There was no expectation that that would be the exception rather than the
- rule. It was the rule. It wasn't something that you thought too much about because you
- were in this institution, and I knew if I got a degree from the University of Texas
- it would be valuable, et cetera, et cetera. Serena Bear: Right, awesome.
- Zoe Marshall: When you guys were creating these communities, and as linked as you were,
- do you think that when you got involved, well, how did you get involved, then, with activism
- on campus? What were the issues? Arleen Lawson: Well, it was the kind of thing
- where it was like an open invitation for all the black students to get engaged in the demonstrations
- that were going on on campus. Part of that had to do with the fact that we understood
- the civil rights issues, not only at the University of Texas, but what was happening in the rest
- of the United States because you have to remember, this was the height of the Civil Rights Movement.
- Arleen Lawson: That level of awareness, we all carried to the campus. When they talked
- about demonstrating, and wanting black faculty members, wanting other things of the university,
- wanting black athletes on scholarship, because there were no black athletes on scholarship
- at the university. All of those things were the ones that probably motivated all of us.
- Let me just say this, I would say that probably all of the black students showed up at one
- time or another for some demonstrations. Some of them stuck with it, others decided it wasn't
- their thing, that kind of thing. Nobody condemned them. Not everybody wants to get involved
- and march and that kind of thing. Arleen Lawson: It got to a point where it
- became so normal that when you woke up you said, "What demonstration is happening today,
- and where is it? And, I've got class today." If you were in Liberal Arts we had a lot of
- professors who were leaning toward those demonstrations. You could go to class, and the professor would
- walk in and say, "Look, there's a demonstration on the mall, let's go," and we would all go.
- Zoe Marshall: Nice. That's great. Arleen Lawson: There were professors that
- were supportive of students, particularly in the Liberal Arts. The dean of Liberal Arts,
- Dean Silver, who, at the time, was very liberal-oriented supported the students who were demonstrating
- in that. It really was quite normal to do both, so there duality there. You might have
- been an activist and demonstrating, but you're also in class and doing other things.
- Arleen Lawson: I think part of that, particularly the academic part, had to do with the fact
- that we were the great-grandchildren of slaves, for the most part, and education was something
- that was very cherished and dear. This was implanted in us from very small children that
- to get an education gets you ahead in the world, particularly since our descents were
- denied education. Arleen Lawson: I don't think any of us turned
- our back on the academic part because we understood that that was something that was important,
- not only to our parents, to our grandparents, but that didn't mean we couldn't demonstrate
- and talk about and act upon the need for civil rights activity or demonstrations during that
- period. Zoe Marshall: That's great. At these protests,
- what would you say they looked like? What were the dynamics? Was it mostly black students,
- was it mixed? Arleen Lawson: No, it could depend. The university
- had, we called it The Movement, that's what we called it. I tell anyone, The Movement
- was mosaic. You had black students who were interested in the civil rights and their issues
- related to the university and the world. You had white female students who were interested
- in feminism and what that meant to the world, and you're probably going to interview some
- of those students, I assume, for this, that were interested in that and burning the bra.
- All of that was on campus at the same time. You had others who were interested in revolutionary
- activity related to socialism, communism and things like that. Then you had other kinds
- of groups. Arleen Lawson: It got so refined that you
- even had Trotskyites, you had Leninists, you had Stalinists. We were all together in The
- Movement. We may have different goals, but we would come together to demonstrate and
- talk about those issues. They supported us, we supported them. It was an interesting time
- to be on campus. Now, I don't know in today's world if you could get away with that, but
- then it was a matter of being committed to making the world better. All of these things
- needed to be achieved in order to make the world better.
- Arleen Lawson: There were no hard lines drawn in the sand about what you could or could
- not support. In fact, we didn't think about it too much. You just went out and you demonstrated.
- Sometimes it was just the black students marching, and then maybe whites who were marching with
- us. Other times it may be the women who were marching, and they were marching about something
- else too, and we supported them. It was an interesting time to be on campus and to see
- all of that, I guess, social unrest happen on the campus during that period.
- Serena Bear: Would you say that you guys had a lot of white involvement in your demonstrations,
- specifically your organizations? Arleen Lawson: There were some who were interested
- in that. We had some students who were interested in our goals and were committed to our goals.
- The big heroes of the day like Che Guevara and people like that were all big on campus,
- and they were all our heroes and that kind of thing. In fact, I recently went to Cuba
- and went to Santa Clara where he is enshrined. They have a big memorial, so that was a big
- thrill for me to be there to see that. Arleen Lawson: I think that we all understood
- that this was a global movement. This wasn't about what was happening on the University
- of Texas campus. It was about something beyond. It was larger than that, and one of the things
- The Movement taught you was that we may have different ideas, but The Movement itself was
- global. We were all trying to achieve something better for, not only the University of Texas,
- but also for people around the world. You had a lot of that global thinking in what
- we were doing, in addition to having the civil rights and all of the other things involved
- too. Serena Bear: That's awesome.
- Zoe Marshall: Then, do you remember any of the groups then that were like the Students
- for a Democratic Society, any of the African-American groups?
- Arleen Lawson: Oh, SDS? Oh, yeah, I remember those groups. I can't of anybody's name. My
- sister is probably better at remembering names than I am. She came up two years in '67. I
- think that SDS was on campus, all of those. You knew all those people, everybody knew
- each other. You would see each other on campus. Like I said, you wake up in the morning and
- figure out where the demonstration was, and you participate in that, and then you go to
- class when it suited you. Arleen Lawson: Everyone was focused on trying
- to achieve better goals for society. In fact, we were young people, so, of course, you're
- talking about we were 18, 19, 20 year olds, so we thought we were going to change the
- world. Let me just say this, and I say this to everybody who is young, there is nothing
- like waking up in the morning thinking you might do something that might change the world.
- That's very powerful. Not everybody has that privilege. Now, when I look back on it, you
- can chuckle a little bit, but it was something profound to wake up-
- Serena Bear: Absolutely. Arleen Lawson: ... and have that kind of feeling
- of power as you move forward. It changes you as a person, and I'm sure in some ways we
- did change the campus. For instance, the apartments outside of the campus would not rent to blacks,
- and they were very comfortable telling you that.
- Arleen Lawson: When we were sophomores we decided, my roommate and another young lady,
- decided we wanted to live off-camp. We thought it would be very simple, but, no, there was
- discrimination in housing outside of the university. Some of my classmates had to sue the City
- of Austin to change that so they would rent to blacks. They were very comfortable. We
- probably drove all over the city looking for an apartment and told, "No, we don't rent
- to blacks." Serena Bear: Every single one y'all went to?
- Arleen Lawson: We finally found this little old grandmotherly lady who was probably off-campus.
- I can't remember, I think it was on 23rd Street. She had these, probably, eight apartments,
- and she rented to us. She was the only one, but we had to sue.
- Serena Bear: Did that work? Arleen Lawson: Yeah. It worked.
- Serena Bear: Nice. Arleen Lawson: That's some of the things we
- did so that people like you could go get an apartment off-campus. We did make a difference
- on campus in those kinds of ways. I think a lot of the protests that we did, we even
- met with Darrell Royal to talk about football. Yes, we went to Darrell Royal's office, and
- he met with us, but he said he couldn't do anything.
- Zoe Marshall: About desegregating the teams? Because at this time period they didn't recruit
- black students, or they didn't give them scholarships? Arleen Lawson: Well, they didn't recruit them,
- so there were not scholarships because you recruit, you get a scholarship. Now, they
- did allow walk-ons because I had a younger classmate who did walk on. Now, he didn't
- make the team. In track, again, in track they allowed walk-ons. It wasn't until later on
- after that, after probably years of us protesting, that they finally got their first recruit
- scholarship. I don't know when it was. It had to be in maybe '70. I don't know. You
- can probably look it up, but we met with him, and he told us, no, he couldn't do it.
- Zoe Marshall: Wow. When you guys are doing all of this, what would you describe was the
- leadership structure, the gender dynamics? Did it ever feel like the leadership, whether
- it was like solid leadership or kind of de facto leadership, was it male, was it female,
- was it mixed? Arleen Lawson: Most of the leadership was
- male. The gender dynamics were fairly traditional. However, I would tell you that most of the
- women who were demonstrating were not led by those men. They wanted to do their thing,
- we would do other things. I would say that the official face of SDS was a male and that
- kind of thing. There were males that were very much involved in that kind of thing,
- but that didn't preclude women from doing other things. I don't think they looked on
- us as less-than in that sense. I think we were all equal in this in terms of the struggle.
- Zoe Marshall: That's good to hear. We talked a lot about The Rag and newspapers like that,
- so what, really, was the role or you guys' relationship to The Rag or The Daily Texan
- and local newspapers? Arleen Lawson: I will say this, The Daily
- Texan didn't do much for us when we were there. Now, I can't tell you why, if that was because
- of the leadership of The Daily Texan, and by that on leadership I'm talking about faculty.
- I don't know, but they very seldom did very much for us at all.
- Serena Bear: Regarding like reporting your demonstrations and things like that?
- Arleen Lawson: Reporting our demonstrations, supporting us, interviewing us, trying to
- get a feel for it. Real journalism, there was none. Part of that probably had to do
- with whoever was in charge because the faculty controlled what was happening. Well, not so
- much the faculty, but the administration, let me put it that, and the regents. The regents
- were very involved, and I can't think of his name because he just passed away, but he was
- a notorious regent who hated the black students. I can't think of his name. They were very
- much against what we were doing because they wanted to keep the status quo. They were willing
- to let in a few, but they didn't want you to do anything.
- Zoe Marshall: So, there were a few black students working for The Daily Texan, or was it mostly
- white? Arleen Lawson: I'm not aware of any black
- students working for The Daily Texan then, none, and I think I would remember that if
- that were happening. Zoe Marshall: Then, what about The Rag, the
- underground paper, was it- Arleen Lawson: The underground paper was very
- supportive, and they were doing things and writing stories and things like that so, yeah,
- The Rag was really something that reported on activities and that kind of thing. We did
- have some support there. Arleen Lawson: Like I said, a lot of our communication
- was underground anyway because there were no cellphones, no internet. I struggle today
- to even figure out how we got word about everything, but for some reason you could get word on
- everything, even though we didn't have the mechanism we have today where there's instantaneous
- communication and that kind of thing. You knew to gather at certain times and that kind
- of thing, or if you were going to march, you knew how to march and what to do with that
- time. Zoe Marshall: In the topic of like the regents,
- did you come into contact with any surveillance? I know we talked about Burt Gerding at the
- time was big in surveilling the student groups active on campus [crosstalk 00:23:37].
- Arleen Lawson: Oh, sure, we were under surveillance all the time. The other thing you have to
- remember is that this was a time when Vietnam veterans were coming back from the war, and
- they were being put on campus to surveil the students. This wasn't happening not only at
- the University of Texas, it was happening all over the country. We knew who they were.
- Serena Bear: That's great. Arleen Lawson: They knew we knew who they
- were. They could be black students, they could be white students, but, yes, those people
- were put there to surveil and figure out what they were doing. Now, let me just say that
- the University of Texas, you didn't have the kind of radicalism where people were trying
- to blow up anything or that kind of thing. That was not happening at the University of
- Texas. Serena Bear: Was it happening elsewhere?
- Arleen Lawson: Oh, yes. There were raids and guns, Patty Hearst, all of that was happening
- out in the world during that time period. People died. People were robbing banks, killing
- people, and went underground for years. In the last 20 years a lot of those people have
- resurfaced. Some have been jailed because they committed crimes. That was not happening
- at the University of Texas. On the East Coast there was a lot of that happening.
- Arleen Lawson: The Black Panther movement was big. Let me just say, there was FBI spies
- and that kind of thing all over the campus. We were all aware of that. None of us were
- naïve enough to think that this guy who comes on campus, and he's a veteran, and he wants
- to know what you all are doing, we understood what that was about, yeah.
- Zoe Marshall: Was there any specific times where somebody would try to infiltrate, like
- COINTELPRO, where somebody would become a part of the group and try to push you guys
- to be more extreme or something like that? Arleen Lawson: Yeah, you would have that kind
- of thing, and then you would have to say, "Well, what's going on? Why are they trying
- to push this?" You would understand, like I said, we knew who they were and what they
- were trying to do. We were not naïve enough to think that those kinds of things were not
- happening because they were. Arleen Lawson: Like I said, it was an interesting
- thing because they were on the campus, and they were there to report back. Now, there
- wasn't much to report back because, like I said, we weren't planning anything big deal.
- We weren't planning anything like robbing or bombing the or that kind of violent demonstrations,
- but we were radical enough where they felt the need to have that.
- Zoe Marshall: Were there any unfair arrests of students or individuals?
- Arleen Lawson: Oh, yes, there were arrests. In fact, one of my biggest thrills of The
- Movement was when William Kuntzler, who was a famous civil rights lawyer based on the
- East Coast, and he flew in to get my friends out of jail, and came over to our apartment.
- We played cards together. That was a big thrill because you'd have to look up William Kuntzler,
- but he was a famous civil rights lawyer. He had worked with Martin Luther King and that
- kind of thing. We had those kind of connections, and he flew in and helped get some friends
- of mine out of jail who had been arrested. Zoe Marshall: How do you spell his last name?
- Arleen Lawson: K-U-N-T-Z-L-E-R, I think that's it, Kuntzler.
- Serena Bear: Were the police often interacting with you guys? Were they involved a lot? Was
- it every demonstration? Arleen Lawson: No, not every demonstration.
- Serena Bear: When y'all were [crosstalk 00:27:22]. Arleen Lawson: Not every demonstration. Probably,
- I would that one or two things that we were going off-campus to demonstrate or demonstrating
- in front of a place they didn't want us to march in front of. If it was on-campus it
- was fairly contained. I'm sure the campus police were there, but, no, the regular police
- were not there on campus during much activity. It was if we were marching off-campus or doing
- something else, you know? Serena Bear: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
- Zoe Marshall: You talked about the interactions earlier that you had with some of the administration.
- You talked to Darrell Royal. How would you characterize your interactions with other
- members of the faculty, besides the College of Liberal Arts, the administration, the regents?
- Arleen Lawson: Most of them were not interested in what the black students had to say. They
- were not supportive of what we were interested in, nor did they have any desire to support
- the black students. They were tolerated. In some classes they discriminated against the
- black students. In some classes some of them were frightened. I took a course from a professor,
- and every time I would go talk to him he would be trembling, shaking.
- Zoe Marshall: Oh, my goodness. Arleen Lawson: He was frightened. Of course,
- I assumed that he had had some experience and had done something to someone black, and,
- therefore, he was fearful that I was there to retaliate or something. They were not supportive,
- nor were they interested in the black students. We were tolerated, let's say. In some cases,
- the black students were told that, "You're not going to get any more than a C in this
- class, no matter what you do." Zoe Marshall: Were there ever times, then,
- when you wanted to talk to the administration, or you had a particular frustration or aim,
- and you needed to have a white student representative or work with any other group? Were there any
- groups or people on campus that could be like an intermediary between?
- Arleen Lawson: No, you didn't have that kind of thing. That didn't develop until much later.
- Like I said, we were fairly isolated, so there wasn't that kind of thing. Now, I will just
- say this, like I said, the School of Liberal Arts dean, when the Dean Silver was there
- he was willing to entertain. He would talk to the students, and he was very supportive.
- He was from the East Coast. Arleen Lawson: Beyond him, most of the students
- were on their own in terms of getting support from faculty and that kind of thing. There
- just wasn't that support there. Now, most of us got degrees, but it wasn't because there
- was support. Most of us got degrees in spite of, it would be the way I would tell you that
- most of us were able to graduate and do things. Zoe Marshall: Then, about academics and more
- like social problems, any problem that college students would have, who, then, would black
- students turn to? What were the resources on campus?
- Arleen Lawson: We turned to each other. There wasn't a [inaudible 00:30:46]. Or, Ms. Durham
- was there for those who lived in the dorm. I was not close to her, but she was certainly
- there to support the black students. For the most part, you turned to each other. You relied
- on each other because there wasn't any other infrastructure there in which to draw upon.
- Like I said, there were no black faculty members there at the time.
- Serena Bear: Was your family familiar with what you guys were doing on campus, and were
- they approving of it? Were they like, "This is dangerous. Y'all shouldn't"?
- Arleen Lawson: I was fortunate that my mother never said that to me. Now, I had other friends
- whose parents told them, "No, you shouldn't be doing that." I have other friends whose
- parents pulled them out of the school when they found out they were engaged in this kind
- of activity, and sent them to another school. There was all kinds of extremes going on in
- that respect. Arleen Lawson: As long as I was getting the
- grades and moving forward, my mother never asked me what I was doing in that sense on
- campus and that kind of thing. There were students whose parents were outraged that
- they were getting engaged in this on campus, and wanted them to either stick to their academics.
- Like I say, others who decided that the student was getting too radical and pulled them out
- of the university. Serena Bear: Were they worried about their
- safety, or was it more they wanted you to focus on academics?
- Arleen Lawson: I think it was more wanting to focus on academics because education was
- the primary reason they were there, so they wanted to make sure that the students were
- focusing on academics. I think, for the most part, as long as we were getting our grades
- and were able to continue on campus, there wasn't a lot of pressure for us.
- Arleen Lawson: The other thing I would tell you is that a lot of what was going on campus
- was not reported outside, even the Austin American Statesman. There wasn't much. There
- was very little information outside of what was going on on campus with The Rag or something
- like that that you found out what was going on in terms of demonstration and that kind
- of thing. It didn't make national news. Part of that was the nature of the beast of no
- internet, no cells, that kind of thing. You could contain in terms of information things
- that related to campus within the campus. I'm sure the regents liked that too that it
- wasn't. Zoe Marshall: That was, then, just the product
- of the lack of internet and things, and not more so an active effort on the part of the
- administration. Arleen Lawson: I couldn't answer that in terms
- of whether the Austin American Statesman or some of those things. I know that we did get
- a little news coverage when we filed that lawsuit, but other than that I was never interviewed
- by anybody in the Austin area. I can't of anybody I know who was ever interviewed that
- way. It was like say, it was very contained. Zoe Marshall: You said most students parents
- didn't discourage them because of fear that they would be hurt, but did you guys ever
- fear that you might have conflicts with other students on campus or outside agitators?
- Arleen Lawson: No. I don't know if we were naïve, but we never thought about it. I don't
- think you go into those situations thinking those kinds of things, that something bad
- is going to happen. Part of that is being young. Nothing bad ever happens to young people,
- we know that. Zoe Marshall: Of course.
- Arleen Lawson: I think that's part of it. You arrive on campus, and you never think
- about that. That's not to say that all the students, and I don't want to paint a picture
- that every single white student on campus did not like blacks because that was not the
- case. I would tell you that, because of what had been done in the late 50s and early 60s,
- a lot of that really dangerous behavior, the white students upon the black students, a
- lot of that had disappeared by the time we showed up in 1965. If you want to talk to
- some people who really had it, who were spit upon, who were cursed daily, who were threatened,
- those are some of the first black students at the University of Texas.
- Zoe Marshall: So, then, you don't remember any incidents where students may have been
- attacked, maybe not UT students, but other white residents in Austin or even the police?
- Arleen Lawson: I don't remember anything like that. No, I can't recall anything. I think
- I'd remember something like that if that had happened. No, there wasn't that kind of overt
- hostility where people were physically threatened by whites. Now, that doesn't say that if you
- went to certain areas of Austin you might encounter hostility. You have to understand,
- the graduates in 1965 came from segregated high schools.
- Arleen Lawson: See, there was no integration in public schools in Texas. We understood
- what white hostility was before we got there. Because I grew up in Houston, and there were
- parts of Houston we could not go in because we were black. There parks we could not go
- to because we were black, there were stores, the rodeo just completed. The rodeo would
- not allow black people to go to the rodeo except for one day. You have to understand
- what was happening in the United States, and why there was a Civil Rights movement in the
- first place. Arleen Lawson: When you talk about hostility
- and all those things, we understood what that was before we showed up there because we grew
- up in an environment where those kind of things were demonstrated on a daily basis. Emmett
- Till, I was probably seven or eight when Emmett Till was killed. I can remember my parents
- and grandparents and uncles and aunts talking about that. We understood those kinds of things
- in terms of white hostility. That was not something that stopped us from doing what
- we felt we needed to do in terms of becoming students at the University of Texas, but it
- is something that that knowledge, we carried there to the campus in terms of what the potential
- might be. Arleen Lawson: A lot of that hostility had
- gone underground. Basically, by the time we got there we were not as integrated into the
- campus life as we could have been. It was not something where they were hostile on a
- daily basis to us. In other words, I could walk through campus, I wouldn't be bothered,
- but I wouldn't see anybody black. That was not something that happened at the time.
- Serena Bear: Was it almost a relief coming to college after being segregated in high
- school, or it didn't feel very different? Arleen Lawson: No. Let me just say this, there
- was not a relief. You have to understand that that segregated community took care of their
- young people. We probably had the best teachers, the best campus life in those schools. There
- wasn't anything to be relieved of, it's important to understand that. Most of us were sons and
- daughters of teachers, doctors, professionals. Now, we were professionals in our own communities,
- and at that time, like I said, the segregation still enclosed us, but it was not something
- where we were relieved to be on that campus in that sense. It was just a fact of life.
- Arleen Lawson: By the time I was a teenager, there was no more colored fountain and white
- fountains. That had gone away, but there still was segregation in terms of high school, classes,
- I mean, elementary school too. It wasn't until much later, not that much later, but I think
- in the early 70s Texas integrated high schools then.
- Zoe Marshall: You mentioned that you guys were isolated from campus life, so then what
- were some of the more social things like clubs and programs and events that black students...?
- Arleen Lawson: There was Greek life on campus, and we had Greek fraternities and sororities,
- black fraternities and sororities. That's something that a lot of us participated in.
- There were one or two of us who did get into the Orange Jackets. Nobody got in the Cowboys,
- but they did get in the Orange Jackets. I'm trying to remember some of the other. What
- are some of the other organizations like that? Serena Bear: I'm trying to think if they're
- there. I know Cowboys and Orange Jackets are still here. Maybe like Wranglers?
- Arleen Lawson: Yeah, some of those. Every once in a while there were-
- Serena Bear: One or two. Arleen Lawson: ... those kinds of things happening
- on the campus. In terms of being fully-integrated, like for instance, there were no black band
- members on campus. Zoe Marshall: When you were there the union
- was desegregated wasn't it? Arleen Lawson: Yeah, you could go in the union
- if you wanted to. It was there. We didn't use the union much, but you could go in there.
- I think the gathering place was usually the co-op, Mama Duren's place, and people would
- go there. Like I said, Greek life did occur because most of us, a lot of us were legacies
- from Greek life because my mother was an AKA, so I became an AKA. The campus started in,
- I think it was '59. '59 was when- Zoe Marshall: The AKA?
- Arleen Lawson: AKA, Delta Xi, yeah. I pledged because my mother was a part of that sorority.
- Serena Bear: Was this a co-ed? Oh, it was a sorority.
- Arleen Lawson: Yeah, sorority, sororities and Greeks. Like I said, fraternities would
- throw parties, but everybody was invited. There wasn't a smaller circle of people who
- went just because you were Greek you went there. Because there was so few of us, it
- was always an open invitation to everything. Zoe Marshall: The fraternities would throw
- parties, but in regards to other things like concerts, the school. We had read about a
- phenomenon that had happened with an opera on campus, so were there any black students
- that then starred in plays? Arleen Lawson: No. If there were we would
- have shown up and done some of that, but no. There was none of that. The opera singer you're
- talking about happened before we got to campus. No, unfortunately, we didn't have anybody
- that talented who went through music in that regard, so, no, there weren't black performances
- and things like that. Arleen Lawson: In fact, a lot of us would
- go over to Huston-Tillotson, which was the black college. That was part of our social
- life too because we weren't doing anything socially there, we would go over to Huston-Tillotson.
- Over there I had friends I had gone to high school with who were going there for school,
- so I would go over there. That was part of the social fabric, was to have some interaction
- with Huston-Tillotson. Zoe Marshall: Then, were there any other spots
- in Austin, broadly, that were parts for the black community in Austin?
- Arleen Lawson: The churches were. A lot of us went to church. A few of us went to church
- on campus, but a lot of us went to church over on the east side of town, so churches
- were a part of that. You began to see part of the black community and that kind of thing.
- Zoe Marshall: In regards to outside groups, on campus did you guys get support or experience
- interactions with things like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Black
- Panthers, national organizations? Arleen Lawson: Oh, sure, we knew who they
- were. We interacted with a number of those organizations, yeah. Stokely Carmichael came
- to campus and spoke. We got a chance to see him and talk to him. Like I said, The Movement
- was big, so when anybody came through Austin who was significant in The Movement they would
- stop and interact with us. Yeah, we got to see a lot of those kinds of people who would
- come to campus and that kind of thing. Zoe Marshall: You talked a little bit about
- dynamics between white and black students, but while you were there were there other
- students, like Mexican-American students, maybe Asian-American students that you guys
- interacted with? Was there any sort of like solidarity or communication between groups?
- Arleen Lawson: No, there wasn't anything like that. It was interesting that you asked that
- question. Now, I had friends who were Asian and Mexican-American, but, no, there was no
- student organization, none that I can think of. In fact, probably, if we were more in
- line it would be with the white student organizations than we were than anything else because, in
- fact, I don't think they had a Mexican-American. I know they did not have anything like a Mexican-American
- organization on the campus then, not at all. Zoe Marshall: Did they not have a very notable
- presence on campus? Arleen Lawson: Didn't have a very notable
- presence at all. When I say that, I don't know about the numbers, I couldn't tell you,
- but there were not notable presence. The other thing you have to understand ... I don't know,
- are you also from Texas? Zoe Marshall: From Houston.
- Arleen Lawson: Okay, let me explain something to you. In 1965 on the census and on driver's
- license Mexican-American were considered white, so they were not designated as a separate
- race, and they didn't have a cultural identity for a long time. I will tell you this because
- I know a lot of Mexican-American activists. You have to understand that. Don't get me
- wrong, there were Mexican-Americans who were active in The Movement, but there was not
- a large cultural identity for a long time. Arleen Lawson: I will tell you, after I graduated
- and went into the workforce, one of the things I learned was at that time there was almost
- a whole generation of Mexican-American parents who didn't want their kids speaking Spanish
- because they were trying to assimilate into the community. Those are whole issues, and
- I'm not here to speak to that whole issue because that's something you might want to
- talk to a Mexican-American about. Arleen Lawson: I was shocked when I went into
- the workplace and I would meet, and they didn't even speak Spanish, and they were Mexican-American.
- I said, "What?" They said, "No, our parents didn't want us to," because they were trying
- to assimilate. Part of that helped with the fact that they were considered white on their
- driver's license, so there was no designation for that. Cultural identity for Mexican-Americans
- did not come until much, much, much later in terms of civil rights awareness. Don't
- get me wrong, in the 70s I worked in the community with some Mexican-American activists, but
- they were the exception rather than rule because there were people coming in, immigrants coming
- in who needed that activism. Zoe Marshall: Then, on campus academically,
- what was the cultural studies like? Did you feel that the curriculum was-
- Arleen Lawson: There was no cultural studies, dear.
- Zoe Marshall: There was nothing? Arleen Lawson: They didn't have anything like
- that. Zoe Marshall: There was no African-American
- studies [crosstalk 00:47:56]. Arleen Lawson: No African-American studies,
- period, no Mexican-American studies, nothing like that. In fact, they had a faculty member
- who was a tenured professor who believed that blacks were inferior, and wrote books on that.
- There was nothing like cultural studies at all, and it was some years later that they
- began to have cultural studies, but there was none at the time I was at the University
- of Texas through 1969, none. Zoe Marshall: Was that an aim of some of the
- activism on campus to get those kinds of programs? Arleen Lawson: No, we weren't even focused
- on that. Let me just tell you, we were trying to get things integrated. We were trying to
- get civil rights activity and goals met. We were not interested in cultural studies. You
- have to understand, you have to achieve the basic first before you can begin to talk about
- things like cultural studies. We were trying to get the first black faculty member. If
- we could get that, then we might be able to get cultural studies, but, no, there was not
- any focus on that at all. Now, you talk to some kids in the 70s, and they will talk about
- that, but this was not happening when I was there on campus, not at all.
- Zoe Marshall: Then, I guess, outside of UT, larger in the city what was the... I tried
- to ask you about this a little bit earlier, but the cultural dynamics in the city? Like
- how in Houston there's an African-American cultural museum now, and there's buildings
- reserved for that, so what was that like? Arleen Lawson: There wasn't much in Austin
- in that area at all. You have to understand that Austin had not integrated their schools
- either. Don't get me wrong, there was a very rich African-American community, but that
- richness was self-contained. It was not something where there were museums and things like that.
- None of that had been done. My sister and some friends started the first breakfast for
- schools, that was on the Austin east side. It was a free breakfast problem modeled after
- the Black Panther model providing free breakfast for young black kids. We did that in East
- Austin. Zoe Marshall: Then there were no theaters,
- no museums, none of that. Arleen Lawson: None of that. None of that
- occurred in Austin at the time. Zoe Marshall: Do you have any questions?
- Serena Bear: I guess I would like to know more specifically about the organizations
- you were in. I know on the phone you said you didn't remember the names or anything.
- Arleen Lawson: Well, when you said the student, yeah, we were on-
- Serena Bear: Well, and I had read that this one org, the name changed two or three times?
- Arleen Lawson: Yes. It changed two or three times, but, yeah, I was involved with that
- organization. I probably consider myself a part of SNCC.
- Serena Bear: What is SNCC? Arleen Lawson: Students for Nonviolent [crosstalk
- 00:51:12]. Serena Bear: For nonviolent.
- Arleen Lawson: Yeah. That was probably it. It was a very fluid situation, and people
- were not too preoccupied with what you belonged to as much as what you stood for, was much
- more important than what you belonged to. There wasn't that sort of thing. It was fluid
- enough where we didn't have a lot of formal meetings, except to talk about the demonstration
- or what we were going to do as it relates to that. People would sit around and talk
- philosophy and what was going on. We did a lot of that in The Movement too. You began
- to hear about Che Guevara and what was happening in the rest of the world and that kind of
- thing. Arleen Lawson: In fact, I used to laugh, and
- when I became a manager in corporate America and they started talking about globalism,
- and I used to smile because The Movement was nothing but a global phenomenon. Globalism
- was a term that I was already familiar with, so when the corporation started embracing
- it ... Now it's a bad word, but there was a time when globalism was very much part of
- what corporations were involved in. Arleen Lawson: It's the kind of thing where
- there weren't like a meeting every month at 2:00 on Friday. It wasn't that kind of thing.
- It was more informal gatherings and more of a fluid situation. The thing that I would
- tell you, as I said, is that there were so many competing entrants, but those competing
- entrants, for some reason, didn't chafe against each other, at least I didn't think they chafed
- against each other when I was there. There might be somebody who was involved and wanted
- to bring more socialistic activity in the United States, and then there might be a woman
- who was involved in saying she wanted equality for women, and then we were interested in
- civil rights. Like I said, the groups would come together and talk and socialize and that
- kind of thing and demonstrate. Arleen Lawson: There wasn't much formality
- that you might expect there would be, but there wasn't. When you think about organizations
- and structure today, throw that out of the window because it wasn't that kind of a situation.
- It was the kind of thing where there was a fluidity of what happened on campus and when
- you did it and why you did it, and where there may be multi purposes because your friends
- would support you, you would support your friends.
- Arleen Lawson: Those demonstrations were significant because everybody would show up to hear and
- listen to speakers talk about there's a need for equality for women, or somebody to talk
- about why civil rights was important, not only on the University of Texas campus, but
- the rest of the United States and the world, so those kinds of things. This was pre-Apartheid.
- Now, you got to remember that that started in the 70s, but when we were there that was
- not on the radar screen at the time. Serena Bear: It's interesting just because
- most organizations on campus now have like weekly meetings, and they have all these things,
- so it's interesting that you guys still did the job while just throwing together meetings.
- Was there a lot of planning that went into your demonstrations, or was it kind of the
- same thing happening at every demonstration? Arleen Lawson: There wasn't much planning,
- other than to say, "Show up, and be ready." Serena Bear: Nice.
- Arleen Lawson: That's what you do. If you are committed you show up, and you're ready
- for whatever has to happen. No, there wasn't the structural planning. Sometimes I think
- you over-plan, and over-planning can lead to paralysis, as I'm sure you all know.
- Arleen Lawson: What we found that was successful was just to have a fluid group, and say, "Hey,
- everybody show up here, and we're going to demonstrate about this, or we're going to
- talk to so and so about this. Be there at so and so. We'll see you." That's the way
- it was, and it worked. Now, I don't want to in anyway say that what's happening now, whatever
- is going on, is the wrong way to do it, but then it worked then. There were circumstances
- that made it work then that probably you could not do today.
- Zoe Marshall: Do you remember any disagreements about methods or aims that came up in any
- of those philosophical discussions? Arleen Lawson: There were always philosophical
- discussions and arguments. We were young people, you could spend three hours arguing about
- something, and then everybody would go home. It wasn't where people were fighting about
- strategy or anything like that, no. We didn't have those kinds of arguments about strategy,
- I would just tell you that. That probably had to do because everything was so fluid.
- It helped too in a lot of ways because there wasn't anyone that had... You know, if you
- had a leader, "real" leader, then that person would have to carry the brunt of the activity
- and the hostility and also of that. You didn't have that.
- Arleen Lawson: We had leaders, but it wasn't the kind of thing where everybody showed up
- and waited till that person told us what do. You did what you knew you were going to do,
- and you had to do it. You had to march, you carried signs. Somebody might have come up
- with some signs and done something else, "Are we were going to show up here? How do we get
- there?" That kind of thing. Serena Bear: You wouldn't necessarily say
- there was an assignment of roles. Did you have a president or anything like that, like
- leaders, kind of, or was everyone just kind of a member?
- Arleen Lawson: No, I don't remember a president or officers that you had to vote.
- Serena Bear: Right, none of that. Arleen Lawson: No, none of that.
- Serena Bear: Interesting. Arleen Lawson: I'm not sure that that would
- have been- Serena Bear: Any better?
- Arleen Lawson: ... any better to have a president because one thing about organizing like that
- is that takes time. When you're trying to do a demonstration at 2:00 that day, and you
- want to get as many people there as possible, you've got to get the word out. We didn't
- have, like I said, internet or anything like that. People would spend time walking around
- campus and, "Hey, you coming to the demonstration? It's going to be here at so and so." If you
- had time, and then you have to say, "Well, who is the communications officer? And that
- person has to go out." That would not have worked. The circumstances for what we were
- doing did not lend itself to that kind of structure, which would have been too rigid
- for what we were doing. Serena Bear: Interesting.
- Zoe Marshall: You mentioned you guys did your demonstrations and that you sued. Were there
- any other methods that you used, and what was it like participating?
- Arleen Lawson: Probably the legal avenues, demonstrations, those kinds of things, and
- just meeting with people and talking with them. Now, like I said, we didn't get very
- far, but we did meet with people and talk with them about what we wanted in terms of
- having some representatives meet with the university president and talk about the need
- for black faculty. Those kinds of things were happening on campus.
- Arleen Lawson: I guess those were probably the primary things that we were focused on,
- is those kinds of things because we were trying to change the University of Texas and make
- it more hospitable to black students. Our focus was on that. Like I said, the meeting
- with Darrell Royal, now, he didn't have to meet with us, he did. He was comfortable telling
- us no, he wasn't going to get any black athletes on campus.
- Zoe Marshall: Was student government something you guys paid any attention to?
- Arleen Lawson: No, we didn't pay any attention to student government at all. They weren't
- interested in us. They weren't doing anything for us. Why would we pay attention to something
- that's not interested? Don't get me wrong, I'm sure they had a very thriving student
- government, but they didn't represent us, and they weren't interested in representing
- us. Zoe Marshall: No black students ever tried
- to run or garner support? Arleen Lawson: No, we were less than 200 black
- students out of 30 thousand. What would that look like? What's the math on that? You have
- to understand something about it, even with students, there were no black athletes. Now,
- I would tell you, if we had a black football star we would have a chance of some kind of
- government, but that wasn't there. Those kinds of things that make student campus life so
- much more acceptable for black students was not in place.
- Arleen Lawson: We all know people love people who win on athletics, and that winning on
- the athletic field transfers over in a small way to how people feel about the other black
- students on campus. We all know that is a real phenomenon, but none of that was there.
- You didn't have that, so nobody tried to even deal with that. What would be the point?
- Zoe Marshall: Then what about electoral politics off of campus? Were there voter registration
- drives? Were you interested in [crosstalk 01:01:06]?
- Arleen Lawson: We did all of that. You have to understand, the voter registration was
- one of the big civil rights, it still is today, but let me tell you, we pushed hard then because
- poll tax, some of that was still in place. Voter registration was a big deal, so we did
- a lot of that activity too. There were people in the community, in the Austin community,
- who were interested in that. We did work with them on things like that, yeah, voter registration
- and that kind of thing. Zoe Marshall: Do you remember any black politicians,
- maybe not in Austin, but from Texas in general or maybe in the South that were-
- Arleen Lawson: There weren't that many. I'm not sure when Barbara Jordan got elected to
- the state legislature. I don't remember when she got elected. You all can Google that,
- but there weren't many blacks in the state legislature too. You didn't have a lot of
- blacks in the state legislature who could talk about those things. There wasn't much
- interaction. Arleen Lawson: The kinds of things that you
- think about, none of that was in place, so those kind of parallel support systems were
- not there. It was just us and what happened there. Don't get me wrong, there were prominent
- blacks in the city of Austin who were interested in those things, but they were not interacting
- with us on campus in that way. Zoe Marshall: You mentioned Huston-Tillotson,
- which was a local HBCU. Arleen Lawson: Sure.
- Zoe Marshall: I don't know, was there any sort of dialog in a greater sense or any sort
- of solidarity between students at HBCUs like Prairie View A&M, or even farther away with
- students at PWIs? Arleen Lawson: No, I would say that there
- was none in that sense. The other thing that you have to think about was that
- most of the activism occurred on the white campuses. In fact, I was talking with someone
- who was at Huston-Tillotson who said the activism at UT influenced them to get active about
- what was happening on their campus. In fact, I just saw her recently, and she started telling
- me that, that it was because of our activism on the University of Texas that made them
- begin to petition for better conditions at Huston-Tillotson and demonstrate because that
- was not something that they had even thought about. We did have the influence from that
- standpoint. Arleen Lawson: Those campuses that you named
- were too far away. Probably the only thing that we did have influence on was Huston-Tillotson.
- They talk about the fact that our activism really influenced them. It was seeing us get
- out there and get after that that made them decide that they needed to do something. They
- demonstrated and got some things changed on their campus.
- Serena Bear: Awesome. Zoe Marshall: Great.
- Serena Bear: Maybe like a concluding question, explain how your activism in the 60s, how
- do you think that impacted us now where we're at now at UT?
- Arleen Lawson: Well, I think we did some things that made the university a better place. Obviously,
- from a standpoint of fully integrating the campus, we did that. We were the ones that
- were protesting black faculty, which led to the black studies program. All of those things
- were rooted in what we were doing on that campus in the early 60s. Yes, we had a profound
- influence on the campus, and what the outcomes are today are clearly reflected of that.
- Arleen Lawson: The university will be the first to tell you that they still haven't
- done a good job of recruiting black students because the numbers are so low. Every time
- I talk to administration at the University of Texas they talk about the fact that they
- haven't done the job they should do in terms of recruiting African-American students.
- Arleen Lawson: I think we done what needed to be done, and we were able to have a lot
- of success in that respect. Our sacrifices were not for nil. We did some things on that
- campus that made the university a better place. I think that when you look back on it, we
- needed to be there to do that. I don't know what the university would look like if we
- had not done that. In fact, young people laugh now and say, "God, I don't know how you all
- did that and went to class too." I say all the time it was something you didn't even
- think about it that way. It was something that you felt you needed to do, it was important,
- it was the right thing to do, and so we did it.
- Serena Bear: It was a priority. Arleen Lawson: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
- Serena Bear: Awesome. Zoe Marshall: Then, do you feel like being
- at UT, and your decision to go to UT, that that was the best decision for you in your
- development as an activist and as an environment? Arleen Lawson: I think it was. It gave me
- a political awareness that helped me in my corporation career. I had a very successful
- corporation career. I don't think I would have had that had I not had the experience
- I had at the University of Texas. Zoe Marshall: Then, would you say it was a
- good environment, then, even with all of the obstacles [crosstalk 01:06:51]?
- Arleen Lawson: It was a good environment for giving me what I needed to have in order to
- be successful in corporate America. I think that the conflict, the dialog, the need to
- understand others' viewpoints beyond yours, the need to understand that we live in a world
- that's much larger than what's happening on the Red River, what's happening on the campus,
- to understand that you're are an entity beyond that, that you are a global citizen, all of
- those things helped me when I got into corporation America.
- Serena Bear: Awesome. Arleen Lawson: I worked for a global company,
- so those things really made me who I am today in terms of the kind of person that understands
- that. Most people in the United States, a lot of people in the United States live within
- a very small world, even in today's world, the internet and all of that, they still live
- in a very small world. Their minds are very contained. I don't have that [inaudible 01:08:02],
- having had that experience at the University of Texas and interacting with all of those
- people. Arleen Lawson: A lot of the people who were
- involved in The Movement were from other countries, students from other countries too. When you
- have that kind of experience and that broad experience with those kind of people, you
- begin to understand that you really belong to a much larger entity than what's happening
- in your neighborhood, in your city. You know? Zoe Marshall: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
- Serena Bear: Yeah. Arleen Lawson: In today's world so many things
- that touch us now touches everyone and influences now, even more so with the internet. You know?
- Serena Bear: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Arleen Lawson: Things reverberate around the
- world. They just don't happen in your community. Probably we were ahead of ourselves in terms
- of having that experience because we understood that what we were doing was not just what
- was happening on campus, but we were contributing to a global movement. I think that's important.
- I think you have to be young, you best experience that young, as opposed to later. I think it
- was great for us, and it made me a different person than I might have been had I not done
- that. Serena Bear: Awesome.
- Zoe Marshall: Quick question, you said there was an involvement of international students,
- where were they from, European, Asian, African? Arleen Lawson: Most of them were European.
- I remember we had somebody from Colombia, we had people from Brazil. From Europe, I'm
- trying to remember where, in France, and I think Italy. A lot of them were involved with
- The Movement because of Che Guevara and what was happening in the world and that kind of
- thing, and particularly in the Latin communities about that.
- Arleen Lawson: Now, we didn't have a lot of Mexican-Americans, I'll be the first to tell
- you that. It's interesting because Fidel, Trotsky, all those people spent time in Mexico,
- but they, obviously, didn't influence what was happening in Mexico. You got to meet those
- kind of people that ordinarily I would not have met otherwise.
- Zoe Marshall: I meant to ask this earlier, but the black student body, would you say
- they were mostly African-American, or did you come into contact with some West Indians,
- Africans? Arleen Lawson: No. At that time I don't remember
- any African students. Most of them were African-Americans, for the most part. This was 1965, so there
- wasn't a lot of recruitment, particularly at a school like the University of Texas for
- African, West Indian people. Most of the people were African-Americans from towns all over
- Texas, for the most part. I met people from Lubbock and other places, Marshall, Longview,
- you name it, just like you would meet any typical Texas student.
- Zoe Marshall: Okay, thank you so much. Serena Bear: I think that's about it. Thank
- you so much. Arleen Lawson: Oh, you're welcome.