Glo Dean Baker Gardner oral history
- Wilson Petty:: This is Wilson Petty. I'm with Sara Greenman-Spear, and we are interviewing
- Glo Dean Baker Gardner. This is March 22, 2019 and we are located in her home.
- Sara Greenman: All right. I guess we'll start with your background. So, tell us about where
- you grew up and how you got to UT and Texas in general.
- Glo Dean:: Well, I grew up in Dallas, Texas, and I went to Catholic school for 13 years
- of my life, and that includes kindergarten. I was kind of recruited to UT because there
- were no African-American students there. So I guess we were all kind of recruited. It
- was only 140 of us at UT at the time. And when I got to UT it was just an eye-opening
- thing. I remember carrying all of my books to class one day, and they would all holler
- at me, "Hey freshman!" Because I had to carry all my books home every day from Catholic
- school, and so I didn't realize that I didn't have to carry my books into every class. So,
- it was a very interesting experience, yes. WP: Okay. How did people treat you while you
- were at UT? GD: People ... are you talking about ...
- WP: Let's say fellow students. GD: Oh, fellow students. We were very, very
- close as an African-American population at UT.
- WP: Okay. GD: As I said, there were only about 140 of
- us, so we were kind of put together because of the climate of the country during that
- time. The civil rights era, because this was during the civil rights era, and we were very
- conscious. We had a little lady that used to go up and down the drag, and she was an
- old lady, and I guess she had once been rich or something they said.
- GD: She would come and she would tell us, "Get out of here! Get out of here! You're
- not supposed to be here." And she would throw things at us on the drag. It was this little
- old lady. It was amazing. She was very hateful. I can't remember her name, but we would just
- kind of go, "Okay, this crazy old lady." GD: We could not eat on the drag, go to the
- restaurants until 1968, right? When I got there, we couldn't eat. And then the first
- place to open up to let African-American students eat was ... well, it was the G & M Steakhouse,
- and it was a place ... I think it might still be on the drag it was called ... Was it Jim's?
- We could eat there. WP: Okay. Did you all live together?
- GD: We had ... They had established a co-op system for African-American females, and it
- was called Almetris and Whitis. Almetris Duren has a statue there at UT now.
- GD: I lived in the co-op, and she was like our den mother. She took care of us, she helped
- us, she was a loving spirit for both co-op, it was the co-op houses. They actually built
- the co-ops there that I lived in. We learned, we cooked, we communicated, we helped each
- other with studies. It was a really good environment, very close knit environment. The social life,
- our social life came from there, yes. WP: Can you tell us about the theater group
- you founded, the Afro-American Players? GD: Yes. I want to say something, I want to
- go back before I do that. WP: Sure.
- SG: Mm-hmm (affirmative), sure. GD: There was ... my sorority was founded
- there at UT, the Alpha Kappa Alpha. And it was a sister sorority to the black men, which
- was Alpha Phi Alpha. A very strong social group, but we also worked in the community.
- It wasn't the, I guess the standard what you would think the sorority and fraternities
- are, and no, nothing like that at all. GD: It was a very conscious group of young
- women, and it had a history that Alpha Kappa Alpha and Alpha Phi Alpha. Martin Luther King
- was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha. Michelle Obama is an Alpha Kappa Alpha woman. Many,
- many I guess women that achieved were Alpha Kappa Alpha women, so we tried to use them.
- I guess I would say there was a protocol that they had that we tried to conduct ourselves
- by. WP: Okay. Very cool.
- GD: Now, starting the Afro-American Players, it came from a class at UT. Dr. Geneva Gay
- was our professor, and she ... We started it from an interpretation of a book called
- Manchild in the Promised Land, by Claude Brown. We took the book and we wrote scenes from
- the book, performed it and it just went like wildfire over the campus. It was really very
- good. We loved doing it and there was such interest in it we decided that we would develop
- a full play from it, and that's where the Afro-American Players started.
- WP: What year was it? GD: There was a lot that happened. That was
- like 1970. No, not the class, the class was 1970. So we had what I call the 100 day war.
- We spent the entire summer, it was six of us I believe. Myself, Fred Gardner, Charles
- Pace, Paula Poindexter, who's a professor at the university now, Melvin Lampley, he's
- a lawyer, Marie Moore, and Dan Bailey. Was he with us? Jew Don Boney, yeah, he's Assistant
- Mayor for Houston, Texas as a matter of fact. GD: So we all got together, and we decided
- to write a play, and the play was entitled, The Ghetto: Don't Cry, Scream. Our entire
- intention was to enlighten people about the problems and concerns of African-Americans
- during this era. And there wasn't any really black studies program or anything during that
- time, and that's what Geneva Gay's class was, a black studies program.
- GD: We also insisted that we have a black room. So this black room was a place where
- we all gathered in the Student Union, and we would talk about revolutionary things,
- and what we were going to do to help get civil rights, and to get more black students at
- the university, just to uplift the society to a level that it needed to be because it
- was really, really bad during that time. GD: I mean, we would take classes, and you
- just would never would know who was the professor. And some of the professors like ... my husband
- was the most ... I guess, one of the things he went through, one of the professors told
- him ... gave him an F at the end of the class and said, "Niggers don't take my class." That's
- the kind of things we had to go through. It was terrible.
- GD: When the men would go to the dorm, and they would fill out the paperwork, and they
- didn't know that they were African-American, and they'd show up at the dorm, and they'd
- tell them, "Oh no, your space has been taken." That's what happened to them. They'd have
- to fight to even have a dorm space. It was kind of crazy thinking that during those times.
- GD: So, we established a group that was called Time, which was time for the enlightenment,
- the education, the ... all these Es, I can't remember what they were, I'll have to look
- them up. Enlightenment, education ... of students and people, African-Americans on the campus
- of UT, and in the society. GD: So we brought people on the campus. I've
- had the most wonderful interviews with ... One of the things that was striking was Mrs. King,
- Martin Luther King's wife. She met with us after she'd spoke, and Dr. King had been killed.
- And she had the most wonderful aura about her. She was just a very kind and gentle person.
- And I was thinking to myself, because I'm revolution, "Well, how can she be so kind
- and gentle, and so soft-spoken?" And they killed her husband, you know? But she told
- us, she said, "Just remember what Martin told you, and just try to conduct your company,
- your organization in the same love." She pushed love, which I thought was marvelous.
- GD: Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, those are ... I don't know if you all know who they were,
- but they were ... He was a playwright and an actor. They were from New York and they
- told us, they said, "Yeah, acting is good," she said, "But we need for you all to produce
- because we need black theater. We need black theater. We need black plays, we need black
- movies because that enlightens people." GD: So, that's what we did. We started with
- the first play, and why we based it in New York I don't know, but that was what, you
- know, we do it with The Last Poets. Now, mind you, we had just tons of material that we
- would read. We read. We read a lot. We read, we researched, we listened to music. We'd
- sit around and we'd ... We loved The Last Poets. You all don't know that is, but they
- would do ... I [inaudible 00:14:25], I rap, our senators rap, you know they did poetry.
- And it was revolutionary poetry. GD: We did ... We took the Black Panthers,
- and they had this marvelous program, the Breakfast Program that they ... The Black Panthers actually
- started the Breakfast program, people don't know that. They had this wonderful 10 ... Was
- it 10 poets, or 10 ... I can't remember how many it was, but we ... 10-point plan for
- revolution in this country, to help this country. Extremely good.
- GD: People don't know, but the leader of the Black Panthers, Huey Newton was a lawyer and
- had a PhD. He was brilliant, absolutely ... well, they all were, they all were. And so we read
- them, we kind of went along with them until they came to the campus, one of them. Who
- was that that came to the campus? And they said, "Would you kill your mama for the revolution?"
- I said, "Oh no, I'm going to pull off this black band, because I'm not killing my mama
- for nobody." So it was really ... but that's the passion that they had.
- GD: One of the things that I think we kind of pulled away from the Panthers, is because
- they negated a major portion of African-American history, and African liberation, and that
- was the church. They didn't believe in God. They were ... they said, "God is dead." So,
- I said, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's what liberated us. No, I think you all are
- wrong on that." GD: So, we started our company. Someone, a
- professor came along ... Well, the first thing we had, we were at the Catholic Student Center,
- he gave us the Catholic Student Center downstairs to do our plays. And people came from the
- campus, and it was really good. But, for some reason, and I can't remember, we might have
- been a little bit too radical for ... They said, "Well, I don't know about that right
- now." GD: So Bob, Reverend Bob Bryant was a campus
- minister with the Methodist church, and he let us have the Methodist Student Center,
- and that's where we were based. But, before we went there, we went to UT and we said,
- "We need a place to perform. We need a place to perform." And they said, "Okay. We're going
- to give you the little theater." And that's where we performed our first major show, was
- in the little theater. GD: They gave us lighting technicians to teach
- us about lighting. They gave us set building. We had people to build the sets. UT had marvelous,
- good wood and everything with which you could build, and we did the show there. And we had
- the theater, and from there we kind of coordinated with the drama department on various projects
- that would come there. GD: When they were recruiting, we would perform
- and do ... We did a play with Steven [Wyman 00:18:15], who was a professor there. When
- they would bring high school students to try to recruit them to come to UT, you know, we
- would like, "Look, you can join the Afro-American Players. This is the Afro-American Players,
- and we do things with the drama department in the school." So, it worked out. It was
- a good arrangement. GD: We worked with ... oh gosh, so many groups
- on the campus. The student ... Where was Miss Duren? She was in the Student Activities Office.
- Okay, she was there. And the Dean of Students Office, we work with them. I would write different
- plays to go along with whatever they were trying to work out to help people with.
- GD: We would perform at Jester. We performed all over campus. We would go to classes, and
- do different vignetted sections of our shows. It was just really very good. And I think
- people learned. I think people learned a lot. WP: What was the reaction to these plays?
- GD: For the most part, very good. You know, for the most part, very good. Now, there would
- be sometimes people would come up, and they would say, "Well ... " I remember I was in
- a class, and we did a little show, a little vignette, and then I would speak about the
- show, and I'd let them ask questions. That's one of the things that we would do. At the
- end of the show, we'd open up for questions. And people would ask questions and try to
- understand. Because there was an article written about use one time that said, "The Afro-American
- Players, if you can't hear them, they'll scream at you." So it was ...
- GD: We're not politically correct because we said politics, forget politics, we're dealing
- with reality and this is what we have to deal with in this world. So, we use some very revolutionary
- things in our vignettes and our plays, and we carry it around.
- GD: This man asked me one time in one of the classes that I was doing, and he said, "Well,
- look at you." You know, he said, "You're black, you look good. You have things. You know,
- you're on this campus, you're doing great. So what are you complaining about?" And I
- said, "Because I am the exception. I am not the norm of what's happening here. Don't you
- ... and if it happens to me, I want everybody to have the advantages that I have." But we
- are suffering and that is what I don't want." GD: This was a time of revolution of burning
- down cities, and killing Malcolm, and killing Martin, and killing Whitney Young. It was
- a very rough time in America. And I will say that it has come around again. It's the same.
- It is very similar to what happened back then. Except, like the Black Lives Matter, that's
- a very good organization, but they don't read enough, they're not researching enough. They
- need to go back to the history of their people, the liberation so they'll understand a little
- bit more. GD: I don't think your generation reads enough.
- I don't think you research enough. I know they don't in African-American world. To me,
- they don't. But it's happening again. I can see it all over again. I'm going, "Oh man,
- I'm old because I'm reliving this. I'm reliving the 60s and the 70s." Except, one of the major
- things we did was we had ... they were opening the civil rights papers at the LBJ Library,
- and they wanted us to perform the different letters and things that happened during the
- civil right era. GD: So we had access to all of these papers
- and letters and everything during the LBJ civil rights era. And every day we'd go up
- and we'd bring food, and we'd sit and we'd write. We had a professor, Dig Burn, who was
- with the communications department. He was helping us write. And that was Wu, right?
- Was Wu there? David Wu was ... he did all of the ...
- Speaker 4: Famous cinematographer. GD: Yeah, he was a famous cinematographer.
- He did all- Speaker 4: [inaudible 00:24:21].
- GD: What was his ... Tom ... he did of those things with Mission Impossible, and all that.
- He was ... and so was Dig Burn, and Steve Wyman, and they would come up, and after we
- would work it out, we'd try to work out things, and how we going to scheme it and do it, you
- know working with ... and it was amazing when just two or three things that just show you.
- One of the professors, and I won't say who he is, had a little old girlfriend. She was
- just cute as she could be. She was from the west, west Texas. And she said, "Oh my God!
- I didn't know all this stuff was happening." She said, "That doesn't happen in Midland."
- GD: So, we had another girl that had joined our pledge. She was Anglo. She said, "Wait
- a minute. Are you trying to tell me there is no racism in Midland, Texas." She said,
- "Well, I've never seen any." So, that was the kind of thing, you know ... and so here
- we go, we write about ... and to pull those letters, and look at them, "Dear Mr. Nigger-loving
- president, if I ever see you, I'm going to kick your blank to blank, blank." I mean,
- it was just some of the letters that LBJ ... He paid a lot to sign that Civil Rights Bill.
- He really, really did. GD: A lot of people said, "Well, who's your
- favorite president?" And that's when President Obama was there. I said, "Well actually, my
- favorite, number one favorite president was Lincoln because he signed the Emancipation
- Proclamation. The second was LBJ, because he signed the Civil Rights Bill, and then
- it's Barack." GD: "Really?" I said, "Oh yes." I said, "Because
- there could be no Barack without Lincoln and LBJ, right? Let's get that right."
- GD: So, we met LBJ. We performed. It was really funny because we were students ... you're
- young, you're crazy. We would take chicken and sandwiches, and one day they were coming
- through the LBJ and Harry Middleton, who was the curator for the ... you know, he had the
- Ambassador from somewhere, I don't know, I think it was Switzerland, or Finland, or something.
- He was showing all of this elaborate, beautiful things in the LBJ, and there we were with
- a big box of Kentucky Fried Chicken, sitting up at the LBJ eating chicken. Oh God.
- GD: So the next day we came in, and they said ... the Texas Rangers, the one that protects
- the LBJ Library, right, big, tall rangers, and they'd let us in every day and they say,
- "Yes sir. The Afro-American Players are here. No sir, I don't see any chicken." So it was
- really something. GD: So we performed for the opening of the
- Civil Rights papers. We performed the historical data from LBJ's works across the nation. It
- was extremely ... It was kind of hard at first because just to see what people had been through,
- and the attitude, and the hatred in the country, was hard. It was hard. You know, it was hard
- for us. But we did it and LBJ came. He was tall. He was tall. I didn't ... He was a lone,
- tall Texan. And he had on a white suit and some long, and he'd grown his hair out long.
- And we really enjoyed him. He thanked us so much for it. He really loved it.
- GD: After that, he died shortly after that, but he sent us a contribution. Every year
- we would get a contribution from the foundation. He told ... His son-in-law and daughter-in-law
- would send us a contribution from the LBJ Foundation every year. And we used the LBJ
- to perform in. We performed Purlie Victorious. We toured it for a while. We performed Purlie
- Victorious, and we didn't have a white actor, so Fred performed in white face, Ol' Cap'n
- Cotchipee in white face. It was really something. So here we are, "Let's do it as a white world.
- With white everything." So everything we painted white. Oh gosh, it was one of those things.
- So it was interesting, that was the thing. GD: Then I did this play called Four Women.
- It was adapted from a Nina Simone song. It was called Four Women. We kind of [inaudible
- 00:30:12] and I went over it with HT, and we took students from HT, and from UT in our
- group. WP: What is HT?
- GD: Huston-Tillotson, that's the black college in Austin. Okay.
- GD: So we performed. It was a really good show. People loved it. And boy they called
- us in here, "You radicals! You're out of ... " You know, we would ... we got a lot of hatred
- from that show because there were four women, and one was a revolutionary and her name was
- Peaches. And Peaches, she did not mix her words. I made her strong, and she was.
- GD: I stopped doing it because one of the girls, she was so involved in it. A little
- buppie, you know what a buppie is? A black yuppie. From Houston. She wanted to find out
- about her people, and she had been sheltered and she went over got her an apartment in
- east Austin, and she had a new car and things, and she came up missing. And her parents and
- her grandmother were just devastated. And we went from house to house trying to help
- the police find Debbie [inaudible 00:31:50], Debbie.
- GD: We just found out, and I have to check this out with Charles Pace, who's one of the
- founders, he said, "Glo, I think they found out who killed Debbie. Just it's a man who
- confessed to all these killings." Do you all know about this recently? About, I guess several
- months ago and how he would abduct girls in Austin and he killed, and he said, "I think
- Debbie was one of them." So I said well I wasn't going to perform and out again until
- I know what happened to Debbie. So I think we were probably going to do that again.
- GD: I have people that want ... The guy that produced Colored Girls on Broadway, I perform
- with Colored Girls, with UT and they brought them down, brought the Rector down and everything
- when he came, and he told me, he said, "That's one of the best I've ever read in my life."
- He said, "Please, let's put it on and I'll ... " He said, "I'll help you. I'll help you.
- I'll help you get it on Broadway." But it was just really hurting for me, so I said,
- "Well okay. We'll see about doing it now." Hope he's still alive.
- GD: We did a play that we used to tour everywhere. It was called, You Should Know the Truth,
- and the Truth Will Set You Free. I got it there from the building there at UT, you know
- at the ... What building is that? It's right there on-
- WP: The Main building? SG: The Main building?
- GD: Main building, yeah. It's right there, "You Should Know the Truth, and the Truth
- Will Set You Free." Now you know, we used to stand on that main, right there on the
- Main building on the steps of the Main building, go up and we would protest, we'd protest.
- Because we didn't have ... oh gosh. I just ... it's all running back, it's a lot. We
- didn't have enough black students, and they wasn't doing anything, so when the Regents
- would meet, we would go and protest, and sing, and shout, and scream, and have our demands.
- GD: We wouldn't let the Regents ... They would be trying to do the meeting and we wouldn't
- let them have the meeting because we'd be making so loud, and so awful that they couldn't
- do it. So finally, they said, "Okay, come in and tell us your ... what are your demands?"
- And we went to the Regents meeting and sat there, and talked about what we needed on
- the campus. GD: So, we got more black students. We got,
- you know ... They said, "Okay, we'll get a plan in place." So we had a plan in place,
- we would do that. And from that we performed, we did poetry, that sort of thing. So, we
- were extremely instrumental in getting the black students on campus.
- GD: I was ... oh yeah. You Should Know the Truth, and the Truth Will Set You Free, we
- went and we had students from the drama department, this was after I graduated, we were still
- working with the UT department. We were over at the Methodist Student Center and we took,
- we did it with our people, with the Afro-American Players and they joined the Afro-American
- Players and we did a thing. GD: We toured all over Texas, and right there
- at the border of Texas and Mexico. But the [inaudible 00:35:57] was all, we went all
- the way to El Paso. But one of the interesting things is we went to Lamar University in Beaumont
- and they ... I went to the class and we talked to the class, because they didn't know a lot
- about what was going on, the history and the this sort of thing. I guess I must've gotten
- it. And then we performed Truth that night, which was the history of African-Americans
- from slavery all the way to the temporary times where we were.
- GD: The Klu Klux Klan did a flag, put a flag up on the, a Confederate flag up and flew
- it and stuff. So we said, "Well, who cares. I don't care. Do you come on then!" You know,
- that's the way we were. "Let's go. Oh, you really? Really? Okay." So, we was very bold,
- okay? But it took that. It really did. It took that. It took you to be able to challenge,
- or to know how to challenge, to know your facts, to be able to talk to them intelligently,
- and talk them down from their ignorance and their racism. That's what we could do. And
- that's what the children are not doing now. GD: I saw a young lady was holding up a sign.
- And I'm continuing this revolutionary thing with the Catholic, my Catholic church, conservative
- church people, right? Because they sent me a thing that was oh, you know, "We wear black
- and protest with Roe versus Wade, and we're going to wear black." And so I just put a
- ... I wrote a prayer. I said, "Dear God, I place the Roe versus Wade, and all the hatred
- and racism in this country, I place at the cross, at the foot of the cross. You take
- it God in your divine will. I place it there. May your will be done."
- GD: And these are people who are supposed to be studying about the will of God. They
- were mad at me, okay? So they sent me a video of students at this college and this little
- girl was holding up a sign that says, "I do not dialogue with racists." And so this guy
- comes up to her and he's really, "Build the wall." It was the build the wall people and
- we do not need a wall people. They just sitting up there with a silent protest and he just
- starts attacking them, "Why do you call me a racist? Why ... "
- GD: "I do not dialogue with racists." I mean he was just really attacking her. She did
- not know how to ... she had the right cause, but she didn't know how to dialogue with this
- man. I said, "Oh, if I could just get on that. I wish I knew where they was and what his
- name was." But, that's what we need. That's what we need to learn to do. You know? Dialogue
- properly and know how to deal. Because they are totally ... Fox News, that's what they
- hear, and that's what they listen to, and that's what they believe in. And Fox News
- is no news when it comes to things that Trump and people are doing, and that's ... It needs
- to be dealt with is what I'm saying. GD: So, we were in Midland, going back to
- the Truth, and we did the show. And Willie Nelson gave us his bus. We rode in Willie
- Nelson's bus, touring bus. And he said, "I want you all to buy it." Well I can't buy
- Willie Nelson's touring bus, right? We're theater, we're starving artists, okay? Oh
- yeah, we going to buy your bus Willie. But anyway, he gave ... because he bought a new
- one, so he gave us his bus. He had the best sound system in there. And we could actually
- sleep. It had sleeping bunks and that sort of thing. It was really neat.
- GD: We went to Midland, and they flattened the tires of the bus, and told us, "You better
- get out of here now." You know, "Get out of here, and don't come back or else ... " And
- this was on the military base. So that's life. That was our life. Well, let me see what else.
- [inaudible 00:41:05], oh yes. GD: So Liz Carpenter calls me on the phone.
- She was LBJ's secretary. She was very instrumental with the LBJ. And she said, "Glo, this is
- Liz Carpenter." I said, "Oh, hi Liz." She said, "We're going to have something called
- the International Year of the Woman. It's going to be the first one ever. And we're
- going to do it at the LBJ Library." And I said, "Oh, wow." She said, "Yeah." I said,
- "Well how nice." And she said, "I want you to participate." She said, "We have it all
- together, but we have nothing on black women." She said, "I need for you to write me something
- on what it means to be a black woman." She said, "You know, something kind of like Barbara
- Jordan and that sort of thing." I said, "Oh God, she really doesn't know because Barbara
- Jordan is the exception, okay ... black women. Oh yeah, right. Okay. I wish we all could
- be like Barbara Jordan, okay." So I said, "All right, I'll do that."
- GD: So I got my ... I wrote this play called, I am Woman, I am Black, and I mean, women
- from all over the nation, well really, all over the world came to that. It was a big
- celebration, huge celebration. So we performed it, and we brought the house down. I just
- want to tell you, we brought the house down. And so, afterwards we went up and I didn't
- know it was this big a thing. I really, really didn't. Because we were revolutionaries. We
- didn't get into the box. We didn't do that box thing about, "Oh, I'm with this person,
- and I'm staying here and I ... " We didn't do that, you know?
- GD: We wanted the truth, we wanted to promote the art, the books, the plays, the culture
- of the people. So I really ... you know, I said, "This is a good thing, so I'm going
- to do it. I'm going to write this about black women because this is important." Well, it
- was extremely ... They had all kind of dignitaries there. We had on our black leotards and our
- tights, and I had a skirt on, and my black shoes. And so they said, "Well, we have a
- reception upstairs, and someone wants to meet you because they really, really wants to meet
- you." I said, "Who wants to meet me?" They said, "Well, the Norman Lear people are here."
- GD: Well Norman Lear was really big back then. He had the television programs. He had The
- Jeffersons, he had Maude, he had Archie Bunker, which was real big. So the producer of Maude
- was up there, and I think she worked with ... Anyway, they came up and she wanted to
- talk to me about going to California. She loved the show and to be with them in California
- and Archie Bunker. "We are with Norman Lear, I'm with Norman Lear, and I would want to
- hire you to write and to also act, you know, you're just really ... " I said, "Oh good,
- okay. Normal Lear. All right this is a big time." And so she said, "Yes." I said, Okay,
- well I have to try to get myself together." She said, "No, you have to go tonight." I
- said, "Tonight?" She said, "Yes." GD: It was that casting couch me too thing
- going on right there, okay. That was my ... right then. She said, "No, you have to go." So I
- said, "Let me get the producer." There was beautiful, beautiful Hispanic girl. I think
- she from Mexico, Mexican. And she came ... she was the one that approached me. And then she
- said, "Well, let me let you talk to the producer." Well the producer came up and she had on a
- suit and a tie, so you know, and she's, "Hey ... " You know, she said, "Yeah, we got you
- to come." I said, "Well, I don't have anything ready." She said, "You don't need anything.
- We take care of everything." I said, "Really?" She said ... I said, "Well, I need to get
- my ... I don't know how to get up there." GD: "We have a jet. You're going to fly with
- us on the jet." I said, "Really?" In other words, I was going to be her little bitch,
- but I said no, I'm not doing that. I'm sorry that's not happening here. You know? So, yeah
- it happens in Hollywood, it is true. So I said, "Well, I guess I'll never go to Hollywood."
- And I never tried to really do that, because I didn't want to play that game.
- GD: I've been approached several times before, but I said, no, no, I think I'll just stay
- with the people and do this. That was ... it was intended. But we could have probably done
- ... Woody tried to get me to come to New York and do that, but I just wanted to kind of
- be on the grass level. That was a conscious decision, to be on the grass level with the
- people and try to ... GD: So, from that, we developed theater programs,
- we had a grant with HEW for six years we had a grant. And what we did was we would go and
- ... it was called ... it was really came out of the center at UT, it was called [CPCES
- 00:47:24], the Center For Ethnic Development or something. It's called CPCES. So they said,
- "We would like for you to be our cultural element. Teach people through the theater
- and through vignettes." GD: So, we went all over the country with
- them. They would conduct the workshops and we would perform, and do almost like a psycho-dramatic
- presentation. We'd do the elements. Tell about what was going on, and this is what I'm experiencing,
- this is racism, this is what has happened here. And some of it did a lot for teachers.
- And the teachers understand because it was integration coming in. It was really an integration
- grant is what it was. GD: So, many teachers did not understand that
- they were having black students and Hispanic students, and they didn't know how to deal
- with them. And so we would tell them what they were coming from, and a lot of times
- we'd get arguments, I mean, really mad. They'd get real, "Well, I just don't think ... I
- think if you would work, if you people would work, and get off welfare, then that would
- ... you'd be okay." You know those sorts of things. They did not understand about ... Equal
- opportunity was not a reality in America. It really wasn't. It was not equal opportunity.
- GD: And we would go through and even in Austin, we tried to ... you'd go and try to say, well,
- I'm going to go get an apartment here close on west campus. I tried to get an apartment
- several times on west campus. They would not let us into those apartments on west campus.
- Would not, uh-uh (negative). You could not have an apartment on west campus. They were
- ... GD: So we went out to Riverside because that's
- where we could really get an apartment because they had so many apartments, they really needed
- to let us in. So, that was life. That was our life. You know? And they try to spit on
- you. And those fraternities and sororities, oh my gosh.
- GD: What was that fraternity that had the black, like a puppet up there with big lips
- and painted black, and you know, just like ... it was awful. Like a minstrel. They would
- hang it up in ... hang the thing up outside, and it was terrible. It was terrible. And
- we'd have to go over and challenge them, and we'd go into parties, we'd walk into parties
- and we'd take some of our most informative vignettes, and we would perform it and have
- it out with them. This was what you had to do. This is how the art reflected the people,
- and to trying to issue in a revolutionary change in our country. And it was extremely
- instrumental. GD: We did coordinate with other theatrical
- groups around the United States. We had, for instance, El Tatro Campesino was a touring
- company of migrant workers. And they would come through and we would ... They were even
- ... I think they really, really, really were even more revolutionary than we were.
- GD: They would come in and they had children, and they would have their children, and they
- had a big, I guess convoy that would come through. And we'd let them stay in the theater
- at the Methodist Student Center. They brought their palettes and everything, and they'd
- perform. And you know, we'd have dinners and eat, and talk, and trade things to do, and
- that was it. GD: We worked with ... UT brought Dennis Brutus
- and people from South Africa doing apartheid. And we worked with them. We did shows to try
- to make people aware of what was happening in South Africa. Very, very dear, very, very
- dear to our hearts. GD: We had two South Africans that hooked
- into us particularly. Willie Sebiletso Matabane, they were teaching ... Was she teaching at
- UT? I think one of them was a teacher there. And she loved what we were doing. So they
- brought [Naz 00:53:25], who was ... I guess she was a lecturer. She was what they called
- a [Kaffir 00:53:35]. She was mixed white and black. And boy, that was a hard thing in South
- Africa. Her husband was African, and she was white. And she knew Willie and Sebiletso.
- I remember we had a dinner for them at my house, and one of the most moving things was
- she said they cried and we were talking about what happened, and what was going on in South
- Africa, and all of that. GD: I had written this thing called Death
- to Apartheid. And we performed it on campuses all over the U.S. and she loved it. We did
- it ... We started ... of course we did it at UT first, but they hugged each other and
- they started crying, and Naz told her, she said ... They could not return to South Africa,
- Willie and his wife because they were revolutionaries and they were with Nelson Mandela and Winnie
- Mandela, so they couldn't. She said, "One day you're going to return home, and we'll
- all be together." And oh man, the tears came out, and we were all crying. And we sung,
- you know, songs about inclusiveness. "One day we'll all be together. Someday we'll be
- ... I think we even did Diana Ross, Someday We'll Be Together.
- GD: We sung that and I think ... is it Willie or his wife that returned to South Africa
- when Nelson was President? And he was on one of the councils, he was the legislature there
- in South Africa. And they said, "You've got to come to South Africa and be with us." I
- said, "Well, we're going to come one day. We'll come to South Africa one day and be
- with you." But Pace went there. He went there to South Africa.
- GD: That was very ... that was something. And I'm trying to think of some other things.
- I did a lot of things. Wow. You have any more questions, more questions?
- WP: How did the authorities treat your ... were there any run-ins?
- SG: The officials, the faculty? GD: On the campus, when we would have protests,
- and then go through, go on the drag and do it, you know we didn't have protests in [crosstalk
- 00:56:26]. Some of the people did get arrested. Yeah, they were arrested. I never got arrested
- protesting in Austin. It wasn't until I came to Dallas that I ran into problems with the
- [inaudible 00:56:59] and everything, but no, I'm just keeping to Austin in the 70s. But,
- yeah, they would get arrested. Because some of them would want to throw things and they
- would be mad, and do things. And they would say, "You have to stay around this barrier.
- You have to stay this." And they said, "We're not staying around the barrier." They'd go
- across the barrier and do that, and so they'd arrest them.
- GD: But we had a fund, and we would take up money. And we had lawyers that would work
- with us. This was a time when we had lawyers, liberal lawyers, liberal people that knew
- that it was wrong, and so especially in Austin they were there. We were with ... We would
- go over and do street theater in east Austin, and places. Ann Richards, who was the governor
- of Texas, she would come over and we'd be at this place, it's called Charlotte's Plaza.
- She would be with us and help us. GD: It was during her days of wine and roses.
- She'd get mad and she'd ... which we'd drink with her and she'd do ... you know, she would
- ... we'd take her home. But, we would do ... let's see, that was Ann Richards. Lots of City Council,
- we did a lot of things with them. So they knew us. The Players were known everywhere.
- I mean, they knew us. That was ... They kind of said, "Leave them alone. We don't want
- that because we'll be on the CBS news, so leave them alone." It was kind of the ... So
- we were okay. WP: Tell us about Austin ICE desegregating
- a little more. GD: Oh gosh.
- SG: You mentioned on your website that the group played a role in that.
- GD: Oh yeah. That was with the CPCES grant. We started it out with the grant, with UT,
- and we wrote the play entitled, I wrote the play entitled, Findings. Yes, we took the
- findings from the desegregation policy for U.S. We took the findings from Austin to show
- that Austin was segregated, extremely segregated. In fact, I went to school with a girl and
- she said ... she was an African-American female, she said the first time she ever came across
- from east Austin over to the UT side where we were, was when she came to college. That's
- how segregated east Austin was. GD: There was a guy named Larry Jackson. He
- was a revolutionary during that time and he would have a sign, he had a sign, a billboard,
- and it was said, "You are now entering east Austin where people have rat infested houses,
- and they are poor. They don't have food to eat. They don't have decent jobs. This is
- the place where maids live." And you know, he ... and this is east Austin, so it was
- very segregated. GD: And in the Findings, I just literally
- took ... Because the findings was so strong, I just literally took the language from it
- and we acted out the language of the findings. And we went around to churches, schools, social
- groups, and we performed, and we performed the Findings at our place, and the Methodist
- Student Center. GD: From that, they said, "Oh gosh, we've
- got to desegregate." Went down to the Austin Independent School District of course. You
- know us. And did the Findings, so from that. It helped with the desegregation process.
- In fact, I was on the board to help with the desegregation process. Yep.
- GD: And how do we do this? What do we do? So we had Project CREATE. We started a Project
- CREATE, C-R-E-A-T-E. Which meant cultural recognition enhances awareness, talent and
- esteem. And from that, we took several schools and we worked with students
- from ... and using the books, and the history, and the culture, and we helped them in their
- process because what they did was kind of ... it was kind of cruel.
- GD: They took those students from east Austin and bused them over to the white schools,
- right? And they did not bus the white students over to the black schools, or the Mexican
- schools, they did not. Okay? But they would take the ... because they were under order
- to segregate ... this was during the desegregation thing. "We're going to bring the poor blacks
- over here and put them in the middle of the rich, white people." You know, so these poor
- kids were totally confused and they were just totally out-of-pocket, they didn't ... you
- know, it was like a duck out of water. I mean, they didn't know. The girls were upset, the
- boys were upset. And so it was a lot of tension and things going on during that time.
- GD: So, what CREATE did was we were going to the schools and we were trying to show
- that we are one people, that we have to learn about each other and we have to learn that
- we need to embrace everyone. We need to embrace other's culture, everyone, and who we are.
- And it was an inclusive kind of program. GD: So, I remember we had a thing where one
- of the players that worked with that CPCES program, they would up to each other's house,
- we pick a white girl, and a black girl, and they would come over to the black girl's house,
- and they would spend the night. The black girl would go over to their house and spend
- the ... they would have hair washing parties. This is what we do to our hair when we wash
- it, okay? And she said, "Well, this is what we would we do our hair when we wash ... " Just
- washing your hair was something that was ... Oh wow, that's kind of neat. I had no idea.
- GD: What do you eat? This is what we eat. We even talked about foods, and how you celebrate
- holidays. And from that, friendships were formed, and allegiances. But it took that,
- it just ... You could perform and show people, but you needed to follow it up with something.
- You needed programs to follow it up, and that's what CREATE did.
- GD: I remember we went in west Texas ... We went to West, Texas a lot, there was ... we
- were brought there by I guess the principal of the black high school there. Her brother
- is now the National President of the NAACP. Anyway, he's the National President in NAACP.
- And she brought us up, because she went to UT with us, his sister did. And we performed
- there, we performed Truth there. GD: Then after, this CREATE we would take
- and give audience response, who wanted to know what the students felt after they saw
- the play, the show. And, "Wow, this is a lie. This is not true. You were savages and we
- saved you from being savage." You know, this is the attitude, so from that we tried to
- develop material to address the ignorance of society.
- GD: And the black kids were just sitting there. They didn't have a clue. They didn't know
- who, not any of the black heroes and sheroes of our culture. They didn't have anything
- to understand the importance of African-American in the development of America. They didn't
- understand that. They didn't know. They knew one person.
- GD: I said, "Write down a black hero that you know." Martin Luther King, that was all
- they knew. Martin Luther King, which was so sad because if you don't know who you are,
- then you cannot progress. If you don't know who
- you are, the richness of your heritage, then you can't really grow, you know, have something
- to be proud of, have something to stand on. GD: They didn't know about Sojourner Truth,
- they didn't know about the underground railroad. They didn't know about Frederick Douglass,
- Nat Turner. They did not know. And I ... and now we would go on college campuses and go
- to college classrooms, and before we would perform sometimes, we would have lectures
- and we'd lecture about the different ... They didn't even know on the college campuses.
- And that was just sad that the curriculum did not reflect the richness of African-American
- culture. And that was one of our major objectives. Okay?
- GD: Oh, I was going to ... Oh. One of the things I'll tell you, this is not ... So we
- took ... well no, it was ... sometimes I find it hard to sing and dance, which was the history
- of theater, to South Carolina. Man, we did a tour in South Carolina. We went to a couple
- of black colleges there because they had several. We went to Benedict College, South Carolina
- State, Tougaloo, no, that was Mississippi. GD: So, one of the colleges said, "Well, we
- need for you to go to the high school and perform there." And so the principal was really
- excited. So we drive, we're driving because we're touring all through Texas, all through
- the south, and we get there early in the morning, so we checked into the hotel first. And then
- we drove and we ended ... there was this high school, and I'm telling you, it was like you
- were transposed back to the old south. GD: These students, these white students had
- confederate flags, and they were waving them, and " ... " you know, going up and down with
- the car, " ... " back and forth and just crazy. It was nuts. I said, "What in the world? Where
- are we?" And so we went and we set up the show, to set up for the show, and this was
- the history of theater starting from the minstrels, okay? Which, was something, because black
- people had to perform in black face, you know? So went from Bert Williams and the tragic
- mulatto, we went all through this in the history. Theater, it was you know ... and we went to
- set there, and we got there, white students sat on this side, black students sat on that
- side. GD: Total segregation. I couldn't believe
- it. And the principal got up and he said, "We are going to perform, they are going to
- perform, and you will give them respect. You will not be disrespectful to these people,
- and we will be having more of these shows. Do you understand what I'm saying? And if
- I found out you're being disrespectful, then we're going to ... you will be punished."
- GD: And so I'm going, "Why is he giving this speech?" So we get to Purlie, doing Purlie,
- a thing from Purlie, and I said, and then she has a line, Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins
- has a line in the play, "Oh, I can take care white folks' children better than they can
- take care of themselves Reverend Purlie." And so they started up, they jumped up, these
- white said, "That's what's you're supposed to do nigger. You're supposed to take care
- of white people's children." GD: Well, then the black football players
- get into it and they say, "You ... what did you say?" I said, "Oh man." It was just crazy.
- So, I had to stop the show and give a lecture to both sides. And they went on "oh my God"
- ...because it was amazing because they didn't have the information. They didn't have the
- information in which to be at peace and kindness with each other. They did not. They did not.
- GD: And we really got into it when I said, "Well, you know, Jesus was really black. You
- know, he wasn't born in Italy. He was not born, okay? He was born in Jerusalem. His
- mother was what we call a [Essene 01:13:29]. The [Essenes 01:13:30] were the black Jews,
- okay? And there are black Jews, I want you to understand that. Okay?" Oh my goodness.
- See, just things like that. GD: But see I would do it to them because
- I wanted the shock value to ... Hey, where was the old and tombified? Mount Kilimanjaro,
- we are all African. We come from Africans. You know? Wow. So, I don't know. It was just
- ... it's just been a ... It's been wonderful. It's been wonderful. It has been.
- GD: It's been ... I was driven. My mother wanted me to go to law school. I really went
- to UT. I was going to try to be a lawyer until I got a internship at the capital, and I saw
- lawyers and legislatures, and I said, "Ew, I don't like these people. Ew." And I worked
- for a crooked lawyer. I said, "Oh, I don't like these people. I'm not ... uh-uh (negative).
- Never will be." You know, because they talked out of both sides of their mouth.
- GD: Politics were just absolutely corrupt. I learned a lot from being with the maids
- at the capital. And I can't tell the things that they told me because ... not yet, not
- until I get old enough just before I die to tell the truths that was happening there because
- I don't want to be killed. But, it was amazing. GD: Sarah Weddington, they were working on
- Roe versus Wade in my suite. I was there with Gonzalo Barrientos. We were there in the same
- suite together with Lyndon Olsen, who was ambassador to Sweden. I mean, it was wonderful
- times. And we all just synced together. It was great. And that's not the buzzard, but
- it wasn't really the reality of the United States of America.
- SG: Our teacher mentioned that you were involved with black studies, I guess starting that
- at UT or something. She said to talk to you about ... Anything you want to talk about
- that? GD: Yes. That was one of our demands was the
- black studies, to have a black studies department in order to study black history, and black
- culture. So this was supposed to be the University of Texas, where are the blacks? Where are
- the ... Well, and not only that, we were involved in getting the black football players there.
- I'll go to them first, and then I'll go to the black studies.
- GD: When we used to ... You know how you have those tickets, I don't know if you all still
- have them, when you sign up ... of course it cost us $500 for UT. We would put the whole
- semester, it cost us $500, and then you can buy extra to go to the football games, and
- you have your tickets for the football game. We would go to the football games and sit
- up in football games. Of course the football team was white, and we wanted a black one.
- We want some black football players, but Darrell Royal said, "I can't find none. I can't find
- ... " GD: "You can't find black football players?
- Okay." You know? So, we would ... they would bring teams down, and if they had black football
- players, we stood in the middle of UT and cheer for the other team that had ... you
- know. So, SMU came. SMU had Jerry LeVias. That is right. He was ... He whooped our butts.
- He was a black football player and he came down there and ran through UT. And we'd be,
- "Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!" GD: So finally, we said, "See? Look what's
- happening here. Jerry LaVias whooped us." We really did, we pushed that fact. And so
- finally they said, "Okay. We'll get a black football player." Was it Julius? Julius? Julius
- was the first, wasn't it? Julius Whittier? [Eddie Kerry 01:18:21] wasn't the first. Eddie
- Kerry did not officially play, did he? No. Yeah, he played it-
- Speaker 4: First intramural. GD: Intramural, he was the first intramural
- football player. But, I think it might have been Julius Whittier who we worked with, who
- was our friend with the players. And Julius was very good looking, very smart, he became
- a lawyer as a matter of fact, and he wanted ... he worked at the balance with the ... He
- even went over to the Austin Ballet Theater because football, he wanted ... it helped
- him with his balance and everything. He's in that suit right now with ... He died from
- football injuries to his head, and he's in that suit. But they brought Julius here and
- then from there, just, you know, it all worked out. We said, "Told you."
- GD: Then, we ... One of the demands was to have a black studies department. So, out of
- the class, with Dr. Geneva Gay, when we did our first show, the interpretation of Manchild
- in the Promised Land. She helped us set up the demands and write the things to go to
- the Regents. That was one of the things we went to the Regents with. And, they said,
- "Okay, we'll do a black studies department. You have to find somebody."
- GD: So she was the first chairman. She was only a ... she had just gotten her PhD, and
- she was only an interim chairman of the black ... We wanted her to be the chairman of the
- black studies department, but they didn't do that. So they brought in this guy named
- John Warfield, Dr. John Warfield. I think there's a building named after him at UT now.
- Speaker 4: [inaudible 01:20:45]. GD: It's a building and the black studies
- department is called the- Speaker 4: [inaudible 01:20:49] department.
- GD: Yeah, called John Warfield Black Studies. We became so close. They were my ... not only
- that they were our personal friends, really became [inaudible 01:20:59]. John came in,
- he was a brilliantly talented, didactic, extremely smart. I mean, he had, oh gosh, a wealth of
- knowledge. He was really, really good. Radical, and his brother was too, Chuck, he was also
- a professor. His wife was the same thing. GD: So, she would like ... we would have theater
- parties after we'd have open theater and this, and she'd cook for us. We'd go over to the
- house. They were very involved in the community. He was the one that brought in Dapo Adelugba
- from West Africa, and we did Sizwe Banzi , which was ... oh gosh, it was a very famous African
- show, and we did Trouser Brother General. We did that in coordination with the Afro-American
- Studies Department because he wanted the cultural element there. So, it was a beautiful situation.
- GD: It wasn't a building. We had room. It was like a couple offices, suites at first
- in the building. But they actually have a building now, yeah, African-American. And
- I went there when John was ... when he passed, and dedicated the things with him and performed
- [inaudible 01:22:45], you know. And I was very close to his wife. And he also started
- Radio Kazi in Austin, John Warfield did, he and his wife. And he told me, he said, "It's
- got to ... We got the radio station. We got the permit to do ... " because we didn't even
- have a black radio station. The blackest thing we had was KUT, and it had In Black America,
- one program. WP: What was KUT?
- GD: KUT was the UT radio station. WP: Okay.
- GD: We called it KUT, mm-hmm (affirmative). I don't know what it's called now. What's
- you all's black radio? What's your radio station in UT?
- SG: I think it's KUTX, maybe now. GD: Okay.
- WP: Yeah. SG: I think it's pretty much the same though.
- GD: So he started the black radio station, which is Radio Kazi, and Kazi means in Swahili
- ... We were lying around, and what we going to name this place? He said, "Kazi." We need
- four letters, so Kazi, work. I said, "Oh, but I don't know. That's Swahili for work.
- I mean, you going to have to work hard to get this." I said, "Do you want to do that?"
- He said, "I like that, work." I said, "Okay." So, but it's still going on. Radio Kazi.
- SG: Anything else that you'd like to [inaudible 01:24:04]?
- GD: Let's think. God, we was involved in so many programs with the Dean of Students office.
- So they were given the responsibility to recruit black students. Set out from the demands,
- and they would contract us to perform for students to try to get them to come to UT,
- black students, to get them to come to UT. And we were also ... Now, the Hispanic organization
- was not quite as strong, but they became stronger. So we would coordinate with them too. We needed
- to get more Mexican kids here too, you know, not just African-American, so we wanted both
- of them. GD: It was a shame because like on the drag,
- they had the theater, they had the Texas Theater, and what's that other theater on the drag?
- SG: Oh, we learned about that in class. What was it? Texas Theater?
- GD: It was the Texas Theater, but there was two theaters.
- SG: Mm-hmm (affirmative). WP: Oh yeah, there were two.
- SG: I remember ... yeah. GD: We could not go to the theater. We could
- not go look at movies at the theater until 1969. And so what we would do if we wanted
- ... But foreign students could go to the theater. You know? There were more foreign students
- at UT than there were African-Americans and Hispanic students, you know, from Texas. There
- were a pretty good percentage of foreign students. So we'd dress up in our foreign outfits like
- from India, and I'd play I moved from India. We walk up in there and go to the show. "We
- would like a ticket to the movies." That's the way we'd get in. Oh my gosh. That's what
- we would do. That's because some of the Indians were very dark, even Chinese.
- GD: I'd play like I was Chinese sometimes when I was there, go in there and put a [inaudible
- 01:26:58] Chinese, "I would like the ticket to the movie." You know, "I want to see movie."
- Yeah, so, they'd give me a ticket. Dress up in some Chinese, that's because how stupid
- they were. They didn't even know we were African-American. Ingenuity, African-American ingenuity. So
- that's what happened. GD: Church services, we had to sit up in the
- balcony if we went to church on campus, couldn't sit in the general population. Go up on the
- balcony to praise God. Except the Catholic church, the Catholic church was different.
- Then the Methodist church, they said, "No, that's wrong." The Methodist said, "No, we
- accept, we embrace. We embrace you come to our church." But like that Christian church
- that's right there on that Presbyterian, I don't know ... along that ... on the drag.
- If you wanted to go to Baptist church, you want to go to church, you got to sit up in
- the balcony. It's just the insanity of the society during that time. It was crazy.
- GD: Other questions? I think we've covered a lot haven't we?
- SG: I think we have. GD: Yeah. I think we covered a lot.
- Speaker 4: Can I get you water or anything? WP: I'm fine, thank you.
- SG: I'm good. WP: During classes would blacks and whites
- be separated, as far as seating arrangement and things like that?
- GD: No. WP: No?
- GD: Mm-mm (negative). No, we in class ... For the most part, the campus was pretty liberal,
- this was liberal part, this was liberal. The campus was pretty liberal for the most part.
- You know, you had little Suzie Sorority and what's his name? Your new Supreme Court guy,
- that kind of guy, that you had them, but they had their own ... They were in their own little
- bubble. But for most part, it was pretty liberal. GD: And I don't think they would have said,
- "I'm not going to sit by you." Or if you would see somebody and they would try not to sit
- by you. I see you in that movie, you say, "Come on over here and sit by me. Sit by me.
- What's wrong? You don't want to sit here because I'm black? Is that what's wrong?"
- GD: "No." I mean, I've gotten some really good friends from that because you know, they
- might have been prejudiced, though, they were prejudice, but we wouldn't let them be. So,
- uh-uh (negative), no, I'm going to sit right by you. And sometimes if they would move or
- something like that, you knew somebody was really not wanting to sit by you. And they
- would move over to another part, so I just get over and move and sit right next to them.
- That's the way you do that. GD: So, we had a very inclusive process of
- integration there. But, like I said, for most part, the campus was liberal. I don't think
- it's that liberal anymore though. I don't know, is it?
- WP: It's pretty liberal. GD: Is it?
- SG: Yeah. WP: Yeah.
- SG: Then there's AS groups that are, I think not so.
- GD: Yeah. Like the Young Republic of [inaudible 01:31:16]?
- SG: Yeah. GD: Okay. Well, they were to that, they were
- there with us too. SG: Yeah.
- GD: But it wasn't a lot of them. But, yeah. GD: We did things in the community, and with
- the community. I just wanted to say that. We did, we tried to bring a cultural thing
- to the Austin community and they embraced us very well. They loved it. Some of my best
- friends were like leaders in the black community. And then when we went to the City Council,
- we asked them for a grant, for the first time in order to perform and be a part of the community,
- and that sort of thing. And my friend, one of the founders, Charles, stood up and he
- said, "Yes, we would like $30,000." And they were, " ... " They went, "Uh, let's pause
- right now." Which was a lot back then, 30,000, right? So they said, "Oh my gosh, okay, let's
- ... Councilman Dave ... " well I can't think of his name, "Would you ... have a meeting
- with the Afro-American Players and let's come up with a good kind of budget for them. Okay?
- Let's just do that." GD: So, we were funded by the city, but not
- a lot of money. Not a lot of money. They didn't put a lot of ... They gave it to Zachary Scott,
- and then they actually stole some of our programs, which really angered me. Yeah they did. Yeah,
- because I wrote ... I was grant writer too. I wrote plays, I wrote grants because they
- taught me to write ... CPCES from UT took me to the grant writing workshops. And so
- I would write grants. GD: So, I wrote the script, wrote Project
- CREATE, and they wanted it. They wanted the grant. And so, they said, "Well okay, you
- go get the city grant." And so they were in cahoots with Zach Scott. And I says, so he
- said, "Yeah well, we need a copy of CREATE, so we'll make sure that you're not duplicating."
- So I just gave him a thing. "No, we need the entire grant." And they stole my grant and
- got funded, Zachary Scott did, yeah. Unbelievable, unbelievable. So that's what went on.
- GD: Let me think. I think we've kind of hit it, haven't? Little bit of it.
- SG: We covered a lot. GD: Uh-huh (affirmative), okay.
- WP: Great. GD: Any more questions?
- SG: I think we're good. Just maybe a couple names if you could spell, like some of the
- founders. I wrote them down, but only phonetically. GD: Okay.
- SG: I think you said like Charles ... or just make sure that they're spelled right.
- GD: Okay. SG: Charles Pace.
- GD: Charles Pace, uh-huh (affirmative). SG: Paula Pointdexter.
- GD: Paula Poindexter. Marie Moore, M-A-R-I-E Moore.
- SG: Moore with two O's? GD: Two O's. Jew Don, J-E-W, Don, D-O-N, Boney,
- B-O-N-E-Y. Uh-huh (affirmative). [Freddy 01:35:24] Gardener, Melvin Lampley, M-E-L-V-I-N, Lampley,
- L-A-M-P-L-E-Y. SG: I think that's what you had said originally.
- I just wanted to make sure they were spelled- GD: And myself, Glo Dean Baker.
- SG: Okay. Let's see. Anything else that you think we need to know how to spell that came
- up that we missed? GD: Yeah, the website is not halfway together
- like it should be, but it kind of gives you a little feel about what we're doing. But
- I'm getting me a webmaster to try to kind of get everything together because we're going
- to be performing again. GD: Did it help you though?
- SG: Mm-hmm (affirmative). GD: It did? Oh, good.
- SG: [crosstalk 01:36:22]. WP: The CPCES grant?
- GD: Mm-hmm (affirmative). WP: How do you spell CPCES?
- GD: I can't remember. Let's see. CPCES. Speaker 4: [inaudible 01:36:31] stands for
- [inaudible 01:36:31] grant. GD: It's an acronym and I'm trying to say
- ... it was
- the Center for Public Education and Cultural Sensitivity, I think that's what it was. Okay?
- I'll look that up. It was on Little Campus. It had its quarters on ... Do you all still
- have Little Campus? No? Okay. WP: I've heard of it.
- SG: No. GD: Oh, Little Campus was where they put Heman
- Sweatt. Now, Heman Sweatt was put on Little Campus. He got into the University of Texas
- and they didn't really know he was black, and then when he got there, they wouldn't
- let him go to classes with the regular people, so they put him in a room on Little Campus
- and it established him, and that's where he got all of his ...
- Speaker 4: [inaudible 01:37:49] in a closet. SG: I think we mentioned it in class, that
- building that she showed us. GD: It was a closet.
- SG: The basement or something. GD: They put him in the closet. Yeah, on Little
- Campus. SG: [crosstalk 01:37:59].
- GD: Uh-huh (affirmative), yeah. I went to school with his nephew, who he was named after,
- yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative). That's what they did, Little Campus. Named it ... I said that,
- "We need to burn Little Campus down." Do that for Heman Sweatt.
- GD: But I would like to say basically, that we tried to contribute to the society by promoting
- the arts because we believed that the arts were a powerful source to change minds. And
- so we just ... we didn't believe that you should ... we wasn't into burning things down,
- and that sort of thing, but we were into trying to present the facts, and the truth, and the
- history so that you could learn from it, grow from it, and we could become a society of
- enlightened people. WP: I think that's a great place to end it.
- SG: I think so too. GD: Thank you.
- SG: Thank you again. GD: Mm-hmm (affirmative). [inaudible 01:39:32].
- WP: Thank you so much. GD: Thank you. You're welcome.
- SG: All right. GD: I need a copy of that ...
- SG: The ... ? GD: Mm-hmm (affirmative).