Erna R. Smith oral history

Lauren Bacher: All right it's recording. Alrighty, and if you don't mind we're just gonna be

taking some notes. Cynthia Soliday: Well, to [inaudible 00:00:13]

Erna Smith: You should take notes. LB: And also I have some questions and stuff

on my phone, so if I'm on my phone it's for that, not...

ES: Not checking Instagram. LB: No, no.

CS: No. LB: I'll put it on silent, in fact.

CS: So I guess we should start at the beginning. LB: Yes.

CS: And what years did you attend UT? ES: 1971 to I'd say about 1975, 76. I can't

remember for sure because I left school before I had the degree.

LB: Oh, really? ES: And the degree came in 1977.

CS: Oh, okay. So you'd finish classes, and they mailed your degree to you? Or...

ES: No I had one incomplete and then I had a library fine for $67.

CS: Oh. ES: That I had to basically get a job to pay

for, because $67 is a lot of money. CS: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

ES: So when I left I had this outstanding, I had a job and I had this outstanding incomplete,

which I hate to say I paid my sister $50 to write a paper for me. After I got a job, and

then I had enough money to pay off my library fees and then they sent me a degree.

LB: So you had completed it and then you're just waiting to pay that off get your degree?

ES: Yeah. So the degree, I think, came in 1977. That's why... It's weird.

LB: Yeah, yeah. CS: Okay, and your degree is in journalism?

ES: Mm-hmm (affirmative). CS: So...

LB: And you just got your BA? ES: I just got my BA at University of Texas

in Austin. CS: So now, was journalism your first choice

for your degree? Or did you decide later after you finished your core classes?

ES: No I knew why I wanted to come there was for the journalism. And actually, interesting

because UT was my fall back. I didn't particularly wanna go there, but I couldn't get into the

schools I wanted to, and I got into UT. I knew I wanted it had journalism, that's why

I picked it. And so that's why I went there, was to do journalism. I studied a lot of other

things, and probably could've had three different majors if I had, had any kind of structure.

I was just doing everything, but I got the journalism first. But I took a lot of stuff

in political science, and I also think... Yeah probably polysci, I was probably really

close in getting a... If I had followed the list of required classes. I certainly took

a lot of classes in polysci. LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Would you say that's

where you find your focus in the journalism world? Is it a bit more on the political side?

ES: I think I was interested in journalism primarily because of that.

LB: Right. Mm-hmm (affirmative). ES: 'Cause it seemed to be about the world

and public policy in the world and how government affects people's everyday lives. I was particularly

interested obviously in civil rights things. LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

ES: Since that was sort of my life. But I was really motivated to get into journalism

because I liked to write. And I had always written when I was a child, I had always written

stories, and actually the first thing I ever wrote was a ballet, I wrote with my body.

So I've always been interested in telling stories. I've always been interested in that,

and so I think it just grew out of that. I wanted to be a writer, a fiction, a writer

writer. LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

ES: But, you have to be practical. So when I was in high school, I'd graduated from Lanier

High School, by the way, here in town. I went there for one year, horrible. And I took a

journalism class for electives, and the first day the woman said "This is the lead of a

story, it answers this question, and I could write one right away." And I said "Oh, well

this is a way you could make money and write, and you could be a fiction writer on the side,

you can write novels on the side." LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

ES: And so that's really how I got into it, but I was always interested in the world around

me, because a number of reasons. My father was in the military, both of my parents are

from Texas, and I grew up moving around. And I'm now 65 years old, which means I was moving

around, living in Europe and stuff in the early 60s that... I saw how different your

experience can be, as a black person, from place to place.

LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative). ES: In not only this country, but in Europe.

It was quite different in Europe. So there you are, a little kid in Europe, the first

I went to Europe I think I was five, we lived in Germany, maybe I was younger than that.

LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative). ES: And you just have different memories of

things. My attitude toward white people was quite different because I'd been around them,

and the military was integrated, I guess that's it. And so, those sorts of notions that someone

would think they were better than you because they were white was just, I mean... What?

I never... I experienced it, but when you're... I think it's very hard to have stereotypes

about people when you're living around them all the time.

LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative). ES: And so it was a really interesting lesson.

And so, we lived in France and when I was... Yeah. We lived in France, I must have been

in Germany earlier, but from the time I was five til I was 11, I pretty much lived in

Europe most of the time. LB: Okay.

ES: And then we came back here and we went to El Paso, that was cool to live in a place

where the culture was predominantly Hispanic, another experience. Then we went back to Germany

for one year, I was 16. And then my father retired and we came here to Austin, and it

was shocking to come back to Austin. I went to Lanier High School in 1971, and the school

then was predominantly white, it was new, and I think there was seven of us kids in

there that were black, I think seven. LB: Seven? Wow.

CS: Wow. ES: And one of them was my sister. And what

I remember about it is two things. That was I was being taught wasn't... Most of it I

already knew, because I'd been taught that before.

LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative). ES: And it wasn't as sophisticated, you know?

It wasn't. I took a literature class when I was a junior in high school in Karlsburg,

Germany, and my teacher had a PhD in Henry James.

LB: Wow. ES: And so she has you reading The Bear, William

Faulkner's short story that's got like 39 paragraph sentences.

LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative). ES: And then you're coming here, and they're

still reading Catcher in the Rye. It's like please.

LB: Yeah, yeah. ES: So it was quite different, and people

[inaudible 00:07:19] high school. I had, at Linear, I had a couple of friends, and one

of them was a guy named Evan. I need to find him, and he was a hippie.

LB: Yeah. ES: He had longer hair. And we used to walk

around with a baseball bat, because people was always attacking. The dominate culture

was shit kickers. LB: Wow.

ES: So I was really quite ready to get out of Austin. I wanted to go out, and actually

I had this crazy dream that I wanted to go to Ratcliffe, and you know why I wanted to

go there? Because the movie Love Story had come out, and it was set in Harvard and Ratcliffe,

and I'd always heard those were the best schools, but I couldn't get in there. I got into some

other Ivy, can't remember what it was, but they weren't gonna give me any money.

LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative). ES: Because my parents made too much money.

So I ended up coming here. CS: Oh, wow.

ES: Yeah, it's a long story sorry. LB: No.

CS: No. LB: You're good, I love it.

CS: It's interesting how we end up the places we do.

ES: Mm-hmm (affirmative). LB: Yeah.

CS: It's always a long story. LB: Yeah, and the experiences that follow

it. Wow. Yeah. So when you came to UT... ES: Well, I'll tell you my first experience

at UT. LB: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

ES: I came for orientation. LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

ES: And orientation was in Kinsolving dorm, and they had... I can't remember if I was

in the black orientation, but they had some sections there was more black kids, and I

think you could pick... I don't remember, but I remember sitting in the lobby there,

and we were playing records, and I guess we walked away and I heard “sreetch” and

some white kid just scratched the record. I guess he just found it so offensive, this

black music and took it off, and I thought "okay, well this is not what I expected."

LB: Yeah. ES: I believe it was Roberta Flack.

CS: I was just about to ask. ES: Quiet Fire.

CS: What were... ES: I believe it was Roberta Flack's album

“Quiet Fire”, or something like that. Because I couldn't get over how first of all,

someone would scratch a record. It's not their record.

LB: Right. ES: And they'd scratch her album like that,

because they found it somehow offensive to their ears.

LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative). ES: And so that was the beginning of it at

UT. LB: So that kind of set the scene.

ES: Well, I'd been at Linear, so I kinda knew a little bit.

LB: Right. ES: But that was really set, and it set the

tone for the experience. LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

ES: So you were kinda like... There was this feeling of being on guard.

LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Right ES: Waiting for something to happen.

LB: Yeah. Did you live in the dorms? ES: Yes, that's another great story. So I

lived in Jester, even though my parents lived here I wanted to live on campus.

LB: Right. ES: My parents could afford to pay for me

to go to school here. LB: Oh, that's [inaudible 00:10:14].

ES: 'Cause it was something like $400 a year, something like that.

CS: Oh my goodness. LB: A year?

ES: It was always so funny. Maybe it was $800 a year, but anyway it was not that much. My

parents had some property in central Texas, and they ran cows on it, they had some cows.

So when they wanted to pay the tuition for a [inaudible 00:10:30] my father said “Let's

go down a slaughter a heifer, and we'll pay the tuition for the kids.” So slaughter

a cow and pay the tuition. That's how cheap it was.

LB: Wow. ES: So they could afford it, so they said

“Live in the dorms.” Lived in Jester, and my first roommate was this very quiet,

a white woman. She never hardly said anything to me. She wasn't unfriendly, she was just

really quiet, and so that was no fun. And then my next roommate was also white, but

she was from East Texas, well Edinburg. Where's Edinburg, Texas? That's south Texas isn't

it? CS: I am not sure.

LB: Yeah. ES: Anyway, she was from there, and she was

different, she was a hippie. LB: Oh, okay.

ES: Jenny Cohan. And she had, had a baby when she was in high school, and in those days

if the girl got knocked up, they send them off to these homes, and they would have that

baby and they would take that baby from them, and then there was the shame that went with

it. LB: Oh.

ES: I remember her story, because the first time she had sex she got knocked up, in the

back of some car, and her father was insisting, like somehow she did something. Her mother

had died recently. LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

ES: So there was this sadness about her, but it also made her really sympathetic, empathetic,

more empathetic. LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

ES: And so she and I became friends and it was through her, I found out that, at least

she told me for her, they asked her if she minded having a black roommate.

CS: I was gonna ask you that. One of our other classmates said that she wasn't able to get

a roommate, because none of the prospective roommates, their parents wouldn't sign for

her to be approved. So... ES: Yeah. So I think Jenny just said... She

told me that. And she and I became really good friends for, actually, I think, for the

rest of the time I was in school. LB: Did She...

ES: But we both left the dorm after that. LB: Did you live in West campus or nearby?

Or... ES: There wasn't West Campus then.

LB: Oh, okay. ES: West campus was regular homes with co-ops

in there. LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Okay.

ES: So I remember Jenny lived in the cop-op on what was west campus.

LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Okay. ES: It basically looked like a converted garage.

And we used to go over there and smoke a lot of pot, 'cause that was always where the pot

smokers were. LB: Was it... Do you remember the name of

the co-op? CS: That's where they were.

ES: Pardon me? LB: Do you remember the name of the co-op?

ES: No. I never lived in one, but she lived in one.

LB: Yeah. ES: And I always going over there because

you could always get pot. LB: Uh-huh.

ES: And it was fun. I went over there... I remember one night, I was hanging out with

Jenny and we went to see a Bette Midler. LB: Oh, wow.

ES: At the Armadillo World Headquarters. LB: Oh, that's awesome.

ES: I'll never forget that. I think that night we had a little coke, but anyway...

CS: Oh, my goodness. ES: For the special occasion.

CS: Yeah. ES: But I remember it was so much fun, I'd

go to concerts with Jenny and you go over there, the co-op and get high, go to the concerts,

it'd be fun. But my first [crosstalk 00:13:23]. Yeah anyway, I don't wanna jump around too

much. CS: No, you're good.

ES: So, I lived in Jester one year, then I moved back home, and then I had jobs, and

I lived in my own apartment off of, something up in 40s someplace in the ACB's, I can't

remember. My sister and I had an apartment there.

CS: Okay. ES: So it was always between home and then

living in apartments here and there. CS: Okay.

ES: And I pretty much stopped going to class after the first year. I didn't go very much.

I became involved with politics. CS: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

ES: And so that's how I met Linda Lewis. I started working on a political campaign for,

her name was Wilhelmina Delco, and when she was first elected to the state legislature,

she had been on the school board here, black woman. So she was like the first black woman

elected to the Texas state legislature. Well not the first, she was the second, Barbra

Jordan was the first, I guess. But, she was the first one from here, and she was the first

black representative from here since reconstruction. CS: Wow.

ES: So I worked on that campaign. Now that campaign I met Ann Richards, who went on become

governor of the state of Texas. CS: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

ES: She was the campaign treasurer. And, of course, then my mentor for life Linda Lewis.

And so I started doing political work, and around the same time at UT, they hired John

Warfield, Professor John Warfield, and John, the Warfield Center's named for him, the John

Warfield Center for African and African American Studies is named for him.

CS: Yeah, mm-hmm (affirmative). ES: Well, he came here from, I think St. Paul,

Minnesota. I can't remember when I met him I was at UT pretty, really young, and I got

a job with him being a student assistant. He was so good to us, and I remember he funded

the little black paper for us that we started calling Umoja.

CS: Oh. CS: How do you spell that?

ES: It's the Swahili word, I can't remember how to spell it. Umoja means everybody's kind

of oneness. Look it up, it's Swahili. And I should know how to spell that, but it's

slipping me now. LB: It's fine.

ES: So we started that, and we also worked on a series, speaker series. I helped him

to bring in Heman Sweatt, who was the black man who sued UT back in the 50s. You know

who he is? LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.

CS: Yes. ES: So we brought him to campus.

LB: Oh, wow. ES: And Huddie Ledbetter, I believe. It was

a bunch of people. But what I remember about Heman Sweatt so clearly, was that... I was

by that time, in my journalism classes, we'll have to talk about that a little bit more

in depth in a minute. LB: All right.

ES: But I remember at the point I had been in a class where we had to write for The Daily

Texan, and I think I'd written for them. And I told them about it, and I thought that they

would cover it, and they didn't. They didn't even cover it.

LB: Wow. ES: And so then I remember going in there

a couple days later and the editor, the managing editor was actually a Mexican-American woman.

LB: Right. CS: Lorie Rodriguez.

ES: No, no, no. Lorie was the editor. The managing editor, when I was in school was

a woman named Silvia Moreno. I did know Lorie Rodriguez, I'll talk about her in a minute.

CS: Oh. ES: And I remember Silvia, [inaudible 00:16:53]

I sat with her and she said well I had to make up my mind whether I was a minority or

a journalist. And I said “Jesus, what kind of a question?” I said “It's news.”

I was pissed off. So, these things would happen and you just be like insist. And so that would,

I mean, it was immaturity on my part, because I was so bad at school. I could've responded

differently, but I just didn't know what to do with myself, so I just got mad about stuff

and then you just like to go “Fuck them, I'm just gonna do my own thing.”

LB: Right, you were passionate about it, I mean.

ES: Well all I really ended up doing was fucking myself, so people should know that there's

a way to say “Fuck you,” Without damaging yourself, and I didn't learn that until many

years later, but I'll just never forget that. So we're working on that, and they can't even

cover it. The Statesman covered it. LB: Okay, oh.

ES: TV people came up, but The Daily Texan, they couldn't really bother, that was unbelievable.

LB: Hmm. ES: But John was very instrumental for many

people, he was for me, he was the lifeline. LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

ES: That was a place you could go in the center, where it was completely a safe space. He was

always there to talk to, if you wanted to talk. He always had us doing projects, was

always telling you, you were smart. "Just don't pay attention. Just go on, baby."

LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative). ES: And he was just a very supportive, encouraging,

professor around which black life happened. There were other people on campus, Almetris

Duren, and a guy named Ed, can't remember his last name. There was an office and sometimes

you'd go in there and people would be in there crying. Ed Vison, I think I remember his name.

You could go in there as well. Almetris Duren, that was MaMa Duren, that's what we'd call

her. You could go in there. But for me it was really Warfield.

LB: Okay. ES: Because I was more of a kid that lived

in my head, so he was better for me, because he could talk these great ideas, he was always

giving me books to read. So I got a great education, it just wasn't in the classroom

too much. LB: Interesting.

ES: It was more going around. And I did have some other great professors. I never took

a class with John. LB: Wow.

ES: I always did Independent studies. LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

ES: Where they'd just give you a list of things to read and then you'd say “Either give

me a paper or presentation about it.” And I worked on projects with him, but he was

absolutely independent. ES: So one of the things that I got involved

with because of him and Linda Lewis, was we started a media coalition, it was called the

Austin Black Media Coalition. 'Cause I was learning about... In journalism what I was

motivated by, was the fact that when I would look at the news, or when I would look at

media in general, with the exception of the black targeted media-

LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative). ES: In the so called mainstream one, the depiction

of black people was no black people I'm in. LB: Right.

ES: So always some crime stuff, we're always having a problem and making a mess for people,

and that wasn't my life at all. And so I thought, well that this was my purpose, was to be somebody

who would go into the media and then make an impact on that.

LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative). ES: And it wasn't 'cause I wanted to necessarily...

Yes, I did wanna write about it, I wanted to write about issues that were really affecting

people, but yes, if it came down to black, or whatever, yeah I wanted to write about

that. But, I was very much motivated by that kind of thing, and then John, it was John

Warfield, and then you sort of start understanding how systems work.

LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative). ES: And so, it was the notion that “Okay,

well if we don't actually own any media how is it actually gonna change?” Or “If they

don't hire any of us how are things gonna change?” So the Austin Black Media Coalition

was a vehicle. And there was a lot of activism around the media in the early 70s in this

country. LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

ES: Activism because the media was very small then, it was just three networks, national

networks, they all had affiliates. And they were all regulated by the Federal Communications

Commission, when it used to have teeth. And so, every five or six years they had to have

licensing renewal, and they were obligated under the law to actually keep a record of

who they hire. LB: Hmm.

ES: So we went down, we knew they were all coming up for a license 'cause, I guess John

or somebody taught us, me and Lynda and John, went down there and looked at their records,

looked at how many black people they had, or people of color, even women. I can't remember

the numbers, but it was certainly no black people and not many women. It was just all

white men. And so, we knew their license was coming up, so you'd write a letter, and they

had to keep all this, it was something called a public file, write a letter to them and

CC it to Washington, you know, like, we don't think these people should have a license because

they're basically running a segregated news station. So...

LB: So, yeah. ES: So then you're invited in of course, and

you have to negotiate a settlement with them. So there I was... I think I was like 20.

LB: Wow. ES: I went down to every media station with

John Warfield and Linda Lewis, and saying “Well, that's really not good enough our

contingency was never...” It was like the three of us. “Never going to accept that.”

And some people ended up getting hired because of it.

LB: That's [inaudible 00:21:51]. ES: They had to make some commitments.

LB: Yeah. ES: So that happened when I was in school.

Now meanwhile, I'm a journalism major. I'm doing stuff like that, do you think I ever

got any class credit for that? Absolutely not.

LB: No. ES: I didn't even tell them I did that, 'cause

I knew I would get in trouble, if I told them I was out carrying on like that. That would

be considered, in those days, completely unacceptable. Now I'd probably get credit.

LB: Mm-hmm (affirmative). ES: But, then it was like, I would not dare

tell anyone I was doing that. LB: Wow.

ES: You'd be labeled a pinko and that'd be the end of it.

CS: Yeah, I was going through The Daily Texan archives and found articles that you wrote.

ES: Yeah. CS: And I found an article you wrote about

Erwin not wanted to be reappointed after he went through a bad taxes scandal.

ES: Frank Erwin? CS: Uh-huh.

ES: Okay. CS: And then there was another article you

wrote about a historical building that was being demolished in town, and the man who

owned the bank that owned the building was also on the board of regions at UT, and I

was wondering if you got any pushback for writing those kinds of stories.

ES: I don't even remember the stories. So, I guess I don't remember that. Thank you.

I should look them up. No, I don't remember any pushback. It's an interesting experience

because... Let's talk about my journalism classes now. When I started here, before class,

I could even get to the journalism because you have to take all this other stuff, and

I just decided I would go volunteer at The Texan, because you could do that then.

CS: Mm-hmm (affirmative). ES: And they were in some shack building,

they didn't have the nice thing they have now. I remember just walking in there and

asking for a story, and Lorie Rodriguez was there, and I remember she came out when she

saw me, Afro and everything, but she came out and said hi, and I said “Well isn't

this neat? I'm [inaudible 00:23:47] walking here, and look at her, she's in here.” And

I wrote a story. I wrote about the shuttle bus. They gave me this horrible story about

the shuttle bus and so I was just told to make lemonade out of lemons.

CS: Mm-hmm (affirmative). ES: So I did something on the shuttle bus,

and then I think I did a couple other articles, I can't remember. And then what happens is,

the way it worked at the journalism major then, the first class you take is something

called news writing. Now I had already been writing for The Texan, I'd written a bunch

of stuff from different places, I get into news writing, it was... I couldn't stand it.

They used to give you things out of the book and you were supposed to write it out of this

book, and I was used to doing real life. CS: Right.

ES: And I had met a woman name Marilyn Marshall, who was from here, she went to UT, and she

was journalism major too, and we used to take our classes together so we wouldn't be alone.

We did. We took a lot of our journalism classes, we took them together.

CS: Love that. ES: And so we were in news writing, we both

flunked it the first time. Like, really? And then the second time. Well I did, I don't

know if she passed it. For me the second time, I just stopped going. And then it's like F

this again. And then they just finally said “We'll let everyone into the next one.”

They did. And I went into the next class, was reporting, and I made an A. So it was,

like, I didn't really need that other one. CS: Right.

ES: But the reporting class, the way it was set up then was, you had a lecture and you

had to do a lab. And one of the lab things you had to do was, you had to take a shift

on The Daily Texan. CS: Okay, and you had already been there.

ES: And I had already been there, as a volunteer. CS: Okay.

ES: I only did that a little bit, then I went off and did the black paper, I think. But,

the way it worked was you went into lab, you had an instructor and then there was an editor

from The Texan, and you just turned in two copies, and you'd get edited twice, it was

really a great process. And no one ever wanted to come at night, and because I was so tired

of coming up on this campus, going to class and getting enraged by something, someone,

somebody said or just seeing what they talked about, that I took the night one. I said “Well

I'll come in at four. I'll do the evening shift.” No one wanted to do it, it was fabulous.

I went to hear Tennessee Williams, I can't remember who else, but I'll never forget Tennessee

Williams. CS: Yes.

ES: The great playwright, when he came out in a cape. Was it Tennessee Williams? Was

it Truman Capote, I think? CS: Oh, wow.

ES: It was one or the other. CS: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

ES: And I just never forget the like, this is what being a journalist, this is what's

so great about it. You get to actually hear these people, and you're up close on them.

CS: Right. ES: And I don't know if I even asked him any

questions, but I really enjoyed that, and it really did kinda turn my whole mid around

about the journalism, and I also met another friend, and her name was Ann Marie Kilde,

and she was working on The Texan, and she would really encourage me. She would actually

save the good stories for me. She knew I could do it, and she would save them for me. She

actually helped me get a job years later, it's funny how the network works.

CS: [inaudible 00:26:57] ES: So there was a moment... And then Griff

Singer, who was the teacher, Griff Singer. CS: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

ES: He was also a good guy, in the sense that, you know, he was a stereotypical white Texas

man, but the difference about him was that I didn't pick up from him that he thought

I was all incompetent or uncompetent, strange. The fact that I could do this well was not

surprising to him. How do I put it? He had... His expectations of me did not seem, around

some kind of racial thing. CS: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

ES: It didn't feel like it with him. It just felt different being around him.

CS: Yeah. ES: And he was cheerful. But, mostly, I think,

he just treated me like a normal person, I felt normal when I was around him.

CS: Mm-hmm (affirmative). ES: And it's funny 'cause I talked to him

years later, I'm like “Wow, he really was an old redneck.” But, just because somebody

is, that doesn't mean anything, they could be a fine person, it's a weird thing to say.

CS: Yeah. ES: But anyway, he was good. I felt safe with

him, I felt safe around him. And Anne Marie of course I did, and that was very helpful

to kind of stimulate my mind. And because of that, the school then sent me to, it was

the very first, it was in Washington D.C., it was so exciting, it was the very first

meeting of, forgot the group or what it was called, but it was basically a gathering of

black communication students from across the country. It was the first one they ever had.

I think it was Association of Black Student Communicators, or something, and it was started

at Howard University, and the dean at Howard then was a guy who had a great show on PBS

then named Tony Brown. CS: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

ES: And it was the first black show on PBS. And so, we went there, here you are, and you're

here from this predominately white school, where you just feel like you're holding your

head above water to keep away from these racists, and then you get up there you're surrounded

by black people. In chocolate city, it's called Washington D.C., being stimulated by all these

ideas and you're meeting these top Black journalists and stuff.

And it was just like "ah." It was like "ah, phew," so beautiful. And so I had to write

something about it. And turn it in. So I turned it in to the chair of the journalism, his

name was Norris Davis, I believe. And I thought I did a really good job of writing it. And

then I went in to see him and he handed it back to me and I'll never forget, he probably

said something nice, he had just circled where I hadn't put the comma properly, and that

was the whole discussion. That's all I remember about it. He may have said something else

but all I could see was... he read this thing and all he could do was point out the comma.

So I'm like, these people. These people. CS: Got to nitpick something.

ES: Yeah, nitpick. There was no discussion of the content, that's what I remember. But

it didn't matter, I had that experience and they paid for it. I don't know why it happened

but they did. I don't know maybe Griff told them. But that was a good experience. And

also at the same period of time, I met a woman named Sheryl Jefferson. I met her through

Linda. And Sheryl was producing a show at KUT called In Black America. And that was

my first internship, was on that show. Radio show. With her.

LB: That was a radio show? ES: Mm-hmm (affirmative). It's still on. John

Hanson does it now. It's still on, and no one has ever archived that program. They have

all those tapes and they've never been archived. And as a matter of fact, it's one of those

things...I was told I should go over to UT books and tell them "look, I'll do it but

you have to pay me." But no one has ever done it, they're sitting there, all those tapes.

And we're talking going back here to 1970. And he did the show once a week.

LB: Wow. ES: In Black America. It's still on. With

John Hanson. Never been archived. So I worked on that. That was great because for work on

a radio show, when you're producing, you're doing research, you have to come up with story

ideas and a lot of times we'd be interviewing national people on the phone. So you'd have

to get the questions together and stuff like that for the interviewer. And I just learned

a lot doing that show. And Sheryl was just wonderful, just a wonderful person to be around.

She is a Black woman. She had such positive energy. So it was a horrible thing, but there

were these moments. There was just enough to seem to happen at the right time to push

you through it, make you think it's all worthwhile. So that was very important to me. But after

my success as a student, on the Daily Texan, then I got a job there. And in those days,

I think I was a general assignment reporter at first, I can't remember what the pay was

but it was enough for me to have an apartment with my sister.

LB: Wow, that's good. ES: I think they paid $80 for an apartment

or something. LB: Oh, the days.

ES: We even had a car. CS: You know you got to pay ten times that

amount for an efficiency now. ES: Yeah, I mean, this is an expensive town,

children. LB: Oh yes.

ES: I came from California, and I was not saving money at all. So I worked there. I

forgot what it was. But I think I got $88 a month, it was enough, you know?

LB: Yeah. ES: So I worked stories and that's probably

where you saw the Irwin story and all that stuff, was probably during that period of

time. I don't remember the stuff they'd given me to do.

CS: Yeah, there was a good dozen stories that I found that you had authored. I didn't bring

my notes in though. ES: Well, I appreciate that, I should look

them up. And so I started working there. And then a guy named Michael Ekan became the editor.

And Michael was a radical. See what had happened was the student body president and the Daily

Texan editor, they formed a coalition and they ran together. So I believe that the president

was Bob Binder. Student body president was Bob Binder and Michael Ekan was the Daily

Texan editor. It's interesting about these times because I realize, maybe that happened

before or after. I don't remember exact dates. It's all murky. But Michael was radical. He

was a radical. Much more radical than Bob Binder, though Bob Binder did throw away his

Purple Heart at the anti-Vietnam War protest. He did throw it in the flames. But he went

on to become mayor actually, Bob Binder. LB: Wow.

ES: And Michael ended up dying under mysterious circumstances, investigating the nuclear industry,

no one knows what happened to Michael. CS: Wow.

ES: But Michael was the editor. And Michael, he was kind of a ham-fisted radical, but he

really wanted to have Blacks. They didn't say it like that. So I was on the editorial

board, under Michael. And I worked with a guy named Steve Russell, who went on to become

a municipal court judge, he's retired now. He was also radical. So I had to learn how

to write editorials, which I thought would be easy. It's the hardest writing I ever did,

was in editorial. So I did that. Was that Michael or... No, no I'm sorry, Michael was

the editor when I was doing general assignment. When I was on editorial board, I think the

editor was a guy named Buck Harvey, I'm sorry. We used to call him Legs because he was a

sports writing guy, but he had got politics. And he used to always wear shorts, he had

beautiful legs. He could have been a frat boy, I think he may have been. But something

happened and he went left. ES: I know what happened. He decided that

the whole football thing at UT was a kind of corrupt enterprise. And it was always the

same, whatever. So he stopped going to games. And he wrote about why he didn't go.

LB: And that's like the frats, they... ES: Yes.

LB: They still now are like "you go to the games" so, I'm sure it was like that back

then. ES: He poked an eye in somebody... Maybe it

was because the team was segregated, I can't remember. He was protesting something. So

then he got elected Daily Texan editor. And I was on the editorial board under him, I'm

sorry. Michael was a previous time. I was on the Daily Texan, I think for about a year.

Maybe a year and a half. Getting paid. So I remember being on the editorial board because

I started in the summer. And I think Watergate was going on, it was an incredible time. So

I think the Watergate hearings are going on, so that time I just remember practically living

down there. And you're looking at the Watergate stuff and you're seeing that journalism actually

brought down a president. Because we're all reading Woodward and Bernstein like it's mother's

milk. And these guys we thought were just so badass. And they got rid of Nixon. Unbelievable.

ES: So it was this high time to be a journalist, you're sitting down there at the Daily Texan

and you're with this really smart guy, Steve Russell, who's older than all of us, who had

been a farm worker. I didn't even know White people were farm workers. But he was. And

grew up some place in Texas. Fluent in Spanish. Really didn't see himself as a White person.

He didn't... because of his socioeconomic status and how he grew up. He really identified

more with people of color, much more so, especially Black people, because that's what he was around.

So he told me that when he was a kid he was so excited about Brown vs. the Board of Education

because he thought he could go to school with the kids that he picked cotton with. And it

didn't work out. And he was very disappointed that they couldn't go to the same school.

I'll never forget him telling me that story. LB: Wow.

ES: But that was an exciting summer to be down there and Steve was great because he

didn't let you get away with being sloppy in your thinking at all. He would just "uh-uh."

So that was really great. So those were some highlighting experiences. And Buck Harvey,

who was just to me such an unlikely person, because he looked like a frat boy, he grew

his hair out and everything. You could tell he was one of these beautiful men. He could

have done whatever he wanted to at UT and then somehow, I don't know, he just went left

on them. So I love it when that happens, someone so unexpectedly, they break with you think.

And I remember I saw him years later and I thanked him, because he was another one of

those that I felt very safe around. So. I kind of lost... oh yeah.

ES: Last thing I did journalism here was I had an internship with the American Statesman.

And those days they gave you... well, they still do, they gave you class credit for it,

frankly if it weren't for those independent studies I'm not sure if I would have graduated.

Or supervised, whatever. So I had an internship there, I think it was '74 or something. And

I remember I was going to school, and I was walking across by the administration building.

And I see some people I know running up the stairs to the building there. And I'm like

"what are you guys?" "We're going to take over the office." They had a handful of Black

people you knew. They had a Black Student Union. And it was some of them running up

there, including the guy that would later become my brother-in-law for about five minutes.

Noah. Noah Richardson. ES: And they ran up there, they took over

the president's office. So the group was called United Students Against Racism at Texas. USARAT.

I love that. United Students Against Racism at Texas. They called it USARAT.

LB: USARAT, I love that. ES: So they took over the president's office

for a minute. So I saw them running up there, and so I just called into work. Because I

was a lowly news assistant. I called them and I told them, "they ran up there and they

took over the office." And they said, "stay there." I said, "okay, I'll stay." And I was

waiting for the big reporters to come. And they sent Wanda Prior, who was the one Black

one they had at that time. And she and I covered it. And that was of course front page, that

was a big boost to me. And then we ended up writing a series of stories in the Austin

American Statesman about the history of integration at UT. And the irony of that is that literally

two years ago, year before last, I got a call from a writer named, I think it's Asher Price,

who wanted to interview me because he was doing a book on Earl Campbell and he found

those articles. LB: Really?

ES: It's funny. So I remember covering that. But my job at the Statesman was that most

of the time I sat on the desk next to the night editor. And I had to take obits over

the phone and write up whatever he told me to. And a couple nights we got court report

things. ES: And so, I remember my biggest lesson there

was that... obits were free. A funeral home called and the person's name was Barrientos.

They must have had 33 survivors. I misspelled Barrientos every single time, and nobody caught

it in the paper. Nobody caught it in the paper. And I remember I felt so bad. That's the power

of the press. Because I said, people only get in the paper usually when they're born

and when they die. And so people will cut that stuff out and keep it. And there you

spelled the name wrong. I felt so bad. They ran the whole thing again. But I really felt

bad. But later on when I thought about it, I said I'm in Texas, I'm not really from Texas.

And no one knew how to spell Barrientos. No one caught it. Because in journalism, you're

read at least twice. And nobody saw that was wrong.

ES: Years later I kind of thought about it and I was like "wow, in Texas?" That's kind

of like being in England and not knowing how to spell the Queen's name or something. I

really think it's that basic here. But it sort of told me something. This is what happens

when you don't have a mix of people in there. This is what happens. They misspell Barrientos,

which is the equivalent of basically Johnson. LB: Yeah.

ES: It's a very common name. So it's just weird to me. So that was my whole journalism

thing at UT. I think so. Yeah. ES: Is there a question you want to ask me?

Because I can just go on and on. LB: Yeah, sorry, I was just finishing up a

thought. ES: I'm sorry.

LB: No you're good. CS: So it sounds like your experience at UT

was partly infuriating but also that you had a real good support system in your community

there. And that you were able to make a community there.

ES: Yeah, I was able to make one there. And there's great value in when you make a community

in an environment in which you feel hostile, alienated from it. You make that community

and you just never forget those people. You become tight for the rest of your life. You

could talk to them years later, and you had this experience together, and there's just

this trust and this loyalty that happens. And this is a great thing, a great reassurance

in life over time. We didn't realize it at the time. And then years later you meet people

and it's like "huh." Sheryl was over here week before last. And I was in kind of a mood

and didn't really want to talk. She was here to see Linda. So I just went into the back.

But before I went into the back she said, "I'm so proud of you." And I

was like, "aw man." Wow. LB: That's awesome.

ES: It gives you chills, you know? It's what gives life meaning. So I don't regret it.

You other thing about going to UT, is that I got a very good education. Like I said,

it wasn't necessarily in the classroom. Though I did have a couple of really good classes.

I had a couple of bad ones too where the teachers were just flat out racist. There's one guy

that used to teach here that used to say that a Black would never get more than a C in his

class because our brains weren't developed right. There's stuff like that. I had to take

swimming to get out of here. I had to learn to tread water for five minutes or I couldn't

get out of the school. They made girls be able to tread water, I mean it's all this

crazy stuff they did. So you had that. Yeah. I can't find anybody that owns up to it. I

said, "who knew about this treading the water business?" Everyone laughs when I tell them

that. A&M had it too. If you were a girl you had to be able to tread water for five minutes.

CS: And just girls, or just African-American girls?

ES: It was just girls. Of any color. And so I remember because that was one class I had

where most of the people in it were Black. Because what happened if you couldn't tread

the water right away you had to take swimming for a semester. And as many times as I had

been to swimming growing up, my mother was afraid of the water. And so when you're taken

to swimming lessons by someone who sits way back in the thing, that's frightened the entire

time, you don't learn to swim. LB: Yeah.

ES: She was sitting there like "oh my God." And so I didn't really learn how to swim well.

But it turned out I was buoyant. But I couldn't really swim. So I went to swimming class and

I was able to do it pretty quickly but I never forget that class because for Black girls

it was just like a nightmare, everyone's worried about their hair and they're clinging onto

the side. You could see how frightened they were. Because Black people and swimming, it's

changed now, but in my day no, no, no. So I don't know what, I always thought it's a

metaphysical thing. One of my friends said many years later, it's that memory of the

Middle Passage. You can't get over the water. We don't like the water. It's funny. There

were also some studies showing our muscle mass is a little bit higher in the skin level,

it is harder for us to float. I read that. And now you see, there have been these great

Black swimmers, you're like, maybe that's not all of us.

ES: But there's all these reasons why. I prefer the metaphysical one. Memory of the Middle

Passage. I can still remember. But that was the weirdness. So that was some of the bad

experiences in a classroom. But the good ones were, I remember a class called, I think it

was Race, Class, and Gender. And I'm talking about a long time ago. It was summer school.

I liked going to summer school because it was smaller, not as many people on campus.

And the frat boys didn't seem to take classes in the summer. The sorority girls, they didn't

seem to. They were gone. LB: Were they like the worst?

ES: Yeah, they were the dominant culture there, and they were in my opinion horrible. Horrible

people. CS: There's an article you wrote that says

that the frats boys, and the administrators, and somebody else must be in a... and the

board of regents, must be in race for mediocrity in education.

ES: Oh my goodness. That must have been one of my editorials. I hope so.

CS: Yeah, you were writing about the round up for-

ES: Oh, the Texas round up. LB: That's this weekend.

ES: Really? LB: Still a thing, yup.

ES: I'm going to have to look that up, I can show it to my students, what I wrote. And

I can tell them, look, you can all write better than me probably at that time.

CS: I need to go get my notes after we're done with this so I can show you.

ES: Thank you. CS: I pulled some quotes from some of the

articles that I really liked a whole lot. ES: Oh, thank you.

LB: Yeah, they're really good. CS: Yeah. Another article that I read, you

wrote a review of a play called Sty the Blind Pig.

ES: Sty the Blind Pig. Yeah, that was the African-American players.

CS: And some of our friends from class interviewed Ms. Glo Dean, who started up that... were

you friends with them? ES: Yes! Very good friends with her, still

friends with her. Glo Dean and Freddy. To me, they were the glamorous Black couple.

Because they had been living together forever, and I think she took him from his first wife.

[crosstalk 00:46:36] lying but- LB: I think they're still married-

ES: No, they're still married. They're still married and they're artists. And she could

cook really well. So you ended up at some point always at their house because she always

had something fabulous to eat. And she always kept her place so lovely, because none of

us had money. And no design sense. But Glo Dean always had fabulous style, with no money.

And so she always made everything special. She was an artist. Everything was a creative

thing with her. And he was flat out... Freddy... what's Freddy's last name? Freddy... oh, whatever.

Freddy was one of the brightest people I have ever met in my life. He was brilliant. Crazy

a loon, like a lot of artists. But I had never really been around an artist like him before.

They were both artistic, but he was absolutely... because he could do everything, he could play

instruments, he could sing, he could act, he could dance, he could do everything. So

it was fun being around them. ES: I was no good at being an actress though.

I think I was with them for, I don't know, whatever, but I used to write the press releases

and stuff. And one time, we were someplace and I had to do lights, and I had no idea

what lights I was I had to turn the lights on and whatever, stage lights and whatever,

I didn't know what it was. But it didn't really matter to me. Maybe it mattered to them. But

it didn't matter because they could act so well. Yeah, I mean, he was just... Freddy

Gardner. He was just amazing. To meet somebody that could do all that. And she was that kept

it all together. He wouldn't have been anything without her. Even he'll tell you that. He'll

tell you, he would have been nothing without her because he was an artist and no discipline

so whatever- LB: Free souls.

ES: You can't be doing it all night; she brought the structure and the discipline to it. And

she herself went to Catholic school, which was an odd thing for a Black girl of her time.

I forgot how she got into that White Catholic school she went to, but she went to that.

And so there was stuff that she knew. I think when you have different experiences and different

things influence you. So I always felt like she had this nun influence, so she could always

keep everything running and everything. I used to call her the Black Nun. But yeah.

Thank you for reminding me. That was a fun experience, working with them. That was another

thing. Again, no class credit. But every experience I had out of the classroom there, was to me

like a class. Actually, more than a class. And what I learned from that was that I'm

an experiential learner, that's how I learn. Everyone has different learning styles.

LB: Yeah, I'm the same way. ES: And if I could have done it again, I would

have got to a school that had that. That kind of learning. Like Antioch, or Northeastern,

where you did coursework for maybe a year and then you're just out doing stuff. That's

what would have worked for me. But thank you for bring that up. That was a nice experience.

ES: And again, Linda was in that. Most of these people I met through Linda. Linda Lewis.

LB: I think somebody is interviewing her in our group.

ES: Yeah, somebody did, somebody did. LB: Okay, yeah, yeah. That's good, yeah. So

is there any other organizations that you remember specifically? You weren't in a sorority

or? ES: No. No. But they had the best parties.

The Black sororities and fraternities had the best parties. But I wasn't a good dancer.

I wasn't into all that stuff. So I would go to the parties sometimes because they were

always the best parties, but I was never in one. I never had any interest in being in

one. LB: Yeah.

ES: And it some of it was the time. Because you're talking about the seventies, and you

really weren't that far out of the sixties. And so the whole thinking about that stuff

was different. Musically, there was a period of time where you had the Motown, but Motown

was beginning to recede into popularity, you got more people coming out. And my hero was

Shaka Khan. And that was so different, how things were happening. Earth, Wind & Fire

were new then and they were completely alternative type Black people. And so those kind of styles

of those button-down, straighten your hair thing, no I wasn't into that. It was a period

where people were exploring their ethnic identities, their Black identities in a much more profound

way. So that was never something that appealed to me, I was always on the other side. That's

why when I went to DC, it was an explosion of "oh yeah, okay."

ES: The other thing, I took a class, I'm talking about classes that were good. Race, Class,

and Gender. I don't remember what the man's name was but he was White, I think he was...

I want to say he was Jewish, but I don't really know. But I remember that class because we

read Erica Jong, who wrote Fear of Flying. And that book was just about a woman, I don't

remember everything it was about, but I know that the controversy about that book was that

her character was a woman who basically went around fucking like a man. In other words,

she had, she called it the zipless fuck. Now at the time when that book came out, can you

imagine? She was a big feminist hero too. ES: So we read that book, it hadn't been out

very long. Oh, there was a couple of frat boys in there who were just outraged by that

book. And that conversation went on and on about that book, and I was like, "let's get

over this book." I thought that was the lightest of the reading but I couldn't wait to go to

class to hear... because the teacher was just totally provoking, just kind of crazy stuff

to hear. The one or two frat boys in there, the Christians, would get upset and you would

just go and watch the show. LB: There's still some classes like that at

UT. ES: I just loved it. I couldn't wait to get

in there. What is he going to say this time, because he would just shut them down, tell

them they were fools or whatever. That's the impression I got. He probably didn't say that

but I was just... and then you'd just raise your hand to argue with him. So I thought

that was a wonderful class. So we read that and that's the book I remember. There's a

couple. I remember the zipless fuck, that's what I remember learning. And I remember writing

my papers and actually having fun writing them. Of course, I didn't spend a lot of time

on them, I just write them at the last minute and I can remember getting my B+ and thinking,

"if you had just maybe spent maybe an hour more maybe you'd got an A" but whatever, it

was over. It was a long paper too, it was just one night, all night, 20 pages, here

you go. And I thought he was a good professor, I can't remember his name. But he was wonderful.

And that was such a fun class. ES: And I had a seminar class with Dennis

Brutus. He was a poet. From South Africa. And he helped lead the movement to get South

Africa thrown out of the Olympics for being an Apartheid country. He had been imprisoned

over there, they tortured him, everything. Somehow he gets over here. John Wharf was

amazing at getting these people here. And so Dennis Brutus comes to our school and I

took a seminar with him. I knew nothing about poetry. But somehow I got in there. So that

was the other thing, I would actually sometimes go and talk to the professor and get into

a seminar. LB: Really?

ES: Because I believe that one was a graduate one. I think I just talked my way into...

go and just talk to them. People should learn that, just go talk to them. And so I got in

there. And I remember Dennis because years later I ended up spending a lot of time in

South Africa, you can see around here. My job at USC was I directed a graduate internship

program in Cape Town, South Africa for nine years. So I got to know South Africa very

well. And realized how lucky I was to have had Dennis, I knew I lucky at that time, but

to realize what he had really done when you go to that country, it's just breathtaking.

I just don't even know how the man even coped. Because they... electrodes on the groins,

everything. He did have these electric burns that were black on his arm. From where they

tortured him and stuff. ES: But Dennis, I'll never forget, he always

wrote a poem on day he got the worst torturing. I think it's called The Day I Got Tortured,

and he wrote it over and over again. So he asked us to write a poem about being tortured.

LB: Wow. ES: I'll never forget, like... okay. Because

I don't think we knew how bad he'd been tortured. He said just been tortured, tormented. So

we're all writing something. And then you read his. I'll never forget. We knew he'd

been tortured but he was going around listening to ours. "Well, I think that one's better

than mine," I'm like "what?" Someone wrote about having a tormented heart or something.

And he said he thought that was worse than actually being tortured. I remember sitting

there, he also used to drink wine in class, it was a night seminar, so we'd have wine,

drink it. I thought it was so grown up and sophisticated, you're with a man of letters

who was a great activist and we're drinking wine and he's talking about the poem about

someone having a broken heart was worse than being tortured with electrodes on your groin.

It was unbelievable. He was amazing. He wasn't the greatest teacher. You were just hanging

out with him. LB: Right. The experience of it.

ES: Yeah. I don't think it has to be about what's in a book sometimes. If the person

is present with you and they got something to teach you. They don't need a book. So he

himself was just a lesson. He loved the White girls. But anyways. Dennis was what they call

Colored. And I didn't understand that either because I thought most Africans were Black.

Like, dark skin. And he was lighter than me. And that's when I learned about the Mixed

Race people there, from him. And he had this wild hair, it wasn't quite Afro, but it was

fuzzy hair. Some people probably thought he was White or even Jewish, or maybe Latino.

And he used to wear a ponytail all the time. And then sometimes when it was out it would

just be this wild thing on his head. He'd smoke in class too, because this guy had been

through something. And years later I realized the timing when he came here, he was only

two or three years out of that, when he came here.

CS: Wow. ES: So he had to be still kind of jumpy. I

just loved that, he's smoking and have white wine, red wine and talk about being tortured.

It was an amazing class with him. So those were these experiences that later on in life,

and even at the moment I knew, something nice was happening there. But I also knew, to me

that was what college was supposed to be. The class where we're arguing about the zipless

fucks and you're hanging out with the torture guy, I mean. To me, that was what college

was. Because college was, to me, supposed to get you ready for real life. And real life

was sitting in the room. ES: The other thing I'll tell you is I had

a Spanish class with a woman from Chile. And she had come over here... what happened was

they had democratically elected a Socialist in Chile, in the seventies. His name was...

I forgot what his name was- CS: Pinochet? Is that Pinochet in the seventies

or? ES: Yes. But the president they elected was

Allende. And Pinochet, they crushed that. That democratic movement. Pinochet and the

military took over, and the whole thing was planned at the LBJ school, you know.

LB: Really? ES: Yeah, those spooks were up there planning,

we had a protest about it. They planned that at the LBJ school, in the Latin American studies

thing. They had something to do with overthrowing... that's what we thought.

I certainly went on a protest there ... But that's what the word was, that they had helped

kind of engineer that, in some logistical help.

ES: So anyway, they torched up nice people and threw them ... and so one of them, she

was a journalist. She'd been a journalist in Chile, and she came here. I don't know

how she got here, and they made her teach this ... There was a Spanish class for communications

people and she taught that, except her English wasn't that ... She wanted to speak English

to us, so I didn't really learn a lot of Spanish but I learned a lot about journalism and ideas

and Chile, because I would go talk to her after class. I would say, "Well, what's the

story here?", you know? And she would always cancel class if something political was happening

but I remember she was just ... Again, it was one of these moments like, oh my God,

you're in school, and this person has just been down here in the middle of this huge

international story of U.S. interference and overreach in Latin America, and I'm in a class

with someone who's been there and seen that. It was, to me ... I thought she was riveting.

ES: I think I got a B in there, too, I can't remember. But I do remember she was great,

and she also was the one that introduced me to the notion of ... She introduced me to

Noam Chomsky. Why it came up in there, I don't know. But yeah, it was amazing. I forgot ... I

can't remember her name, but I just could not believe it, that this is who you have

for a teacher. ES: So I didn't care if we were conjugating

verbs or whatever. That's [inaudible 00:59:25]. Because she would start ... and we'd be talking

in Spanish and you know, you couldn't really have much of a conversation, and she was trying

to learn English better. So she would just say, "Let's just try and speak English." And

you'd try it and put in some Spanish and, you know, it was a lot of fun. I thought she

was an amazing ... I thought it was just amazing that we had her. And I did learn about some

History about that and something about History, of course ... journalism in Latin America.

I found it fascinating. Can't remember the Spanish I learned, but I remember the ideas

I learned in there. She was amazing. ES: And the last thing was the people that

came to Campus. And someone who had a big effect on me was José Angel Gutiérrez. José

Angel Gutiérrez. And he was one of the founders of the Raza Unida Party. The Raza Unida. They

were totally radical in the day. First person I ever voted for for governor was Kennedy

from the Raza Unida, Ramsey Muniz. But José Angel came, and these guys were from Crystal

City down there in South Texas. You know, and South Texas, I didn't really know a lot

about a lot from Texas. But when I learned about it, in those days it seemed like the

equivalent of Mississippi, for black people. You know, just horrible.

ES: And so, I remember, he came out of there. And what happened was there were all these

really bright kids, obviously, there. And the Ivy Leagues after the riots and stuff,

they started recruiting to try and get more people of color in there. And José was incredibly

bright, and so were all those guys, and they all end up going to Ivy League Schools.

ES: They go up there, so they take them out of, I don't know, wherever they were. Down

there, wherever, the Star City or the Crystal City. Then you're at Harvard with all these

ideas, they all became radicalized. All of 'em. All of 'em. And they came back and they

started a political party, to take over the state. I just loved it. And so he came to

campus, and you could tell ... I don't know what his background was, because I don't think

he was completely ... I think he may have been middle class. He was certainly ... he

was incredibly ... the way he spoke, you could tell he was like ... Harvard didn't just teach

him that. Someone had already ... he'd already had a lot of intellectual guff behind him.

ES: But he came, and he was hysterical, I mean he would just talk all this shit. And

I'll never forget, he said, "You know, Mexicans are just like crabs. One of us will rise up

... when one of us rises up, another one will just pull us down." And I'm like, "Oh my goodness."

And I thought to myself, we say that about black people too. And there was this moment,

you know, when you're listening to this guy, and he's very passionate, and he's saying

this provocative ... and people were like ... and I thought to myself, "Boy. I really

hope this takes off." ES: Because it was also this moment of ... you

know you're sitting there ... I think he spoke to the Black Student Union. I kinda forget,

was it, it was some kind of mixed group, mostly black and Latino kids, and that was also very

different. You never really had a lot of discussion between black and Latino kids, and not political

discussions at all. I mean, when I was going to school, one of the things that so strikes

me, so different now about UT, not only teaching there, but just such a weirdness ... but the

Latino kids, that's what's totally different to me. And the fact that the frat cultures

not as dominant as it used to be. But the Latino, Latinx kids, oh no, they ... none

of that ... When I was here, you would meet people who were awoke, there was only a handful

[inaudible 01:02:52]. It was before they had ... Hispanic had just become a term.

LB: So they would just say Spanish speakers? ES: Yeah.

LB: Wow. Interesting. ES: Yeah, that's what they said. Spanish ... really?

ES: And they did seem like they wanted to be white people. A lot of them, not everybody.

ES: And so that José Angel Gutiérrez totally took me. Because here he was, this sharp guy,

this very brilliant guy, this leader, and he was talking something else. That we were

in occupied territory. That yeah, this was occupied. That's when I heard about the Treaty

of Guadalupe, all that, just in the talk. And I was like, "My God!" And I went home

and took my father's opinion and all that business. My father was a big one for history.

So, when you came home and told him something history he would be like, "Really? You didn't

know that? That's a big one for you to know." But he loved hearing how excited you'd get

about ideas like that. ES: So that was when I saw, it was kinda like,

okay, now Latino people, they can be radical too. And we can be good allies. So that was

just amazing to me to see them together like that, to hear him. And especially how irreverent

he was, it was just a hoot. I believe he's dead now.

ES: But a lot of those guys, for a while, a guy named Armando, what's his last name

... Armando somebody, he wrote this book called Aslan, which was like the big similar book

that kinda, at least for me, kinda explained this whole colonization business here in Texas,

and a completely different kind of Texas History. And he was in the Political Science department

for a while. ES: When I was going to UT, the hot bed of

radicalism was in the American Studies actually, which they just started, and Political Science.

Those were where the radicals were. You had some, really had some in there. Not a lot.

But only it takes was two or three and suddenly you got something. Clearly the guy with the

[01:04:53] was left. And he was in there, tenure, yeah, tenure. And then Armando was

in there with that crazy book about how we were living in the colonized state, it's ... What

did they say, the border crossed us? Or something? Forgot the term he made up ...

ES: And then in American Studies, I forgot what this guy's name was, he came out to all

the protests... it didn't matter, black students, white, he was always out there. And kids just

loved him. And I didn't take his class, but he did ... you know, we never talked about

Native Americans, and the book came out ... “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee”, that came out

when I was in college. And this guy, apparently, he taught that book. And I remember just going

to one lecture, and he was up there crying, as he was talking about how we'd slaughtered

the Native Americans. ES: And then years later, when I lived in

Minneapolis, I remembered everything. I remembered everything. I forgot what that guy's name

was but he used to come to all the protests. He was a white guy. I remember he always used

to wear this same ... he'd always have on a dark T-shirt and jeans. But I remember him,

and he would cry, when he'd talk about the slaughtering of the Native Americans. Oh,

The Trail of Tears, he would always cry when he'd tell that story. And I will never forget

just sitting there thinking to myself, part of me was like, "He shouldn't be up there

... I mean, what's he crying about ..." But the other part was, "Yeah. It was incredibly

sad." He's describing genocide. And he would just weep. And he got to be known for his

shtick coming here, I forgot what his name was, he'd cry. You know, he'd be the cry of

the day. ES: His class was one of those things where

people would be sitting who weren't even in the class, and you would go. So he was rockstar

like that. And most of it was because he was talking about material that we had not really

discussed a lot, which was, the history of this country, and the genocide of Native Americans.

So these were all ideas introduced to me at UT, and the other most powerful idea I learned

at UT was a psychological concept called cognitive dissonance, when you're trying to understand,

how come people don't act in their own interest? ES: And those are concepts I learned here,

I think that's just about everything, yeah, I think that's everything that I learned at

UT. But it was ... again, if they had ... if there was a different style of learning, I

probably would have done better. But I found physically coming on campus to be ... the

more I went there, it got worse and worse. I didn't even want to be on campus. I took

classes at night just to avoid people. I just didn't want to be around it.

LB: Right. ES: I just didn't want to be around it.

LB: Just the thought of possibly being around it.

ES: No. No. I remember I took a microeconomics class at night. Oh, that was a good story

too. And I'm sitting in there and a bunch of Iranian students come in with paper bags

on their head, screaming about the SAVAK, the secret police in Iran. The Iranian student

association, it was a big deal on campus in the early '70s. You know, what had happened

was, we were [friends, 01:07:49] with the Shah. And they did the military training [inaudible

01:07:52]. So a lot of Iranians end up being here and then ... I don't know, they go to

school or something and did radical ... And the SAVAK was the secret police, and they'd

spy on them all the time, because they were always accusing them of plotting to overthrow

the Shah, which maybe they were. A good thing. ES: But SAVAK ... they were always ... the

Iranian students would always disrupt something, talking about SAVAK. So they came and disrupted

this class, I don't really know why. But I remember they were wearing brown stacks on

their head, because they didn't want the SAVAK to see who their faces were. I don't know

if they thought the teacher was a spy, I don't know. But I remember thinking, oh, that's

nice. So I come here trying to go to class at night, and taking this dull microeconomics

class because I have to do some kind of quantitative reasoning class, and the Iranian students

come and disrupt the class. I really enjoyed that night. That was good ... it was interesting.

I said, "Even macroeconomics can become politicized." LB: So were there many ... you mentioned some

protests ... were you heavily involved in things like that ...?

ES: No, you know, because, one thing that I really enjoyed about being a journalist