Cheryl Jean Jefferson oral history | Briscoe Center Digital Collections

Transcript

Interview with Chery Jefferson, 26 February 2021
Conducted using Zoom videoconferencing TONG VU: Hello, this is Tong Vu and I'm here
with Cheryl Jefferson. Today is February 26, 2021 and it is currently 1:05pm. In the midst
of a global pandemic, we have chosen to conduct this interview over Zoom video call.
VU: Cheryl, I'm asking, do you give me permission to record this interview on behalf of the
Austin History Center [correction: Briscoe Center]?
CHERYL JEFFERSON: Yes, you have permission to record the interview.
VU: Okay, and do you mind stating and spelling your name out for us?
JEFFERSON: My name is Cheryl Jefferson. C-h-e-r-y-l-j-e-f-f-e-r-s-o-n VU: Thank you.
VU: Alright, so i'm going to start off with a few simple questions. Can you tell me about
where you were born and the date of when you were born?
JEFFERSON: I was born in Washington County, in Brenham, Texas. April the 14th, 1951.
VU: Awesome. So can you tell me a little about, I guess, not necessarily where you were born,
but where you grew up, and I guess, how the city was around the time you were being raised?
JEFFERSON: I was a military kid. My father was in air intelligence, he was in the Air
Force. I was born in Brenham. I stayed there with my mom, and my grandparents, and my sister,
until I was probably four, when I met my father. Before then, my father was in the Air Force.
He was over in Korea, Japan, England, Morocco, and then came back, and we moved to Riverside,
California; and that was when he got recruited to be in Air Intelligence. So we left Brenham
and went to Riverside. I went to 13 elementary schools and two junior high schools. I'd say
that I spent most of my time being raised in Anchorage. I was there from about fourth
grade to seventh grade, and then came back to Texas for a while, and just - just before
my sophomore year in high school, we went back to encourage and I graduated from East
Anchorage High School. We applied to schools in Texas - to go to college. All the ones
we were accepted at - we put in a hat - and we pulled out Southwest Texas State University
that no- VU: Sorry Cheryl, you kind of cut out for
the past 10 seconds. JEFFERSON: Okay.
VU: So, can you just repeat? JEFFERSON: Oh, when we applied for schools
in Texas, the ones that we got accepted to, we put in a hat - we pulled out the ones that
we didn’t want my parents to know about, like the ones that were very religious and
didn't allow any parties - we told them we didn't get accepted there. But we put them
all in a hat and we pulled out Southwest Texas State. We knew nothing about where it was
- we knew nothing about the school, but that was the one we picked. And so, we came back
to Texas, and then my parents shortly came back after that, and after graduation I moved
to Austin. But - so most of my time was in Anchorage. But in between stations, when my
father was traveling, and he would get assigned to a base - he would go ahead and get housing
for us. And in between, we would be in Brenham, Texas, where my grandmother lived.
At the time, Brenham was extremely segregated. When I went to school there, I went to an
all black school. It was a high school called Pickard High, and it went from first grade
through 12th grade - and so that's where all of the black kids went to school. Now, as
young as I was, and after being in integrated environments - living on Air Force bases,
and going to integrated it schools; When we would go there, my first impression was, wow
this is really cool, you know - because there's nothing but black people there, and it was
really neat seeing black people because I had not seen any, you know (laughs). And,
it was awful being the only, you know, black kid in a class, or whatever - and so, when
you got to Brenham, and you went to this black school, it was just truly, truly cool. Now
I did not understand, until probably about fourth or fifth grade, that black people did
not choose it to be that way - that it was the law. I had no idea that they were not
allowed to go to the white school - I just thought they chose not to. You know, we didn't
get close in Brenham, because we weren't going to be there long, but it was talking to the
kids at school, when you found out that they couldn't go into the stores to try on clothes,
you know, before they bought them. They ordered everything, and then if it didn't fit, I guess
they sent it back to Sears, Roebuck, or you know, Montgomery Ward or whatever the catalogs
were then. But I did not understand that this was a separation required by law.
VU: At the time, how did it make you feel? JEFFERSON: I felt, almost like - you know
that concept of survivor's guilt, when you live from a disease and someone else doesn’t.
You know, here I was; only here temporarily for a few moments, I did not have to abide
by those rules because we didn't have those rules on Air Force bases, and in schools,
and in the housing that I lived in, which was Air Force Housing. And so, you had just
a whole bunch of all kinds of people - you had English people, you have people that were
married to German people, I had Asian friends, you know, it was just some of everybody that
was there, and all the kids just kind of hung out. And so, when I saw that they did not
get to do that, it made me feel, bad, but at the same time I was so glad to be in an
environment where I was surrounded by them, and they felt like calm, and they made me
feel safe, so it was - it was a weird balance trying to maintain and trying to understand
when you were a child. As we got older - okay, I understood what the deal was - understood
why it was how it came to be. But as a child and you're seeing that, it's kind of difficult
to understand - you're glad that you are where you are when you're on an Air Force base,
but gosh, it sure is really nice to, to be in a segregated environment, when you're around
a bunch of black kids, and you know that they like you, because of you - you know, is unity
(inaudible), you're just safe. You know you’re home, and that's where we always felt home
was, in Brenham. When you put down permanent address, we put
down my grandmother's address in Brenham. And um - then you have to balance on the other
side of being, one of the few or the only black kids in your elementary grade - not
just class, but your grade - that was weird too. But I never knew that it was supposed
to be weird, and so I just joined in with everybody, and just had a great time, and
there were people that like you, and people that didn't - it didn’t really matter, you
know, to me. It was fun, I enjoyed that too - the differences, and learning cuss words
in other languages and (laughs) you know, those kinds of things that kids you know,
did, you know, together. So it was - it helped me be me and it totally rounded me. It took
away a lot of biases I think that I would have had, had I not been exposed to so many
different kinds of people, at such a young age - and for such a long period of time.
You also got used to losing friends, because she might be there for a year or 18 months,
and one of your best friends ends up - their father gets shipped off somewhere, and you
probably never see those kids again. But, it was fun also learning the customs and traditions
that are associated with our country. When we're on a base, at five o'clock, they play
‘taps’ and then they play the star spangled banner - and you stop your car. You know,
you did not move around. If you were out in the open, and if you were, you know walking
to the BX, or walking to school or whatever, or after school - you stop when that was played
- you learned the pledge of allegiance, you understood that you had to work sometimes
with people or be with people that you didn't like because your father was engaged in this
thing - but this thing was also what the country is about. So you also became - slightly patriotic
(laughs), you know, until you got to college and then got rebellious, but (laughs), but
then, that was the thing that you did. And we had Girl Scouts on base, and - so you learn
those types of things, you know, being helpful to other people, how to survive, and in Alaska
they took us camping in the winter, and so you understood how to survive in snow if you
got stuck and that just you know - all kinds of really interesting things that happen.
So having both sides, the segregated side and then that fully integrated side - I think
helped make me, the kind of person that I am and the things that I believe in, and the
things that I want to see - for you know everyone. It - it was sometimes my mother said - my
mother said to us - she said, I felt bad about taking you girls away from Brenham and away
from your grandparents and your other friends, to go with, you know your dad, and I'm not
sure if I made a mistake in doing that. Should I have just let him go, and we stayed, you
know at home? And we told her no, no, no, no - we would not know as many weird people,
and we would not have had as much weird (laughs) food if you had kept us and Brenham, Texas
(laughs). You know, we would have been extremely limited and probably gone to Houston - got
a job and live there for the rest of our lives, and never have seen the things that we got
to see. So, you know what do you do? So, sometimes
the black kids at college - it was during the revolution, you know, Stokely Carmichael,
Black Panther - all of that was going on, and they would look at us Air Force kids,
and they would think that we weren't black enough for the revolution, and then, when
you were in class with the Anglo-kids, they thought that you were too black. It was always
weird but you made your way, you found your path, you found a group of people, you know,
that you could enjoy and that enjoyed you - and you went on with life and had a great
time. VU: So can you tell me a little about your
time at Southwest Texas State, and kind of what your involvement was like on campus?
JEFFERSON: Southwest was one of the most beautiful campuses but, like, I haven’t seen a bunch
of campuses, (inaudible) - that it is one of the most beautiful campuses that I've seen.
At the time when we went there, it was 1969, and again, Black Panther party was really
big, Angela Davis was on the lam - I mean there was just all kinds of things that were
happening. We had just come off the Civil Rights movement.
When all of that was happening, Civil Rights, Martin Luther King, the March - and so, I
was in Alaska when Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King was killed - I was in Alaska.
We got news, regularly - but other stuff, because we're so far away, we didn't get like
the inside of what happened, other than the new story, until two weeks or months later,
you know, it would come. When all that was happening, and again, you
have an Air Force kid and then you have a mixture of black kids that had been in Alaska
for a long time - their families, and they were very radical you know, and so, by the
time you got to college - you were kind of, oh well, wait a minute, this isn't right anymore.
And that's when you really start thinking about what was happening to you when you were
in Brenham - and your friends in Brenham, and what they were still going through. They
were still in segregated schools, at that time when we got ready to go to college. They
integrated Brenham schools in 1967, then so when we got to college in 1969 that was just
kind of a new thing - integration, kids being integrated.
The school, five black women sued the school in 1965, and the state legislature - they
passed the law which allowed them to go to Southwest and allow black students to start
going to state colleges. So in 1969 when we got there, there were 25 blacks on campus.
That was the largest group of buck students that Southwest had ever had - and, they let
us live in the dorm. Before then, after those black ladies sued they could go to the school,
but they weren't allowed to live on campus so they live with families in the city. And
so we were the first group that were allowed to integrate the dorms, and, most of us had
a black roommate, and if there was an odd black person out, she got a whole room to
herself - she did not get put into a room with an Anglo-girl, that just did not happen,
you know. But even so, they also brought in a whole, big group of - they call them hippies.
Hippie kids that were, you know, into protesting, and Vietnam, and (inaudible), and you know
so they have that group, and that was the first group of hippie type, like-kids, that
they had in, and they bought in a group of Hispanic kids. And the Hispanic kids at that
time, it was La Raza. You know, we have Black Panther, they have La Raza - they were coming
in from Crystal City, in places where they were doing the revolution.
And so, you had the hippies, the Hispanic kids and the black kids come into this school
that was mostly created for teachers. It was Texas State teachers college before it became
Southwest Texas State University. And so you have these kids from the small towns that
had never been around black people before, had never been around hippies before (laughs).
You know, and they were very conservative and then you'd have the Agriculture Department
that was (inaudible) country kids that were sending the (inaudible) in school studying
agriculture, and the agribusiness, and the girls were going to be teachers and that type
of thing. So you had in 1969, this group of people come together, and it was a most unusual
experience. So that's what was happening at the time,
all those kinds of - all of those politics were going on, all of those changes were going
on, integration was fully coming to Texas and Texas state schools. And then you have
Vietnam, being the big thing that was over all of it.
VU: Yeah, that's what I was just about to get into. How was on-campus at Texas state?
You were there in the early-70s, correct? JEFFERSON: I went there in 69.
VU: Yup, so that was like at the peak of, I guess, when all of the anti-war stuff was
going on, so could you just tell me a little bit about that?
JEFFERSON: Well, they had the hippies try to organize protests on campus. Southwest
wasn't having it, because they were basically conservative - but, they still happened. The
protests did happen. I was in the student Senate, and one of the things that they had
passed, they had passed this rule, the school, that what they wanted to do was use the athletes
to surround this big statue where all these stallions are - it was the quad, the main
quad. And to keep you know, the kids from protesting on it, and climbing it, and it
was mostly Anglo-kids i'm going to tell you, that were protesting Vietnam. It was mostly
them and we too, look at them and go, my goodness gracious look at those white hippies! You
should, you know - I mean we had never seen white kids do this before. So this was something
I'd been watching then and then watching the - cowboy-type kids’ reaction to the hippies
doing this, and the black kids were over here worried about the Black Panther party going
well, we just don't have time to get involved in this Vietnam thing (laughs). This seems
to me to be their business, and then the Hispanic kids were doing little La Raza protests, kind
of like all around. So in the Senate, what we did was, try and make it easier for the
kids to protest by passing, you know, what our laws were, you know what we would recommend
to the school, and so they kind of eased up and let people have protests, but they didn't
last a real long time. The hippies went underground, with an underground newspaper, called the
Weather Report, and all of the information you know you got out of there, and it was
like when you run to get the Chronicle you know, because it has all the juicy information
in Austin where we used to run to get the weather report, because it had all of the
undercurrent of what was going on, what the administration was doing, what new rules they
had passed, you know (laughs)? And things that were going on in other colleges, about
you know kids protesting, and what was happening in the war, and how they, you know, felt about
it. Well towards the end of the civil rights movement
with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, they started getting involved in Vietnam and the
protests, and sending, you know, these children there to kill somebody that they didn't know,
that had never done anything to them. And so they had started working together with
student groups on including Vietnam, in our view, because also, a lot of young black men
were being sent there. And instead of going off to college and stuff, they were being
sent, you know off to war. And so it did come into - It became our business. And so towards
the end of that first year, where kids were protesting a lot, that's when the (inaudible),
the black club on campus, that again we were concerned about Angela Davis and Stokely Carmichael,
and you know all of them and what they were going through, that we understand that Vietnam
too, was part of us, and that we needed to do something about - so, small groups of us
start going with the other kids that were protesting, and so it became a little bit
more integrated. Some Hispanic kids started, you know moving in on it, too, because, again,
it became of importance to them. They could - at first, we thought that was a problem
of the United States and white folks and then, when you start realizing the people that were
being sent, and that were, you know coming home different, or not coming home at all,
they were black and Hispanic and poor people. You know those were the people that made up
the brunt of that army that were you know facing folks.
And so, it was a really different kind of a period of time - but we, you know, made
it through. And even though we kept our group separate, there were times when even the cowboy
kids, as I call them - even they began to see that Vietnam was not a good thing. So,
we kind of became joined and you would see bits of some of everybody when they would
hold protests. But I'm going to tell you, in San Marcos Texas, there were just not a
whole lot of protests, but the ones that were there, they were meaningful, they went from
being one thing to being an inclusive thing. Tong Vu: So, would you say the Vietnam War
in a way, all the protests and stuff - kind of brought y’all more together in a way?
Jefferson: Yes, around one point, that you know - but as soon as you left those, you
went into your separate groups that you were associated, you know, with. The cowboys and
girls went one way, Hispanic kids, and then we all went our separate ways after that.
So you might be joined around one thing, and then after that you were separate. Now, again,
because of the way that I was raised with all kinds of different weird people. I had
a hippie friend that was down the hall from me, and me and my sister were probably the
only black people that ever went in that girl's room. She burned incense, and she wore the,
you know - the daisies around the head and - and the granny, you know, clothes. So she
was a true hippie for what hippies were back then, and we were totally fascinated with
her, we had never seen a hippie before (laughs). So we kind of hung around with her - so she
was a friend of ours, and then there was a couple of girls at the hallway that were cowgirls,
and every Friday at Southwest, at the bottom of the hill, they would pull their trucks
together, and they were playing music, and they would, you know, dance. And that's where
I learned the Texas two step, and I hung out with them, and that was a lot of fun.
And I think that they thought I was okay, because I was a novelty. You know, who is
this black girl doing with all these people? So I hung out with them, and that was a lot
of fun.Then I met some Hispanic girls in one of my classes, and I started hanging out with
them, you know. They taught me how to drink, you know, tequila and they taught me all about
the revolution (laughs). And so, that was a lot of fun. And then I had my Senate friends,
those intellectual kids. And we would sit there and we would solve the problems of the
world and stuff. So I just kind of dipped in everybody's business, but I was a journalism
major, and I was a photographer and shot most of the fraternity and sorority pictures, and
if a group was having something, I was sent there to cover it. So I kind of knew people
in every - and the drama group, they were just absolutely wild but - so I had the experience
of being in the Senate meeting those people then meeting those kinds of people in the
dorm, and then being a feature writer for the student newspaper and photographer. You
know, I was just kind of dipping in everybody's business, and it was really fun.
VU: You mentioned that you're in the school Senate; so how many do you remember being
people of color in the Senate? JEFFERSON: Whoa - um, yes! There was two of
us, me and Pauletta (laughs)! I was gonna say, I think I was only one, but no - Pauletta
was there too, she was from Brogdon Hall, I represented Spec Hall. The most fun part
about that time was when LBJ decided he wasn't going to run, and he moved back to Texas,
he would come to our Senate meetings. When you were down at the bottom of the hill, we
met in Old Main, and when you were down at the bottom of the hill, you knew that he was
there because the secret service was there, and they would check your ID and stuff to
make sure that you were going to the Senate meeting. And so you knew he was going to be
there, and they have this rocking chair that they kept for him; it was a green rocking
chair, with the presidential seal and stuff and he would come out and sit in the chair,
and we would go through our meetings and stuff, and after the meeting was over with, he let
you ask anything that you wanted to ask, you know came about. And his hair was very long,
on his shoulders, and it was silver and curly, and it was really different seeing this man,
that during the protests and during the heat of the Vietnam War, you saw him as this awful
president, and then as black folks, before he signed that ‘65 legislation, the way
that he was before then, the Lyndon Johnson from Texas, you were like hm, you know kind
of a thing, but when you saw this man, when you saw this man, you saw a man that had half
the weight of the President on his shoulders. He would sit there in that chair, and it looked
like he would be so, that he was so rested and calm there, after being a president with
that burden of taking over for Kennedy, getting the civil rights legislation passed, doing
Vietnam, then you began to understand the weight of the United States Government and
the head of that government. But we would ask him, you know questions, then he would
tell us about, you know, things that happen while he was in office, or an incident when
he and Lady bird were doing you know, something. But it was really different seeing him as
a person, and not as a President. And a man, that, the only thing I think that he really
wanted was peace. I think he wanted peace in the world, but he wanted peace for himself,
and peace within his soul - and it was interesting watching him go through that process.
So I was in the Senate for two years, and so whenever he would come in, I got a chance
to see him then; after I was off the Senate, I didn't see him anymore when he visited campus.
But that was the coolest thing about the Senate, but anyway (laughs), it was mostly Anglo-kids
and there was a mixture of your sorority types, and then there were some mixture of your business
types, and then there were the kids that were going to major in government or that were
going to be lawyers, and we had the same kinds of rules as you do in any legislative Senate,
and you have to know the rules to play the games to get the things that you wanted passed.That
was an interesting thing too, learning that process. I didn't understand at the time,
exactly everything that I was getting from it - because you were just in it, and you
were doing it because the black club, (inaudible) wanted to have more black senators, and so
they said you're going to run for Senate and I did, and that's kinda like how I got in
the Senate - we were integrating the Senate. VU: Thank you for sharing all of that, It
sounds like you had quite the time in college -
JEFFERSON: Yes. VU: - in so many different aspects. So I kind
of want to get into your career immediately after college. I noticed that you were involved
with the KLRN, which is now the KLRU. JEFFERSON: I did.
VU: So, can you tell me a little about that? JEFFERSON: I knew that I did not want to be
a news reporter, because I'm not nosy enough for that, but I would have liked to have been
a photographer feature write but there were no jobs available, and this friend of mine,
knew a guy that was a director over at KLRN, and she said they've started a new show called
the “Black American Sun”, and they're looking for an assistant producer. They want
someone with a journalism or media background. Back then they didn't have media, you were
in journalism, period. And so I say okay, so I went over there and applied and they
liked me and they actually gave me the job. It came as a shock because I did not know
what a producer did. I knew that this was a new TV show - this was a new network. it
wasn't - PBS was not that old at the time mom that I started working there, but the
show was called the “Black American Sun”, it was directed by a man named Pete Williams.
The original producer was Brenda Galloway - Linda Galloway, and she left shortly after
I came on staff and then they wanted me to be host, but at that time I just could not
do that, and so I interviewed this young man, and he was really good, to say, was Greg Roberson.
So as a producer, I had the power to hire a host. I went, oh, this is too cool so I
did read up on producers and what they were responsible for, and I had never in my life
been invested with that much power. And to be so young with that much power - that is
a very dangerous thing. And when you're young, you think you know everything and I thought
I knew everything instead of what I did not know, and so I was probably kind of a fool
of myself for a while, because this was really a whole new kind of a thing, But I did 186
shows - the station in Austin had a true desire to be very inclusive. They weren't quite sure
what all that inclusiveness was, but there was a national program that they shot from
their (inaudible), and it was kind of like a Hispanic “Sesame Street”, that kind
of a thing, then they had the “Black American Sun”, which was the other minority, you
know type-like program. So I can say, they were maybe a little bit
ahead of their time. They had a black, Hispanic and not Hispanic program, and then Hispanic
program with national I mean that was you know really, very cool. But then when Mr.
Shinkin, the serious manager, the big overall manager - he was an absolutely delightful
man. Harvey (inaudible) was the station manager, and we would come head to head - I wanted
to do more of a third-world type like format and he wanted to do a black one, a black American
one, and not worry about what was happening over in Haiti, or what was happening in South
Africa. And so, we had our little differences there, but I was allowed free reign. The director,
P, he allowed - he was the one that had been there the longest and he allowed me to kind
of plan things the way that I wanted to, so we did shows about art - about the arts. There
was a group, a black group in town, headed by John Henry Hines, and he would bring in
black artists, and Greg would interview them. We had James Polk’s group come in, he's
the, I think jazz professor down at Southwest Texas state now, but he had a very famous
quartet, and he would come in. And then there was Nolan X, that was the band of the black
Muslim movement, here in Austin. And they would come in and play music, and we had women
in their worksite. A group of, now, we would call it an LGBTQ group, but back then, it
was just a group of women that were kind of like counter-women, they - it was a mixture
of lesbian women, straight women, what they call, women libbers, back then. It was just
a really cool group of women from different backgrounds and different places, some of
them were artists, some of them were poets, some of them were musicians, so we did several
shows with them, (inaudible) was head of that group.This and the black theatre group was
in town, the African American players, so we did groups with them. So those are the
kinds of things that we did to try and keep the arts up front, and to let people - we
were hoping that we had a bit of a large black audience, and we did, but we also wanted to
reach a broader audience and. And Freddie King would come in every now and then, and
you know do a show. So it was just letting everybody know that there was black art in
Austin, there was black music in Austin - there was dance in Austin and and so that was an
enjoyable part. The other thing that we did a lot of were
politics. With UT being heavily invested at that time in South Africa, and there was a
movement on campus by black and Anglo-students on divesting from South Africa because of
apartheid.And at that time there was a poet and artists in residence. His name is Dennis
Brutus and he was from South Africa and he was one of the revolutions in South Africa.
He wrote revolutionary portraits. He organized the ‘68 boycotts of the Olympic Games, and
that's when they kind of kicked him out of the country, and because, if he hadn't left,
I think they would have iced him, but he ended up leaving, but somehow the other, he got
an artist in residence here on UT’s campus and they publish some of his poetry under
a different name, I think it was John Ruin, and they would ship this portree back to South
Africa, so people would know that he was still fighting for the cause and that he was still
out there, but it was published under this different name, and so he kind of like became
a part of my life. He also likes to play chess and drink sangria, so he would come by the
house and you play chess and drink sangria. But for the TV shows he talked about South
Africa, apartheid in South Africa. There was a group on campus headed by a professor and
they were pushing very hard for UT to divest. At the same time, there was a Pan-African
movement on campus headed by a man named Thomas Collier and.they were following a lot the
teachings, and hat time there was the election of, I can't be Prime Minister in Jamaica,
but there was a lot that was going on and so all of those things were going on on campus
at the same time, and then there was the black student movement. But because those people
were involved in so many other things we hardly got around to the black student. And I'm like,
how do you guys have time to do all of this kind of stuff, but UT was some really, really,
really active then and the politics um we did shows on the status of women, there was
a lady named Cora Briggs. I can't remember the name of the organization that she had
but we looked at women's issues, we looked at.the battered Women's Center, we did you
know, shows about that we did things on legal Defense fund criminal justice. Out of 186
shows, we covered a lot of topics, but the most important thing to me about KLRU or KLRN
at the time, was it provided equity. Most of the stations in Austin at that time,
TV stations, commercial ones, they did not have programs on - they did not cover issues
that were going on, like crime in East Austin or what major churches, or the NAACP, or what
the urban League was doing, they didn't do that.
And so, that is, the one thing that I am thankful for, even though I have fights with Dr. (inaudible)
and bill our hosts, you know about how he was the manager and they provided equity they
made a space for us to get that story out. KLRU - KLRN was also in partnership with the
PBS station in San Antonio and Lydia Algeria, was a young woman in San Antonio, and she
covered most of what was happening with Hispanic people in state. From music politics, she
covered the whole thing so between the two stations and we interchange programs, you
were able to get some equity. Some equal access to media to telling your story, and so that
was very, very cool of them and I thought extremely Progressive, you know of them too.
VU: So yeah, you did mention that there was a lot of different things going on at the
time, and students were protesting all kinds of stuff. But one of the, I guess, one of
the more bigger things that was going on, was the whole women's liberation and feminist
movement. JEFFERSON: (laughs).
VU: So what did you get from this? JEFFERSON: PB - I mean, KLRN, I do not know
how to talk them into it. They allowed me to go to the corporation for public broadcasting
in DC. They just opened an office for women and minorities, within CBS and they put me
there. And one of the women was Audrey Rowe, and she was head of the national women's organization
now, and she was doing this stuff for PBS, making sure that all of the station had programs,
are programming about women and minorities, finding phones to develop, finding friends
to give grants to stations they've applied for, to do programs about women, you know,
and minorities and stuff, but anyway, that's what Audrey was and Audrey took me to a lot
of the meetings about women's movements. Now, again, being young, I thought, well this seems
to me to be a problem that white women have, you know (laughs), black women do not have
problems like this. Now if there's a boss, and he's acting ignorant, and trying to touch
you, you just slap the shit out of him, and it won't happen no more. So this whole thing
about equality, I was going - I don't understand why they just don't take it, you know it made
no sense to me, but, again, hanging with Audrey, going to all of those meetings with her - watching
her do TV shows and talking about women's issues, and salaries, and you know abortion,
and just integrating into jobs that they typically did not allow for women. I met Ruby Dee, she
was doing a TV show with Audrey about women's rights, and I'm like Ruby Dee? You know, okay.
And I wanted to pull her aside, excuse me Ms. Dee, can you tell me what does this have
to do with black women? But I listened to her, you know talk on this show, and so I
went back and I say okay, this is like one of those Vietnam things. You think that it
does not concern black women until you get into the meat of the whole salary thing, and
having access - having equal access to something as a woman, and as a black woman, so then
you got that dual thing going, you're not just only fighting for women's rights, but
you're also fighting for black women's rights too. Because there's a woman, if you get that
right, you still have, as a black person, to get over the racial thing you know, too.
And, so then I went okay. So when I came back, we started trying to
do programs that did address women's issues, that did talk about giving us equal access
into state jobs, city jobs, things that were going on in Austin at the local area. But
if I had not have gone to that internship and hung out with Audrey and learned these
things, then I probably never would have really paid much attention to it and I hope that
in doing those programs, that we may, black women understand that, yes, it is too, your
issue. You too, need to be concerned about this. You know, we were kind of thrown off
a little bit over here, thinking it was just, no, you're not going to treat me that way,
no. There were some real things about many that were involved here about what was going
to be happening to your daughter, you know getting an education, and pushing education
and all of those things were really important, and those things came under there, so that
was fun too, finally integrating that, and making all of us understand why it's important.
I told you, I talked a lot (laughs). VU: Thank you for all of that. It's great
hearing about all of this insight that you're giving. So did you ever, specifically come
across the University of Texas, whether it was as like - or did you ever have a role
at the university or was it just during your time at KLRU?
JEFFERSON: It was just at my time there. No, I did not become involved again, with the
university until probably a few years ago. My sister is an artist, and she did an exhibit
there at what’s now the Green-Christian, gallery and - and Michael Ray Charles was
an art teacher there at UT and he became a good friend. So I became involved in some
of the things that he was doing, and that was mostly as a photographer and a friend
and writing stuff, you know for him, but no, never held a job at UT and I did not think
I ever wanted to hold a job at UT. One of my interns as a matter of fact that,
at KLRU, she was what I considered a radical student. Her name now is Dr. Ernest Smith
and she teaches over there in - in that school of media. And I never, never in my life, thought
that Erna would end up coming back to UT and teaching. She was really involved in the Pan-African
movement and a lot of protests, on campus. But she was an excellent intern, and she was
a good journalist - ended up going out to San Francisco and teaching at a university
there, and when she retired and came back to UT, they asked her to work there, and she
said yes. And I was really shocked, because we used to talk about how we would never work
for them. At that time, UT - there was a very small group of black professors here. John
Warfield had just been hired, Geneva Gay was there. There was one other black professor
that I know. Was it Lodis Rhodes, I think? But there was just a very small group and
it wasn't like UT was just out there wildly trying to recruit people for any type of position.
And so our view of UT was that it was a pretty racist organization. And unless you have that
in, even if you got there, getting what is that, tenure? That yeah, obviously the same
things that all professors want, yeah, getting tenure, was really not imaginable. UT was
not a very nice person at that time, I am so glad to see that over the years that has
changed. And I feel like if UT asked me to do a project with them, I wouldn't hesitate,
you know at all now. But back then, if they had asked me, I would have told them no. Not
even if the Lord himself said girl, you need to do that. UT was not - very nice people.
Individuals in UT were great, but the institution and all that it encompassed, was not. The
individuals at UT, professors, heads of departments, that kind of thing, yeah they were cool. But
UT was not. So no, I did not want to work there, and so my only connection was through
the TV station and they were run by a broadcast Council that was associated with UT. So we
all had UT IDs and we were all on UT’s campus, and we got all that was in privilege for being
on staff, you know, at UT, but officially, no, we were not UT people.
VU: Yeah, thank you for that. At any point in your career, were you ever involved, as
an individual, in politics? JEFFERSON: Yes, (laughs). I was at the station,
and I met this independent candidate. I listened to his interview. Terry Lakota was doing an
interview with him, and his name was Bob Krueger, he was running for US Senate.And there was
a young black man that was with him, and we were talking about the campaign and I started
listening, then I went, that would be kind of cool to do so, I took a leave of absence.
I interview for public relations position with the campaign and I joined the campaign.
I was assigned to East Texas, along with a famous Austinite named (inaudible) and Gary
Morrow was the one that was running the campaign. He was the campaign manager, and I was assigned
to East Texas.That was the most unusual experience that I had ever had. This is when I really,
fully started understanding what race was in Texas, and in particularly East Texas.
I wanted to do that campaign because in listening to him, he wasn't quite fully democratic,
but he certainly was republican, so he was someone that I could work with, and he was
someone that I thought - that if black people are going to have someone they go to in the
Senate, I think it would be this man. And so that's why I decided, you know, to join
the campaign. I traveled - there's 82 counties that we had in East Texas and my concentration
- Ed concentrated - we were talking like part of where there were three of us, kind of partners,
and in one part of the campaign, I did, looking at the target groups, looking at how to market
him to them. Also keeping in mind, the marketing campaign that Gary Morrow had created for
this candidate, and then there was Alvin that took care of basically finding out who ran
the black vote in these 82 counties, because you have people that are up front and then
you have the people that really run what's happening in the county, and those are the
people that we needed to get you to schedule meetings for - the candidate to come and speak
and that type of thing. So in East Texas, the first time I gave this
speech about a candidate, it was to a group of white, I guess - they were kind of like
a chamber of commerce, you know, group. And it was in this little bitty tiny town I can't
remember the name of it, and so I gave my little spiel about the candidate. And that
we were there to make sure that everybody was registered to vote.
And we particularly wanted to register the black people to vote because they were a good
majority of the county and we needed their votes, if this man was going to win as an
independent. And so I finished my little speech and I said, anybody have any questions? And
this man says to me, well, we don't like our n word voting here, and I just kind of was
like, did I hear him say what he said? And this was in 1978. You know, and I said, excuse
me, sir, and he says, well, we don't like our n word registered here to vote, you know,
this is a county and, and this is the way we run our county. And so you know I will,
okay listen you understand I just explained to you if you want this man to win. And you
say you want him to win because he has your interests at heart. The only way he is going
to win is, if you get black people to vote for him. I said now, you can do whatever you
want to do after this, but I'm telling you this is the only way this is going to happen.
And so I just left that meeting and I had to sit In the car, and when I went to East
Texas, they made me take the credit card with the Congressional license plates. Krueger
was a Congressman from New Braunfels. Yeah then, because they said well it'll be a little
dangerous for you being up in East Texas, if you don't have these license plates and
I'm going by after that I understood - I understood what they were talking about, and as I worked
my way through different counties in the sixes giving these speeches about Krueger getting
people. My most important thing was getting people
registered to vote and getting black people to understand what it was that Krueger had
in mind, you know, for them, if he was selected, and so I did that and I won a majority of
the counties, he did not end up winning.The Senate, you know, but the experience of going
through those counties and seeing what the attitudes still were about the black vote
and how afraid they were of the black vote. But as I grew older and started doing history
projects from my mother about East Texas, when you look at the populations of these
counties, black folks are a large number of them, they might not be the majority in that
county but how they vote can flip the way things happen in that county. And that's a
tremendous amount of power that I still don't think that black people in East Texas or black
people in the south, understand that they have. I think Stacy Abrams showed that to
them, but you know that, that was the way that it was and it just amazes me that people
have not used that power because they have it, and those Anglo-people in those little
tiny counties were really afraid of that voter registration thing. So then after that, Mark
White was elected, and I got on the statewide Voter Registration Committee, and that was
to - the main purpose of it was to develop strategies that we can use to get people registered
to vote. My concentration was making sure that blacks and Hispanics had equal access
to the programs that we were going to propose that they do, and if there was many for training
and stuff that the Hispanics and the black folks had access to that. So just having that
equal access to do, get out the vote and voter registration project, that was just critical
in Texas at the time. And it was shortly after that, I think, that we ended up with the Republican
governor, and then, Ann Richards came back and we ain't seen one since (laughs).
So - so that's kind of like how I got involved in politics and after that, when someone would
run locally after I left the television station, anything that I could do in writing press
releases and organizing meetings for them, and taking pictures for documentation, those
were the kinds of things that I did, but the last big thing that I did was trying to make
sure that voter registration in Texas was fair.
VU: So - so your experience through all this, in politics, where do you think it ranks in
terms of, I guess, your career experiences? Because it sounds like you - you definitely
left your mark in many aspects. JEFFERSON: yeah, I - well, politics was a
lot of fun, but the most fun I had was doing environmental and, uh energy conservation
- renewable resources - that was the most fun. But then I also had, after - after I
left politics, I went to St. Edward's University to join the College Assistant Migrant Program.
That was an incredible program. They invited migrant students in, they paid for two years
of their college. They help them with their health. They helped them with their English.
They supported them with tutoring - It was during the time when Cesar Chavez was doing
the Big Farmer’s Union boycotts, and one of the major projects - products, that was
involved at that time were grapes. And these kids came from families that were picking
- at well, they were migrants, you know farmers, they went out and picked all the fruit, and
they traveled from different places around the country - picking strawberries one time,
grapes one time, potatoes, just you know all kinds of things. Most of the black migrant
students were from the Florida area, most of the Hispanic students were from Texas,
the valley area, and Washington state area. And then the American Indians, a lot of them,
too, were from the Florida - Florida areas. So you have these three different groups of
migrant kids that were coming together, and St. Edward’s, like I said, were paying for
their first two years of college - getting them accustomed to each other, because they
all have biases about each other, things that they believed in their groups about the other
group, but there they were thrown together, and they had to get along together. And we
would bring in people to talk about politics, we would bring in people that talked about
the farm movement, we were bringing in people that talked about you know what was going
on in Civil Rights and black lives. I mean it was, it was jus - It was a good place to
learn about farming, and about migrant farmers, the issues that they have, the things that
they go through, the fairness of some of it, the unfairness of all of it. I knew nothing
at all about migrant farmers until I started working there, getting over the teachings
of Catholicism to open your mind for liberal thoughts - that was a very difficult thing,
especially with the women students. Keeping the women students was very difficult because
they came from very traditional families where you ended up getting married, and you had
children, and then everybody contributed to working, you know, these different farms migrating
from one farm, you know, to the other, for you know the good of the family. So convincing
parents to let their daughters stay in college, and go ahead and finish, was something unusual
- and the black families had that same thing from the Florida area - have that same kind
of a thing going on, what they thought women should do, and what they thought their sons
should do and maybe they shouldn't be wasting their time with college. And then with the
American Indian students, you have those who are at the age of their right of passage - and
I have this one young man that I was having problems with his grades, and I bought him
in, and he says, you don't understand, two weeks ago I went on - I forgot what they call
it, where he's put out in the wilderness by himself, he has some peyote, but he's - he
has to find his totem, or his guide. And so, he says, I was out there doing this, and then
two weeks later, I'm in Austin, Texas, at a university, and you're trying to get me
the study, you know, some poet? And trying to get them to reconcile all of that - he
did not stay in the program but we found him a place in the Florida Forest service, and
he joined the forest service, and he's still in it. So he was still - he was free, he was
not, you know, confined. He said he just couldn't do it, but I get to - and for me to try and
go with that young man's mind, from doing that, to a university setting in a matter
of two weeks, that has to be incredible. So I had a really good time working with them
too. Then I went on to Huston-Tillotson College. I’d never worked at a historically black
- black university before. Huston-Tillotson was extremely important to me at Southwest
Texas, we had a black choir, and we would come up and compete with Huston-Tillotson’s
gospel choir, and so we got to know the kids really well. And when we wanted to party as
a group, we would come from Southwest to Huston-Tiillotson’s campus, and that’s where you had a party.
When they said there was going to be a party, you knew there was going to be a party. And
so I kind of knew Huston-Tillotson like that, but, they were looking for a public relations
director, and - and I thought that would just be the most wonderful thing to do, and I went
over there and I learned a lot about black history in Austin - the people that were the
first to do this, the first real estate agency, they donated a lot to the campus because they
were graduates of the school. The first doctors and staff, they donate money, you know, to
the school, because they were the first doctors, you know, in the area. They settled that area
up there by UT, and they had, you know, very nice homes. They were doctors, and the pharmacy,
the black pharmacists, the black dentist - There was just a whole community, an economic community
that was in East Austin. You had your cleaners, you had your grocery stores - all of that
was going on, you know, when I was there, and just before, I was - it was not gentrified
at that point. When you saw an Anglo-person over there (laughs), you were like oh, they
must work, they must be a teacher at the campus, or they're just passing through. Now when
I go with this, oh look Charles, it’s a black person. So it has changed quite a bit,
but that's where you learned about the black - the historical black families of Austin,
the ones that were here after slavery, if they settled - if they came to Austin as slaves,
their families, or if they were free people that came to Austin after slavery, but they
established the college, along with the Methodist church, and that's where they brought all
of these professors and stuff, from different places, and you have this community of educators,
aimed at assignment - Mrs. Delco - Mr. Delco, was a biology professor there. Charles Earney
was on the City Council - he was a professor there that does some kind of weird research
on sandwich compounds, and was famous for that, but there was all of that and that's
when I truly - I thought I knew a lot about it from my experience in television and setting
up shows that talked about the black community and what was happening, but no, you really
didn't learn about it until you looked at the founding fathers, the founding black people
in Austin, and all of it was right there, at Huston-Tillotson College, and so that was
exciting, that was fun, I enjoyed it, you know, a great deal.
But then, Dr Earney, I told you, the professor that was there, he was on city council, and
they just started a new department - there was an office of renewable resources and geothermal
affairs and they had renamed it to the resource management department, and so they were looking
at conservation issues - they had seen a sample in New Mexico, and how they're conserving
water, and they're conserving energy, it had a big impact on city budget, so they created
this department. And of course, they did not have any black people here, it was mostly
a bunch of hippies that cared about environments, that were following the teachings of (inaudible)
that were looking at geothermal solar, looking at water conservation, and it was just a whole
new concept for them, and so he asked me if I would interview, and I interviewed, and
they gave me the job of community relations manager, and what they wanted me to do was
to change people's minds and hearts about water conservation, recycling, energy conservation,
weatherization - just change their whole mindset, and so he said that was what they hired me
to do, they wanted me to develop programs that will pull in early adopters of it, late
adopters, and I wanted equal access to these programs for the Hispanic and black neighborhoods,
because they were good. There was the free audit program, they would come out and do
an energy audit of your house, tell you everything you needed to do to weatherize it, to make
it wonderful, there was - there was loans, there was a contractor development
program; it was just all kinds of things that were going on, but the most important thing
that I found really fascinating was this whole thing of geothermal and solar. I had heard
of the conservation stuff before, but I was like okay, this is cool, this is weird, i'll
do this - but we developed those programs that still exist with the city of Austin,
you know, right now, a lot of the contractors in this city Chris Strand, the Strand brothers,
they have all kinds of things going on, they started out in a little mini - little bitty
storage shed, you know, but they were one of the companies that we used to do weatherization
and that type of thing. Cheryl Jefferson: They called us UT South
because there was just a whole bunch of hippies over there, doing a whole bunch of stuff about
environmental stuff that nobody cared about, you know, so it was really hard at first changing
people's minds, but then we had an extremely progressive Council, I have never seen a city
council like that, before. Charles Earney was on it, Richard Goodman was on it, during
that time Emily Lynn - oh, my goodness, it was just a real group of very progressive,
thinking, you know people. I don't know necessarily if they were liberals or not, all I know is
that they were open. They understood that something was happening in the environment,
they might not have understood everything that was, but they understood that somebody
needed to study it and to figure it out, so we can do something about saving, you know,
energy and cost of energy, in this city. But I - that was where I think I had the most
fun. Opening, starting minority contract - we had a contractor development program. All
of the contractors in it were Anglo, and so, I went out there and found at the words, and
stuff, and set up a program for we could bring in black and Hispanic contractors, to do weatherization
work too, to get part of the money that the city, you know, had allocated to that to do
energy audits. To be contractors and retrofitting, and at that time, by then, a good 30% of Austin's
audience, especially the ones I’d say, between 30 and 45, they had disposable incomes, they
were buying homes, they wanted them to be energy efficient, they wanted to do something
new, like try solar, and try that landscaping with what they used to call those wallflowers,
that save water and stuff. But they were willing to do that, and we needed to have the contractors
too, because they took out loans to do the energy conservation work, and we needed contractors
to be available to do that. And so all of it kind of developed at the same time, but
that was a remarkable thing to do. We did education programs, we didn't bother a lot
with trying to educate adults, it was like the seat belt program, you teach your kid
to wear a seat belt they're going to make their momma wear it. Well, we started doing
education programs for children, that were in fifth and sixth grades, to teach them about
water, wastewater, energy conservation, how their government worked for them, in that
area, and again, I made sure that the teachers and the schools, that the ones in East Austin
had equal access to every program, you know, that we offered, and we paid the teachers
to come to training, we provided all the materials that they needed, the books that they needed
for the kids, translated them into Spanish and English, so if your English kid is reading
a page, the Spanish speaking kid is reading exactly the same page. So we were able to
do a lot with that. When I left, we had probably educated over 5000 students, and they became
a voting age about seven years ago. Those kids that we started out with in fifth
grade, when things come up - like when this stuff comes up now, about weatherizing, our
generators, and how air (inaudible) and all of them didn't do that, we were fighting with
them about that kind of stuff. When I first started, we were going, no they're not going
to do that they're going to put it all in one grid; are you kidding? Well are they weather
- what do you mean they’re not weathered? We went through all that discussion, we went
to the legislators, we met with everybody that we could, to convince them, you guys
if you're going to do this you've got to protect those generators, you've got to protect those
plants. Just because you're in Texas, don't mean that it won’t get cold at sometime.
So you need to be insulating some pipes, need to be figuring out, okay, if all of this goes
to hell in a handbasket, what we're going to do; but nobody really was paying attention
to that because they were thinking more about profit, you know they were thinking about
cheap energy, they were thinking about Texas is very possessive of Texas. And Texas, I
guess, because it was a separate country for a little while, they think that they're still
a separate country now, and so they don't need anybody else, and it was just one of
the biggest mistakes that we watch them make. We were able to convince homeowners to do
that kind of thing, that you know one day it is going to freeze in Austin. So yes, you
want your pipes insulated, yes, we need to replace all of these pipes along Congress
Avenue because the ones you have now are cement. As soon as a big freeze comes, they're not
going to be there anymore. So that was the kind of thing you know that we did, and I'm
glad that we did it, and I'm glad that private people paid attention. I just wish that the
industry - they were so busy thinking that we were going to push solar and geothermal,
and wing, to where we would take away from oil and gas in the State of Texas, and that
was it. Just because you start something new doesn't mean you take something away from
the old, we needed a combination of all of these things, but they fought against renewables,
so much, it was always a constant fight and as Austin grew, and the Council grew more
conservative, they started even trimming money on the energy conservation and renewable resources
programs, that they had fully funded before - and that's the United States Government
was fully funding again until republicans took over, and then they started cutting,
you know, all of those programs, but that was, I think, the most exciting impact to
me that I've had, as if you wanted to say, an activists. For anything, is getting black
people involved in energy conservation and renewable resources and showing them how it
ends up helping their community as a whole. That was - that was, I think that was the
biggest impact - that was the thing that was the most exciting to me; is doing energy and
renewables, that was fun. And those environmentalists, they were snooty
people too (laughs). That was the other thing, trying to integrate. They're probably going
to hate me for this, but say, Barton Springs, now you know, everybody loves Barton Springs.
Well, black folks weren't allowed to swim at Barton Springs until the late 60s, so it
was just not a big issue with black people on saving the springs. So when all of that
stuff came about, and they were having meetings down at City Council, until two, three, and
four o'clock in the morning with the save our springs people, and not wanting to do
anything to mess up Barton Springs, well the deal was kind of cut where okay, if black
people join you to save your Barton screens and you know we get we vote this way, then
what we want you to do is come to East Austin where East Austin is filled with different
springs, and there were some springs - the way that the land was set, that were eroding
and things needed to be those, reinforced, and channels needed to come through so some
of those springs, could you know, flow out of that way. There's a lot of land that you
couldn’t build on in East Austin, because underneath was the spring. When we did the
spring - it was a big water tunnel. Every morning when they would come over there, there
would be water in there, and we finally figured out that there was this spring underneath.
And so, they had to totally redo how they were going to put that great big water main,
over there in Springdale, that's where it was, because of those screens. So the deal
was, we're going to support environment springs, but we would like you to come out and help
us with the springs of East Austin, so we can make you stop them or redirect them, something
to keep the land from whittling away. Well, it happened, and Doc already supported them,
and then we never heard from them again. And when I was at Huston-Tillotson, June Brewer,
she was a professor there, they wanted her to join the environmental movement because
they needed a black person within the movement. Well you don't approach somebody and tell
them that's why you want them to join the environmental movement, but I always thought
that the environmentalists were very snooty, privileged, dumb, Anglo-folks. Yes, I still
did my part on the conservation end and this end, but no, I didn't really align myself
with environmentalists, because they were not very nice people (laughs). But that was
- that to me was the most fun in my career and in trying to get equity for everybody
involved in city, state, county, you know, programs, anything that I did, or did for
a living, my goal was to make sure that people had access. When I hired interns, I hired
different kinds of interns from different places, because talking to them all together,
their ideas were better than just, you know, your standard run of the mill renewable energy
type-like person. When you got new voices and you got new ideas, that made it work a
whole lot better, so that's it, everything that i've done, that is all I wanted to do
with this, make sure that everybody has equal access to those programs. Any, if it's an
education, if it's in renewables, if it's in developing contractors, if it's hiring
interns, if it's in hiring the staff - they didn't like my staff very much because it
was very - I had a guy from Persia, and I had an Asian graphical artist, the young lady
that started education for me was from Brazil, and we had black folks, and we had cowgirls,
and we had (laughs), we had just about some of everybody. It was a staff of about, I guess
it was about 16 to 20 of them, and we just had a very good mixture of people, but when
you have to come up with a bunch of ideas to get - to get a whole bunch of different
kinds of people involved in a program, and make sure that they have access, you have
to kind of have someone that knows that audience. It just can't be me because I don't know the
Hispanic audience the way, you know, someone else would. So you need everybody to put together
a program if you want it to be for the good of the whole, and so that's all I've ever
tried to do, was make sure that everyone has access.
VU: So do you think we've made the appropriate strides, at least for the most part, since
you were working with energy conservation - from then until now in 2021? Or do you think
we could have done a much better job? JEFFERSON: From where we started, I think
a lot of strides have been made, as far as conservation, you know is concerned. Solar
has now gotten to the point that it's cheap enough that a regular person can install it.
Back before, to install a solar panel was just tremendous costs. Now you can do that.
We have greenhouses that builders, you know build. We are good at conserving water, and
good at conserving energy. I bet you don't leave the water running for brushing your
teeth, because you probably learned when you were a little kid - you're not supposed to
do that. So that group of people that were wasting energy galore, watering their lawns
like crazy to keep them green, the people that are out there now, they have zero escape
ones, or they have drought tolerant plants, they have drug tolerant grass.You know, so
yes, we've - we've made some progress but, until there's a way to show people that are
in a in those heart industries like coal and stuff how they can shift over and have a better
life for their children and kids, so they won't be down there in coal mines, digging
and having accidents and that's what needs to happen, is that group
of people that are very, very stuck in the old ways of energy - until you can show them
how they can switch over and can make money, support their families, doing new technology,
we're not going to make the progress that we should make. We should, right now, be yes,
a little bit further. Individuals, I think they're doing okay, but the government as
a whole, or the United States as a whole, for you know that bigger United States, and
the world, no we're not doing as much as we could be doing, but we're a whole lot further
along than I thought, you know, that we would be. But somehow the other oil and gas, has
got to together - has got to get together, with solar, wind, geothermal and other things,
and find a way, for they can live together. Because we still need it all, but we can do
it without impacting what's going on up there in our environment, and changing our climate.
They need - they need to sit down. Somebody needs to make them sit down like little children,
and say, you know, look here, don't come out this room until y'all come up with a solution.
Because right now, I'm tired of playing with - they play people like, back and forth, and
ask all these questions on all these committees and stuff, no. You need to put the people
that are going to make decisions, or they can make decisions. Sit them down like little
kids, and don't let them out that room until they come up with a solution that helps everybody,
and provides jobs. Everybody wants to work, but everybody also wants to protect the environment,
and these idiots that do not believe that it is real, I just don't know what to do about
them. I truly, truly don't know what to do about them, because if they can see everything
that's changing. VU: Do you think the ignorance, back then,
was - is comparable to how it is today, when it comes to -
JEFFERSON: The old folks don't want to let it go. The older people don't want to let
it go. People that are your age that have been introduced to this thought, when you
were in, you know, junior high, high school, that understands that climate change is real,
and then all of this is happening, and then it can be proven - you guys are not the problem,
but you guys also are not at the age that you’re running stuff, you know you don't
own the companies, and you're not making the decisions. You guys need a few more years,
and when y'all get there, I think everything's gonna be alright, but right now, you still
have some old people that just cannot think that progressively, and they are the ones
that are still running stuff. So, you guys just need to learn everything
that you can, keep all these lessons in mind, and as soon as that dad dies off from that
company and that son takes over, y'all get that set and say okay, no more shit - we got
this straightened out, but you guys are getting there, y'all are running for office too. That's
the other important thing, you're running for local offices, you're running for county,
you're running for state, and you're running for national.That is the way that it changes;
everybody says Washington is broken - well the way that you guys can fix it is by running
for office and picking people to run for office that are good people, and then understanding
the parts of campaigns that are the - what do they call the (inaudible) parts, where
you have to raise money, you have to set up a platform, you know you've got to get the
boats out, you've got to get, you know, your candidate out there, so people know who they
are. But you guys are in that position, and you guys are of that age, and you guys are
of that energy, and you guys are of that mix that you can do it. I have every faith in
the world, I just need y'all to get just a few more years older, okay. And still, when
you're doing your private stuff, you can still do public service through private industry,
so if you don't want to go into public service, and you go into a corporation, make your corporation,
just as responsible. That's what you can do, you know, but you guys, I think, are going
to do it. And, I have, I have great hope. I have great hope for you guys, clearing up
this racism thing, because for some reason or the other, people don't think that it's
real. Sometimes I think my daughter, thinks that I live in a black and white time and
then everything was black and white, and that the things that I told her about, like oh
man, the day Dr. King died, we were in Anchorage and we were doing this, when it came on the
news, she thinks that I lived on the news in real life, I mean that's not real to her,
that's something she read about in the history books. But I think - I think that all of this
is, coming to head with you guys, and you guys understand it. You have friends, you
guys have a good mixture of friends. I hauled a whole bunch of girls around for volleyball
games, and soccer games, and you know take them to, you know, concerts and that kind
of stuff, and all moms are black, white, Hispanic - we're all doing those kinds of things for
our kids now in school. You guys have been in school with people of all different colors;
like I said, I started out during the time we're schools were segregated, but you guys
have always been with each other, and so you guys know that it doesn't really matter. You
know where you are, or who you are, where you came from, it's your mindset. You've had
experiences, you've eaten at a black house, you know, you don't have only one black friend.
So you guys are beginning to mix it up right, and so I think that when you guys take over,
and I'm going to give you about a good five years, that y'all are going to make things
right, you understand what systemic racism is, you understand how I would feel - I feel
when my daughter drives through those little-bitty tiny towns, going back to Tuscaloosa, to go
to college. And I make her call me, because I want to
make sure that she gets there, and she wasn't stopped in some little town and arrested for
not using a blinker. I don't think that your kids are going to have to worry about that
kind of stuff, because y’all are going to make sure that that kind of stuff is right
and that - that all of that racism and bias in there, y'all are going to start, you know,
making it who's out and getting, you know, rid of it. So y'all are my hope, you guys
are truly my hope, and all I ask you to do is, every now and then, if there's an adult
in the room, listen and don't be like me when I was young, thinking that I knew everything,
you know. Keep your mind, you know, open for that too. But you guys are what I have left,
and I would like you to go ahead and do it, because the last quarter of my life here,
I would like to be Cheryl; I don't want to be activist-Cheryl, I don't want to be short-Cheryl,
I don't know want to be black Cheryl. I just want to be Cheryl. I want to read some books,
I want to drink some good wine, I want to sit there and enjoy the sunset, watch the
moon come up and look at the stars, and let y'all take it. So that's what I'd like y'all
to do for me. VU: Thank you so much for all of this. It's
just been a privilege hearing about all of your experiences and passions and contributions
to the community, and it just amazes me how someone can go through so much in a matter
of years. But yeah, it certainly - it surely broadens my understanding of your era, and
as we wrap things up, is there anything you want to just share on the record?
JEFFERSON: Oh boy. You guys, you young people. You have a world that is so tight, and so
close, that you can see, something that is happening in Africa right now, at the push
of a button. The world is extremely small and it's getting smaller. We need to think
in long-term. Y'all don't plan for four or five years of who the next President is going
to be, start planning for what's going to be happening in 100 years. Start thinking
about that. Always remember to be kind because until you've walked in someone else's shoes,
even someone that you totally dislike, you shouldn't make any judgments about them, always
do what's right in your heart and maintain the respect and the knowledge that you get
from your ancestors. It is - it's a culmination of knowledge over thousands of years, it's
not what you just learned in school today. All of that matters, all of that ends up being
a part of you, and being a part of us. So put all of it together, take all of it, learn
from all of it, walk very slow with it, be very careful with what you do, and what you
do to other people. That's all I want you guys to do, and good Lord almighty, find some
happiness. Find some happiness and some peace, and y'all will be alright. And as soon as
we die off, y'all will be real good (laughs). VU: Thank you.
JEFFERSON: And that’s about it. VU: Thank you so much for taking your time
out to do this. It really means a lot. It's - for something like this, it was much
more than a project; just hearing all of your experiences, and how I can take some lessons
on how I can impact the community more - it just really helps me, and it will help whoever
listens to this in the future, so I really appreciate it.
JEFFERSON: Okay, just make sure you don't put on my file the crazy woman (laughter).
VU: I won’t (laughs). JEFFERSON: Take care sweetie, and if you need
anything else, please feel free to call me or text me - I'll figure it out.
VU: Yes ma’am. JEFFERSON: You take care. Alright.
VU: Bye. JEFFERSON: Bye.

In collections

Austin women activists oral history project records

Details

Title: Cheryl Jean Jefferson oral history
Identifier: camh-dob-004041
Description: Oral history of Cheryl Jean Jefferson conducted by Tong Vu on February, 26th 2021. Cheryl Jefferson was born to a military family in Anchorage, Alaska. Her family eventually settled in Brenham, Texas, and she elected to attend Southwest Texas State University in the late 1960s. While in school, she began her detailed career that includes Civil Rights Activism, antiwar activism, television production, and politics. With the Civil Rights movement in its latter stages, and the ongoing Vietnam War, Cheryl found involvement in just about every social movement. She was part of the student Senate at Southwest Texas State, and even met with former president Lyndon B. Johnson a handful of times. Most notably, Cheryl worked with the television network, KLRU, formerly known as KLRN. While Cheryl enjoyed working in all of the previously mentioned fields, she found the most happiness in her later career, where she worked in energy conservation.
Creator: Vu, Tong
Contributor: Jefferson, Cheryl Jean, 1951-
Date: 2021-02-26
Date Created: 2021-02-26
Resource: Austin women activists oral history project records
Subject Name: Jefferson, Cheryl Jean, 1951-
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968
KLRU (Television station : Austin, Tex.)
Black American Sun (Television program)
Subject Topic: Civil rights
African Americans
Peace movements
Energy conservation
Subject Geographic: United States - Texas - Travis County - Austin
United States - Texas - Hays County - San Marcos
Physical Genre: Oral histories (literary works)
Collection Strength: Civil Rights and Social Justice
News Media History
Texas History
Project: Austin women activists oral history project