Paul Ortiz: Your parents were unlikely to talk about some of those experiences. 

Archie Lee Walker: That's right. 

Paul Ortiz: But both of you saw these kinds of experiences. 

Archie Lee Walker: Sure. 

Paul Ortiz: What were some of those experiences on discrimination? 

Archie Lee Walker: Well, a little silly. Well, besides the obvious, I'm sure you know about the legal things that were going on during that time, but little nasty things like you're walking down the street and there might be four old tobacco chewing White men who won't move and so you've got to walk in the street, that kind of stuff. 

Archie Lee Walker: Or you didn't have to worry about restaurants because they wouldn't let you in there. But just like other Western and Midwestern towns, there was a lot of sidewalk selling. In Fort Worth, there were lots of restaurants that had a sidewalk window where people could buy stuff on the go when they're getting on the bus or getting off the bus. I've had it personally happen to me where the White guy comes up and he pushes me aside so he can be waited on next, even though I'm there. You're not expected to resist. 

Archie Lee Walker: Well, it was bad for us because we were the forerunners of the resistance. Late '40s, early '50s is where this whole thing started, and it just boiled over. By the time that the late '50s arrived, it was boiling. Well, we were at the beginning of it, and lots of my peers had some bad physical things happen to them because of this resistance. 

Archie Lee Walker: I mean, physically beat by the police or beat up by a group of White men. The biggest things were buses and restaurants. Not so much restaurants. Most of us knew better than to going to a restaurant. But a counter, a food counter, what's wrong with your giving me a coke and letting me take off with it? That was the attitude that my peers had. So we did a lot of silly things that we could have gotten killed over it, but at that time, we didn't care. 

Paul Ortiz: What were some of those things? 

Archie Lee Walker: Well, like walking up to the counter and saying, or pretending that you couldn't speak English. If you were Black and you couldn't speak English, you got served. 

Paul Ortiz: Really? 

Archie Lee Walker: That's right. If you were anything but a Black American, you got served. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: That happened to me in Tolerance. I went to school in Nashville, Tennessee. I was at Fisk, and there were a lot of girls at Fisk who were from New Orleans and they were very fair skinned and they had straight hair and they knew a little bit of French. And we got together and they suggested, "Let's just go to the movie." And I said, "Go to the movies?" And so Betty Raymond said, "Yes, all you have to do is say [foreign language 00:03:10]." And so that's what we did. When we got to the window, we just said [foreign language 00:03:17] and put our money down, got a ticket, and went in and we laughed. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: We thought it was the funniest thing [indistinct 00:03:26]. But there is one thing I want tell you about. My dad and my mother were both very active in the NAACP. They were members from the very beginning. When voting rights came along, my daddy was one of the first people to be in the line to vote and we couldn't vote in the south until Mr. Truman said, "You better let those folks vote." When the Voting Rights Act went through. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: I'll never forget that, because that was very traumatic to us and it was scary, because my dad and two of his cousins who lived just within three blocks of us, went to the poll to vote the very first time that Black folks could vote right there. And cousin Will and cousin Frank, cousin Will was about 6'6, cousin Frank might've been six feet, and my dad was about 5'4. They all got together and dressed up in their best. Well, they weren't their best clothes, but they put on clean clothes, shirts and all, and went to the poll to vote. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: They left home at about seven o'clock in the morning and we were all just sitting there just waiting for them to get back. And we waited and waited and waited all day long. Those folks had them standing up there from the sign that they got there at 7:00 until 4:30 in the afternoon and would not give them a ballot. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: And finally the police came and made the posters, give them that ballot so that they could vote. But we were at home and we were scared to death because we didn't know what had happened to them. 

Paul Ortiz: About what year was that? 

Ferdie Miller Walker: Oh, Archie, when was that? It was in the '40s. 

Archie Lee Walker: Yeah. It was after World War II. 

Paul Ortiz: After World War II? 

Archie Lee Walker: Yes, it was after World War War II. 

Paul Ortiz: Now, you mentioned that NAACP chapter in Fort Worth, that your father had been involved in helping to organize that? 

Ferdie Miller Walker: No, he didn't help to organize it. He has always been a good member. Yeah. He's always been a dues paying member. He always went to meetings just as he did with the YMCA. There's things that—But he did. He was a supporter. He was a strong supporter. 

Archie Lee Walker: You need to know the chronology of this voting business because Texas tried to keep everything legal. When it was decided that they could not keep Black people from voting, they instituted a poll tax, which means that everybody, White and Black had to pay a $2 tax to get a poll ID so they could vote. You couldn't vote without that ID. They were shocked when so many Black people paid the poll tax. 

Paul Ortiz: Was that a retroactive poll tax? Would that accumulate from the time that— 

Archie Lee Walker: No, you paid it every year. It wasn't something that you paid just once. You paid it every year. That was ruled illegal. That's the period that she's talking about is when the police had to enforce it, when the poll tax was ruled illegal. Now, at this time, we were almost grown. This would've been in the '50s or close to the '50s? 

Paul Ortiz: Close to the '50s. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: '48, '49 or something like that. 

Archie Lee Walker: '50s. Right. 

Paul Ortiz: Had there been a change in Black political activity in, say, the '30s to the '40s? 

Archie Lee Walker: Yes. Now, '30s to the '40s. I can't speak to, but I know in the mid '40s to the mid '50s, things really began to change. I credit Adam Clayton Powell for most of it. Are you familiar with Adam Clayton Powell? 

Ferdie Miller Walker: Well, I don't credit him for most of it but he was one of the people who was certainly a pusher and A shover as far as civil rights and— 

Archie Lee Walker: And getting the people to recognize that it was possible. 

Paul Ortiz: I understand. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: And I remember that dad was really involved in pushing things that NAACP was involved in. We went through that period in which many Black folks felt like Walter White had no business being president of the NAACP because he was White. Not only was his name White, but he looked White. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: A lot of Black folks didn't want to follow what Walter White said do, but my dad said that you just have to look Abby at who gets the job done. But he's always been a supporter, not an organizer, but a supporter. 

Archie Lee Walker: Well, and that voting business was very serious. Still is, believe it or not. I know that when Verde and I were adults, we were asked by her father to work the polls as poll judges— 

Paul Ortiz: In Fort Worth? 

Archie Lee Walker: Mm-hmm. And we did. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: Sure did. 

Archie Lee Walker: I was absolutely flabbergasted at the number of White people who would not vote if they had to take their ballot from me— 

Ferdie Miller Walker: In the '50s. 

Archie Lee Walker: Yeah, that was early '50s. I'm not sure. Yeah, it had to be the '50s, because that's when we met. This would've been 1950 for sure. '49 or '50. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: Because we got married in '51. 

Archie Lee Walker: Right. And we were not married when this happened. It was unbelievable at the number of people who came into that fire station to vote and saw me sitting there handing out the ballots and would turn around and go back. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: Well, see, that really doesn't surprise me because as a registered nurse, I worked at Harris Memorial Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth and they were so very short of nurses then that they had to let us work everywhere. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: Now, the first time I went to work in a White hospital in Fort Worth, they made us work down in the basement. Black registered nurses had to work down in the basement with the Colored patients only. But then after the shortage came, then we had to work everywhere because there weren't enough White nurses to send all over the place to work. And I have had patience to refuse to take medicine because I was giving it to them. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: Now, at first, it was so new to have Black nurses taking care of White patients that the supervisor of nurses, White supervisors, all at that time, didn't know how to handle it. But when things really got tight and there was nobody else to give the medicine, this one woman, one nurse told the man, she said—And we never got called Mrs. or Miss or anything. 

Archie Lee Walker: Yeah. Nurse this or nurse— 

Ferdie Miller Walker: Nurse Miller is what I was before we married. And then Nurse Walker, she's the only one who's here and if you don't take it from her, you won't get it. Well, that was the first time I ever heard a White person tell a White person that this person is here and is capable of taking care of you and we are not going to do anything about it. So that was really different thing in my life. 

Archie Lee Walker: A turning point. 

Paul Ortiz: You were working which hospital? 

Ferdie Miller Walker: Harris Memorial Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas. Archie was in the Army, and he was in Korea. 

Archie Lee Walker: The Korean War turned a lot of things around. Many of us who were drafted into the army to go to Korea were hangovers from World War II 

Paul Ortiz: Hangovers? 

Archie Lee Walker: Meaning that I could have been in World War II, but I wasn't. So when the Korean War came along, we were the first ones called. The original wave of draftees that went to Korea were people who—wait,they started out you age 26 or older is who got called first. So the first wave were older men, and there was some hostilities left over from what happened to the soldiers from World War II who came back and got no recognition. 

Archie Lee Walker: And so we were pretty mad, most of us. We were mad for having to go in the first place. 

Paul Ortiz: To Korea? 

Archie Lee Walker: Yes. So during that era, attitudes throughout the country, both military and civilian really changed and the change had stopped. That's about where I think it started. 

Paul Ortiz: You think that the war or the experience in the war had something— 

Archie Lee Walker: No, the resentment. 

Paul Ortiz: The resentment. 

Archie Lee Walker: The resentment of the war itself, the resentment of the people who served of having to serve. They didn't want to be there. It just boiled over because the segregation was still paramount. They still had segregated military in the first part of the Korean War, and I guess Mr. Truman got the message that if he didn't do something soon, he was going to have a war in the Army because they were already having trouble. 

Paul Ortiz: Did you see that kind of trouble? 

Archie Lee Walker: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. There were situations on the grounds in Korea where the Black soldiers and the White soldiers were all once ready to go to war against each other. And they really had some trouble with the front lines with that with the 24th Infantry Division, which for one time was all Black. 

Paul Ortiz: That was your unit, or was that the outfit you were with? 

Archie Lee Walker: No, no, no, no, no, no. This was an attitude throughout the military during that period, and it just filtered through so that everybody was testing. You had fights in the NCO Club for no reason here. These guys have been buddies for years, and all of a sudden they're punching each other out because one said something other that he wasn't supposed to say. 

Archie Lee Walker: I've known the guys who were good friends and the White guy called this other guy a nigger and nothing ever happens. But then, they all switched. Where when he was called that, he'd punch him. Here before, he ignored it. I don't know what was going on, but surely I was there. I saw it. It just switched. 

Paul Ortiz: You have personal experiences that enraged you regarding— 

Archie Lee Walker: I really didn't have any racial experiences in the army of that kind. I saw a few, but I don't know that I had any personally. 

Paul Ortiz: I know you saw a few, which— 

Archie Lee Walker: Pardon? 

Paul Ortiz: Now, you said that you saw a few though. 

Archie Lee Walker: Yes. Like the one I just mentioned, the army was strange and still is. The army has a tendency to recognize talent. When they got somebody who looks like they can make things happen, they get treated pretty nice. 

Archie Lee Walker: I think that's what happened to me. I was pushy. I was aggressive. I was already out of college, been working for two or three years, so I wasn't the young ill-educated 12th grader that they were accustomed to dealing with. I got a lot more respect than is customary. In fact, I got a commission. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: One day. 

Archie Lee Walker: Yeah, one day. And they took it back the next day. There was a whole transition of things going on in Korea and in the army. While I was there, it was the time that Truman signed the desegregation law for the military immediately. He didn't meet next month, next year, now. And he explained what now meant, today. 

Paul Ortiz: You would characterize this as being caused by some of the tensions that you saw. 

Archie Lee Walker: Yes. Well, I think he was just trying to stop a mutiny. Well, and it was the thing to do. It needed to have been done years ago. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: Now about this commission. I don't want you to forget that. See, that directly affected me. When Archie went in the army, Archie was a PFC, and then he got promoted to corporal and then they took that back the next day because he hadn't been in the army for 12 months. One day, he was corporal, and then two days later he was PFC again, and I was still getting $20 a month. And then he got a field promotion to lieutenant, is that what it was? 

Archie Lee Walker: Yeah. Second lieutenant. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: Second lieutenant. And then Truman rescinded the order. 

Paul Ortiz: Truman himself? 

Archie Lee Walker: Yes. Well, what that means is that all commissions that are granted while you're on active duty are reserve commissions, army reserve. With concurrent call to active duty. I got my commission. In the meantime, Mr. Truman froze all recalls to active duty. I was still a second lieutenant, but I was the second lieutenant in the Army Reserves, not on active duty. That's what she's talking about. Never did get caught. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: See, we were still trying to make it on that $20 a month. Yeah. Well, we have done a lot of things, and it hasn't all been bad. I can remember the time when I worked three jobs because that's what needed to do to make it happen. Archie was making $20 a month, so that's where that was. 

Paul Ortiz: I see. 

Archie Lee Walker: But the racial thing, as you are interested in, I suppose, has not gone away. It's still with us and it's a little more subtle now. What they aren't able to do anymore that they used to be able to do very successfully is set up quasi false barriers, certain kinds of qualifications that they know can't be met. 

Archie Lee Walker: Well, what they have done over the last couple of generations is create what my colleagues call laughingly super niggers. Guys with two PhDs, guys who know a little bit about everything. Guys who found a way to get a job in these high-powered places, get on boards, and the first thing you know they're saturated. How are you going to turn them down? 

Archie Lee Walker: The false bearers just went out the window. So you wonder how with the population, as small as it is in relation to the total, when you look at all of the Black people in high places, I wonder if those people ever wonder how in the world could that happen with such a small minority when they're telling you every day that 85% of all Black people drop out of high school before the 12th grade. 

Archie Lee Walker: Yet, you've got the joint chiefs of staff, Black. How many senators you got that's been elected and reelected, Black? College presidents? Look at your generals in the army. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: You are philosophizing— 

Archie Lee Walker: No, I'm talking about how those barriers aren't accessible anymore. What you're having now is a return to outright blatant racial turn-back. Lots of it. Now, they're afraid of the lawsuits. Well, they almost, to get rid of that, if this new law passes where I don't remember what the details are. Where it's up to me to prove that you discriminated rather than for you to prove that you didn't. 

Archie Lee Walker: I don't know if that law ever passed or not, but I know it was before the house. 

Paul Ortiz: That's very interesting. Now, both of you went to historically Black colleges, but we haven't talked about those experiences yet. 

Archie Lee Walker: I feel very strongly about mine, and since I've just gone over it yesterday with some of the people who were here, Black college experience for me, and many of my schoolmates were awesome and completely in awe. 

Archie Lee Walker: You've come out of a community where you've never been more than 50 miles away from home and you've come into an environment where you've run into a bunch of people who want to tell you every move to make, when to go to the bathroom, what to wear, what to eat, when to sleep, where you can go, where you can't go. 

Archie Lee Walker: There was almost instant hostility between the student and the administration. They told us where to smoke or if we could smoke, told us when to go to class, when to go to bed, when to go to the library. They taught us how to eat, how to dress. Now. I'm just thankful that that wore off pretty fast because the resentment was just terrific. Me, I'm talking about me. 

Paul Ortiz: Yeah. You began at Tuskegee in 1945— 

Archie Lee Walker: Yes, 1945. But beyond that, I told the people yesterday that Tuskegee was the greatest thing that's ever happened to me in my entire life. 

Paul Ortiz: Now, how did you come to Tuskegee? What was the process of finding out about it from all the way from Fort Worth? 

Archie Lee Walker: Now, I'm not sure. I was asked that same question yesterday, and I'm not sure. I know that as high school seniors, we were sent scouring to get three colleges to whom we could write for scholarships, fellowships, jobs, work scholarships, whatever we could get. 

Archie Lee Walker: I don't know why I chose Tuskegee, but I did. Well, I do know why I chose Tuskegee. I chose Tuskegee because Tuskegee was the only place I could go and learn to fly. They were the only Black college that offered flying lessons and that was because of the Army flying school here. There was Hampton, which is in Virginia, Cornell University. Now, I almost knew from the beginning I wasn't going to get into Cornell, but I applied anyway. 

Paul Ortiz: Now, I'm sorry. What high school were you in at Fort Worth? 

Archie Lee Walker: I.M. Terrell. 

Paul Ortiz: I.M. Terrell. 

Archie Lee Walker: I.M. Terrell. We both were. And I got a response from Tuskegee. They offered me a work scholarship. I even remember the amount, $15 a month work scholarship and a $15 a month academic scholarship, which came to a total of 30 bucks. 

Archie Lee Walker: It cost me $37.50 a month to go to school. So I had to come up with $7.50 cents. So as soon as I got here, I got me another work job. So I had three jobs. 

Archie Lee Walker: The resistance here for me, and I guess from my schoolmates, was the same as it is for most youngsters during that period. We just rebelled against authority. But one thing we never did, we never lost sight of why we were here. We did nothing that would jeopardize our being here or we did, we were scared to death that we're going to get sent home, which was a no-no. You're talking about kids who might have to watch to see if they commit suicide. 

Archie Lee Walker: Lest some kid get the idea that he might get sent home, better watch him because it scares him to death. I know it scared me. And many of us had that experience. I know I did. 

Paul Ortiz: For being sent home? 

Archie Lee Walker: Yes, sir. My folks would've killed me. I love to play poker even today. I was doing that when I was in high school, and I had bought me a fancy poker set before I came to college. Brand new, never been used. I opened it after I got here. It was a container that held chips and in the center, it held two decks of cards, and it had a green mat that folded underneath that you put on the table. 

Archie Lee Walker: Anyway, we did not know that they inspected—Well, we knew they inspected the rooms every day. You had to leave your beds made and the rooms clean and they inspected. And if you got a demerit, then the next day, you had to be there when they came. Anyway, I didn't lock my trunk because I didn't see that it was any of their businesses. I didn't think anybody would be going in my trunk. These guys pulled out every drawer in my trunk. 

Archie Lee Walker: In that one of those drawers was a poker set. Took it back to his office, and the next day, I got this little note in my mailbox to see the dean of men. So I went to see him. He gave me a receipt, where he had sent my poker set home. And he said, "Now you can write and ask your mother will she send it back to you?" 

Ferdie Miller Walker: See, I can't feature people having that kind of time to go around and do that— 

Archie Lee Walker: Well, Verde, that's all they had to do. We called it harassment. 

Paul Ortiz: That was under the dean of men who would have officers or people? 

Archie Lee Walker: These were guys. That's when I started learning the meaning of snob. We were becoming so snobbish because these weren't educated people. These were some of those guys that went to normal school. Normal school was high school in those days and didn't finish normal school. They were working out the dean of men's office, and they had lots of power. 

Archie Lee Walker: They could send you home. They could send you home. 

Paul Ortiz: Oh, I see. 

Archie Lee Walker: Yeah. And we were bitter. We were really bitter. But had they not had those people here, lots of those young guys would've never made it past the first semester. It's wild. It's too bad you don't know that when you're young, but it wasn't a racial thing after you got on campus, plus you never got a chance to leave, at least for the first six to eight months. 

Archie Lee Walker: We didn't even go across the street for the first six or eight months. They had us tied up from six o'clock in the morning until nine o'clock at night, every day, seven days a week. 

Paul Ortiz: What was a typical day like? 

Archie Lee Walker: Well, see, freshmen had a tough time because Tuskegee theoretically was a quasi military school. We wore uniforms and whole ball of wax. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: What kind of uniforms, honey? You mean— 

Archie Lee Walker: Navy blue uniform just like my army uniform today with the hat and the whole ball of wax. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: But you weren't in ROTC? 

Archie Lee Walker: No. Well, yes. ROTC was required of everybody for the first two years. Oh, yes, it was required. I didn't get your question. It was the guys who took ROTC after that who got paid. Those were the guys who were working for the Army. Before then, you weren't working for the army, you were working for the school. 

Archie Lee Walker: Anyway, typical day, go to breakfast, come back to your room, clean your room, get to class. Every class started at eight o'clock. If you were smart, you got up early enough to clean your room before you went to breakfast, so you wouldn't have to make that two mile walk back. 

Archie Lee Walker: Well, the problem was school was overcrowded, so they had at least one more person in each room than they had room for. Getting that many people to coordinate cleaning the room was very, very difficult. Every dormitory had a day room. The day rooms were converted into sleeping rooms. In those day rooms, they put six people. No, that would be 12. No, three double-decked beds is what they put in those rooms. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: Three or four sets of them. 

Archie Lee Walker: Double-decked beds. There were no closets in any of these rooms. So almost everybody had a wardrobe trunk, which you used as a closet. When you put in three double decker beds, six wardrobe trunks, six desks and six chairs in a room not much bigger than this, it's pretty hard to keep it clean. When I say clean, I meant neatly arranged. 

Archie Lee Walker: Pretty difficult. But that's what we had to do. If you want to see what that looks, they're still here. Those Emorys down there, the center room over the side porch was the day room. That's where I slept for two years, I'm sure. And then after that, the attendance began to drop and they stopped crowding us together. But from 1945 and '46, it was terrible. We had almost 4,000 students here. It's only built to take care of 2,500. 

Paul Ortiz: Were there people who came back perhaps from the war on the G.I. Bill? 

Archie Lee Walker: Yes. That was part of the reason for the overcrowding, is that 1945, '46, well, mainly 1946 was the big sweep return of the people from the G.I. Bill. Well, this is instant cash for the school. 

Archie Lee Walker: See us, we're going free. They're paying us all the G.I.s were paying cash bucks. So they weren't turning any of them away. They even built temporary quarters back over here. And those guys were making big bucks. Lots of them were drawing—They go to school, they get paid. So they not only got their tuition paid, they also had cash money to spend in the community. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: The G.I. Bill? 

Archie Lee Walker: The G.I. Bill. It was a boon to Tuskegee. It was bad for the weak because it got so crowded that they weren't able to watch him as closely as they used to. So a lot of guys got away with murder and got in trouble. But the overcrowding was terrible, I would say, for the '45, '46 school year last half. And from '47 on, I'd say for the next three years, it was absolutely terrible because for some reason, the attendance of women increased also because they were going to try to take one of the women's dormitories to convert it to men's dormitories. 

Archie Lee Walker: The dean of women went berserk because she didn't have enough room for the girls as it was. That was a kind of a bad period for end of World War II. It worked out though. They took what they did. Are you familiar with the old Army Air base out here? It's now Tuskegee. It's something else now, but— 

Paul Ortiz: Yeah, the airfield. 

Archie Lee Walker: Okay. Well, they had barracks out there too. The pilot slept here in Sage Hall, and out there is where the enlisted band and the non-pilot stayed out at the base. And so they had barracks out there. When the Army left, which was in once have been November or December of '45, they gave them to Tuskegee. 

Archie Lee Walker: The students were being assigned to live out there at the air base, and they had a shuttle going from the campus to out there to bring them back and forth. Only thing about it, they only sent the bus three times a day. The bus came in the morning before class. It went back at lunch. It came back after lunch, and it went back after class at night after supper. 

Archie Lee Walker: If you've missed that bus, you had no way to get it. Well, you have a higher taxi if you got money, but I imagine the taxi from here to out there must've been pretty expensive. But that was it. That's how they compensated for the overcrowding. Then the community assisted by renting rooms. Everybody in the community, I'm sure, had at least one student who they rented a bedroom to. Many of the women in the neighborhood also sold meals. They converted their dining rooms and living rooms into restaurants and they sold meals three times a day: breakfast, dinner, and supper. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: Would you go on contract with those people? 

Archie Lee Walker: Mm-hmm. We paid so much a week and you'd get three meals every day. It was kind of a cooperative venture to compensate for the overcrowding. 

Paul Ortiz: Mrs. Walker, you went to Fisk. What was the process that saw you go from Fort Worth to Fisk? 

Ferdie Miller Walker: Okay. Well, I had an older sister who went to Fisk also. Now, Fisk in our community, in Black community of Fort Worth, was the school for girls to go to. It was considered like a finishing school, where you went to improve on your social graces, to learn how to walk and to learn how to be a social being. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: My sister went to Fisk. She went to Fisk on a scholarship because she was a very smart person. I went to Fisk because she did. How can you do less for one than you? There were a lot of teachers and other people in our community who were looked up to who had gone to Fisk before. It was really kind of the place to go. Fisk and Howard, we only had one teacher who had gone to Howard, but we had many who had gone to Fisk. 

Archie Lee Walker: She didn't tell you what the boys said for the reason they sent their girls to Fisk. Fisk was where all the rich Black people through the country sent their sons to go to school. One of the only Black medical schools was right across the street. They'd go in there to get them a husband too. (laughs) 

Ferdie Miller Walker: They were going over to [indistinct 00:41:24] and to get a man. 

Paul Ortiz: Because I was going to ask why not Tuskegee or [indistinct 00:41:28]. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: No, Tuskegee was not— 

Archie Lee Walker: Blue collar. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: Of a finishing kind of thing. Fisk was big in the arts. 

Archie Lee Walker: Culture. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: Culture and that kind of thing. 

Archie Lee Walker: That was the thing that kept a lot of our generation from coming to Tuskegee. It was a blue collar school. Tuskegee still has today, I believe, two year courses. That was big right after the war. We could send kids out of here and they can become licensed electricians, licensed plumbers, carpenters, brick masons. If you knew what those guys make money now, those are big bucks. 

Archie Lee Walker: Where do you get the training? Tuskegee was the only place in the country the Black boys could learn those trades because they couldn't do the apprenticeships because the unions wouldn't let them in. Still don't let them in very quickly. But they could come here and still do it today. But that was the big drawing card. Tuskegee was really a blue collar, theoretically, if you want to label it. It's where most of your blue collar successes came from. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: You could go to Tuskegee and get out of school and get a job. 

Archie Lee Walker: Everybody got a job out of Tuskegee. You didn't have anybody graduating from college and going out and doing something else. They almost always got a job in what they were trained to do. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: I guess that was part of the legacy that Booker T. Washington left, because that's what he was big about, was people learning to work. 

Archie Lee Walker: Dignity in all work. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: That's right. And going ahead and making a living. Not just sitting down and thinking about it. But that's how I got to Fisk. 

Archie Lee Walker: She and I grew up in a time when the recognition of the importance of culture, fine-tuning one's cultural skills was super important. All of us were busy trying to make sure we knew how to wear the proper clothes, how to sit at the dining room table and not embarrass ourselves. Those were important things to our generation. Lots of people use that as a basis for selecting a college. 

Paul Ortiz: That helps explain Mrs. Walker, why you went to Fisk and why you went to Tuskegee [indistinct 00:44:33]. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: And then it's like what kinds of things, kinds of goals that parents set for their children. If you wanted your child to grow up and be like, Mrs. President and Mrs. President went to Fisk— 

Archie Lee Walker: Mm Senator Fisk. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: Then you tried your best, even though it was very expensive as such. I can't remember what the dollars involved were when I went to Fisk. It was really one of the more expensive Black colleges to go to. I suppose Talladega may have been equally as expensive. It was also a cultural, Black cultural Talladegas in Alabama. 

Archie Lee Walker: Yeah. It's just a few miles from here. 

Ferdie Miller Walker: Yeah. It was a cultural center. 

Archie Lee Walker: Because we used to say Talladega had the prettiest girls. 

Paul Ortiz: More so than Fisk? 

Ferdie Miller Walker: Well, I—