RL00170-CS-0703_02

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Vivian Cofield Spence	—Break-ins, quiet life. And it seemed like we had break-ins in the dormitory I was living in or something was happening all the time. And I don't know, I guess I did, maybe I just didn't want to be there either. And so I was frightened. So then they said well let her come and stay with us. So I moved off campus on the second semester and I don't know, for some reason I guess I just didn't like it and I just wanted to go to Winston-Salem and that could have been because of my aunt going there. You know how somebody else go and so I wanted to go. But I really did. I liked it. I liked Winston-Salem and I really enjoyed it. So I just did my other three years there and I finished in Elementary-Ed and after that I left and came back and I didn't really want to teach.	0:01
Vivian Cofield Spence	I wanted to teach. Yes, I loved it. Everybody loved me, everybody wanted to be in my class. And I came back to do my student teaching. I did it at Eastman. The school I graduated and the principal was so impressed that he told me, he said, "Make sure you get a job when you come back." So what I did, I had the 3rd grade, I did my student teaching. The next year he gave my same class. So I went there and started working when I graduate with that same class, which is the 4th grade. And I guess that was one of my favorite classes too. And most of them were about—see I was only about what, eight, nine years older than they and right now half of them, "Boy, you look younger than I do." Because most of them, some point is about 45 now, I guess.	0:54
Vivian Cofield Spence	So 46 maybe depending on how early they were in school and I get tickled. People be looking at me. "You said that's one of your students." I said "It is one of them." "No, it can't be." Yeah, I said, "Well, it is." Yeah, but yep, it was like that though.	1:44
Kara Miles	How was Winston-Salem different from Enfield?	2:13
Vivian Cofield Spence	Well, Winston-Salem, I guess it was a larger town, more places to go. But when I was there we only could go out with upperclassmen when I was in school we couldn't go into town. So I didn't really go into town that much. We didn't have a whole lot of extra money to spend because the parents were footing the bills for the college. It wasn't like borrowing money or whatever. They were just—and I had whatever I needed. But you know what I'm saying all the extra things, you don't have cars and things like the kids have the day in school and we would get a chance to go into town once a week.	2:19
Vivian Cofield Spence	The personal items, the little things that you wanted to pick up and with the group. But it was a large town and a lot of things to do. But really, like I said, I guess I went to school a bit too young because it wasn't too much that I was too interested in and there was some slipping off the campus and everything, getting in trouble, getting locked out at night. They were out there and I guess you could be easy, live that way if you wanted to go. But on a whole I guess I just didn't, I guess I was more interested in trying to get my education I guess I valued it a lot. And so that was—	3:12
Kara Miles	Did you join any clubs or organizations at college?	4:02
Vivian Cofield Spence	No, not really.	4:07
Kara Miles	No sorority?	4:12
Vivian Cofield Spence	No. I had thought one time about joining Delta, but I didn't know at that time I didn't really want to. After my father died, I really didn't want to put too much pressure on my mother for money to pledge and go through it. And I guess I just didn't bother. And then I had said, well if I do I'll just go in a graduate chapter afterwards. But I guess if you don't, while you're in college, sometimes you don't even bother to go into grad after you come out. Yeah. I didn't.	4:13
Kara Miles	A lot of people that I've talked to, in fact most people I've talked to who went to college seem to have joined sororities or fraternities and things. What was being on campus like, not being in a sorority or fraternity, was it, was there any kind of exclusion you felt or?	4:53
Vivian Cofield Spence	No, not then. Maybe now, yes. But back then it was just a selective few, you didn't have too many sororities and I mean you had a few but you didn't have that many people pledging. If you had eight to ten in a group. You see what I'm trying to say? And you didn't have a majority, like now you have so many and so many of them there into so much. You know what I mean? You probably would want to be in just like my son, he's played Sigma. What was that, his first year at East Carolina, this is his third year in it. But back there then it was, it really didn't matter as much, I'd say, as it would today.	5:14
Kara Miles	And how were people in sororities and fraternities viewed on campus? Was that—	6:03
Vivian Cofield Spence	Just like anybody else. I think more of the focus would've been then on basketball, football more so those athletes, you know what I mean? More so than the fraternity and sorority, even though they were there and they'd have the step shows, you know what I mean? And different things. People would go out and watch them and whatever, you know what I mean? But I guess like I said back there, then they didn't focus on it as much as they would today.	6:10
Kara Miles	How about when you were in high school? Were there any clubs that you were in?	6:47
Vivian Cofield Spence	They were a few clubs. You know what? I can't even remember them. I don't know. Seemed like through some of my, I was in a couple of clubs in college but not, you know what I mean? That, but I can't remember all of them now. I don't know through my sickness sometime I just forget some of it.	6:53
Kara Miles	Were they social clubs or?	7:13
Vivian Cofield Spence	Yeah, social clubs, things like that.	7:16
Kara Miles	Do you remember what kind of things you used to do?	7:20
Vivian Cofield Spence	Not really.	7:23
Kara Miles	Are the ones that you were in some social clubs in high school, were they school related or they?	7:26
Vivian Cofield Spence	School related? Yeah, they were school related.	7:31
Kara Miles	What role did the church play in your life growing up? Did you go to church all the time or?	7:38
Vivian Cofield Spence	I won't say all the time but I went a lot. I'm a member of a Methodist church now, AME, and which is, well I was trying to tell you one time Pleasant Hill was a school and there's a Baptist church right beside it. And maybe about a couple of miles is a Holiness church. And then the AME Methodist and my grandparents remember the Pleasant Hill Baptist and I'm a member of the Methodist church. My mother's a member of the Methodist church. Don't ask me how that happens because I really don't know. And I like both churches and I go to Pleasant Hill and I go to mine and sometimes I think I like Pleasant Hill better. They just hold too long and then they start and with my back I can't sit in there that long and sometimes I'll just go on over to mine instead, the two.	7:47
Vivian Cofield Spence	But I like both churches but I don't know, I think it was because of my mother and some of her sisters and whatever is why I ended up at the Methodist Church. I think I was too young to make a choice for my own, you just go into church that your family's a member. And like I said, I don't know why they didn't go Baptist, but there was a little stigma over the years that I had heard that the ones over at the Methodist church seemed like they were a little something.	8:57
Kara Miles	High or thought they were high or something?	9:41
Vivian Cofield Spence	Yeah. Or something. It seemed like I've heard it and I've often sit back and tried to view it, but I don't see any difference. And like I said, it could be me. Like I said, I view people as people I guess I've dealt with them and incidentally coming back when we were talking about me working, I was telling you about my student teaching, I wanted to go back to that. I didn't stay in teaching that long. Remember I told you I thought I wanted to do something else? I didn't want anything that was going to confine me. So I left and I went back to school and I went to University of North Carolina Greensboro and I went to Chapel Hill and well I went to East Carolina in the summer sessions. That was afterwards though. And I changed my certificate to speech and language. So actually I was a speech therapist for what, about 18 years.	9:42
Vivian Cofield Spence	I taught three years and then I just went back to the same schools I was working in and I have a speech and language for the county schools and that's what you probably want to hear. Okay. When I started out there were two of us. It was a White girl hired and she was like had all the White schools. I was first Black hired.	10:37
Vivian Cofield Spence	I mean, I had four of the Black schools because they couldn't afford to hire. So I just had Pittman, the same little schools around here in Boyd, Eastman. And that was nice. And she and I are close now, believe it or not now we are real close friends and we worked together I guess about five years. And then she went out, let me see, that was '68, I believe. She went out on maternity leave, but she went out, they didn't have a White one so they didn't have anybody serving the White school. And they were so impressed with me because so gave me all the White schools. So then they hired somebody for the Black schools. So they hired two other girls for the Blacks and I had all White for the county.	11:12
Kara Miles	What was that like teaching, being at White schools?	12:12
Vivian Cofield Spence	You know what? I didn't see any difference. I don't know. When I went out on maternity leave in '72 with my son, I had parents to bring the White kids into my home for me to work with them. You had more interest in the kids from the White parents. They support you. They've come down, they'd bring me vegetables. They used to bring me butter beans and things from the garden. Go right upstairs, turn the TV on. I had the children out here just working with them. I mean, this was free. It wasn't no fee charged. They just didn't want the kids to go without the services while I was out school. And they asked me what I do and I told them, I say, "You bringing to my house, I do it because I ain't doing nothing." And they would bring their kids in here and sit up there and bring me butter beans and things like that and just sit there and shell them watch TV while the kids and I were here working. They were just that interested. I did find a lot of more interest in them.	12:16
Vivian Cofield Spence	I had some that I had interest and I think that was because I was taking them back and forth up to Duke for those evaluations and whatever and the doctor was working with us so they didn't have much choice, a few of the Black parents. But I did find that White seemed like had more interest in their kids and making sure that they got what they needed.	13:26
Kara Miles	Yeah. It seems that you've had pretty good experiences with Whites.	13:52
Vivian Cofield Spence	Oh yeah.	13:58
Kara Miles	Are there people that you knew growing up or that you heard of through your parents or through anyone, were there incidents with Whites that people who didn't have such good relations with Whites, things that happened between Whites and Blacks?	13:59
Vivian Cofield Spence	I had some cousins who I know had they were going, wanted to be served like downtown. See they were living in town around the corner and they wanted to be served. They had this restaurant plantation inn or something and they wanted food. So I know they picket down there and did lots of things like that on the, had lines out there. And they would come out to—people would come out to spray them with the water hose and everything. It was going on.	14:19
Kara Miles	Was this in the '60s or in the?	15:01
Vivian Cofield Spence	In the '60s. Yeah, sure was. They wouldn't serve them food down there. They'd have sit-ins and they'd go out there and sit in front of the place, make sure nobody else didn't go in. And I rode by and looked at them a couple times, but I did not go out there in it because I don't know. Well, I guess it was instilled within us too. The man that was principal of the high school when he hired me, I guess—you asked me about somebody having influence. He had a little influence over my life. I think I admired him, Mr. Young, because he was the one, like I said to you when I did my student teaching, remember I told you he came back and he told me, he said, "I'm going to give you the same class." And then the next year I said that he let me go with them the next year. He let me go right on with them and I truly enjoyed them. And then I stayed one more year like I said. And then I started in speech and he was the cause of that.	15:03
Vivian Cofield Spence	He told me he thought I would do good and he asked me why didn't I go back if I wanted to do something except just be confined to a classroom. And then he moved up to be superintendent, too before he passed a few years back. But he was a person I could talk to and I guess he wanted to see me do well, too.	16:14
Vivian Cofield Spence	But I don't know, I guess like you said, I haven't had too many run ins with the White. But like I said, cousins and all I know they've had and I've heard them talking about it, but I really hadn't had it a whole lot. I do remember sometimes you see the signs out where it said Colored and White bathrooms, had it go on the Colored side, things like that in town.	16:46
Kara Miles	Well, how did that make you feel? What did you think of that when you were in town and saw those signs?	17:15
Vivian Cofield Spence	I guess if I had had to really go into them and use them, I think I would've gotten mad, but I guess if I wasn't treated pretty good by them, I guess I would've gotten mad. Or if I had have been right just in a Black section, you know what I mean? Just grew up with us all Black right in there. And then I parked ride out there and see it, I probably would. Or then if I was riding the bus and they tell me go all the way to the back because that's what happened to a lot of them. But when I started riding the bus, I was sitting anywhere. I had ride with myself on that bus and I would sit basically anywhere I wanted to sit when I came home. 'Cause at that time, like I said, they didn't have transportation. You know what I'm saying? Get you like they have now. I don't know.	17:32
Kara Miles	How about your friends, some of your friends who weren't in the same circumstances as you?	18:36
Vivian Cofield Spence	Oh yeah, they'd be upset. Oh yeah, they'd be ready to fight and they would.	18:41
Kara Miles	They would fight? You remember times of that? You remember?	18:46
Vivian Cofield Spence	I mean they'd be ready to, I tell you they be talking up some stuff. Like I said, some of their get up picket lines, they walk them and it was really something, you know what I mean? Like I said, they just get the water hose and spray them with water. But I guess because when I talked to my husband about it, he say the same thing. He said, I didn't get a touch of really all of it was back there, you know what I mean? I guess I came along at a good time and then I started working and I guess I got along with them so well until—but then he told me too, he wondered if I had been a darker complexion would I have had a harder time too? He say this to me, he wondered if they accepted me because I was one of the lighter Blacks. Yeah.	18:49
Kara Miles	What do you think of that?	20:00
Vivian Cofield Spence	There is a possibility because there are some Blacks, the first ones that went into the schools. 'Cause I was out there and they weren't accepted as well. So it is a possibility. Sometimes I think because I was moving around too so much that helped. And then, I don't know, I guess I've just always been a friendly person too. It depends, I think on a lot of things, personality and friendliness too helped. But then again, I can imagine that that skin color could help some too, I would think.	20:00
Kara Miles	Yeah. How about in the Black community? Was skin color an issue? Were lighter-skinned people treated differently or darker-skinned people treated differently?	20:34
Vivian Cofield Spence	Maybe so if you think about it, I think maybe the lighter-skinned and the neatness too along with it. Because you lighter skin ain't dirty, right? Be about the same, I guess. Yeah, I would think so. Yeah, I think they did accept them a little better.	20:51
Kara Miles	Do you remember instances?	21:15
Vivian Cofield Spence	I can't think of anything right off-hand. Uh-huh.	21:20
Kara Miles	How about teachers? Did teachers treat?	21:24
Vivian Cofield Spence	Students? I think, yeah, I would think so because when you have students come out there and they didn't comb their hair and you see them little bullets as you might say up there and they come out the bed and they come in there with them little [indistinct 00:21:49] and bugs in it. They didn't really want to touch them and I really think they didn't get the proper education either because they didn't want to really take up time with them. And I think they've been neglected. I really do.	21:29
Kara Miles	But when you were growing up, did you notice these things?	22:06
Vivian Cofield Spence	No, not really. No, I don't remember any of them.	22:14
Kara Miles	Okay. Well, that's all the questions I have. Are there things that I didn't bring up that you want to tell me?	22:32
Vivian Cofield Spence	I was just trying to see was if there was some other incident. I can't think of anything right offhand.	22:42
Kara Miles	Okay.	22:54
Vivian Cofield Spence	I forget to tell you that when I was hired as a speech therapist for the county, they all stated in the newspaper article that I would work with the Negro students of Halifax County in this field of speech and hearing. And I did start with the Negro as the first children, but after a couple of years then I was transferred to all White schools and I worked with all White.	23:04
Kara Miles	When was this? What year was this when this article? Do you know?	23:31
Vivian Cofield Spence	This was in '63 or '64.	23:38
Kara Miles	Okay.	23:38

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RL00170-CS-0703_02

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Vivian Spence interview recording, 1993 June 21

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