Donald Morgan interview recording, 1995 July 19

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Donald Edward Morgan	Testing, testing, one, two. Testing, testing, one, two.	0:03
Blair Murphy	It's working. Okay. If you could state your name and your date of birth, and your place of birth.	0:11
Donald Edward Morgan	My name is Donald Edward Morgan Senior. I was born in 1931, on July 6th. I'm from Raleigh.	0:17
Blair Murphy	Could you tell me how it was when you grew up, about your early childhood?	0:34
Donald Edward Morgan	I was born in a community city, where the houses were in sort of bunches. It's a small community here and small community there. But it was very much a community setting, where every family was familiar with the other family, including the children. We were more like what you read about the African families, where the community looked out after each other. Whereas children born in these certain sections, were about four, five others in the community. Therefore, whatever you had, your neighbor had, this included things like food, if you had a large garden, you would give what you had.	0:43
Donald Edward Morgan	Not only excess, but whatever you harvested that day, you would give to others. You would also find that in that community, one person would raise maybe five or six hogs, one person a or cow or two. And chickens, everybody had. Foul, everybody had, so that wasn't necessarily a necessity for sharing, but hog killing time, all the community people would gather in the deep wintertime, and the pigs were slaughtered and prepared.	1:53
Donald Edward Morgan	And all the materials were processed, like the fat was cooked down into grease and the crackling was used for seasoning cornbread. I don't know whether you've had cornbread or not.	2:36
Blair Murphy	Yes, I have.	2:55
Donald Edward Morgan	But crackling, cornbread and the grease was used either for lard or making Lysol. And so the children didn't have much of a life of luxury, because we had to work to help maintain either the house, or what you call a farm [indistinct 00:03:23], or whatever we were doing to survive. The times that I had personally, were fueled for recreational play, because I was the knee baby boy. And of course, most of my older brothers and sisters worked and most of them had left home.	2:55
Blair Murphy	What did knee baby mean, that you were the second baby?	3:50
Donald Edward Morgan	Next to the youngest knee baby. Next to the youngest. My childhood was not one like kids have today, because I had to work in the garden during the day, or in the afternoon. I had to bring in kindling or wood, chop wood, feed the pigs. Most of my childhood was considered for duties. My youngest days, I went to Lucile Hunter Elementary School, then I transferred to St. Monica's Catholic School. And then I went to Washington High School, which was a public school again. I must admit, I learned more at the Catholic school than in the public school, because those people were very thorough and very demanding. Unrelenting as far as the education goes.	3:52
Blair Murphy	Was that primarily a White, or a Black school?	5:09
Donald Edward Morgan	Black.	5:09
Blair Murphy	Black?	5:09
Donald Edward Morgan	Mm—hmm. All White American sisters, were the teachers and Father Carl was the headmaster. And Mother Patrice was the principal of the school or the head nun. And then that school, if you did anything wrong, you leaned over a chair, and you got the whip on your behind, for infractions and rules, not knowing your catechism and stuff like this. The public schools, you would get your hands beat with a strap.	5:16
Donald Edward Morgan	The harness from a horse was used and parts folded over and you'd get your hand strapped. Of course, the good years also, I didn't have much time for fun, because at 13 years old, riding to work at Andrew Johnson Hotel in Raleigh as a pot washer. So I went to high school — Well this was before I went to high school, let me cover this first. When I was in elementary school, I was a caddy for a white lady. And before I would get out of school, she would come there and pick me up and take me to caddy for her at the golf course, Raleigh golf course.	5:55
Donald Edward Morgan	And then she would bring me back to her house. And then from there from there, I'd walk home, or I'd go there and work in her garden and she would bring me back home. But when I got into high school at 14 years old, I worked at Andrew Johnson Hotel, washing pots, and I would also work at the A&P Store.	6:57
Donald Edward Morgan	When the Andrew Johnson Hotel closed, I went full—time at the A&P Store. This meant that I would go to school, go to work, get off at nine o'clock. Go home, feed the pigs, cut the wood, get in the coal, and then studied my lesson. This went on and I worked my way up from tagging cars with strips, which told the time that they'd parked. That was an outside job. And then I worked my way inside, where I was a bagger and I'd bag groceries. Then I worked my way up to the stock clerk, then I was stock foreman. When I left there. I was stock foreman, at 17 years old, which I had volunteered for the Air Force, because my family couldn't afford to send me to college. So the recruiting officer promised her that I would be able to go to college in the Air Force.	7:33
Blair Murphy	And what year did you go to the Air Force?	9:05
Donald Edward Morgan	1949. August 1949. And well, I went through basic training in San Antonio, Texas. Then I was sent to Biloxi in Mississippi, for basic for training in electronics and communication. After doing so well there, I was transferred back to San Antonio, where I trained other officers and non—commissioned officers in the Russian codes. In those years, it was classified. Not knowing that it was in preparation for my being sent overseas, to do the same thing. But we learned Russian codes and I was shipped to England.	9:09
Blair Murphy	Was it unusual for a Black man to be doing this type of work in the Air Force?	10:19
Donald Edward Morgan	In the Air Force, it was a free thing. It was Black and White working together. Although we knew that when we went into town, there were certain places we couldn't go. For instance, in Mississippi at Keesler Airport Base, this was my experience there. There was a Black section in town, there was a White section in town. They had signed up on the railroad packaging section. It says, no Colored allowed beyond this point after sundown. This was unusual for me, being in Raleigh, where I hadn't been exposed to a lot of segregation. In fact, we just didn't have that in Raleigh. Raleigh was a pretty liberal city, where Blacks and Whites got along fine together.	10:27
Donald Edward Morgan	I'll tell you something later on. The times that I spent in Mississippi were times when I saw a lot of atrocities happening there. One in particular, I remember I was in town one night, and Main Street was the Black street. This side of the railroad track. And of course, the White policemen would ride through there frequently. And of course they had everything that most citizens in Las Vegas have, gambling with the one arm bandits, prostitution. I can't remember my associates buying drugs or anything of the sort, but I knew they were there. But being on a boxing team, we had access to a lot of things that the other Airmen didn't, because of our athletic abilities.	11:52
Donald Edward Morgan	And one night, the five of us were in town, we saw the police car hit a young Black kid on a bike. And of course, he fell off the bike and was on the sidewalk. We ran over there, of course, not knowing Mississippi, we admonished the policeman about hitting the boy on the bike. And he was laying over there with a gash in his leg, I guess about 12 inches long, where evidently something had just scraped along. And it was really bleeding profusely. Of course, the white policeman just walked over to him said, "You hurt boy?"	13:08
Donald Edward Morgan	"No, sir." "Get on your way then." And he got up, limping, on his bike and just walked away pulling his bike. And of course, White policeman says, "That nigger ain't hurt." They ain't going to [indistinct 00:14:26]. So that was a shock to me, to see how none carrying the White policemen were, and there at that particular time, and how disadvantaged some of the people were, and afraid to even report an accident, where a white policeman was involved. But the next night, those same policemen were patrolling the same beach. And of course when they stopped, and I guess they were going to go in one of the alleys, man, they were beat to pieces. Who knows who beat them. But they were beat to pieces.	14:03
Donald Edward Morgan	Nothing came out of this. But then, I was transferred after my training in Mississippi back to Texas, where also there is a section of town where Blacks live. It was more liberal in the sections where Blacks traded. Because you didn't need to do anything in the other section of town, buy clothes and stuff like this. Because in Texas they had grocery stores. They were mostly owned by Blacks. And course, back in those days, you didn't have too many supermarkets. You had grocery stores, general stores, so forth where they could actually get enough food and articles that they needed.	15:12
Donald Edward Morgan	And then after a certain amount of training there, we were notified that we were going to England. So we left Texas, got on a train all the way to New Jersey. It wasn't New — It was Brunswick, New Jersey—	16:09
Blair Murphy	New Brunswick?	16:44
Donald Edward Morgan	— where the train stopped and we were transferred and rode a bus from there, to New York Highway. And there we boarded a ship, a troop carrier. And in 10 days, we landed Southampton [indistinct 00:17:09].	16:46
Blair Murphy	How was that?	17:12
Donald Edward Morgan	How was the trip?	17:12
Blair Murphy	No, how was England? The trip must've been rough.	17:12
Donald Edward Morgan	Oh, it was beautiful because there, you had a free life. People might refer to you as something rather than a man. I never heard the word, nigger. I never heard the word Black. In fact, I forget what they used to call the Black people there. But they didn't refer to him in a derogatory manner. It was like you had wealthy Blacks, as well as wealthy whites there. The Black guy was really adopted by a family, where man was Black and the woman was White. Fred Roberts, who was a retired aviation clerk, worked with the London Air Base, commercial British Airways.	17:16
Donald Edward Morgan	That's who he worked for. But at any rate, Fred and his wife adopted me, because he said I looked like his nephew, when I was at the club. So anytime I would go into London, I would stay in their apartment, they call them flats there. So they even gave me a flat, that I could live in whenever I would come to London. So I had a place to stay. They supplied my refrigerator with food and drink. I could take my girls there, but I had a place of my own. But I would always go there and stay, rather than go up to the flat.	18:43
Blair Murphy	What were his origins, the man who [indistinct 00:19:33]?	19:28
Donald Edward Morgan	He was from the West Indies, but he'd evidently made it real good there. And even the time that I was there, I enjoyed it very much, because there were only two places, because of my clearance, I couldn't go. High Park and Trafalgar Square, I couldn't go, because they were communists there and they were afraid that we would be questioned, I guess, by the communist factions there. So we were restricted from going into those places.	19:34
Blair Murphy	Race wasn't a factor?	20:21
Donald Edward Morgan	No, I didn't experience any race hatred, except on the base. We were stationed at Chicksands Priory, which was a place where the Royal Air Force Training Center was located. And they turned it over to the Americans. And therefore, everybody lived in Quonset huts. And the community was there. And a few southerners there still brought the American hatred over there. I was only in two fights while I was there. It just so happened that my first real altercation with a White fella, was one of the fellas on the opposing boxing team. And we were in Brighton. Brighton, which was a small town right outside of Chicksands Priory. And he had always been bugging me, bugging me because not having any Blacks, there were very few Blacks in those small towns.	20:22
Donald Edward Morgan	In fact, the only thing you had to go with was white. But this white girl took a liking to me. Of course that's who I [indistinct 00:22:07] for a long time. But then one evening I was walking with my friend's girl, who was supposed to meet him at a club, and this White sergeant. Well, I was a sergeant too, but this night he came up, walked behind us, because he was liking the girl, but she wouldn't go with him, so this was my friend. And he kept saying things as we walked along. And she kept telling me not to pay any attention to him. Of course, he finally he came up and pushed me.	21:55
Donald Edward Morgan	And when he pushed me, I turned around and I popped him one, and he fell into a plate glass window of one of these shops there. Of course, the next day we were called into the orderly room and the captain was questioning me, concerning the altercation. And I explained to him what had happened, not knowing that the next thing he was going to tell me, after reprimanding the sergeant who hit me. And the girl was there as a witness. And so she told him what had happened. So he told the sergeant to wait outside.	22:49
Donald Edward Morgan	And then he told me my sister had died in the United States, the one that I cared most about. And of course, that just broke me down. And they wouldn't let me come back to the States, to the funeral. That's what made me mad. I mean mad, not even Red Cross would help me get back. I had the money, but all I needed was them to intervene, for me to get passage for that, maybe four or five days to get back. That's the reason I don't give to the Red Cross now, after years, I had done.	23:40
Donald Edward Morgan	My younger years, before going in the Air Force, I had gone through the swimming processes. And in '49 I became an instructor in water safety instruction, believe it or not. And I did this for the Red Cross, while I was in the Air Force. And I taught swimming, lifesaving, but that didn't seem to matter. But that beyond the, I still have that itching in the [indistinct 00:24:58], when they say, "Give to the Red Cross," because they denied me that privilege, coming back. When I was there at Chicksands, it's almost two years, the notice came out that any man who had less than 90 days to go before discharge — I had been extended already one time, six months, where I had done my duty, as far as the three years that I had volunteered for.	24:24
Donald Edward Morgan	But they extended me while I was there. And so then it came to the point where they said, any man who had nine less than 90 days of duty, would come back to the States. Well, I was in that group. So that put me in line to come back. So we left there, the early part of November, because we arrived in New York Harbor again, the day before Thanksgiving.	25:38
Blair Murphy	And the year?	26:16
Donald Edward Morgan	1951. And we were processed very rapidly, so that we could go home on Thanksgiving. We even had train tickets. I remember getting on the train and getting from New Jersey. Again, we came from New York to New Jersey on the train. And from the train, I got to my home Thanksgiving Day, early in the morning. And my family was so glad to see me because I didn't tell them that I was coming home. So in December, I was discharged from the Air Force, from Folk Field in Fayetteville, North Carolina. There I met a lot of the guys, who had been in the Korean conflict —	26:34
Donald Edward Morgan	Oh, by the way, this was during the Korean conflict, while I was in the military. In the interim of getting discharged, which you have to be processed, and it takes sometimes days and sometimes weeks, before you can get all your things together, I explored the city of Fairford, where they had the slave market. How the people lived there, the Colored sections, the white sections, those sections that were in between. And it was more or less a military town. I came back to Raleigh, after being discharged from the Air Force. And I had reason to go to New York, where I was engaged to a young lady and we were going to get married.	27:39
Donald Edward Morgan	Of course, I'd been engaged to several women before then, but had broke them off. But this one, I was intending to do so. But I went to New York, and of course I got the biggest surprise in my life, when I wasn't the first man that she had gone with. And of course, it was wintertime and was snowing and very cold. And when I returned from New York, I fell with pneumonia. And I must tell you this, even though it has nothing to do with segregation, I had an out of body experience.	28:51
Blair Murphy	What was that like?	29:38
Donald Edward Morgan	It's not segregated, but it's—	29:42
Blair Murphy	That's all right.	29:47
Donald Edward Morgan	You want to hear about it anyway, huh?	29:47
Blair Murphy	You want me to stop the tape?	29:48
Donald Edward Morgan	Yes, it's, of course. It's all right now. It doesn't matter. I consider myself not really having a private life. But this particular time. I got so sick that I went to my family's doctor and he gave me some medicine. Well, my oldest brother, he was going to a white doctor, but we were stone stuck on our Black doctor, because we were supporting our doctors. And of course, I got so sick. I mean, I was weakening every day. And of course, I got to the point where I couldn't keep anything in my stomach. My fever was so high, that my forehead cracked. My lips were chapped to the point where they were splitting.	29:51
Donald Edward Morgan	My forehead cracked, my eyes were orange. And so my oldest brother came over one day, and he looked at me. I had to be taken to the bathroom by my nephew and my youngest brother. I couldn't do anything for myself. I was just that weak. So my oldest brother came over one day and he says, "Mama said that boy is sick. Can I call my doctor?" She said, "Your son is supposed to be real, real sick." So he called the White doctor, who came out to see me. And he told my mother, he said, "This boy is dying." He said, "The medicine that this other doctor gave him wasn't enough to cure a fly." He says, "I'm not going to promise you anything, but I'm going to give him this medicine. And if it doesn't work within 24 hours, you've lost a son."	30:54
Donald Edward Morgan	Well, that I heard, but it didn't register how sick I was. But the same day, there was a neighbor across the street, who came over and was talking to me. She was sitting at the foot of the bed and she was talking. But as she talked, her voice started to fade away. And all of a sudden, I got up out of my body. I got up out of my body and was traveling within space. It was a great white light. It was just all white, peaceful. And I was just traveling up, traveling up. And of course, the closer I got, the better I felt. And the music, oh, it was heavenly. I mean, it was just peaceful.	31:55
Donald Edward Morgan	And all of a sudden I stopped traveling out and I started traveling back. And I didn't want to go back. But I started traveling back and kept traveling, until I heard voices and mumbled voices at first. And then of course, as I got closer to my body that was laying there, our preacher was Reverend Delaney and my mother, at the foot of my bed praying. And I just got back into my body. And when they finished that prayer, the preacher went out and mama came and asked me, she said, "Do you feel like eating something, son?" I said, "Yeah, can I have an apple?" She went in and peeled an apple and gave it to me. I ate it. And believe it or not, that whatever it was in an apple, or that sickness, or God's healing came upon me. And I threw up large chunks of phlegm, like oysters.	33:17
Donald Edward Morgan	It was like back in those days — I don't know what you call them today, but they would call them shingle pops. It's a stool about that tall, big, deep pan that you could pass your water or your feces in. And I guess I vomited up about a quarter of a bucket of stuff, looked like big oysters. And from then on, I just recuperated from the pneumonia. But I wanted to go to college. So I had to go over to St. Augustine's College to register. And my walking had to be done with a walking cane, I was so weak. But I registered for the freshman class in January 19th, and that's when I started my college education. I graduated from St Aug in January '57. And I graduated first in my class and got a job in April, in Fairfield, North Carolina, back to my discharge area. And I worked there almost three years. And then I applied for a NDEA scholarship and I won one in—	34:43
Blair Murphy	What were those initials again?	36:33
Donald Edward Morgan	NDEA, National Defense Education Act, which was a paid stipend to go to a school of higher education. You had to apply for these, and the schools had to admit you. Well, I had admissions from Syracuse and Penn State, so I decided to go to Penn State and don't ask me why, but in between this course, I was married. I married my junior year in college, to Pandora Hitchman, who lived in Hollister, North Carolina.	36:34
Donald Edward Morgan	She's Haleiwa. I'm part Cherokee. My father was Cherokee. My mother was the product of a white and Black, I guess, who knows. Back in those days, I don't know. And the only thing I know is I'm what you call Heinz 57, because I'm not Black, I'm not African American. I'm just Heinz 57, because I have more Indian than anything else. But yeah, I'm just Heinz 57. But at Penn State, I went there, and of course, outwardly the things were fine. I got an apartment very easily. I registered very easily. But in the classes, is where you saw the bigotry or the hatred of Blacks. I've had instructors tell me that "You're not going to pass my course." I've had them tell me, "You're not going to be the first one to pass my course." I made one out as a liar. I only flunked him. But the next semester, I registered with the same teacher and set the curve for that class.	37:27
Blair Murphy	What were you studying?	39:12
Donald Edward Morgan	Botany 500 A and B. You see, in undergraduate school, I had mostly the zoological courses, because I was a pre—med major. But having married and having a son, I couldn't afford to go to med school, to married medical. So I took further courses in education, and became a teacher. My major in college was biological science, and my master's was in biological science. But I had to take more botany there at Penn State, because my zoological background had to balance. Well, I received my degree in August 1961, and John Perry — Who was in school with me there, by the way, and a lifelong friend, because I first met him in 1936 when he and my sister were students at St. Augustine's College, where both of them finished. And they were very good friends. They came over to my house and ate dinner almost every Sunday. He and my brother—in—law's friends.	39:15
Donald Edward Morgan	And of course, the next time I saw him was when he would bring kids from Norfolk, down to the college for orientation to the college, or just to see the college, what it was like. So he was really a force in getting Black kids into college. Next, after my receiving degree, I went back to the point of determining whether I was going to go back to Fayetteville or not. My wife didn't want to go back. By the way, when we lived in Raleigh, we had our first son, which meant I couldn't go to medical school. I moved to federal, I had my second son, two years later. We moved to Penn State, I had my third son two years later.	40:48
Donald Edward Morgan	And when we moved to Virginia Beach, fourth son, three years later. So it's like move, son. Children every time we move. So I told my wife, once we got here to Virginia Beach, no more moving. But at any rate, what I did was to take a job that was vacant, with the demise of one of the prominent members there. And I started teaching biology, chemistry, and physics at Union Kempsville, which was then Princess Anne County Training School. And remember now, segregation was still evident. That was an all Black school.	42:09
Blair Murphy	This is '61?	43:03
Donald Edward Morgan	Yeah, located on Ridgetop Road. Well, at that particular time, the Blacks had their principal's meetings separately from — The only time that we ever came in contact with each other, was at principal's meetings where we met at the administration building. And of course, you could feel the blades cutting your back whenever you turned it, and you could feel the difference. Therefore, the main thing that I was intending to prove — even to the point of associating with who was going to become the next superintendent, which was Ed Brickle. I'd walk by him every day and he'd walk by me and we wouldn't speak.	43:06
Donald Edward Morgan	Well, I knew before he came in, the top man in Virginia Beach then, was the only man that I ever knew, that would call up Washington DC and would say, "Hello, Lyndon." That was Sidney Kellum, who was familiar with Lyndon Johnson, who was president then. But he and the superintendent then was Frank Cox. He met with the Black factions in the city, which was a Black preacher, H.C. Benjamin, Mr. J.V. Borg, who was the principal of the school, and myself, and now there was one other person there at the meeting.	44:20
Donald Edward Morgan	And of course, Mr. Cox and Sydney Kellum. He was telling us that he was coming in as one of the top administrators, and we were fighting this, because he was a faction in South Norfolk, where they fought integration of schools. So we didn't want him here. But then Mr. Kellum says, "The man has changed. He is no longer a faction of that group. He believes that desegregation should come about. So how about giving him a chance?"	45:33
Donald Edward Morgan	So we agreed to give him a chance. But the meantime, me being — Oh, I forgot to tell you, I was promoted to assistant principal, the second year I was there at Princeton County Training School. And that's when, of course I would go to meetings with my principal, Mr. J.D. Morgan. And when we'd have administrative meetings, we'd meet down at the main building, and of course, we'd pass by each other. And finally, one day he —	46:16

Donald Edward Morgan	"You don't appear to want to speak to me." So he says, "I know that you've heard about my past in South Norfolk." He says, "Can't we meet on some mutual ground?" He says, "I noticed you have a lot on the ball, but you just don't want to associate with Whites." I said, "Well, I don't have an objection to Whites anymore than you have objections to Blacks sometime." The odd part about it is that we became closer after that confrontation, he became superintendent. But before he became superintendent, he made sure that I got out of that assistant principal job, he got me promoted to coordinator of educational television. And then when he became superintendent the next year, the change was that every area would have a supervisor, so he asked me if I would take the secondary science supervisor's job.	0:01
Donald Edward Morgan	And I didn't agree because that was a step sideways, because I was already coordinator of educational television, which was same thing, but he finally persuaded me because of lack of applicants for that position. I was the only one that was really qualified and acceptable for that position, so I became first secondary science supervisor in the city of Virginia Beach. And I hate to brag, but I brought the science program from almost nothing to one that was envied by many, many cities and states, including California.	1:33
Donald Edward Morgan	I was not necessarily one of trying to push things, but I didn't believe in accepting programs just because they came out out of Newton, Massachusetts where they had tested it and it was successful there, or from California where a program was successful, because I believe that every school system is unique. There are no two that are the same. It's like every child is unique, you can't teach them all the same thing at the same time and have them come up with the same grades.	2:33
Donald Edward Morgan	But as far as my experience in anything related to segregation, after I became science supervisor, we all met together, Black, White, purple, all of us. I even became president of the association for a year. And of course, we would travel places and study different programs, and of course, we'd have our national and state meetings, which I was president there also. As far as the differences between segregation and desegregation, I came from a city that was on the surface desegregated. In other words, there was very little difference made between Blacks and Whites in Raleigh.	3:11
Donald Edward Morgan	You live separately, you worked different jobs. The main jobs that you could get there which lended any expertise to your life was teacher, a doctor, a lawyer, a nurse, or a preacher. In other words, when I was in St. Augustine's College, it was totally a religious school. Most of the emphasis was put on training priests for the Episcopal Church. Nowadays, they don't have nothing. The emphasis on religion has dropped to the point where you can't tell it, even there.	4:28
Donald Edward Morgan	Going from Raleigh into the military, you had, just like you have most places, isolated incidents. Mississippi was the grossest place, however, as long as you stayed within your area, it's good times. I mean New Orleans, I visited New Orleans and boy was it good times. Pascagoula, Pass Christian, a lot of towns. I even had a quartet while I was in the Air Force and on Sundays our chaplain would take us from churches to churches where we would sing.	5:12
Donald Edward Morgan	And of course, life was carefree because we stayed in our little groups. In England, none. I couldn't feel any at all there. In fact, I was never called docky, which is what they would call a Black man in England. You were a docky. Because there you had prominent people from Africa and from the West Indies, and that was really the melting pot of the world where people who had anything could rise to any level they wanted to provided they had the contacts. So I mean no segregation at all. That's the way I felt, really free.	6:00
Donald Edward Morgan	Coming back to the States, the next sting I had was at Penn State where I had the prejudice professors. In fact, the chairman of my committee who determined whether you were to receive your master's degree was very prejudice, very prejudice. Then there were instructors from Mississippi who were very prejudice. In Fayetteville and Virginia Beach. As long as you maintain your level of living, you were accepted both by the Blacks and Whites.	6:54
Donald Edward Morgan	Except that you'd get in a very, very prejudice group, you didn't ever notice. I didn't ever notice that. So as far as going along the lines of prejudice, I can't say that I have experienced anything because I've always tried to carry myself in a amiable way where I can get along with anybody. And you don't have to like me for me to like you. I might not like your ways, but I like you. I might not like what you do, but I like you. So whenever you're doing your thing that I don't agree with, I try to stay out of your way. So that's the way I've maintained my life up until this point.	7:47
Blair Murphy	How did you see to segregation happening here in Virginia? Because it was segregating when you arrived.	8:38
Donald Edward Morgan	How did I see it?	8:43
Blair Murphy	How did it function?	8:44
Donald Edward Morgan	Well, like I said, Sidney Kellam was the main administrative leader in this city, and he was such a amiable person as far as the Blacks were concerned because he would do lots of favors for you. Even when you were down, he would do favors for you, he would get you things. Even beyond the point where other political figures might not see you're getting it, all he had to do was to say, "Give it to him," and it was there. He met with the heads of all departments, every department head, and he simply told them that night. He said, "Tomorrow morning," he said, "I don't want to see no signs saying Colored or White." This was at night now, late at night, he made that announcement. This city is going to be desegregated."	8:48
Blair Murphy	What was his office?	10:00
Donald Edward Morgan	Who, Sidney Kellam?	10:02
Blair Murphy	Sidney Kellam.	10:03
Donald Edward Morgan	He didn't have a political title. He was a founder of Kellam and Eaton Insurance Company, but he was a powerful political figure and he was a very likable old man. But he had so much clout that none of the figures ever challenged him until 1965 and they formed another party. But he called all the head of department, including hotel and motel managers, said, "If you don't want to desegregate your motel, or hotel, or restaurant, close up right now." Do you know that same night, these departments got paint, painted over every sign that said Colored or White only? That was erased.	10:04
Blair Murphy	Why do you think he did it so quickly and in this manner?	11:11
Donald Edward Morgan	Why he did it? Because he was [indistinct 00:11:19] type of fella and he knew that it would come in sooner or later, so he desegregated the city as far as it goes. Well, I happened to be in the same position as science supervisor when our superintendent, 1964, decided that it's time to desegregate the schools. So he chose four Blacks and four Whites. I was among the four Blacks. And we went from city to city and from state to state studying where they had said they were desegregated already.	11:16
Donald Edward Morgan	We happened to go into South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, where they said they were desegregated, and what we heard from the superintendent's wife and what we heard from one of the teachers who was reprimanded right there in front of us for saying what she said, we knew that desegregation didn't work there. It hadn't even broken the surface because it was just on paper, it wasn't apparent in the schools.	12:11
Donald Edward Morgan	We therefore looked at situations where we have learned certain things, and we went into Northern Virginia where we looked at the cities right around Washington DC who was supposed to be desegregated, but they had more private schools and mostly White schools, very little Black population. In fact, it was finite. Where they published papers and say that this is the way it is but it wasn't really that week. But we did notice two professors there at University of South Carolina that really impressed us and we had them come back to Virginia Beach where we had a desegregation session before school opened, where all the principals were required to come to that. It really worked because we had a desensitizing session where you sat before a White man, you call him a honky or cracker, and he'd call you nigger, and Black, and whatever it is. You sat there, and you looked each other in the eye, and you got it out of your system.	12:53
Donald Edward Morgan	Since we were the people who had made this thing evident to the city, we didn't have to really do anything but oversee what was going on in the sessions. But believe it or not, Virginia Beach desegregated the schools with those sessions. Those in—service meetings did a lot of good because we did it with only two incidents where the population was mostly White and two kids got in fights there where you could see it was racial. But that was held to a minimum, but whenever the situations came about, those persons who went on these search and see trips were called to those schools. I was one in [indistinct 00:15:37], Junior was another one, and we would go to these schools where that infraction might have occurred and the several things like that. It was done so smooth. This city was done smooth, the schools were done smooth.	14:27
Blair Murphy	Because I know they had a lot of trouble in Norfolk.	15:54
Donald Edward Morgan	That's Norfolk.	15:57
Blair Murphy	Yeah. But that was a few years before Virginia Beach.	15:59
Donald Edward Morgan	But Virginia Beach went into it so smooth because we in—service people before we desegregate. We told them what was going to be and it's up to you to get it done or you leave your job, you ship out. You shape up or you ship out. That's just the way it was. And same thing with Mr. Kellam when he told them, says to them, "Either desegregate or you close up your shop, because you're finished if you don't." There was no ultimatum. I mean no choice. You were given an ultimatum in which you did this or else. In the years prior to this, prior to my coming here, back in '40s, for instance, the Blacks couldn't even walk on the beach. The boardwalk was boardwalk then, now it's concrete. But back in those days it was board.	16:02
Blair Murphy	Like Atlantic City.	17:10
Donald Edward Morgan	Yeah. And the Blacks weren't allowed on the beach. You had a section here which was separated by certain streets, and beyond that point, Blacks didn't go. You had your Black businesses, you had your White businesses. And of course, the Blacks had a good time. I remember those days. I had a good time when I was young, and running the clubs, and drinking, and carousing. I had a good time in the Black section. I didn't want to go into the White section. The beach phase me at all. In fact, we had Ocean View as our beach. That was over here on the Bayside, Northern Virginia. That was Ocean View. That was the Black beach. We had just as good a time over there as the Whites had in our own way with our own people. The only thing that was evident to me over there was the jellyfish.	17:11
Blair Murphy	They always gave Blacks to beach where the jellyfish would wash up.	18:28
Donald Edward Morgan	Well, not necessarily because Virginia Beach at one time, most of the ocean front was owned by Blacks. Now, I don't know whether you read the history of Virginia Beach or not, but the slave owners at one time had this property, but when the civil war came about, the Blacks were given this because the Whites didn't know how to raise any crops in saltwater land, so they just left it and gave it to the slave that worked for them. So most of the ocean front was owned by Blacks.	18:31
Blair Murphy	Because it was considered bad land.	19:14
Donald Edward Morgan	Yeah. I mean I guess until the Jews found out what kind of money you could make there. And then most of the functions, most of the hotels owned by Jews who catered to Jews who would come there for the summer, and it was made of cottages. Not the high rise hotel, it was mostly the two or three story cottages that were there. And they would come in, you would eat in a dining room. It was not bed and breakfast, it was you come and stay in a room, and you got meals, and you'd go to the beach, do whatever you wanted to do. The life then on the beach was what we would term trivial now, because there was nothing over four stories high except the Cavalier Hotel, which during the second World War we used as Army headquarters.	19:16
Donald Edward Morgan	Any of the places around here still have graveyards. For instance, Princess Anne Country Club still has a Black graveyard for the Atkinsons who own that land. They still own that golf course. You'll find that many of the families here were prominent because they were landowners back in those days. Right now, a section back here called Owl's Creek, that's still owned by Blacks but the Whites want it so bad because it goes right to the Rudee Inlet. They bought out Ocean View, so that took away the Black beach.	20:31
Donald Edward Morgan	Seems like the Blacks are gullible from money even though they can't see that they can get very much more money for it in years later, because I know Ocean View, they bought that for [indistinct 00:21:33]. Because I know the fella who is the son of the owner of Ocean View, he worked in the maintenance department, but back in those days, he drove around Cadillacs. He was in the money. Ocean View was a big beach for Blacks, but no more. You got condominiums, and high rise condominiums, and townhouse over there now.	21:20
Blair Murphy	Would Black travelers come to Ocean View or is it just mostly—	22:10
Donald Edward Morgan	Oh, yes. And they had the Black motel there. Yeah, the Blacks would come in and stay at the rooming houses. That's what we had here in Virginia Beach where you'd rent a room, and we had plenty of room for out—of—town guests. In Virginia Beach, you had some of the best clubs where most of the best bands, the Black bands, would come to. We had a place called Town Club here. Oh man, you had the biggest bands that would come to that club.	22:19
Donald Edward Morgan	Yes, indeed. We had our own things. But of course, it seems as if Black people don't party all week long. The White establishments can stay open because they participate in those places all week long, not just Friday, Saturday, Sunday. They go there in the afternoon or at night, so that person can keep on growing, and growing, and growing, but the Black folks, they'd rather stay at home and cook at home. And many times on the weekend, instead of going to these Black clubs, they would have their functions outdoors.	22:56
Donald Edward Morgan	In the summertime, they would have cookouts and picnics at their home instead of taking these people to Black establishments. And that's the reason why many of them failed because they didn't have the clientele that could afford to party all week long. And of course, the economy was the reason, and then there was selfishness, and we had our own types of crime back in those days. But it never included a whole lot of shooting like it does today. You got cut, you got beat, but you didn't get shot.	23:41
Donald Edward Morgan	Not as easily as you can now. It's a whole lot of difference between then and now. Fist fights used to settle a fight. Knives, you always carried a knife, but you weren't always allowed to reach it. So you considered fist fights, cuts, bruises, tables and chairs bashed over your head, stuff like that, but very seldom would you hear a person shooting another person. When I came here, there was only one Black high school, that was Princess Anne County Training School, which was renamed Union Kempsville in '64.	24:14
Blair Murphy	So was it renamed when desegregation began?	25:07
Donald Edward Morgan	I think it was either maybe '63 or '64, it became Union Kempsville High School.	25:14
Blair Murphy	Do you think that was because of desegregation, the change?	25:21
Donald Edward Morgan	No, actually the subdivision—	25:25
Blair Murphy	Changed the name.	25:30
Donald Edward Morgan	— of that area. You see, that was the witched up section. Union Kempsville, that was a major train stop there, and you can see it on the cornerstone of one of the buildings there. They've changed that to the Center for Effective Learning and part of it is a portion of maintenance, some section. See, I remember when it was a small place, and then they built onto it, and added other warehouses and stuff to it until it no longer looks like what it originally was. Back in those days when I was assistant principal, they even built a stadium there. The only stadium. Small, it was the smallest. It really was small enough to contain a football field, where you had concrete section over this side and then the wooden section over that side of the stadium.	25:31
Donald Edward Morgan	But in this city, what you're seeing now is more hatred, bigotry, drugs, alcoholism that is influencing a lot of the people here. Therefore, we find it worse than it was before desegregation. Gangs. Getting more gang activity here than we've ever seen before. I never heard of gangs in Virginia Beach until here recently. Because I retired 4 years ago, '91. I had enough. I'd gone through six superintendents and each superintendent had a different idea. So with each change in administration, you have a change in your program. Well, really it's like revisions, you say the same thing but you say it in a different way. I try to keep the science department on the even keel by not accepting all of the new trends, because the trend don't necessarily mean that it's better than what you have.	26:44
Donald Edward Morgan	I would let the teachers be a good influence on what was to be taught because they were the ones to be in the classroom with those students, and I'd give them a basic amount of knowledge to be learned, now how are we going to teach this? That's the way I conducted my science department. You tell me that it will work for all students if you change it this way, I don't believe it. Nothing out there is going to work for all students. I remember changing to many of the new trends because of the other cities doing so, and it was not a demand as such, but it was expected that you would keep up with modern trends by accepting a certain amount of the newer programs. Well, when I saw absolute obedience that was expected of new programs, I went ahead with it, but I told them in the front it wasn't going to work.	28:24
Donald Edward Morgan	Give you an idea, the physical science program, IPS, it was supposed to have a certain way of teaching kids by making them answer their own question, inquiry, but it had a necessity attached to it. You had to know your basic math percentages and ratios determinants before you got into this program because that's what it started with. And of course, if you didn't have that good basic background in math, you couldn't even go into IPS. Then you came to BSCS, biological science study program.	29:45
Donald Edward Morgan	Biological Science Curriculum Study, BSCS. You had the green version, which was ecological, you had the blue version, which was mostly academic, you had the yellow version, which was highly academic. You had, it was called the ecological, the cellular, molecular approaches to biology, but it didn't work either. We tried it for several years and it didn't work, faded out. So it got to the point where we went back to you design your own program, you may use this as a tool, but it's not the basal text. Well, I've talked enough, I've talked your ears off, about segregation of desegregation.	30:47
Blair Murphy	He's a—	31:49

Item Info

Title:

Donald Morgan interview recording, 1995 July 19

Date:

July 19, 1995

Creator:

Morgan, Donald Edward

Contributor:

Murphy, Blair

Description:

Name: Donald Edward Morgan; Date of birth: 1931-07-06; Place of birth: Raleigh, NC; Occupation(s): educator; school administrator; teacher; Residence: Virginia Beach, VA
Informant ID: 969; Interviewed by: Blair Murphy.

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Behind the Veil

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Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South interviews, photographs, and project records, circa 1864-2011, bulk 1990-2004

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The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library acquired the Records of the Behind the Veil Oral History Project from the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies in 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2002.

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behindtheveil
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Donald Morgan interview recording, 1995 July 19

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1. Donald Morgan administrative file, 1995

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