Ep. 4 Ms. Lorraine Washington: Tears Like Rain

Episode 4. Ms. Lorraine Washington: Tears Like Rain. Lorraine Washington suffered through the worst forms of segregation, intimidation, and voting prohibitions during the Jim Crow era. However, the promises [and failures] of job programs during the War on Poverty were equally frustrating. Graduation from such a program -- a nursing school – apparently only qualified her for janitorial work at a local hospital.

This is a presentation of The 431 Exchange. We are a non-profit scholarship fund dedicated to adult students seeking to transform their lives through continuing education. We invite you to learn more about us by going to our website www.431exchange.com where you can hear more inspiring stories by signing up for our newsletter. Thanks!

Transcript

[Dear Audience, this transcript corresponds exactly to the Youtube Podcast version that has a slightly different structure for the opening three minutes. Therefore, while the words correspond perfectly the timecode is off by 30 seconds or so. Thank you for your understanding. Thank you.]

Episode 4 - Ms. Lorraine Washington

[00:00:00] Mya Carter: For years Lorraine Washington suffered through low-paying domestic jobs where she would cook the food but wasn't permitted to eat in the kitchen, where she would clean a house but not be allowed to hang her coat up anywhere inside it. She experienced the violent desegregation of schools and a crippling boycott of the transit system. She lived through riots and sit-ins, navigated segregated lunch counters and endured being barred from facilities [00:00:30] of all kinds because they were “Whites only.” She rode in the back of the bus and sat in the balcony of the movie theater. She continually experienced the humiliation and frustration of going places where there were no water fountains from which she could drink or bathrooms she could use or places for her and other Black people to eat. She crossed the street when walking past a row of White homes in New Orleans's [00:01:00] salt and pepper mixed neighborhoods. She didn't remember anyone telling her to do so, it was just something you knew you better do if you were Black. During brutally hot summers, she and her friends would peer longingly through the gates of public swimming pools that were off-limits to them.

Washington, Adult Education Class of 1969, remembered that in the intense mock interview sessions the school arranged with [00:01:30] volunteer businessmen and women, she was critiqued for a habit she had acquired as a survival skill in the Jim Crow south. She would look down when being interviewed. She couldn't look an interviewer in the eye, no matter how hard she tried. A lifetime of learning to look down when talking to a White person, or deferring in one way or another to them, was a hard habit to change. The teachers -- and the White businessmen who [00:02:00] participated in the mock interviews -- helped Washington look directly into their eyes. Once she was able to do so, she discovered a confidence she didn't know she had.

The 431 Exchange presents Exchange Place: How A Small Struggling School Transformed Civil Rights In New Orleans and the Nation. Exchange Place is the story of a school whose mission was to train mostly African American women the skills they [00:02:30] needed to integrate the secretarial offices of the Deep South between 1965 and '72. Those offices were not just segregated, for the most part they were completely off limits to women of color and many were fighting to ensure the workplace would stay that way for years or decades to come. The first season of the podcast tells the inspirational biographies of four of the school's graduates who changed the moral skyline of their city, how they did it, [00:03:00] and how the school's teachers and supporters struggled to overcome the massive forces arrayed against them.

Episode 4: Lorraine Washington -- Tears Like Rain

Washington was born in the Black wing of New Orleans Charity Hospital in 1939. While attending Macarty Elementary school in the city's storied 9th Ward during the late 1940s, Washington experienced first-hand the notorious [00:03:30] overcrowding and lack of resources for the city's Black children -- and Black teachers -- that had so long been ignored. At Macarty, there were more than 2,600 students jammed into a dilapidated school for Blacks only. The school had opened at the beginning of the Civil War and was designed to serve only 1,200 students. As a result, Washington was subjected to the “platooning system,” where one set of students attended school for only [00:04:00] half a day, from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., while another set attended in the afternoon, leaving parents to deal with what to do with young children going home early or starting school late for an entire school year -- an entire school career, rather.

Platooning was only one of the symptoms of a neglected, besieged school community. Neglected, that is, by State and City officials, not by the Macarty parents or [00:04:30] teachers who fought for improvements to Macarty and nearby schools. Books were decades out of date, and Black teachers dramatically underpaid compared to their White counterparts. Other signs of neglect included out-of-date equipment and dilapidated facilities that were, in some cases, dangerously in need of repairs. Floors and walls threatened to collapse and sometimes did, resulting in the injury of students and school [00:05:00] personnel. These were just a few of the signs of inequity that became intolerable to parents who knew the value of education. Macarty was so unbearable for the parents of Ruby Bridges, they decided to apply for her to go to William Frantz Elementary, a school attended only by White children, and her acceptance, and that of three other little girls to a similar school, launched the seminal civil rights battle over [00:05:30] desegregation on November 14, 1960.

At least in terms of maintaining Macarty’s physical facilities, funds should have been available. The patron of the New Orleans public schools, John McDonough, a slave holder, had bequeathed a vast estate to the school system and had specified it was to benefit all children, Black and White. But the fund was pilfered by segregationists over more than [00:06:00] half a century to provide facilities to benefit mostly White children in a city with an equal number of Black ones.

The product of a broken home and a mother who moved in and out of her life, a school dropout after 8th grade, married and pregnant by fifteen, Washington survived a childhood filled with adult responsibilities that she took on without fear and with a competence that helped maintain family [00:06:30] bonds among her sisters and brothers, bonds that have lasted a lifetime. So successful was Washington in nurturing and holding her family together that her siblings, now grandparents themselves, proudly call her “Mom” to this day. Washington survived her first short and unhappy marriage. The story of her second marriage to Mr. Wilbert Washington would rival any fairy tale, and has currently [00:07:00] spanned six decades. Mr. Washington, a veteran whose family had a history of both home ownership and educational success, inspired Washington to believe that they could build a middle-class life that exemplified the American dream. Together, husband and wife did. Washington's own kids attended Macarty Elementary School and went on to college and prestigious careers.

In [00:07:30] 1965, Washington lived through Hurricane Betsy, which captured the attention of the entire country, including that of the President of the United States. Many Black residents believed levees had been dynamited to save the White neighborhoods and businesses of New Orleans from the waters that destroyed the 9th Ward.

Meanwhile, Washington wasted time in job training programs that did little, if anything, to [00:08:00] help her develop marketable skills or lead to a well-paying position in New Orleans, where there had been a ban against hiring Blacks for most professional jobs for decades. She attended one nursing program for more than six months only to be told by hospitals and other medical facilities upon graduation that she was not qualified for a nursing or a nursing assistant position. Janitorial positions were available though.

In the [00:08:30] early 1960s when Washington was about twenty, Black New Orleanians boycotted all the businesses on the popular Dryades Street, an area that served Blacks almost exclusively but would not hire a single one as a clerk or cashier. She participated in the boycott even though there were no alternative stores where she could shop for the same goods. After the passage of the Voting and Civil Rights Acts of [00:09:00] 1964 and 1965 in the wake of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Washington participated in social justice actions designed to help disenfranchised voters overcome the tricks and procedures that prevented them from registering. She remembered being on a bus load of Black citizens going to register. They had been trained for weeks to fill out the application forms just right so there would be no excuse to reject them. [00:09:30] They were warned that even formatting the date incorrectly could be grounds for refusal, as could how an applicant looked at or addressed the voting registrar. Washington's was one of only two or three applications accepted that day amongst all the other registrants who had joined her on the bus. 

In 1969, Washington was accepted to the Adult Education Center. She had heard about the program at her church. At that time, [00:10:00] churches of all denominations were segregated. The director of the program had come there to invite women to apply. The school, which had been operating since 1965, had a buzz in the Black community because it had a track record of success. It was training women for jobs as secretaries, and its graduates were actually landing jobs in businesses that had up until then been segregated. As alumna Wanda Myers said about the [00:10:30] school, "Everything that was promised, was given!" The program was so popular there were five to ten applicants for every one accepted. Yet even given the track record of the school, Washington was skeptical. Should she set aside her life and time with her kids to enroll in yet another program that promised a job at the end of the rainbow, but would probably lead to disappointment? She was also not confident she would be accepted. There was a [00:11:00] battery of tests and interviews to undergo to apply.

She was also scared. Confident within her community and her family, assertive when it came to her rights, Washington lacked self-confidence in public speaking and in one-on-one situations with strangers. She knew the school was more than a training center for typists. The curriculum included writing, public speaking, and interpersonal communication skills.[00:11:30] 

Washington overcame her fears, applied, and was accepted. The teachers helped her overcome her skepticism about its promises and her crippling fear of public speaking, one so intense she would have nightmares for almost the entire program. She woke up in the morning not wanting to face the day. The fear was so overwhelming that when she was called on to speak in class, she [00:12:00] said she would “shed tears like rain.”

Unfortunately for Washington, graduating required her to speak publicly and to discuss personal and weighty topics in class every day. It was a vocational school, but its founders believed in what they called a humanistic approach to vocational education. They believed students should be exposed to classes in critical thinking to help them succeed in the long term. Students were [00:12:30] expected to contribute with all their hearts and minds, and teachers reciprocated in kind. Students discussed everything about their personal lives, even “The Pill.” They also wrote and discussed controversial aspects of African American and American history. Within the school, those were one and the same.

Washington's teachers worked with her with help and encouragement, love and respect. [00:13:00] They refused to lose faith in her or become irritated. They insisted if she put in the work she would succeed. They told Washington to believe in the process. Their belief in her began to pay off.

All along her educational journey, and throughout her later career, Washington was supported by those same teachers, but most of all, by her husband, who drove her to the [00:13:30] Center each morning on his way to work and, after dropping their youngest child at day care, deposited her to class each morning. Washington says “if Wilbur had not deposited me at school everyday,” there would have been many days she would not have made it. Shortly after graduating from the Center in 1970, Washington found herself sitting behind a desk at a prestigious office on St. [00:14:00] Charles and Lee Circle, in a building where just a few years earlier she would not have been permitted to walk through the front door.

Washington earned the job with the Community Improvement Agency through the technical skills developed at the Adult Education Center and the natural poise that the school nurtured and helped come to bloom.

Washington remained in that job for ten years until she was transferred to the Department of Corrections after being [00:14:30] recruited by a former supervisor. At first she refused the offer. Washington was suffering from a devastating depression. Her oldest son had recently drowned in an accident during military training. But the former supervisor would not take no for an answer. He had developed a kinship with Washington and told her going back to work would be a tonic for her fractured heart. It was. [00:15:00] She remained at the Department of Corrections for eighteen years and retired in 1998 after twenty-eight years heading up their accounting department.

In 2000, nearly a quarter of the school's alumni assembled thirty years after its last class graduated for a reunion. Washington's youngest son, August, wrote a letter to Dr. Alice Geoffray, the school's director. August was [00:15:30] nine years old when

his mother began the Center's program. In 2000, he was Chief of Police for Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. He recalled the day his mom heard that she had won "the Alice Geoffray Award," given to the most improved student. He remembered the excitement in their family home when his mom got the call, how proud he and his whole family were for her, and how their spirits, [00:16:00] and the self-esteem of their mom, soared. In August's letter, he wanted Alice to know that she had made a difference in his mom's life, helping her to become an exceptional working woman and mother, and for that he said, his entire family was grateful.

In 2005, Washington and her husband had to relocate to Lafayette, Louisiana, in the aftermath of Hurricane [00:16:30] Katrina. They moved in with Washington’s daughter and son-in-law. As she did in New Orleans, every day Washington worked to make a positive difference in the lives of others, including her family and new community. She served on the board of directors for the Lafayette Council for the Aging and Secretary for the local chapter of the American Association of Retired People [AARP]. She also co-wrote several children's books inspired [00:17:00] by her grandkids.

Washington took various leadership positions in her community. In fulfilling those roles, she was often asked to speak. She did so in a beautiful, confident voice, lilting with flavors of Creole, Cajun and other accents common to Southern Louisiana. When she is asked to speak, she has no hesitation to do so...and she never even sheds a tear.

That [00:17:30] concludes Episode 4 of Exchange Place: Lorraine Washington --Tears Like Rain. 

Please join us for Episode 5! 

[00:17:39] Jeff Geoffray: This has been a presentation of The 431 Exchange. We're a nonprofit organization dedicated to adults seeking to transform their lives through continuing education. We invite you to learn more about us by going to our website at www.431exchange.org. 

To hear more inspiring stories, please sign [00:18:00] up for our newsletter. 

Thanks. 

Copyright 431 Exchange LLC, 2022. 

[00:18:06] Sister Alberta Gullage: I’ve been toiling a long time.

Trying to stay on the firing line

But I’m determined to fight the battle until the end.

Until [00:18:30] the end!

I KNOW 

everything is going to be all right

Because I talk with Jesus both day and night

That’s why I’m toiling...