"The Reality of Segregation"

 A personal story about growing up in southern West Virginia, where people were treated more equally, and then moving to Morgantown and experiencing the harsh reality of racial segregation firsthand. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

We grew up with the same kinds of things that everybody else had, so we were not faced with segregation as they know they knew it in the South.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

And I didn't really face real segregation until I went to Morgantown.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Yeah. One one thing I want to go back to real quick. So what was the reasoning um for the separation within schools? Was it a cultural type thing? Or something required like through the state or it was through the state, I'm sure it was state. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Because it was just totally segregated all over the United States then.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Segregation existed.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

And black and white kids didn't go to school.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

I mean, just it just didn't happen. And uh, but we were not com we were not bothered by the by that because we were well educated. We had, like I say, the finest teachers. Our teachers were uh all educated. Uh we we were taught the best of everything. Uh we were taught the best manners, you know. Uh we were taught how to cook. Uh we had we could wear nice clothes from the company store just like everybody else. So we were not confronted. We didn't we weren't bothered bothered by that, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

So I want to go back then. So talk a little bit about then what segregation was like once you got to Morgantown. What what kind of things did you have to face?

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Well, when we got to Morgantown, we couldn't live in my husband and I couldn't they wouldn't let us they wouldn't give us uh marriage housing.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Really?

SPEAKER_00 1:54

No. We they referred us to to live with an a lady. They referred us to live with somebody else. And uh we had to stay there until we just got to the point where we just decided that we were gonna raise some cane in Morgantown and they were gonna have to put us in the in the in the housing just like everybody else.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Because it really wasn't a lot of us at Morgan, at West Virginia University at that time. We had some ball players that were there, but as far as the regular students, we didn't have a lot of regular students. And they didn't have they put us all in the same dormitory, you know. And and it was it was diff it was different, yeah, you know, because I was thinking that, you know, we could go there and get a place just like everybody else. But that wasn't so. Yeah, you know, that wasn't so. So segregation really was segregation. Yeah. But when I grew up, we didn't have this what you call real segregation.