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• 1 media/Saunders 1.jpg media/Saunders 1.jpg 2023-01-19T15:44:16+00:00 Deborah Saunders 7 image_header 2024-11-04T17:54:15+00:00

  Desegregation of Public Schools

  Higgins What about school? Was it difficult to get to school as well? Deborah Saunders School was a nightmare. I lived real, cause I'm old enough to have lived through segregation and desegregation back then you would pass many, many schools getting to that comes – back then we went to the Black schools. I went to a school called Body Camp in Bedford, Virginia. That was like first grade. I think the last school - our class was sixth grade. I went to Body Camp on up until the third grade, then segregation hit, and from Body Camp, I went to a school called Stewartsville. Oh, it was a horrible school. It was so racist there. Lot of racial slurs. Lot of unfortunately I struggled myself because, and I'm a pretty good student, but I almost failed that fourth grade that year. I was like praying. So many of my family friends actually failed when they went to that school because they, it was very hard. It was very difficult. And so, yeah. Higgins Were you treated different – Deborah Saunders Oh yeah. Higgins Between Black teachers and white teachers or the integrated school? Deborah Saunders They didn't have no Black teachers there back then– Higgins But compared to whenever it was segregated school. So I presume you had Black teachers in your old school. Deborah Saunders Yeah. We, at the, at the first school, it was all Black teachers and they were hard too. Don't keep it wrong. I got my tail spanked there. I sure did. Had to stand in the corner for twirling around and showing my underwear with a crumble skirt on, which I guess they figure was too frisky, [laugh] Higgins [laugh] Deborah Saunders You know? So I ended up in the corner for doing that and got a hand spanking. Cause back then teachers could spank you oh they wore my hand out, and that was the only time I showed off in school. But they disciplined you. Those teachers were hard and the classes were split back then. You know, you might have half of the class was third graders and half was first graders, so you really got cheated on your education because they would spend so much time with the first graders and so much time with third grade. Isn't that crazy? So, and that's what all of those classes that I think all of them were split like that. I know, I know at least one of my grades was split like that. You would do a third and first grade. It was ridiculous. Higgins So whenever this- whenever the schools were integrated then, was this a larger school? Deborah Saunders It was a, yes, it was a larger school and it had better books. But the teachers, they were not happy with segregation and we got, it was closer for us because it took longer. It took like an hour and a half when we went to the Black school, which was way down in Bedford County and it was so far that we always save something to eat from lunch. We always save something because if the bus breakdown, which it frequently did. And you didn't have something to eat. Oh, you might be five o'clock getting home. So you'd be hungry cause they had to come and get, fix the bus or transfer you to another bus. So, it took longer and even in the morning you had a good time sleeping cause you had plenty of time getting there. So if you hadn’t done your homework, you had plenty of time to do that job. But with- when we started going to the white school which was then mixed, once desegregation started, it was very close. It was very, very close. And you were there at that school and nothing like this. But back then they made the Blacks load from behind of the bus. So they will usually come when we got on there and you know, by the time they start picking up the white students, they were warm. So there was a lot of racial stuff back then. Oh, sometimes they didn't even pick you up.