A Personal History
As a young black boy growing up in Alabama in the early 20th century, the living conditions Randy experienced were primitive
and harsh. White children were provided with both well-organized schooling and the transportation to get to school. Black
children had to make due with neither of these. Black children needed to work together and rely on ingenuity even to get to
school, and then find their way in the world as they grew older.
“We had to walk 5 miles to school,” remembered Randy. “The white kids rode a yellow school bus. We weren’t
allowed to ride.” The path to school included a walk across a creek. “We had to put a log over the creek to get
across — a footlog. If it rained too hard, the water level would get too high, and we couldn’t get across the
creek. We’d have to wait until the next day to get home!”
“Our school had one pot bellied stove. We were given just a half or maybe a turn of coal for the whole winter. We
had to go into the woods to get wood to heat the stove for the school to be warm. The government gave out welfare, but we
never received it. The bulk of what was distributed was given to white people. We, the blacks, weren’t able to get any
of the food. Canned pork and turkey from welfare went to whites. We were asked to kill our own chickens or pigs if we had
them.” In Randy’s family, six children had to grow up in a two-room house. “We were deprived of everything,
and we lived through it.”
In spite of his difficult living conditions, Randy had the inner strength to rise above them and move forward. In his community,
people recognized the importance of having a spiritual underpinning in daily life. Church offered a place to come together
and receive spiritual replenishment in tough times. Randy’s commitment to his spiritual beliefs has both guided him
and inspired his actions for all of his life.
As an 18-year-old boy, Randy wanted to find a pathway to a meaningful future. To do so, he joined the Civilian Conservation
Core. “The Civilian Conservation Core was organized by President Roosevelt. We were farmers. Boys could go to CC Camp
and stay for two years. We were paid $30/month. The time was the Depression, and the army was only paying its troops $21/month.
The CC gave us room, board, and clothes. I recognized this was an excellent opportunity. CC Camp saved $7/month so when we
were discharged, we had money.”
The Civilian Conservation Camp was disbanded when the war broke out due to the draft. Randy left the Camp in Bredenburg,
AL at that time and came back to Tuskegee. Again, he felt the barriers of racial discrimination. “I got a job with the
99th Airforce, the Tuskegee Airmen. I was head waiter in charge of the white officers’ dining room. The army was very
segregated at that time.”
Over the course of his adult life, Randy has seen racial conditions change dramatically. “Martin Luther King said
he had a dream that one day he would see little white boys and girls holding hands with little black boys and girls. That
is a dream that has come to fruition. Now children come together, play and have a good time. They realize people are just
people.
“I see the same thing in a dog care facility near where I live. All different dogs are getting together and not fighting.
Even the breeds you expect to be fighting are getting along. They are playing with each other like kids in kindergarten. We
need more examples of this!”
