Oral History with Irving Linwood Peddrew III, November 29, 2002 (Ms2003-011)

[Begin Tape A1, Side 1]

Tamara Kennelly: Would you please begin by saying your name and, if you don't

mind, your age?

Irving Peddrew: Irving Linwood Peddrew the third. I was born in August of 1935,

and that makes me 67 at this 00:01:00 time.

Kennelly: You were born in Hampton, Virginia?

Peddrew: That is correct.

Kennelly: Would you please describe the neighborhood you grew up in?

Peddrew: It was sort of a middle class neighborhood that was mixed, and we

had--it was predominately black, or as we called it Negro in those days, but it

was a mixed neighborhood. I had friends of Caucasian persuasion as well as black

friends of course, in that area.

Kennelly: You were the first of five children?

Peddrew: That's correct. I'm the eldest.

Kennelly: You're the eldest. So would you tell me about your 00:02:00 family?

Peddrew: Basically, a black family with typically black middle class values. My

father had finished college, and my mother had two years of college, and they

were both very protective but guided me quite a bit through the initial years

of--through grammar school and high school. We weren't any different except that

I suspect that I was taught more basic American-type middle class values.

Meaning a classless type values. That is what pretty much prepared me for Tech.

That I didn't sense or feel a need to express myself because I was viewed as a

second-class citizen. I never felt that at all, 00:03:00never did. Although I know that

is what I was categorized pretty much as. I refused to let anyone define me as

that. I didn't really realize it as being such then, but I know now that is

basically what I felt that I was an American that was defined as a black

American or as we called it then a Negro American, and that the general society

classified me as a second class citizen. Which I refused to accept, because I

never knew that to be the case. I never felt that, as such.

Kennelly: You felt that when you came to Virginia Tech then?

Peddrew: Well, it is not a matter of having felt... I know coming here in the

more rural area of Virginia, the southwest Virginia, that I would probably run

into individuals who had more basic ideas of what constituted a second-class

citizenship and probably had 00:04:00me stereotypically situated in a second-class

environment. I knew that was going to exist. I knew that I had to face that, but

I never felt myself as being a second-class citizen with someone of inferior

intelligence or an inferior being or whatever. That never, never occurred to me.

I knew I would run into individuals who would consider me as such. I knew that

was a strong possibility. Even more so than in my area of Virginia which was

basically the southeastern part of Virginia, which I felt was--largely because

of military installations--was a little bit more advanced and possibly more

progressive than the southwest portion of Virginia, especially the 00:05:00rural southwest.

Kennelly: Where did your parents go to school?

Peddrew: My dad finished--it was called Hampton Institute then, and now Hampton

University. My mother attended school there at Hampton up until she went through

her sophomore year, so she had two years of college at Hampton Institute. They

met there when my dad was in school, and he finished. Then they got married

before my mother's junior year. She ceased her education, formal education at

that time.

Kennelly: So was education really valued in your family?

Peddrew: You know, it was, and it wasn't. I mean what you had to realize as a

black, growing up in the South then, you could have the greatest of credentials

academically, and you were still 00:06:00basically a Negro or a second-class citizen.

You had to recognize that. I knew that that was the case, and I was taught that

that was the case. Although my parents emphasized education, they didn't

possibly lean on it to the extent that other families did. I wanted to finish

college; I wanted to have an 00:07:00education. I realized after seeing some of the

Ph.D.'s swabbing floors and acting as janitors that that wasn't the end to end

all ends--that there was a very distinct possibility that I could have the

greatest of degrees and the ultimate of educations and could still wind up

basically in an inferior position. Taking orders and acting like someone who was

a second-class person. So my parents were very practical. For instance, I had a

beautiful musical education, but my dad always discouraged me from getting into

music. I had music lessons, but he said that he didn't think that was a good

area for me to aspire to be in because it wasn't that great of a thing to be a

musician. He had known a lot of musicians, and he had been a musician himself,

and that wasn't that important to 00:08:00him. Although he gave me, or saw that I got,

musical education--saxophone and clarinet lessons, and subsequently played in

the marching band and concert band of my high school--he didn't emphasize that

at all. He thought that that was not the way for me to proceed. I can understand

that having met many musicians since then and having gone through the ins and

outs of the entertainment business. I can understand how he felt that way. They

were very, very practical. Some might have considered even too practical. They

emphasized education but said, you've got to guard it. You've got to be in a

position where you can judge what's really good and what's right and what's

fair, and you can't think that because you got the education that it is

automatically going to make a big difference in your life, because that wasn't

true with blacks at that time and to some degree isn't true, even 00:09:00now, unfortunately.

Kennelly: What did your father do?

Peddrew: My dad started out as a bricklayer at a time when the emphasis with

blacks was on the trades, and that's what the education at Hampton Institute was

followed in. It was tailors, bricklayers, carpenters, and that sort of thing. He

was a bricklayer at that time. The situation changed for him quite a bit after

he finished and was eventually hired by NASA. Initially, he had the education as

a bricklayer.

Kennelly: Did your mother work?

Peddrew: My father discouraged that as much as possible. He was from the old

school. He was the wage earner, and he 00:10:00made certain that he brought the money in

and that my mom stayed home and took care of the house and raised the kids. That

was his position pretty much all of his life. Unfortunately, that was not to be

the case later on. My mom did get out and work a bit. She did some work with

NASA where she was eventually terminated during the Nixon reduction in force

that he had going, or that he put in force during his tenure. My mother had a

number of jobs. One was with the police department in Hampton as a complaints

taker, I think they called it 00:11:00then. She did a number of things, but primarily

she assumed duties as a house maker and raised the five of us. That's a big

enough job, I understand, the feminists will tell you that nowadays.

Kennelly: Did you as the eldest child have extra responsibilities in the family,

special responsibilities?

Peddrew: Oh yeah. Especially when my mom decided that she would disobey my

father's edicts and assume a position in the work force. I was instructed on how

to prepare breakfast and how to care for my younger siblings. That was

interesting. Preparing breakfasts in the morning and getting everybody together

and trying to get them off to school was a bit of a challenge. I guess I didn't

look upon it as being that great of a challenge at that time, but looking back

on it, it was somewhat of a challenge. It wasn't something that I had to do on a

continual 00:12:00basis. I don't know how long my mother worked. I really don't

remember, but it was for a while, and during that time, I had to see that the

kids were fed, my siblings were fed, and that they were off to their 00:13:00 various

pursuits. Which meant that they were basically off going to school. So I did

that for a while, and I am sure that played a part, an important part, in the

building of my character that I had to be able to help the younger kids get off

and get situated so that they could get to school.

Kennelly: Did you work when you were in high school? Did you have a job yourself?

Peddrew: I did, but my father didn't want me to. He discouraged it. On my own I

really wanted to, so I did get out to--I started to deliver newspapers and had a

run of my own, but my dad never, never ever really wanted me to work outside of

the home. It was important that I had certain chores within the home. He didn't

want me to work outside, and I disobeyed, I guess, in that regard because I

started out delivering 00:14:00newspapers I think when I was about thirteen. It was

important to me. I felt it important that I have some independent source of

income and that I would be able to function pretty much independently although

my father felt that he needed to maintain control of the family. I guess at that

time that wasn't that unusual for the head of the family to want to maintain

control. Maybe that was unusual in black families, I'm not sure about that. I

know that it was important for him to maintain control and to be the source of

financial support or whatever was necessary you know. When you had to buy books,

and when you had to buy the gym uniform or those kinds of things, that I always

had to go to him for that. You know, it wasn't all that bad. It was just 00:15:00something he felt that he needed to be in control of. I didn't agree with him

then, and I don't agree with him now. That is pretty much what I obeyed or

allowed myself to be directed towards, except that I did go out and get a job as

a newspaper delivery boy at that time.

Kennelly: Was race an issue when you were growing up?

Peddrew: It was always an issue. When I was old enough to realize that there

were some people who held me in such low regard, I realized that I had a hurdle

to overcome. I guess with the protective atmosphere and environment of my 00:16:00 family

it didn't bother me as much as it probably bothered a lot of families, a lot of

kids in black families. I never experienced first hand a lot of problems that a

lot of black families experienced, because my father and mother were so

protective. We lived in an area that was sort of integrated, and when I played

with other kids, white kids, and I never realized the difference earlier. Later

on, I did only because of how other people viewed me not how I allowed them to

view me, but how they particularly cared about seeing me as a person of inferior

character and so forth. My parents never allowed me to feel that, to feel the

brunt of that, so I never really thought of myself as a second-class citizen. I

knew I was being thought of as that, but I never thought of myself that way. I

know that now as being I never allowed someone to define myself or define my

character integrity. I never did. I didn't think of it being that then. All I

knew was that I was not 00:17:00an inferior person. I never thought of myself as a

second-class person. My family was such that they never allowed me to think in

those terms, so I never grew up thinking of myself in that way.

Kennelly: Were there some incidents that come to mind when you were treated in a

way, you know, hurtful to you because of your race or that really hurt?

Peddrew: You know nothing ever--I've tried to reflect on that, certainly

recently I have. I have never really been able to pinpoint or to isolate any one

incident or number of incidents that made me feel that way. When I grew up here

in the South, you knew that you couldn't, or that you weren't supposed to sit in

the front of the bus. You knew there was a special drinking fountain for you.

You knew when you got on the train that you had to 00:18:00sit in a special place which

was behind the coal car. You knew there were certain things that you weren't

allowed to do, and practicality dictated that you didn't violate those 00:19:00 things

unless you wanted to incur the wrath of those who dictated those laws. I stayed

basically within the confines of where I knew I could go and where I couldn't

go. It was only in high school when I felt that a teacher advised or instructed

me or felt that I basically had enough going for me that I could apply to some

of the institutions of higher learning that were categorized for whites only.

That I could apply, and basically I had a chance to enter. She felt that I had

the basic background to do that. I guess that she felt basically that, and I

have had to think about this lately a lot--that there was something within me

that would allow me to get 00:20:00beyond the normal confines and restrictions that were

imposed legally and that I could eventually survive in an area or an atmosphere,

environment where these laws still basically existed, but where there were

people who could rise above the restrictions of that day and era of that time.

Kennelly: Was that Mrs. Hines?

Peddrew: Mrs. Hines was our class advisor at George P. Phoenix High School in

Hampton. It was there for, as they called it, Negro students only. I don't

recall the exact circumstances, but all I remember is that she came up to me at

some point during my 00:21:00senior year and said to me that she was under the

impression that there were certain schools within the Virginia white only

environment that were positioned at that point to receive black students. That

they had at least evidenced to some degree a position that would allow them to

entertain the possibility of accepting black students. I wish that I could

recall more of it. I can't right now. All that I remember is that she said, "I

think you are uniquely situated, that you have the ability to survive in that

environment," and that eventually she expected that I would be received

positively by some institution. So I applied to all the schools who were

traditionally whites or schools in the confederacy--in Virginia that is. I

didn't go outside of Virginia. I applied to all that I knew of, and I received

only a positive, and at that time it wasn't a positive reception, but it 00:22:00 was

sort of a maybe an iffy situation from Virginia Tech, but that was the only

school that replied with that in mind, that there was a possibility upon further

examination and exploration that I might be considered as a possible entrant. I

pursued that while pursuing other applications to other schools. I must say that

I apparently had the grades and whatever else to get a positive response from

every other school across the country. In fact, I had received a positive

response to the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles. At that

time Virginia had set up a situation within the legislation or legislator 00:23:00assembly--the body that determines these things--that in order to keep black

students out of white colleges here in Virginia that they would offer a

scholarship to some other school--that provided you chose a course that was not

given in the one school for blacks in Virginia, the state school which was

Virginia State, but was given in a white school in Virginia. They would give you

a scholarship provided you qualified. At that time I was really in pursuit of

the West Coast. I liked the whole idea of southern California and their

so-called lack of discrimination. So I had applied to the University of Southern

California and was accepted. The scholarship was approved by the Virginia

legislature to attend the University of Southern California, and I was ready to

go to USC when I received a 00:24:00telegram saying that I was accepted to Virginia

Tech, but that was after two gentlemen from Virginia Tech had indicated a desire

to interview me, and I corresponded back that they could, and they came down to

my home in Hampton and personally interviewed me with my parents. They indicated

at that time after the interview that they would give further consideration to

my application and they would get back to me. After asking if I would take

certain tests that were not asked of the white students, which I consented to do

because I wasn't in a position, I didn't feel at that point that I needed to

contest this whole thing. I never threatened to sue because I wasn't going to. I

was happy to go to Los Angeles and attend Southern California 00:25:00University. I

said, "Fine, I'll take the tests, and you can make a decision," and I felt all

the time that I wouldn't be accepted at Virginia Tech, so I made preparations to

fly out to University of Southern California. Lo and behold, [laughter] I

received a telegram the week before I was to fly out for freshman orientation at

the University of Southern California. I received that telegram saying that I

was accepted at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, as it was called then. Then I

had to make a decision whether I would go out to the West Coast and attend

school, or whether I would stay here in Virginia and give it a go at 00:26:00VPI, as I

called it then. My eventual decision, which was all mine, on my own, I decided

that since my dad was financing my education and then you could understand from

what I have said before that that's the way things were. He didn't allow me to

go out and make the kind of money that would support an education, because he

insisted that it be this way, and that was the way he was raised and brought up.

I decided to stay at home despite the reception that I might receive that would

be certainly less than acceptable as I viewed it because 00:27:00this was the southwest

portion, the rural portion of Virginia. Not to say anything about rural folk,

but because there's certainly many advanced folks with progressive thoughts, but

generally you know that that is not the kind of situation that you would want,

you would expect someone to prosper in who's a minority in an educational

environment. I knew that I would not have it easy here, but I knew that it would

be easier on my parents that I attended school 00:28:00locally, within state, as opposed

to flying across the country and going to school there in Los Angeles at the

University of Southern California. That's basically--I made that decision. My

dad was the one who pretty much wanted me to get into engineering, electrical

engineering specifically. That was important because you could not have taken a

course that was given at Virginia State, which was set up for minority students,

at the time called Negroes. You could not expect to get a course at any

university outside of the black educational institutions that was not offered.

If it were offered in the black 00:29:00colleges, you could not get the scholarship I

got to go to USC. I knew that I had to take something that wasn't in business,

sociology, or some of the more common courses. I say common only to say that

they were the kind that were regularly accepted or that you could see or expect

to get in most colleges. I could not take that or try to excel in that area if I

wanted to go to Virginia Tech, which was not originally in my plans, but I guess

my dad sort of skewed me into electrical engineering because of friends that he

had worked with who were electrical engineers and were very prosperous and were

doing quite well. I accepted that, and that was the kind of thing that 00:30:00 allowed

me to get to Virginia Tech, or at least be considered as a student of Virginia

Tech. I couldn't have, for instance, taken business and been accepted or been

considered as a student, an entrant at Tech if I wanted a mere business degree

because that was offered at Virginia State for blacks. I took electrical

engineering or decided on that with the emphasis being provided primarily by my

father. That was what allowed me to apply in that area, and that's where I went

on from there after applying to be accepted as a candidate for electrical

engineering school.

Kennelly: Did 00:31:00you receive a scholarship to Virginia Tech?

Peddrew: Nope. Not the slightest. The only scholarship I was given--well I was

offered other scholarships to other colleges, but the primary scholarship that

Virginia wanted to give me was to keep me out of Virginia Tech and other white

schools and to get me out to the West Coast. That was the scholarship that I was

given by Virginia. I was offered other scholarships to other schools in Virginia

and out of the state of Virginia. I wonder about my decision to come to Virginia

Tech, and I think about it from time to time and wonder about if I would ever do

that again. I think not. I think not. At that point, I decided that I would

brave it because I pretty much was ready 00:32:00to encounter the other folk thinking of

me as not really ready. I was ready. I was ready. Virginia Tech wasn't ready for

me, but I was ready for them. I really felt good about the fact that I had the

backing of my parents and, of course, the black community, which I wasn't really

concerned about. I was concerned more about my parents and their being there for

me. I knew that scholastically I could handle it. The only problem would be that

I was so individualistic that there may not be a chance for me to persevere

because of the strong 00:33:00strict upbringing that I was a person who had what it took

to be a good citizen, to be a positive contributor to society. I've always felt

that. I feel that now very strongly. I felt then that I didn't really need to be

relegated to a second-class type situation. Although I admired the black schools

then. I took a pre-college course at Hampton University, which was called

Hampton Institute at that time, and came out at the very top of the students

that participated in that. That was the very first year that they offered that.

That was the year, that year I entered Virginia Tech that I received the

telegram of acceptance. I never really felt 00:34:00inferior or that I should feel

inferior at any time. I never, never ever felt that, but I knew how folks viewed

me and what stereotypical idea they had of me. Not because they knew me, because

no one knew me here, but what they had thought of me because of the exterior

manifestations of color and that sort of thing. I knew how I would be looked

upon. That never frightened me. I was never frightened of the idea. I guess the

one thing that I think about, that occurred to me, was when my parents brought

me up here and I registered for school and got measured for my cadet uniform and

so forth. I went to the home of the black family where I had to live. When I saw

my dad and mom drive off, I said to myself, "What have I gotten myself into?"

That's when it really hit me. That was the first time, when they drove off, and

I realized 00:35:00that I was really by myself, and I was on my own. I was really

totally on my own. Although the black family that I stayed with was very

supportive, very beautiful people. I knew basically that they weren't going to

class with me. That whatever I was subjected to I had to endure, on my own,

basically. For that first year it was quite an existence. Though it turned out

to be an existence that was considered to be quite positive because of the

people who called me in from the administration, Virginia Tech administration,

and told me that "the only reason that we have accepted Charlie Yates, Lindsay

Cherry, and Floyd Wilson 00:36:00in your sophomore year was the fact that you did so

well in your freshman year, when you were accepted." It wasn't the fact that I

was totally accepted and embraced as being one of the other students. I wasn't.

What they were interested in was that there was no problems--there were no

difficulties to speak of during my freshman year. I guess I did as well as maybe

I wanted to. Not as well as really I could have done but enough to satisfy the

prerequisites and enough to satisfy myself that I was no longer viewed as an

inferior being, who was brought into this great euphoria. Who are we talking

about? This is a 00:37:00college, you know. It wasn't like it was some great thing that

I should have been, that they should have me lauded for all their great, the

fact that I was accepted and so forth and so on. I thank Virginia Tech, and I

think they should receive some accolade for having stepped in front of the rest

of the colleges and in front of the rest of the basically the white educational

world in the South and accepted me as a student. I wasn't totally accepted. I

had to live off campus. I couldn't go to the campus cafeteria, the university

cafeteria. There was a number of things I couldn't do on campus, and certainly a

world of things that I couldn't do in town, in the town of Blacksburg. Virginia

Tech 00:38:00should still be lauded for the fact that they stepped out front and said,

"We are going to give you a shot," and because of what they allowed me to do

during that first year, they accepted the other students, one of which who

eventually finished here and now has a Ph.D. At that time, I wasn't out to

really prove a lot. That wasn't the purpose of my attending school here. It was

my coming to take something, to be a part of something, that I felt that I had a

right to be a part of. My parents live here. My parents had been paying taxes,

and poll taxes included. They just brought me up to realize that I was a very

important person and that I shouldn't regard 00:39:00myself as being inferior. That was

the important thing that I should not ever develop that inferiority complex. I

never did. I never have. I have encountered all kinds of discrimination since

Virginia Tech, all over the world and never have given in to the idea that I

should be, that I should even consider myself as a second-class citizen or

anything of that nature. I never have, and I thank them for that because they

planted that seed. Even though I grew beyond them and what they thought.

They--my dad was a member of a very prestigious social club in 00:40:00Hampton, which

only had black members. I remember coming back from California and asking him if

a roommate of mine could belong to that, who happened to be of Caucasian

persuasion, and he said, "Oh no." And I said, "Why, why not?" He said, "Well

they don't accept us to their clubs." That wasn't adequate to me. That didn't

suffice. I could never belong to something that wasn't open. I remembered that

that was part of the thing that denied admittance to a lot of folks like me who

wanted to belong to other organizations, so I could never be a part of that. I

don't mean that to put those organizations down. They've got their 00:41:00reasons, and

they do their thing, but I feel that if you are not part of the solution, you

are part of the problem. If I couldn't bring anybody, or have anyone belong to

an organization that I liked or thought well of, or a friend of mine, or even

someone I didn't know for that matter, but who was qualified in other areas, but

disqualified as a result of ethnic origin, I couldn't belong, I couldn't belong

to that. I could never be a part of that. I will never be a part of that. That

may come as a surprise to some of my so-called friends, but that's the way that

I am. That's the way that I was brought up. Although my ideas are that evolved

and developed and grew to the point where I was a 00:42:00little, I don't want to say

above my father, but let's say different from him. I could never be a part of

that. I don't look down on those people who have those ideas because they come

up with different parents or different perspectives or they may have hurt a lot

more than I was hurt or my parents were hurt. Who knows there before the grace

of God? I can't say that I could act as they did or that I could put them down

for what they believe. I know what I believe, and I wouldn't allow them to

influence me as I expect they wouldn't let me allow me to influence them. I can

still relate to those people. I'm sorry they're not as open or that they don't

have as broad of a perspective as I have, but that's 00:43:00life. That's the way it

goes pretty much.

Kennelly: When those two--back to the people coming from Tech to talk to

you--did they lay down any ground rules about what limitations on your activity

as a....

Peddrew: You know, I really, I've reflected on that, and I really don't recall

their ever saying to me this is what you can expect, and this is what you can't.

I do remember that they asked me how I would respond if I were called out of my

name. I remember that one question more than I do anything else that they ever

said, the two gentlemen

Kennelly: You were called out of your name?

Peddrew: Out of my name? Yeah, indicating a racial epithet.

Kennelly: I see.

Peddrew: I thought about that, and all I could say to them, all I remember

saying to them 00:44:00was, "I know there are people who are capable of that. I just

think that I am a little stronger than that, and I am above that, and that I

don't think that it will cause the adverse reaction that is caused in a number

of other situations." Because of the support of my parents and the way I was

brought up, I thought that I could handle that, and that is exactly what I told

them. I can't ever remember saying anything more, because I didn't know anything

more, because I was never confronted with that situation living in Hampton.

Although I am sure that a number of other blacks were confronted with that, I

never had that particular confrontation. All I could say to them was, "I don't 00:45:00think that I would. I know I wouldn't succumb to it and be devastated by it. I

don't know quite how I would take it except that I know it wouldn't devastate

me. I just feel that I could get beyond that." Apparently, that was sufficient

enough to convince them that I was the person, the first black person to be accepted.

Kennelly: Did that happen when you came?

Peddrew: No.

Kennelly: That people called you...

Peddrew: No. No, and that's--to me it's strange only because I expected it at

some point. Not that I was looking for it, or that I wanted it, but being a

realist and pretty much a practical person, I expected that to 00:46:00happen. This was

almost fifty years ago, but I don't recall a specific incident on this campus

where I was confronted by a student or instructor or whatever, being called out

of my name. I never, that never happened. There were some other incidents and

things that happened, but that in particular never happened. I think, I don't

want to pat myself on the back about this, because I don't think it was really

me, but

[End of Tape A1 Side 1]

[Begin Tape A1 Side 2]

Peddrew: Myself in the back about this because I don't think it was really me.

Not me specifically, but the kind of mentality or makeup that existed within me

did not provoke that kind of thing. I could've been more confrontational, and I 00:47:00wasn't. I wasn't here to prove that I was better then anybody, I wasn't here

really to prove anything. All I really thought of was that I deserved to go to

that school. I am a resident of the state, my parents paid taxes. There's

nothing I have done to disqualify me. Why should I be not considered? I'm not a

felon. I'm not convicted. I've never had any problems. I've never done anything

outlawed. Why would anyone consider me to be less than qualified for something

that I know that I could easily qualify for? It was like I said. I was

interviewed by an ABC affiliate yesterday, and they asked some pointed

questions, and I told them, what 00:48:00basically I believed was that I was ready for

them, and they weren't ready for me. That was not to say that I could encounter

and defeat everything that came at me, that I was a greater student,

academically and socially and whatever. It just meant that the way that I was

raised and brought up, I considered myself ready for an environment that was

less than acceptable, or folks who felt that I was not an acceptable being, a

person. I wonder how could they do that. They don't know me. There's no way they

could know my background or my parents or what I've been told or how I've been

instructed or how I was brought up or raised. They had a stereotypical concept

of what I was supposed to 00:49:00be, which I could never give into. I never fit that.

The stereotypical concept was not valid to begin with, and you find people of

any ethnic background who fit certain categories and that sort of thing. That's

not owing to any particular ethnic background or racial makeup. It's anybody,

anybody can be a bad person or who can be the kind of person who causes trouble

or problems. I certainly wasn't that kind of person. Anybody can be illiterate

or dumb, or who holds disdain for higher education, and I wasn't that kind of

person. I looked different superficially. I understood 00:50:00that, but then again that

was so stupid because I've got people in my own family who had passed for white.

How stupid this whole thing of racial categorization is, you know. When these

people could have--if they wanted to be categorized as black--would have to sit

in the back of the bus and not eat in certain restaurants and those kinds of

things, but there were certain people in my family who could pass for white, or

do certain things. It wasn't my thing to put them down. If they wanted to do

that, it was fine with me, I don't care about that. I cared about what I thought

and how I was viewed as a person, as an individual. I just knew that I was as

good as anybody else when it comes to being a human 00:51:00being. That was important to

me, and that was drilled into me as an individual growing up, and like I said, I

carried it beyond the point that my parents did. I never had a problem with

myself, and I knew that was the first thing you had to consider going into a

situation like that. If you didn't think of, if you didn't have any self-esteem,

and you didn't think of yourself as being worthy, what could you do in a

situation like this? My only problem was I was too sensitive as a person which

may have accounted for the fact that eventually I chose to leave here and

continue my education otherwise, and not to return to the degradations, the

demeaning situations that I found myself in at 00:52:00Tech. That's not owed to all of

the students or to how they viewed me, totally, but to a certain vocal minority,

particularly. I knew that was the case. I didn't want to continually to confront

that. They caused problems when I wanted to go to the Ring Dance. They

circulated rumors that the girls' schools locally--Longwood and

Radford--wouldn't allow their girls to attend if I attended the Ring Dance,

which was the biggest social event of a cadet's education, a situation where the

campus.... I wanted to go so badly. My girlfriend was 00:53:00willing. She was going to

West Virginia Wesleyan, and we were ready, and I explained what was going on,

but I was talked out of it by YMCA, who thought that it was probably not the

time to do it, and as much as I wanted to do it, and I was ready. I was ready

because I was ready when I came here. Not to encounter a lot of ugliness, but I

was prepared for it because I thought that I had the inner fire to exist and to

persevere. I did. I thought that about the Ring Dance, but I wrote a letter

telling that I would not attend if they... I felt that it wasn't that important

to me. I wanted to come. I really really honestly wanted to go, and my date

wanted to as well--the young lady I was dating at the time. I 00:54:00felt that after

having talked to my friends at the YMCA, who were very, very supportive of me,

they made sure that this thing wasn't as bad as it could have been, they were

really super supportive. I allowed them--and I have to put it that way--I

allowed them to talk me into not going, but...

Kennelly: Who was that?

Peddrew: It was in--Derring was, as I recall the head of the Y, and it wasn't

him particularly but the people that were under him, and I think that the

gentlemen's name was Stan Moore, and I am not sure about that, but I allowed 00:55:00them to convince me that that was not a prudent move at this particular

juncture, although I thought that I should've gone. I still think that to this

day. I can't blame them. They were so supportive of me and were largely

responsible to a great degree for my, for the success I had attending and the

fact that I maintained some sense of equilibrium and stability while I was here

on campus. The Y, the YMCA was largely responsible for that.

Kennelly: And how did they do that? In what way?

Peddrew: There were meetings, and we talked, and they discussed, and they had

speakers to come in and such, and we talked about my situation and what I was 00:56:00feeling and what my responses were, what I felt like, which was important to me,

because very few people had ever asked me, "What's going on? How are you doing?

Are you continuing in some sort of stable environment, mind-wise? Are you, do

you feel okay? Are you bothered? How is this getting, is this getting to you at

all?" These were the only people on the campus at the time who were really

concerned about my response and how this whole thing was affecting me, and it

was because of that and the fact that I respected them so much that I decided

not to, because it went against my grain. I did not want to give into that. 00:57:00Particularly after the Y called Longwood and Radford and found out that the

rumors that were circulating the campus here at Virginia Tech were only rumors,

and the girls' schools were not restricting their girls from attending. They

told me that before, before I decided not to go. They said, "We've called the

schools, and they are admitting only to the fact that they said the situation is

like it is, but we are not restricting you. You go if you want to." There was a

chance of troubles or problems or difficulties as there would be in any

situation like that at that time. This was 1956. Things weren't that warm for me 00:58:00here, not on the campus as much on the campus as in the town of Blacksburg. I

knew that I had my place, as was dictated in any southern community,

particularly in a rural southern community. Although, things I think were better

here then in a lot of places in the south, I still knew there were places I

couldn't go, and there were things I couldn't attend. I had to be aware of that

because not to be would be unrealistic. I certainly consider myself as a

realist. Not as much of a pragmatist as maybe I should've been, but I knew that

there were certain places I couldn't go and things I couldn't do

Kennelly: Like what?

Peddrew: Ahhh, I couldn't eat in any of the restaurants in the city here. If I

wanted to go to a movie, I had to sit up in the 00:59:00balcony. There were just--I

couldn't get a haircut downtown in Blacksburg, although friends of mine owned

the barbershop, but they catered only to whites, but they were owned by blacks.

I mean the barbershop was. I just knew that there were things that I couldn't

do, places I couldn't go, and you had to accept that. I couldn't go into the

soda, into the drug store and eat and sit at the soda fountain. I knew that I

couldn't do that. Why should I bust my head against the stone wall? That would

be stupid of me to try to do that at a time when I couldn't count on the support

of say fellow blacks as sit-ins during that period of time. I was here in

advance of Brown vs. the Board of 01:00:00Education. I knew that I had to do certain

things or incur the wrath of those that thought I was an inferior person and not

able to be considered as one of the crowd, so to speak, or one of those who were

entitled. Although I knew no such thing really existed in my mind, I knew that

practically that I could not get into a situation like that without causing a

lot of problems. I felt there was a quieter way of doing this, or a stronger

way, a more convincing way, and that was my way. I wasn't a freedom rider, or I

wasn't in the forefront of those movements, and God bless them. 01:01:00[Several deep

breaths] That had to be tough.

Kennelly: It must have been very lonely for you, when you were here. I mean

especially that first year.

Peddrew: Yeah, it was.

Kennelly: With you not living with the other students.

Peddrew: It was extremely lonely. Even though there were no outward incidents of

rejection, there were no--I never sat down in a class when a student got up to

move. That never happened to me, but there was this insidious subsurface thing

or feeling that I felt that I knew existed that was very prominent but not in

the open. It wasn't an 01:02:00overt thing that was there where when I walked in the

class they said, "Peddrew this is your seat, or you sit over there." That never

happened, and even when a young lady would sit next to me, there was not a

problem. If you are sensitive, and I was extremely sensitive even though I was

practical and aware, you've got to feel that, and I guess I can't explain that

to you unless you have really ever felt that whether it is an ethnical bias, or

a gender bias, or whatever. It exists. It's there, and you have to deal with it.

Even when it's not open and overt. When it's covert or under the surface, it is

sometimes more harmful and more insidious and more pungent, more powerful than

if it were on the surface, and you were 01:03:00told you can't sit here, you can't do

that. It was a sense of loneliness that I can't explain, or I can't adequately

describe to others. I don't know whether it's my inability to articulate it or

what. I don't know. All I know is that there was a feeling there that I had that

permeated my whole being. That was a part of me that I felt when I got back to

where I lived. It was tough. It wasn't the kind of thing that certain students,

or that certain black students, experienced in more southern areas in

Mississippi or Alabama, but there was that serious, insidious, undertone that

was 01:04:00there. You knew it existed, and you had to be a fool not to recognize it. I

only wish maybe that--sometimes that I think about this--that I was less

sensitive, or more like the gentleman who eventually graduated who--he described

it as being more focused. I would say probably an indication of less of a

sensitivity that allowed him to be motivated and moved. We are all individuals

and different, and there is no way that you could really describe two people in

the same terms. Even identical twins defy that, but to me there was a level of

sensitivity in spite of the fact that I had this practical realistic upbringing

and I was strong as a person. There was still a level of 01:05:00sensitivity that

allowed me to be--What's a good word? --allowed me to be, to feel some negative

vibes, maybe to put it in the words of some of the folk who were considered to

be prominent during the era of flower children and so forth, but there was

something there that I felt that I knew that wasn't right that I didn't need to

be a part of, because I had no--I didn't participate in structuring it. I wasn't

a part of it. I was an individual who came from a good family, who had good

values, middle class values. I didn't need to be considered something less of a

human being. There are certain people 01:06:00who can rise above that, and I applaud

them in that way, because you need those people. You need a Patton during a war.

You need somebody who can be a driving force and who can rise above the

situation. I guess I wasn't truly really one of those types although I was able

to satisfy my fellow students and certainly the administration that I was not an

inferior type of person while representing the blacks or the Negroes as they

would call then, which allowed them to extend, or to accept the invitations of

subsequent entrants or applicants rather, of black students who came later on.

That was great. To me I had done a valuable job and pretty 01:07:00much had done

something I didn't set out to do, 'cause I didn't come here to do that.

Kennelly: Make the way for other people?

Peddrew: I wasn't here to change the world. I wasn't here to blow down all the

doors and to say here I'm some sort of superman. I wasn't. I wasn't. I'll never

be. It's just that simple. I think I showed that I was one of many, and that's

not to say that all folks of any color or any persuasion should be in all groups

or be accepted in all types of settings, because that's not true. There's some

of us who aren't ready. The prisons are too full of folks who are antisocial and

don't feel 01:08:00that they have any responsibility towards society. There are a lot of

people who don't, who feel that way. That's unfortunate, but that's

realistically a part of us. They're humans. They're human beings, and for

whatever reasons they feel they can do anything. They can take the lives of

others or take the property of others or do other untoward things like that, and

I never thought that about myself or anybody I've been close to. They're not

these kind of people. There are those kind of folks in the world, and

realistically you have to admit that there are those kind of people that are to

be, I think, separated from the rest of us. I don't know if they haven't 01:09:00developed their awareness to the point where they can be a productive member of

society. I'm not into all of that. I'll let the other folks who are well

schooled in those areas to think and to give ideas about that. To me I

understand that there are folks who are not ready to be a productive member of

society, and they need to be separated. They don't think anything about taking

somebody else's property or taking their lives or that kind of thing. You've got

to be realistic and honest and enough of a pragmatist to realize that those

people exist. They are very much a part of society, for whatever reasons.

Basically, I just wanted to say, "Hey, I'm just a 01:10:00guy who needs to go to school

to get an education, good family, good upbringing. I have the same basic values

as most of us, and I need to be allowed to do what I think I ought be allowed to

do and that is to get a simple basic education." That isn't a tough thing. That

isn't a problem we ought to consider as being insurmountable. I mean, what was

wrong with that? The only thing was that I was a little bit ahead of a lot of

folks in thinking that. That was my situation.

Kennelly: And acting on it too, because...

Peddrew: Yeah, and acting on it, yeah, not just thinking it. Right. Exactly. I

acted on it. Not to prove anything when Mrs. Hines came to me and said, "Irving,

I think you'd be a good candidate. You'd be a good person." Just a 01:11:00nice lady,

she was not a particularly great teacher of mine--not someone I just really

looked up to, but she just came to me and basically said, "I think you'd be a

good person to do this," and she said, "Why don't you try?" Being the person

that I was, and the individual, with the strong family thing, why not? I just

couldn't see or foresee something developing that I couldn't handle. Maybe I was

hopelessly naïve. [Laughter] I did it. I did it. I did it, and I did it

successfully obviously for a full year or else there wouldn't have been the guys

to follow, and that's exactly what I was told by the administration. I felt that

I did what I 01:12:00could. It just didn't register with me. Because I was more of a

social being, I needed to interact with the people around me. Although they

weren't the overt acts of discrimination or segregation on campus, I still felt

that loneliness and some isolation that's hard to describe. It's so difficult

that I couldn't, if you paid me a million dollars, I don't think that I could

adequately describe how I felt. I've tried to reflect on it, particularly since

Tech has asked me to come and be a part of the fiftieth-year commemorative

events. I have racked my brain. I couldn't, I can't tell you what it meant to me 01:13:00internally. What it did to me, and how it affected me, and how it was good for

me to get away finally. I regret not finishing because in a very practical sense

I wish that I would have gotten a degree here. It was just a bit too much for me

to stomach at that time in my personal development. I wasn't able to deal

totally with the various stimuli, the input that came in from what I felt and

how the students, how I felt or lack of acceptance I guess I felt, although,

there were no overt acts. There were none really to speak of outside of the Ring

Dance situation and the obvious encounters I had in the 01:14:00community. I always

thought that something was going to happen to me between the campus and getting

back to 306 East Clay Street where I lived. Nothing ever really happened, not

overtly. I mean no one ever called me out or singled me out, or I was never

fired at [laughter] thank God. There was that undertone, that thing that was

always there, and although I was equipped to come in and deal with it for a

year, eventually it took its toll. I'm really glad in the sense that I got away.

When I went to California as a member of Virginia Tech and the YM/YWCA sponsored

Students in Vocation, I really felt good out there. They made me feel good out

there 'cause they knew of my situation. They had a lot of contact 01:15:00with the YMCA

here at Tech. So they knew what I had gone through, and they did their level

best, and they succeeded, in convincing me that I shouldn't not only have had to

go through that, but certainly I shouldn't have to continue to be exposed to

that--to the level of, the level of isolation that I felt within me. Not of

people moving away from me--not physically being isolated--but the mental and

emotional isolation that I obviously felt. As a very sensitive and very--I don't

want to say anything that's too self-serving, but I know that I 01:16:00was full of love

and caring and concern. I was just that type of person. That's just the way I

was. I was an outgoing, easy-going, loving, caring person. That I did a thing

that allowed others to come in and do their thing, and others rose to the

occasion and got their Ph.D.'s and whatever. That's great. I've got absolutely

nothing against that. Oh it was so beautiful that they were able to persevere

where I wasn't. That was something that happened--something that I am, I like to

look back upon, and I don't like to relive because I don't like to go back

through what I went through. I reflect on it and 01:17:00think, you did what was right

for you at the time. My parents hated the fact that I didn't come back from

California when I went out to that Students in Vocation project as a

representative of Virginia Tech, but we had students--we had a girl from France,

a girl from Norway, a guy from Germany, and we had guys and gals from all over

the U.S., the continental U.S. We had a tremendous time in that project. They

rented--the YMCA /YWCA rented a frat house from USC, strangely enough, from the

University of Southern California. Isn't that weird, ironic? The guys stayed up

front; the guys stayed in back. The girls had the house up in front. We just

worked together. We all got jobs in Southern California, and we shared

experiences, took trips and stuff 01:18:00together. Those folks who were in charge of

that particular project, particularly David Levering, who was head of the

projects there, had apparently a lot of communication with the YMCA people here.

They did everything in the world to convince me that my--the best thing for me

to do was to continue my education out there and not to come back here and

continue to expose myself to the conditions. That's not to say that they were

just horrible things, but for me as an individual with my particular makeup it

wasn't. They all felt that it wasn't the right thing to do. Between the Y here

at Tech and the Y at Southern California where they conducted the project, they

came up with the idea that the best thing for me to do was to continue my

education out there or outside of 01:19:00the atmosphere or the environment here at

Tech. I agreed with them, and they didn't have to work too hard to convince me

of that. They were such beautiful people. Oh, yes. I really admire those people

who stood out. There were two other blacks in that group. They were mostly

whites, but see--and I hate to even have to say that because that doesn't matter

to me--they were people who were concerned. They didn't stick their neck out.

They just stood up and said, "Look, we want to be counted when it comes down to

what you ought to do and where you ought to go. We think that this is 01:20:00best for

you, not what is best for Virginia, or Virginia Tech, or for the black group, or

for whatever, for your family even. We think this is best for Irving Linwood

Peddrew, III. We think you deserve better then what you've been exposed to." It

didn't take much effort for them to convince me of that because of my own

particular makeup. I consented to stay out there, and that was the move. Like I

said, I would love to have graduated from here and had my degree and gone on and

done glorious and wonderful things, but life isn't always that way. I mean we

like to think of it as being the kind of thing that the typical Hollywood ending

where everything works out to be right. As much as I believe in those Hollywood 01:21:00endings, I had to see in this particular situation a case where it really wasn't

all that much for me. Initially it was because I was able to let a lot of folks

know that the bad guys come in all colors and the good guys come in all colors.

I remember one guy coming up to me. I think it was in my junior year. He was a

senior and graduating, and we were all in the Corps of Cadets, and I can't

recall his name, but he is what I call, or what we called in California as a tow

head he was so blonde, blue-eyed, and really nice looking gentleman, and he came

up to me and said, "Irv, I want you to know one thing. There are no blacks in my

community where I live. I didn't grow up knowing any 01:22:00blacks." He said, "You

possibly could imagine what I thought and what I've been lead to think." He

said, "But I want to tell you one thing. You've changed my mind." [Long pause]

That was a great experience.

Kennelly: Oh, that must be powerful. It must have been difficult just...I mean

didn't you like have to go back and forth like that. When you were living off campus?

Peddrew: Yeah, well I had most of that owing to some very good guys who were

obviously progressive thinkers or in spite their backgrounds or because of their

backgrounds, who knows, who allowed me to change in their rooms so.

Kennelly: Some of the students?

Peddrew: Yeah, some of the students. Even some of the students after my freshman

year requested me for a roommate, and that was disallowed of course.

Kennelly: By the administration?

Peddrew: Yes. What they did, and I've spoken--in fact one of the guys I've

spoken to as late as a couple of years ago who called me and said 01:23:00that he

remembered my changing in his room. [Deep breaths] Some of this is difficult to

talk about.

Kennelly: Yes, it's horrible.

Peddrew: [More deep breaths] But he wanted to say how glad he was to have had

that experience.

Kennelly: Things were changing just for black people to change in white rooms.

Peddrew: Yeah, you know it wasn't a super terrific thing. Like I said, I was no 01:24:00superman. I was just somebody who was sensitive and aware, and I tried to make

the best impression I could. [Sigh with long pause] It was a valuable experience

talking to this one chaplain who I think he eventually--he told me he had become

a chaplain in the navy, but I used to change in his room. That was a difficult

thing, but that was difficult for Charlie Yates and Lindsay Cherry and Floyd

Wilson because we all had to do the same thing, and he had to make a 01:25:00 formation

on campus. You couldn't walk off, and you know, he had to come in and make sure.

Kennelly: Come with a rifle

Peddrew: Yeah, yeah, you couldn't...[laughter] so it was tough for everybody. It

wasn't unique to me, and other guys made it better then I did, but it worked

well enough because I was asked to enter all competitions for military bearing

for my company and platoon. I was always asked to that because I naturally had

that strong military bearing. It was something that I guess I grew up with also.

That appealed to me, and that's why being a cadet wasn't unappealing and wasn't

that negative. It was tough coming off campus and living off campus and 01:26:00 having

to walk on and go to some guy's room and impose upon him to help you get

prepared because the guys all helped each other out. The roommates helped each

other get ready. The way your belt squared away and your brass was shiny enough,

and your shoes were right, and all of the things--the meticulousness of the

military bearing--all of this was important because that is the essence of being

a military school and being a cadet. You had to be a part of that, and you had

to have this military bearing. Well I had that. The only thing is that it was

difficult to come from off campus and to walk on and have to do that and go

through all of that. That was something that wasn't enjoyable, but at least in

talking to this guy a couple of years ago--I can't remember his name right now,

but he was such a beautiful 01:27:00person. He was there for me for what he could do,

but he had to get himself ready too, and here I was walking in off campus

dragging stuff around trying to get myself together because they couldn't hold

my stuff there because they had inspections every day, every morning. They

couldn't. I just had to impose upon them, but luckily there were enough guys,

and the other guys--Charlie Yates and the other guys who went--they had to go

through the same thing that I went through. Like I said, you know, when you are

less sensitive and you're more driven, it is easier to put up with these kinds

of things and to act as though they don't bother you because they really don't

have the effect that they would have with a more sensitive, caring person. Now I

don't know if they should initially accepted a person who was less caring than I

was, who was less sensitive than I was. I don't know that. I haven't really

studied psychiatry to the point where I could feel qualified to even to offer

some sort of explanation for who they 01:28:00should've, who should've been first, and

who should have subsequently followed. I don't even know that. All I know is

that I think I did well for that first year and in the subsequent years that I

stayed here, and I am glad that the people who were more powerful than I or less

sensitive or however you'd like to characterize it, but those who came behind me

and were able to put up with the situations that they were subjected to and to

be unscathed or less scathed then I was, but I was too sensitive and caring a

person to be continually... And this is what was impressed upon me in Southern

California during that students in vocation project. [They] said you, hey man,

have done your thing. To put it in the street vernacular, hey, you've done your

thing, man. You put up with it, and you got your scars, and I had, but just

social scars. I mean not physical scars, because I wasn't subjected to anything

physical, but there were those scars there, and this is what they told 01:29:00me in

Southern California. You don't need to come back to try and carry that thing

through its logical conclusion, which is a degree. I'm so proud of Charlie Yates

that he did 01:30:00it. But that wasn't my thing. I was convinced that I didn't need to

go through that, to encounter that. I listened to them like I listened to the Y

here about the Ring Dance. I listened to them. Although it was against my better

judgment, I followed and went through with what I thought under the

circumstances was sort of the best move. I still have second thoughts about

that. I wanted to go to that, and my date wanted to go, and she has since

passed. We had such a nice, beautiful, honest, sincere relationship, and I was

ready, and she was ready, and although the evidence that there might be some

problems, I was ready to encounter them 01:31:00because I had endured up until that

time, what is another, not open, or overt rejection but sort of an insidious

under, and like I said, I never had anyone get up and move away from me or

anything in class. It wasn't that kind of thing that was so open that you could

deal with it directly. It was just a feeling, a sense, my being so sensitive of

really understanding. That's what they convinced me of in Southern Cal, that

you've got too much going to continue to submit yourself to that. Let the guys

who got a thicker skin, let them handle it. Let them do it. Let them come

through with their main focus to whatever. Let them do that. Let them be that.

You be who you 01:32:00are. You continue to be your sensitive, caring self, and let the

chips fall where they may, which is eventually what happened.

Kennelly: When you were in school, was the Confederate flag a lot in evidence?

Peddrew: [Laughter] Was it ever, and they used to play "Dixie."

[End of Tape A1 Side 2]

[Begin Tape A2 Side 3]

Peddrew: They used to play "Dixie," and I refused to stand along with a number

of northern students who were here. It wasn't treated as something insidious. It

wasn't. They would all--the southern students who by far populated the Corps of

Cadets--would all try to pick us up, myself and the other northern students that

were here, because I was the only black student at the time, but they picked me

up. I never really felt, I just knew that I couldn't stand and pay homage to

something that looked upon me as something that I wasn't. The flag was very

prominent always and the playing of "Dixie" during the football games.

Kennelly: What were they grabbing your arm to try to make you to stand up?

Peddrew: Oh, I mean not only my arm but picking, I mean literally picking me

up--my body to try and make me stand up. It wasn't done insidiously with 01:33:00 harm

meant to me as an individual, but they--guys all seemed to think that I, being a

southerner, that I should rise and salute "Dixie" when it was played during the

football games, and I never did, as well as the northern students who were in

the Corps of Cadets and attending VPI at that time, who wouldn't stand when they

were doing that. I never did, I never did stand, and the flag was very, the

Confederate flag was very prominently displayed along with the playing of

"Dixie" during the football games and the Corps trips that we took to football games.

Kennelly: What company were you in?

Peddrew: I don't even recall. [Laughter] I've been asked that before, and I

can't recall. I couldn't begin to remember what company I was in. I just

remember that I was there for company meetings and formations et cetera, but I

didn't have to go through all of what the campus 01:34:00students, the resident

students, were subjected to. I didn't have to make all those formations, and

when my classes were over, I went home, and I didn't have to stand any of the

formations at night or the formations in the morning that they had to. I wasn't

subjected to that extent of the military theme that's a part, that's an

intricate part of the Corps of Cadets. Then if you were physically able and you

hadn't served prior service with the armed forces, you had to be a member of the

Corps of Cadets. That was the law, and so I had to. They made an allowance for 01:35:00me living off campus. Normally you couldn't be in the Corps of Cadets and live

off campus. Not in your first year, not in your second year. They made that

allowance for me to keep me off of the campus, and I had to live, I had to be

able--the state law was that I had to be a part of the Corps of Cadets. At that

time I just had to be, but you weren't allowed to normally live unless, I think

at that time, and I don't remember all of the rules specifically, but if you

were married, you were allowed to live off campus with your wife. As a single

student coming in, if you were physically qualified and didn't have prior

military service, you had to be a part of the Corps of Cadets. You had to live

on campus. Except, they made allowances for me like they made allowances that I

couldn't go into the cafeteria or other things, or they tried to discourage me

from the Ring Dance, which they were successful in 01:36:00doing. There were some

students that that didn't bother. There were others that it bothered, and I

don't recall when the first black student attended the Ring Dance, but there was

one year eventually when they did, just like I know right now it's great that

maybe, maybe that I integrated the campus fifty years ago, or the university

fifty years ago, but I know by now certainly that they would be integrated. I

mean I happened to be out front and a little forward in the thinking of a lot of

folks, and I did it in 1953, but by now--we're talking about the twenty-first

century--certainly there would have been integration here and all. It happened

then, and Tech was a part of it then. It was a little ugly for me, but certainly

not as ugly as it could have been. Not nearly as ugly as it could have been as

other 01:37:00students experienced in predominantly all-white universities at the time.

No one ever took a shot at me. No one ever defiled the home, the place where I

was staying, and no one shouted at me when I was walking through town to school,

and that's got to say something about the civility of this environment that that

didn't happen. There's also that insidious undercurrent, the tone, that as an

individual I had to face and go through. Because I was the type of person that I

was. If I were a different type of person, less sensitive, with that strong

parental guidance and that support, maybe it would have worked out that I could

have gone through the whole four years and done my thing and graduated, but it

wasn't that way. It didn't work out that way, because I wasn't really all that 01:38:00type of person. Although it took that kind of a person to endure for four years

maybe, maybe possibly it took the kind of person, maybe, that I was to break

through and to establish a level of openness, not the kind of openness that

there should have been, but a level of openness that allowed the subsequent

events and entrance of persons who came in after me to go through and eventually

someone to some through with a degree and for there eventually to be not a big

thing when a black graduated. That's--I'd like to see it get to a point where

there's no Department of Multicultural Affairs, and I don't say that, I say that

with all respect to Ben Dixon who's done a wonderful job here, but I would like

to see it grow and develop and evolve to the point where we don't need to have

separate thinking and separate groups and have to have a black 01:39:00this and the

other this. I'd like to see that, and that's--I might have been ahead of my

time, but in '53 that's what I was here for. I say that in reflecting on it, in

retrospect, because I couldn't have known or foreseen all of the things that

have happened subsequently. I couldn't at that point. It was too harsh. It was

too cold. It was too cut and dried. It was you here and them there, and it

wasn't that. But I can see in retrospect in my mind that that's what I was

shooting for, that's what I was hoping for, and that's what I hope, 01:40:00 eventually,

although I couldn't see it and articulate it then, that's in essence what I had

hoped would eventually have happened. Although, there's a Department of

Multicultural Affairs, and I thank Tech for having that because maybe in the

logical sequence of things that was necessary. I just hope that eventually we

can get to the point where we won't need that, where that isn't a part of the

university experience. I'd like to see every student come in here accepted as an

individual, and there not be a need for a department that addresses the

individual needs or the collective needs, for that matter, of a particular group

of students, particularly a group of students with a particular ethnic

background. I would like to see that happen. I am sure that we will 01:41:00reach that

like we have come this far from 1953 when I was accepted. You've got to have

some people out there. You've always got to have that. You can't sit and operate

on the premise of what the majority of people won't accept because if we had a

referendum on the end slavery, do you think we would have gotten rid of slavery?

Absolutely not, it was too economically feasible. There were too many people

profiting from that. Do you think if it were submitted as a referendum to the

people in 1861, '62 or so do you think we would have been able to get rid of it?

Absolutely not. They wouldn't have voted it 01:42:00out, but as in any case, in any

situation, it takes forward thinking visionary people who can see beyond the

morass of involvement and all of the so-called problems that these

situations generate because there are always problems. You try to put two people

together who are convinced that separately that they are the only things that

are right and good for the world because what happens if one happens to be black

and another one happens to be white? They would never come together if they were

totally staunched in their own ideas or their own self-worth, and what they were

about. You can't have that group and this group, but that's not what this is

about. It's about people who can see beyond the separateness, the individualness

of these particular ethnic groups or whatever groups that they constitute, and

the folks saying to themselves, this is something that needs to 01:43:00happen. Whether

it is an underground railway during the slavery, or whatever, there need to be

people who can step forward and say, "That's not the way it should be. That's

the way it is, but we don't accept that." You need people that run the railway,

the people who get them out, because you need the people that think that way and

are forward thinking and visionary enough to say, "Hey, this is the way it is,

but it darn sure isn't the way it ought to be, the way it should be," and you've

got to have that. I wasn't all that visionary 'cause I didn't think that far

ahead, I was just thinking right now. I was thinking in '53 that I shouldn't

have been a second-class citizen. I shouldn't have had to endure the pain of a

second-class citizen. I shouldn't. Why? I didn't deserve it. I had those same

values as those who were decreeing that I should be a second-class citizen. We

always need those sort of people, those kind of people, who 01:44:00think they are Henry

David Thoreau. The people who say, "Hey, this isn't right, and we shouldn't

subject our people to this, and whatever it takes we are going to stand up

front." The freedom riders, they are the people that should be commended, not so

much me because I didn't endure the all of the torture and the pain of those

folks. They were so beautiful. We have got to have people who could say, "What

we're doing and what's happening now is not where we ought to be going." We've

got to look beyond that and see that these, the kind of things that we are

enduring now we are 01:45:00subjecting certain people of our society to shouldn't be

happening. That's what, that's what we need, and that's what ought to be

happening, and that's what ought to be going on now. Basically, that is what is

happening now. We've got people now who are speaking out whether it's in

reference to a possible future war involving a country, or whether it is

possibly someone entering a club or setting where they weren't allowed a few

years ago. Whatever, there ought to be people out there who say, who have a

conscience, and who are saying, "I'm going to enact my conscience in some way,

and I am going to step forward and be counted. I am going to stand." The measure

of a man is not where he stands in comfort and 01:46:00convenience but where he stands

in conflict and controversy. It is so easy to get up and be one of the guys if

everything is going well and all. That's not what it is all about. You've got to

stand up and be counted. You've got to factor in another thing-- there, but for

the grace of God go I. You know, I've often thought about some of the whites

who, some of the guys that came to me and said, "You know, Irv, I'd like to take

you home, and my parents would love to have you as a visitor, but it's the

neighbors." Do you know how many times I've heard that? I can't...

Kennelly: Your fellow students here?

Peddrew: Yeah, fellow students here. Like the guys that wanted me as a roommate.

I mean they stepped out, or the guys that allowed me to change in their rooms.

They didn't have to do that either. You know there's always a segment of our

society of people who are not content to go along with the 01:47:00crowd, who see things

as they should be seen not as the way they are. There will be those forward

thinking visionary types who are going to do that. Those are the people we ought

to look to for guidance and direction. Not the ones that group together and seek

the safety and comfort of the average or the so-called majority and this kind of

thing. It is the people who stand out and say--we always look, and look back at

them and regard them as our real heroes. People who stood up and were able to

say, "What we are doing is not right. Even if I can't change it, I've got to let

you know that that's the way I feel." They have an impact, and eventually that

will occur. This life, when I integrated things and think it through, I never

thought, well not that I never thought, I never thought of 01:48:00it, I guess, that

somehow that I would be honored in some future time. I never thought that I

could come back here and walk, and go into any restaurant on Main Street. It

wasn't happening. I never thought that the campus, the theater that was off campus...

Kennelly: The Lyric?

Peddrew: Yeah, we had an integration one day out of the time that I was here,

and they showed Cry the Beloved Country. It was during brotherhood week that

they showed it, and we, the blacks mainly, we were allowed to sit downstairs.

Any other time that--I mean I was in cadet uniform or whatever I was in--I had

to march up to the top and sit up in the balcony with all the 01:49:00blacks. There

always have to be people who can think and see beyond that. We call them crazies

now sometimes, but they're all visionary. They are people who can see beyond the

extent of our current situation, see that what we are doing is not right and

good. It's not valuable, and it's not what it ought to be. Those are the people

that are going to lead us, hopefully, into a different world. They're the folks

who are at the forefront of change and who say, this is what's happening, but

this is not what should be happening. They're the folks that should be lauded

and applauded. So often they are labeled as the strange one or the ones who are

out front or the crazies or whatever. A lot of times, they are the very people

who ought to be leading our movements, who ought to be looking at what we are

doing and ought to be out front saying, "Hey, guys, 01:50:00follow me, this is where we

need to be, not where we are right now, but this is what needs to happen. If you

could visualize totally what I experienced in '53 and see what's happening now,

you could see what I'm saying. It would be so obvious. It would be so apparent,

so evident, but it's hard unless I could convey, and it's difficult. I talked to

black students who can't imagine what I experienced in '53. I mean they have no

way, but they should be made aware of that history. Who was it that said, "Those

who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it?" That is so true and so beautiful.

Kennelly: Not just black students...

Peddrew: Yeah, oh absolutely. Oh yeah. I didn't mean to limit it to the black

students, but they should have a greater, black students should 01:51:00have a greater

appreciation of what has gone before. They think that it is so easy now, and

they complain about some of the trivial things. I remember a couple a few years

ago the students at Duke University asking for separate water fountains, excuse

me? I know what they are saying. I know where they're heading. I know what

they're doing. They were, they're trying to compensate, and overly so, for all

those years of segregation and demeaning and being put down. But I couldn't, but

at first when at first I saw it, and they were interviewing some of the black

students that were asking for separate water fountains, I'm thinking, oh my

goodness. We were forced to, at one time, have separate, but it's their pride

now is building up to the point where they are trying to 01:52:00say, I'm better than

you. I do deserve a separate water fountain. I understand where they are coming

from. I couldn't have said that, and I couldn't have been a part of that

movement. That was only a few years ago. I'm talking about '53. If you look

back, and you've got to see all of these things in perspective, you view what

has happened, how far we have come. You'd say, we have come a long way, but we

have a long way to go. That's what I see now. I see here because of some of the

problems now on the campus that I was informed of before I agreed to be a part

of the fiftieth year celebration. I was told that there was a possibility of --I

talked to certain people. Some people assured me that there were no problems

here. That's totally unrealistic. You can't convince me that there are no

problems. What you need to say is that you don't think that they're substantial

enough to require the attention that these folks are asking for. I went beyond

that, and I said, "My dad used to have a little expression. He used to say that

there's too much smoke, there's got to be a little 01:53:00fire." That was to me, you've

got all of these folks saying something there's got to be something beneath it.

There's got to be some underpinning that the folks that are crying out 01:54:00for some

attention and need. That's before I agreed to come here and be a part of this,

these ceremonies. I asked simply that these problems be aired and addressed. Not

that they all be resolved, because I wasn't convinced that there was totally

with all that much credibility. I just didn't know because I wasn't aware of all

of the problems. I wasn't aware of the history of the problems and the people

who were complaining. I just asked, simply, "Just an honest answer. Could you

open the channels of communication and address some of these problems? Just hear

them out." A lot of times that's all that's really necessary, that they be

heard. People ought to know that they matter, and that they count. Again, you

are going to have some people who sit back and say, "Well, my problem is that I

am black, and you just don't want to accept me." Well that's not always true.

Sometimes it is, but it's not always true. What you need to do is to 01:55:00have some

sort of machinery in place that allows these kinds of grievances or concerns to

be addressed. You need to have that. Whether they are real or imagined, somebody

needs to deal with people. If they aren't real or not creditable, they need to

be told that. You need to be showing why they are not, but you don't need to

walk around with your fingers in your ears pretending they are not being said.

That's the terrible part. You need to open up some channels of communication,

and that's all I said initially when I talked to the folks here at Tech. I said,

"Please allow these people to be heard. I don't know where the problem is

because I haven't researched it or anything. I've been 01:56:00brought in at the end of

this thing, so I don't know all this. I don't have the perspective that allows

me to adequately address the problems or to hear them, or to know if they are

real or imagined or whatever. You can't tell anybody whether they are real or

imagined, or whether they are creditable or not if you don't hear them. If you

don't allow them, allow these folks to address these problems, to open up a

channel of communication. That's what I would like to see." There is always

going to be some sort of differences, real or imagined. There are going to be

problems, real or imagined, because we are all different, and God bless the

differences. I hate to see us all one homogenous [laughter] and all look like

each other. Seriously, we need to allow the diversity that exists to 01:57:00 be

expressed, to be open, to be allowed. We need that. That's the beauty of this

country, is our diversity. It's not a problem. It's a big plus. It's not a

negative. It's a huge plus, and the more cultural differences and diversities

that we address and allow, the better off we are. You're not going to have a

good complete society with the understanding that we are all there and we are

all a part of it unless you allow these diversities to be expressed. When I went

to this project Students in Vocation back in 1956, the beauty of it was we had

people from all over the world, male and 01:58:00female, from all over the country, from

the South and the North and the West, and we could all sit and talk. We could

all express our views, and we had people in control of that who were really not

in control, can you understand that? They allowed us to be ourselves, but not to

channel the thinking of any individual, but to allow us to all be our individual

selves. This was the thinking that promoted the idea that I should stay out

there and finish my education. We had all different ethnic backgrounds, people

from all parts of the world, all parts of the continental U.S. We were

functioning; we were having a fine beautiful time in that setting. That is what

you need globally. Not even restricted to the U.S., but globally we need to

understand that we all have problems, we all have wants, desires, we all have

aspirations. It's 01:59:00not restricted to any. No one has a corner of the market. No

one has a corner on the blues. I'm sorry. I'll get a lot of [laughter] negative

vibes from that. No one has a corner on the market of anything, and we should

each be allowed to seek our level of accomplishment, and be allowed to go

anywhere our mind and thoughts and energies and efforts can take us, in spite of

differences, culture, ethnic, or whatever. That should never be brought to play,

in that situation. It should never come up 02:00:00except to express the fact that

that's a difference. Well, it's not bad, but you're different. It's not bad that

you look different or think differently than I do. There's nothing wrong with

that. A lot of times we put down people who don't think like we do. I think I've

got the answer to the world [laugher]. That's not arrogance. That's just a

matter that I thought through a lot of situations, but I can't put down the

people that don't think like I do. You know, eventually they have changed my

mind about a lot of things that I thought because I allow myself to reexamine

what I think, all the time. If I am so good, so sharp, and I am so visionary,

why shouldn't I allow my thoughts to be challenged? Why shouldn't I allow you to

think differently? If I am so good and so righteous, why shouldn't I? 02:01:00 Why

shouldn't I consider what you think? What I think is that--I think basically

as--I think a person should, but I'm not always right with that because I have

changed my mind on situations. I have. That's only because I have allowed myself

to be open enough to accept other inputs. You've got to do that, but with people

who are in charge of this, or in charge of different groups or this department

or this university or that university, or you've got to have people in those

positions who allow the differences. You can't put down the thoughts and

differences of other people. Even because they are different from the masses, or

the so-called average. You've got to allow those things to be voiced, and you've

got to allow yourself the opportunity to examine 02:02:00them in light of your own

opinions. Whoever said that they've done all the right things in all the

situations of the world? They've got to be idiots. I mean you don't, they don't

exist. What we've got to do is to allow ourselves to understand, to hear, to

analyze, to critique, the opinions and ideas of others. If we are so right, so

right on, to think we know what we are doing is absolutely the right thing. Why

can't you allow yourself to be challenged? I think so much of my ideas that I

never ever think that they should be challenged. I welcome the challenge. Those

are the ways that I have learned. The challenges that I have accepted, those are

the things that have changed my mind. You can't, no one has all the experiences

in the world, and no person who 02:03:00understands all of the problems who knows all,

sees all. That individual doesn't exist. Until you have allowed yourself to

entertain the ideas and difference, the ideas of all kinds of differences

whether they be ethnic or cultural or social or whatever. Until you have allowed

those ideas to be challenged and allow yourself to think through these

situations and to constantly allow yourself to examine and reexamine your own

ideas, you've not really fulfilling, to me, this is my own idea, you are not

fulfilling your mission. I think your mission, anyone's mission on earth ought

to be to make this a better place for us to live. How could 02:04:00you ever expect to

ever change, or to ever have situations evolve unless you express, unless you

look at different situations, different ideas, different philosophies, different

cultures? I learned so much traveling as a businessman in, when I worked out of

San Francisco for Castle & Cooke, and when I worked out of LA for Del Monte

Corporation. I got a chance to travel all over the world and meet different

people, to work with different cultures and languages. You know what it all did?

It all served to support what I always thought, even when I was a student here

at Tech. You've got to open up, and you can't go with some predisposed pattern

of thinking, some predisposed idea about what everybody else should do. How

could I sit here and dictate to you what you ought to be doing?

[End of interview--tape ran out while Mr. Peddrew was speaking.]

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