Dwania Kyles and Leandrew Wiggins

[00:05] DWANIA KYLES: Hi, my name is Dwania Kyles. I am 67 years old. Today's date is May 18, 2023. I'm in Nashville, Tennessee. My interview partner is Leandrew Wiggins, who is my friend and my Memphis 13 alum. Yes.

[00:35] LEANDREW WIGGINS: My name is Lee Andrew Wiggins, age 68. Today's date is May 18, 2023. Location is Nashville, Tennessee. My interview partner is Dwania cows, my friend, and Memphis 13 alum.

[00:56] DWANIA KYLES: So, Leandrew, first of all, I am just so excited that they picked the two of us to talk to each other. Cause, you know, that journey. But anyway, I don't know. Do you have brothers and sisters, or are you an only child? Cause I don't know.

[01:11] LEANDREW WIGGINS: I have brothers and sisters.

[01:13] DWANIA KYLES: And where do you fit in?

[01:15] LEANDREW WIGGINS: I'm somewhere in the third from the baby.

[01:21] DWANIA KYLES: So how many of it. How many were there of you?

[01:23] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Well, my mom was married three times, so it was about eight of us.

[01:27] DWANIA KYLES: Okay, so. But by 1961, how many was it just you and older siblings?

[01:33] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Six.

[01:34] DWANIA KYLES: It was six. And you were at that time, like the fourth or the fifth. Okay, so I didn't know that. So you. So when the desegregation process started in Memphis, Tennessee, I never knew. Tell me that story, because did you get the call the night before or something like that?

[01:54] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Actually, I was an alternate.

[01:57] DWANIA KYLES: Right.

[01:58] LEANDREW WIGGINS: So I was scheduled to go to Lincoln elementary or Orleans, so somebody didn't make it. So my father was big in the naacpennae, and he got a call that they needed another child. So it was like, hey, I got one. So that's when I got the call to be a part of Memphis 13.

[02:27] DWANIA KYLES: Oh, I didn't know that. So your father was working with the NAACP in Memphis?

[02:32] LEANDREW WIGGINS: He's big at times, yes.

[02:34] DWANIA KYLES: No, you know, I did not know that.

[02:35] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Yeah.

[02:36] DWANIA KYLES: Okay. And so you just happened to be the right age at the right time. So you never went to Lincoln or the other schools. So when you went to Rozelle, that was the first.

[02:45] LEANDREW WIGGINS: That's my first, very first school. And trying to be a big boy, it was a big thing for me. It was a big deal, because you see your mother, father going to work or whatever, and you sit back and just want to emulate them. And this is my first day. I'm feeling like a big boy. Okay, I'm going to school. I'm finna do something big.

[03:10] DWANIA KYLES: So they just. So did you all get the call the night before or a couple of nights before?

[03:17] LEANDREW WIGGINS: To be honest, I'm not sure because I'm five, you know.

[03:21] DWANIA KYLES: Right.

[03:22] LEANDREW WIGGINS: So actually, a George Smith, I think he was, he was another big NAACP person in the neighborhood. Him and my stepfather were real good friends. So he got the call from Maxine Smith or somebody like that. And that's when all that happened. So I got drafted to go, okay, all right. And what about you? Did you, did your father, Reverend Cows, was this something y'all had planned, or y'all had talked about it, discussed it, or how did that go?

[03:57] DWANIA KYLES: Well, first, my parents lived in Chicago, so we were not from Memphis. We were from Chicago. My parents, both my parents met, and I never can tell the story without talking about their story because they were so young. They were like 24, 25 years old at the time, moved to Memphis because they wanted to be a part of the civil rights movement. I think at that time, Martin King had already started the bus boycott in Alabama. And so, you know, my father was a coming up minister, and he happened to come to Memphis, I say, to audition, whatever they call it, for a church in Memphis that had split. And so they were starting over, and he got the position. And with three small children under the age of four, we moved to Memphis. And since they wanted to be a part of it, and, you know, that's not always the easiest thing, because you need to be homegrown to do certain things. And they just jumped. They jumped in the deep end immediately. So dad was actually something like the director of education for the NAACP, Russell Sugarman and Aw Willis had been working on this, you know, since they first got the information back in the fifties, 56, 57, or whenever it passed brown versus board of education. So daddy was on there, and I tell everybody, I just happen to be the right age at the right time because my brother is 15 months older. My sister was 15 months younger at the time. My youngest brother hadn't been born yet. And I just happened to be the right age at the right time. And there was just, you can't go out in the field and ask other parents to do what you're not willing to do. So. Aw Willis son, who was, who was Michael, who's Fombi now? He was of the right age because I think he's two days younger. And we were both five going on six. And so we ended up being at the same school together. And it's really interesting because it wasn't until Daniel did the, it wasn't until Daniel did the documentary that I ever knew that I never went to Cummings because I lived in walking distance of Cummings elementary school, and that's where my brother went. And I would go with my grandmother sometime to pick my brother up from school. And I didn't know until. Cause I think in the documentary, I don't know if that part made it, but I can remember saying, I went to Cummings first. And then I remember hearing my father said, no, that was the first school she ever went to. And that's when I knew that Bruce was the first elementary school I ever went to. And we didn't go on the first day we went in October. And I think the reason that we did was because they couldn't find enough families, because they really had to vet families. That's why it's so interesting. And I'm asking, how was it that you came? Because I never knew that until, I think we were at WDIA after the documentary had come out. Yeah.

[07:18] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Was money Miller the first church your father was?

[07:21] DWANIA KYLES: That was his first and only church that he ever pastored. And that's what brought us to Memphis, Tennessee, and how he really became involved in the civil rights movement. And, you know, it really was a family on the first line, because we were just. He was at the front. And it wasn't just him. It was like the whole family. If there was whatever, we were going to be there, we were going to be one of those that was on the front line. And so what I try to get a lot of people to understand is that the desegregation process, what it being in the education system, was what really opened it up to the rest of the nation on a level that no other system had done up until that time. That's why that ruling was just. I don't know what other ruling has come after that that has been that magnanimous and that great as what? As brown versus board of education?

[08:23] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Well, you know, I think we were the second because we hadn't really moved where we were just recently, had moved there in the neighborhood.

[08:34] DWANIA KYLES: You're talking about in the neighborhood?

[08:35] LEANDREW WIGGINS: In the neighborhood. And I think we were, like, the second black family to move on that street.

[08:42] DWANIA KYLES: Get out.

[08:43] LEANDREW WIGGINS: And on top of that, after that, I started going to Rosal, and in the beginning, Razell was like, three or 4 miles from where I live. So some kind of way they had worked out where they would actually send a taxicab. Joyce. Joyce Bell and I. Yes, they sent a taxicab to pick us up every day and take you to school. Take us to school every day. And that soon, that didn't last very long. So that was another problem. On top of all the other things that were going on, that kind of made that come to an end after maybe a year or so.

[09:27] DWANIA KYLES: Now, you had older brothers and sisters at the time. What school were they going? Were they in elementary school and what school were they going to?

[09:33] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Well, they went to the regular neighborhood schools.

[09:36] DWANIA KYLES: They went to the reg. So what was the difference? And did you feel a difference in the experience that you were having as opposed to the experience that they were having when you all came home from school?

[09:48] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Of course they went to neighborhood schools. I went to a school where there was only four black children in the whole school, and that was the Raziel four. We integrated the school, and we were segregated with each other because they didn't put us in the same classroom or anything.

[10:10] DWANIA KYLES: So did y'all get to see each other when you went out on the playground? Y'all didn't, you know, back then, they.

[10:15] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Just kind of marched kids, you know, in and out and whatnot? No, never really got a chance to see each other. So that's the big difference. You know, they were, like, used to, you know, it was just everyday thing for them, just normal living. But for me, it was kind of hell when you went, and that was all day long. That was every day for a five year old. I think that's kind of rough because at five, you know, you're still a sponge. I mean, you're soaking in everything that surrounds you, and that kind of left a bitter taste in my mouth as a child.

[10:52] DWANIA KYLES: So do you remember your first day at Rosal or that first week?

[10:58] LEANDREW WIGGINS: I do. Kind of. Kind of, sort of. You know, when I think up until the last. Until about 2010, when Daniel Keogh brought this, brought this out, brought this to the light, out of the darkness. It's something that I think your mind erases a lot of stuff, trauma stuff like that. And you just go through life with it and not even think about it. And then when somebody come along and bring it back, open it back up then. And with interviewing with you and the rest of the 13, it kind of, you know, wakes up a lot of stuff that was there that you really didn't know or forgot that was there. So I think as we go on, like, I learned something new every time we even get together. Right, because it's something in the black neighborhood, you hear gunshots all the time. Well, that's normal. But, you know, people get mistreated. That's kind of normal. It's kind of a norm. But at that time, as being a child, that's kind of hard. Yeah, that's kind of hard on five year olds. Just learning the world or trying to learn the world. And as life go on, it pretty much is the same way, you know.

[12:23] DWANIA KYLES: So was there a particular incident or many incidents that happened at school that really. Because I never knew seriously until. Until we did the mural reveal this past October. And I asked Ga. I was like, ga. When I go back and I look at the documentary, the kids that went to Rozelle, they had a much harder time than the kids who went to any of the other schools. And I asked him why. He said, Dwania that was the blue collar neighborhood. So he didn't say this, but I'm saying this. That's equivalent to trumpsters, you know, in 2023. And so they are, you know, and the neighborhood that I went to school in, the neighborhood that Springdale was in, was white collar workers. So there was definitely, you know, a lot of racism in the schools that basically came from the older teachers, because, thank God, my first grade teacher was young Miss Patrick. She had to be in her twenties, newly married, I think. And so that made it easier. But Rosal was in the heart of. So those families in the Rosal neighborhood were equivalent to those folk that were in that the little Rock nine came up against. Yes, that was that energy.

[13:54] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Yes, that was.

[13:55] DWANIA KYLES: Because if they had been. If they had been allowed to come out of. They would have definitely been throwing bottles or whatever and, you know, using.

[14:06] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Well, you know, that's actually where the term white flight came from. Because once we started there, and I had one white friend that I can remember. His name was John Henry.

[14:17] DWANIA KYLES: Okay?

[14:18] LEANDREW WIGGINS: But that was short lived because his parents took him out. Like I said, that's where white flight came from, because it's like, no, you don't do that. You don't associate with them. You know, simple as that. And I do remember one thing that actually comes to mind. I can't prove it, but one day, Buford Ellington, which was a governor of Tennessee at the time, and he actually kind of had a hand in. I think he placed the first black man into some position. He actually flew to Roswell in a helicopter. I remember that. And they let me on, on the helicopter, and I miss vague. And I can't, you know, I can't find anybody to confirm that, but I doubt if my mind would just create something like that and just make it up. So I do remember that. But other than that, him and John Henry probably was the best two things ever happened during my era at Rosalind.

[15:30] DWANIA KYLES: So what other things were happening like, that just made you break down? Because I think you eventually told your parents, I just can't do it anymore.

[15:38] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Right, right. Well, those steps we were talking about that you enter. When you enter into the front door of Roswell, you'll see tomorrow. I remember going up those stairs and kids on both sides. You going up the center. Right. And you got kids on both sides, you know, using racial slurs and all types of things like that. That was like, on a daily basis. And most teachers would just kind of turn a blind ear.

[16:13] DWANIA KYLES: Yeah.

[16:14] LEANDREW WIGGINS: You know, so those are just some things that I can remember. And, you know, like I said, that's 60 plus years ago, so I don't remember it all, but I know it wasn't a pretty sight until I eventually told my mom. And on top of that, they stopped the cab, you know, stuff. So it's about time to take my child out of there. Getting a little too.

[16:36] DWANIA KYLES: So did you repeatedly say, I don't want to go to this school anymore. I don't want to go to this school anymore?

[16:41] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Well, you know, like, you come home, you know, first thing your parents gonna want to know know is, how did your day go?

[16:45] DWANIA KYLES: Absolutely.

[16:46] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Right. And, you know, my report wasn't very good every day.

[16:51] DWANIA KYLES: Right.

[16:51] LEANDREW WIGGINS: So, you know, once we got it started, they felt like, okay, well, that's enough.

[16:58] DWANIA KYLES: That's enough.

[16:58] LEANDREW WIGGINS: We got the ball rolling, right? So let's get the kid out, and they'll have to pick up the slack from there. And once I came back, I do remember being in Orleans the same day President Kennedy died. So I guess there was 63. Yeah, 63. So I stayed there a couple of years.

[17:22] DWANIA KYLES: Okay.

[17:23] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Yeah.

[17:24] DWANIA KYLES: Okay.

[17:25] LEANDREW WIGGINS: So that's how the story went at Roswell. But I don't know, everybody seemed like everybody went there. Clarence Williams. I know Joyce ec. I never really got a chance to talk to her. Felt the same way.

[17:41] DWANIA KYLES: Yeah, that broke my heart. When Clarence says, oh, that experience taught me, I know what my place is. Then he say something to that, I know what my place in life is, you know, and when he talks about, you know, being in the lion's den and you the pork chop and, you know, and being on the front line and when you five years old, when you get hit, how much that hurts. He was just so prolific to me in terms of how he expressed. How he expressed that. But here again, he went to Rosal. So you all got it out the gate hard where we got it, you know? And I always felt like what I always tell people is if they had left the first graders alone, we would have been fine. It was the older kids. And lo and behold, if you had an older brother or older sister that saw their little first grade sister or cousin or whoever playing with you, because they would go and tell on, they'd be like, you be around that little nigga, I'm gonna be telling mama. And you know what's gonna happen to you when you get home.

[18:56] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Exactly.

[18:57] DWANIA KYLES: So, yeah, so then they would have, the next day, you wouldn't have a friend, or the next week, you wouldn't have a friend. And so I think that was what was really hard. But a lot of times when people ask me, you know, well, what was the first day like? I was like, you know, it wasn't about racism the first day. I mean, I realized, and only because I thought I had gone to Cummings, you know, but just going to pick up my brother and drop him off or whatever, you know, I knew the kids were not black. I knew that at five years old, but I didn't. I wasn't afraid, and I didn't think any harm was going to come to me. And I always tell people when they ask me about that first day, I was like, well, I was more pissed at my parents for leaving me someplace by myself. Like, where are you going? Where? Dwania Where's Dwayne? What do you mean? I'm staying here by myself. I was more devastated from that being the first day of school, and this. This is going to be the first time that I'm away from my parents and not with somebody that I know.

[20:05] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Right.

[20:05] DWANIA KYLES: You know? So that was really hard for me. That was what was the hardest in those first few days. And then, you know, if I'm in the bathroom, you know how they used to line the whole class up, and the boys would go to the bathroom and the girls would go, and then they let a certain amount go in, and then when they came out, then the other set would go in. Well, lo and behold, if any of the older kids came in, I just remember I hated going to the bathroom. I hated going to the bathroom because inevitably one of the older kids would come in and I would try to sit on the toilet, and it was a very difficult thing to do because I'm five years old, five, six years old, I'm trying to sit on the toilet, and I'm trying to hold the door open, I mean, close, because the older girls would come and open it and ask me to show them my tail. And, you know, in those days, you know, black people were supposed to have tails, you know, literally on our bottoms. We were supposed to have tails. And, you know, their bullying wasn't the word at that time, you know? But here again, it wasn't coming from other first graders or even second graders. It was always coming from the kids that were older, your fifth graders, you know? You know, I always forget what grade it did. It was it one through six or whatever, you know, it was always the older kids, though, you know, which is one of the reasons why in Memphis, as I understand that the NAACP wanted to start with the babies, you know, I love it when Fombi says we were babies, you know, and we were, and, but, but I think that's why it was nonviolent. I think that's why people don't know our story, because they don't want folk to know that the desegregation integration process really did work until they started undermining it.

[22:14] LEANDREW WIGGINS: So do you think it would have not been violent if we hadn't had hundreds of police?

[22:21] DWANIA KYLES: I think as I. As you know, it was Daniel's film that really brought us back to it. I couldn't even articulate what I can talk about now when Daniel first. And even in the film, I cringe when I look at the film because I'm like, eh, eh. I'm not using my words. I'm using all of this. But that's how it was coming up for me, you know, and I don't know how big I was on really sharing things because to survive, because of the 13, I was the only one that went from one through twelve. So my experience was really crazy, you know, and so thank God that Daniel wanted to do this film and want to know what happened to those kids that did that. But as I've done some research, I think I remember seeing where the chamber of commerce was like, we are trying to bring new business into Memphis, so we do not want anything to go wrong. So the fact that we were babies and the fact that the business community had also stepped in and basically said to people, look, having all that that happened over in Arkansas, that's not what we're going to do here. But by the same. And few people know that at the end of that first day of October 3, 1961, President Kennedy and his brother call the Mayor Loeb, you know, who was a staunch racist, who kept a shotgun under his desk, you know, to congratulate him on the success of the nonviolence. And I really believe with all my heart, because it was nonviolence and because we're always just looking for sensationalism, that that is the reason that nobody really knows our story and how, you know, and how well everything went that first day.

[24:23] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Plus, I'm sure with the chief of police telling his man the night before that, if y'all can't protect these young negroes, turn in your bass tonight.

[24:37] DWANIA KYLES: Ain't that something?

[24:38] LEANDREW WIGGINS: I'm pretty sure that had a little something else to do with it, because he said, I'm a segregationist. I always will be. But I'm a law man, so I gotta do my job. Wasn't about us, about the job.

[24:55] DWANIA KYLES: So, you know, honey, it was about job and money. Let's get that straight. You got the chamber of commerce saying, look, we trying to bring business to Memphis, so we're going to do this right. So, you know, I'm just glad that whatever it took, that we did it and it went off without a hitch. And. But one of the things that really hurt, I think, even even more so, there was no relief for me. I don't know about for you, but there was no relief for me because I would go to school during the day and be bullied and shunned by the white kids. Then I would go to my neighborhood and be shunned because I thought, supposedly I'm better than everybody else. Cause you go to that white school, so you're just getting it from both sides. So what happens is, is you just shut down. Thank God for Dwayne and Drishina that you have your brother and your sister, because that becomes your world until you get older and the other kids start going to maybe middle school or what have you. But when I think about growing up, why was I always so, who was I the closest to? And it was like the Willises, the Smiths, and everybody I was the closest to, they were either children of ministers like my dad, or they were NAACP families, you know, that were the ones that were always the ones that were showing up.

[26:35] LEANDREW WIGGINS: So you actually went to Bruce from one through twelve?

[26:38] DWANIA KYLES: I went to Bruce, then I went across the street to Bellevue, and then I went up the street to Central and graduated from central in the 12th grade. And it was really hard because I graduated with white kids that I loved, you know, and you couldn't. You weren't free to even, you know. Yeah, I had white boy. I didn't have white boyfriends when I was in school, but that didn't mean I didn't like them. You like who you are around. You like what your environment is.

[27:09] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Love is not a color.

[27:10] DWANIA KYLES: Well, that's true, you know, but the world doesn't live in the world like. And we don't live in the world like that, you know? And I think that's why I'm so excited about the opportunity that we have with the foundation that we will be able for everybody to be able to tell their side of the story, because it doesn't make a difference what side of the coin that you are on, really, both sides of those coins were filled with pain. You know, pain. Pain that we even have to do something called desegregate pain, because why aren't we living in the world like human beings as opposed to all of these labels that we've given ourselves? You know, we're just stuck on labels and figuring out yet another way to separate. How can we separate ourselves even more? And so, you know, having the opportunity to curate experiences where people can come and learn to listen, first of all, because that's what we don't. We're not good listeners. We don't listen well, which is why this is such a great project, because people can go and listen and to real people's stories, and then through those stories, we will find out we are really not that different. And whether I'm on this side of the coin and I'm in pain because you're not. Because at the end of the day, everything is money. You're not putting enough money into these schools, these black schools, as opposed to the white schools, where you're putting all the money. And. Or if I'm on that side of the coin and I'm like, I don't want my kids. I'm afraid. I don't want my kids going to school with those kids for things that aren't even really real, but for false belief systems. So, until we are able to be in a situation where we help to curate the experience that people can have in terms of learning how to listen to each other, listen to your story, listen to my story, you know, across, you know, and make sure that the audience is balanced, who's having that experience. So we have to create these experiences, which is one of the things that I think could have been done during desegregation if they had really wanted it to work, because you can't. You know, when we had the mural reveal at Bruce, right before COVID hit Jeremy, one of the journalists, you know, I'm not gonna say his last name, and he was kind of upset with me because he wanted me to be very militant, and he was like, oh, what do you think? How do you feel that the schools are as segregated? This was in 2020. The schools are as segregated in 2020 as they were in 1960. When I looked at him, I was like, in 1961, it was about the law. So I don't care what we needed to do. The law needed to change just so we could have the option. That was first. That was key, the law to change. I was like, now, in 2020, we have to look at it and say, okay, why are we still here? Where we were, you know, what was that, 50 some odd years ago, you know, 58 years or so ago? Why are we still there? Obviously, it's not about law. So what is it? You can't. You didn't go with us to the Capitol? At the Capitol, when I was. When I spoke on behalf of the Memphis 13, I was like, it's not enough to change laws. What are the hearts? What is the belief that accompanies changing a law? Because if we're not shifting how people feel in their hearts, if we're not allowing oxytocin to help open that heart space up so the heart can start helping to shift the belief system, because so much of what we do, not just in the education system, so much of the way we live on the planet, is just so backwards. And it doesn't have. It has to do with things. They've got us, you know, addicted to things. When you ask a person what makes you happy, they'll tell you some food that they eat or some vacation that they want to take. But what just makes you happy? Can you just make yourself happy sometimes? Can you laugh at yourself like that? Do you love yourself well enough to do something like that?

[31:56] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Well, segregation, integration. Do you think a teacher can actually teach a student that he or she despises properly?

[32:12] DWANIA KYLES: No, I don't. I don't.

[32:15] LEANDREW WIGGINS: You know, so back to the fact of changing hearts. You got to change hearts to change minds. You can't. I mean, you can. You can change the racism picture frame, but racism remain the same.

[32:28] DWANIA KYLES: Right?

[32:29] LEANDREW WIGGINS: See what I'm saying? You can put the laws and flip them and all that. But if it's still. The picture's still gonna be the same.

[32:37] DWANIA KYLES: Right. And that picture is gonna be filled with pain.

[32:39] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Right.

[32:40] DWANIA KYLES: And it. Cause it's rooted in the pain. Or at least this is. You know, this has been my experience. You know, I went to New York to pursue a career in theater, and literally, I would be at a table like this. You know, the producer, the director, the writer would be on that side of the table. I'm on this side of the table, and, you know, doing my monologue, and the white director would look me in my eye and say, yeah, well, that was good. But this time, I'd like for you, could you do it over for us and could you be more black? I didn't want to act anymore, and that's all I had ever wanted to do all my life.

[33:29] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Exit stage left, right.

[33:32] DWANIA KYLES: No, it was worse than that. The first time it happened, I had to. I was shook. I was shook, and I had to breathe. The second time it happened, you know, because you know what they meant. They wanted you to be ghetto. They want you to do all the neck rolling and all of that, you know, which was not my life, you know? And so I just, you know, I tried to have a little bit more patience. The second time. The third time it happened, I literally saw myself in my head jump over the table, and I was strangling the person. This is what was going on in my head when they said that, because. And I think. I think my eyes start rolling up in my head a little bit. And I think I just walked out of. I think I just walked out of the audition, and I really believe that was probably the last audition I went to. I said, you know, as long as I can be creative, I'm good. Because if another asked me that question, I'm gonna hurt somebody, and I'll be blacklisted in this community for the rest of my life because I'm gonna hurt somebody for real. And that was all of what had been buried all those years and just bubbling up that, and I knew that's what it was. And so I didn't trust myself to go to auditions because they're just. They were so horrid, you know, nose jobs, you know, so my nose was too black, you know, just what they thought they could say. And I was like, you know what? I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, and folk knew better than to talk to you like some of the that's coming out of these mouths, so I'm going to do something else. So I got into the music industry and started writing. I went there on a scholarship to dance, you know, so I just focused on the other areas of creativity because I just didn't want to do anything where I had to go and audition again. And even when I got in the music industry, they were like, they were like, the black people would say my songs were too pop, and then the white a and r people would be like, just cause I'm black. Well, we're not looking for any r and b. Same song, same song, both sides, you know? So it's like, when do you get a chance to win, you know? When do you get a chance to win, you know?

[35:57] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Yeah. Well, my desegregation experience put in my mind to always stay two steps ahead, because I knew what was possibly waiting on me out there. And I've always had a mindset of when I got my first driver's license. I got special chauffeur license. Back in the day, that was a thing. That way, if they couldn't, if they didn't want to accept driver's license. Okay, well, I got special shuffle license. How about that? You know, I've always. I've bought real estate. I even bought a piece of Elvis Presley's land back in what, before he died. Just things that, you know in life from your past that you want to try to jump that hurdle in the future. So having my own has always been a pet peeve of mine, and I've always looked at that, and desegregation brought that about for me.

[37:07] DWANIA KYLES: Yeah. Yeah. It's been an interesting ride. And if anybody had asked me, would I think I would be working with the Memphis 13 foundation right now really getting that story? It wasn't really a story that I was interested in telling. It was a story that I really went to New York. Part of my wanting to go to New York was to be anonymous. I wanted anonymity. I just. I was just tired. I remember in the 11th grade, when I was applying for colleges, I literally stood up in the dining room chair, and I told my parents, I will not. I have done my part. That's what I told them in a skirt that was way too short for me to be standing up, you know, but I told them, I said, I've done my part, and I will not be going to a white college or university. It is time for me to have a black experience in the education system, so I will be going. And I think I was the only one of my siblings, other than my sister. My sister followed me to Spelman, and she stayed for two years, but I was the only one to graduate from a historically black university, which was Howard University. I went to Spelman for two years, and because I wanted to take an extra year, I went to Howard for three and graduated from Howard. My brother graduated from Lake Forest, which was one of the richest colleges, small private colleges in this country. And my sister graduated from George Washington, which was another pretty big college. And my youngest brother, he came six years later, and I think he ended up graduating from University of Memphis. He started off at Lake Forest, but I think he ended up graduating from the University of Memphis, I'm not 100% sure, but I had done my part, and so I didn't. And my father was the only one that would ever talk about that process. But that was in his story from the witness, you know, so he would talk about that because he would go all over talking about the witness from the balcony of room 306, you know, his experience with Martin King. So I would only hear about it then, and I remember I would never go hear my father speak. I think I had to be about 35 when I finally went to hear him talk about that, because after the assassination, he was just so shook up with the whole thing that he didn't know what to do for the first ten years and was really a bad ten years because he would just wake up, you know, with having nightmares and screaming and all that kind of stuff. And people don't understand the other side of assassination. Right, right. And so, finally, when I finally did go and hear, I, you know, when he had figured out what he needed to do, and without me ever asking him, I always would tell people, I said, my father has to talk about it because it's helping him heal. You know, that's why I understand why it's so important for us to heal. And that's really what's problem. The whole world, we just need to heal because we're in just too much pain, and we're just in this loop, and we're in this loop, and we don't know how. But it was so interesting after. I think it was. I think it was after he's passed that someone who had been working on a documentary actually gave me some of the print out of, you know, what he had talked about, so. Of what? The script. It wasn't a script, but, you know, what he had said, the translation of what he had said, and he said it was. It was cathartic for him to talk about that, so he felt good because he helped give people closure, but it was just as much for him. And I began to feel that way with our story. And before we finish, I just want you to know that I'm so happy to be sitting here doing this with you, Leandro, because you didn't want to be a part of us, because you felt like. Because it was only six months or however long it was that you didn't deserve. And I just didn't agree with you, and I just. I just kept. I just kept at you, and I know everybody else did, too, but I just wasn't gonna let that go. So I couldn't think of a better person to be sitting here doing that.

[41:39] LEANDREW WIGGINS: I appreciate it. Like I said once before, it's kind of like preacher. Being called a preacher. Some sentence, some just went right. So I think it's just my legacy.

[41:48] DWANIA KYLES: Yes.

[41:49] LEANDREW WIGGINS: To take the word on. I mean, I try to. And my thing now is kids. I just want kids to know. I try to have them to. Thing I was taught as a child is one thing about education. If they can take anything else away, they can't take that. Absolutely right. I try to instill in kids to good better best, make your good better and your better best. You know what I mean? So if I can get one out of ten, right. To do better or to realize where you come from and to protect your future. Because without the kids, the future is very damn right. I don't know what mindset kids are in nowadays. Somebody got to get them out of it because, you know, you don't want to let the things that have been built up fall down. That's kind of defeating the purpose. Yeah, right.

[42:54] DWANIA KYLES: Going backwards.

[42:55] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Right, going backwards.

[42:56] DWANIA KYLES: I agree.

[42:57] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Somebody needs a shoulder to stand on. We had to stand on, you know, somebody's shoulder and, you know, they need to have a shoulder for somebody to stand on. Just try to keep. Keep the conversation going, if nothing else. I mean, we've come a long ways, but we got a long ways to go, but if you stop, everything stops. It goes back to the way it was.

[43:19] DWANIA KYLES: I don't think you try real hard to do that right. Make it great, everything, you know? And it's not that I want to go back. I want us to create new systems and move forward. I don't need to fix what's broken because it wasn't, it's, it. It wasn't operating to the quality that it could be in the first place. So I'm not interested in reinstituting all of that. I'm really interested in creating systems that are sustainable and really sustainable, not that fake sustainable, because there's a gentleman that has a book out called the Culture of Make believe. And I just love that because I think that we basically live in a culture of what we want it to be or what we think it is, but nothing what it is. And I want us to be able to face that. I want us to be able to face that with courage. I want us to be able to face that with love and move from that vantage point and wanting to heal. Everything that I do is really focused on how do we heal. Because when we heal that is connected to the love energy. And when we are in that energy, then we can keep going from there.

[44:29] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Amen on that.

[44:33] DWANIA KYLES: Do we have time for a few follow ups? Oh, my gosh. This has been absolutely wonderful.

[44:40] LEANDREW WIGGINS: I'm curious.

[44:41] DWANIA KYLES: So many things I want to ask.

[44:43] LEANDREW WIGGINS: About, but were there noticeable kind of.

[44:48] DWANIA KYLES: Divisions within the black community when desegregation became girl?

[44:54] LEANDREW WIGGINS: They're all, and if so, what made.

[44:57] DWANIA KYLES: Your families opt in? You want to go first?

[45:01] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Go ahead.

[45:02] DWANIA KYLES: Um, yeah, but, yes, always. And there always has been. But I think if history has taught us anything is that it's never been. All the people that are responsible are even involved in the biggest changes that we've had are made in the United, not just in the United States, in the world, period. And so my parents wanted, my parents wanted to opt in because they could think of no better way to create a legacy and to help people than to be a part of it. We, like, my biggest thing today is people are always, I can't believe this happened. And I'd be like, how could you not believe it? Let's go back and look at the roots. How can you not believe that that happened? I can't believe when the right, the good thing happens, that's when I can't believe it. What about you, leah?

[45:59] LEANDREW WIGGINS: That's true. Exactly. Always. It's always been, always been different. Like I said before, we were the second black family to move on the street. And this is what, maybe 50, 60 houses on the street. Within a year's time, it was at least 40 of them, the white families were gone. So, you know, that's, that's on, that's at the start. That's five, six years old. So, yeah, it's always been. And my, like I said, my stepfather was an advocate of NAACP. And everybody he knew, he probably knew Dewana's father personally. Sure, you probably have seen him, but I, you know, you try to make bad good and by any means necessary. So that was a part of their thinking when they sent us over to.

[46:53] DWANIA KYLES: The school, wanting to make the world a better place for real, what that really means, not that fake, you know, we wanted resources. The black schools didn't have heat, you know, heavy with the lead. We got the old, they got the new books. We would get their old books, you know. No. Ever anything like ice cream, which is a big thing in the family, you know. Right, right.

[47:24] LEANDREW WIGGINS: I got a new book, I think. Well, partially new, kind of, sort of when I went to high school, and it had been maybe just turned five years from being all white.

[47:35] DWANIA KYLES: Yeah. So, so it was never that we want to come in and be disruptive, just to be disruptive. No. We are really wanting to know what it means to be human beings. Yeah. Just equal human beings.

[47:51] LEANDREW WIGGINS: No more, no less. Just equal.

[47:53] DWANIA KYLES: Yeah.

[47:54] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Yeah. I want my book. Look, just like her book.

[47:58] DWANIA KYLES: I want to have the options. I want to have options. You know, again, Jeremy got really upset with me because I said, jeremy, at this point, if we don't change hearts, we're going to keep repeating. If we don't change hearts and shift those belief systems, we're going to keep repeating the same thing over and over again. I said, but let me tell you this. We are undermining our children because we're not. I don't care. I don't even care if it's charter school, private school. I don't care what the school is. They are not getting the best education, especially in this country right now, first of all, with all this testing that's going on. So at the end of the day, are we looking at where the money is going? Because we're in America and we all know is follow the money. How many times can we hear that story? But it's really true. And when I say we live in the culture of make believe, people know that and they'll say that, but yet, and still they'll keep doing the same things that allow those practices, practices to still be in place. And so why are we even acknowledging it if that's what we're going to do? So it takes a few people, it takes a few people who are going to be consistent. I remember rightfully so. Six or seven years ago, some folks saying, well, they kind of just forgot about us. The NAACP, they came, they found us, and then they forgot about us. But the truth of the matter is, you have a small group of people who have moved on to the next thing, and you don't. There are no people who came up behind them to make sure that what we put in place was growing from that point, you know, so we've not done the best job. And I'm not just talking about in terms of civil rights. I don't think we do it in most systems that we have. We don't do a good job of having the follow through consistently as the ones who started it. Keep pushing the envelope forward. They can't be the same people that are going to come back here and maintain it. So who's back here maintaining it? And I think we dropped the ball in many different areas in our society. Like that.

[50:04] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Can I have you guys tell each other? I always have to remind myself to say that.

[50:10] DWANIA KYLES: What you remember about when your families or parents sat you down and told you you would be going to white schools?

[50:18] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Well, my parents were like, okay, you'll be going to Rosdale elementary, and your mission is we're trying to make things better for kids to look like you, black and brown kids. So with it being mama, saying that, first of all, that's a thumbs up. And in your mind, even at five. Oh, okay, I'm gonna do something that's gonna make it better for my cohorts, my friends and other people. And that was good enough for me, so I was off to it. Yeah.

[51:04] DWANIA KYLES: Yeah. I would have to agree with that. You know, it's not that I think I understood racism on a level at five years old. That just wasn't so. But what I did understand was we were constantly doing things that maybe everybody else wasn't doing the way that they were doing it. And it's real interesting because I still am like that in my life. And a lot of times people are like, oh, you just want to be different, to be different. I'm like, well, kind of like, no, my parents kind of taught me. I mean, I would come home and tell my parents things, which I think was so interesting. Just like you said, your parents checked in with you every day, right? There was no book on how to desegregate a school. It was so important to come home and talk about that experience that you were having, you know, because I don't know about you, but I just learned how to live in my head. It's amazing how you could just be in the room and nothing be there because you. I. It would just get to a point where I could just. I can't listen to what it is that they're saying because it doesn't make me feel good. And to know that I knew that as a five year old, as a six year old, and, like, reform be says, I was so happy for the lunchroom workers and the janitors who were black, because you knew they could just look at you in a certain way, and whatever pain you were going through, it just lifted that pain a little bit. But, you know, you knew that you were doing something. You didn't really understand the breadth and depth of it, but, yeah, you knew that whatever it was that you were doing, this was something. And that's why I always say family on the front line, because, yeah, we knew we were doing something. And you've mentioned a few times now.

[52:54] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Something that resonated with me, and that.

[52:57] DWANIA KYLES: Was kind of this. We're now at the point where, like, the laws are changed and we've got this harder step to change hearts and minds. And I'm curious if either when you.

[53:08] LEANDREW WIGGINS: Were students or now, whether you've seen.

[53:12] DWANIA KYLES: Examples of that happening at all. Is there a sign of hope that you've seen some of that? Absolutely, and unfortunately, I don't believe that those are the, the, just like our story, those are not the stories that they want to promote. And, you know, it's the proverbial they. We know who the day is. It's the very few people who have all the money in the world, while 98% of the people have the rest. How can this many people have over half of all the money in the world or have, you know, power over that money? And, you know, so as long as that faction, and we just, you know, we just allow ourselves to be controlled by them, we're going to keep experiencing the same thing over and over. So we're not going to hear from the schools and the students and the situations, which is why I'm also interested in the platform that we have and as it goes forward, to open this conversation up and really listen to everybody's story, because they are so different. The stories are so diverse. Just amongst the, you know, the ten of us that are still on the planet, they're very different. They're the same, yet they're very different. There are things about it that are just very different. So I think that, you know, having the opportunity to bring more people to the table and to listen to their stories, that we can, because y'all know it's all about story, we can begin to shift our hearts, understand what empathy is, and to understand, oh, my God, he's in as much pain as I'm in, which is what I've always said to you. I don't care if you were there. I know, you know, what it felt like as a five, as a six year old, and it was not easy. It just wasn't easy. But, yeah, I think. I think there's a lot of hope. I think there are a lot of folk that are approaching it, right, the schools, their school in Baltimore, anywhere where they put breath work and meditation and yoga in schools, they know that this works. They're not interested in people being empowered. You know, the proverbial thing, right?

[55:30] LEANDREW WIGGINS: I know them well. Well, yeah, I kind of see a little here and there, but. Oh, I kind of see a little here and there, but but at five year old, you got it. And just to show you the difference on my job that I retired from 30 some years my first week there as a late 20 year old, my manager, not the lead, not the supervisor, but my manager called me a nigger in a room full of white people. I didn't hear him. I'm standing in front of a big printer. Cause I was in it. A big printer. But he came to me later and apologized to me for that. And of course, you know, I was mad, but my supervisor said, leave you coming back? I said, I got to go and chill for a minute. But see, I'm talking about, it's always going to be some resistance. And that's why I'm so set on keeping the conversation going. And that's with anything else. You got to put the right people in place.

[56:46] DWANIA KYLES: Absolutely.

[56:47] LEANDREW WIGGINS: I mean, they say they have psychologists at a lot of these job interviews, but I can't tell. So keeping the conversation going, to me, I think, is going to be a cure.

[57:01] DWANIA KYLES: Yeah, it's key. It's key because it is the repetition of something that helps to bring about change. You know, people are so quick to say, I had a conversation, and then the counselor had a conversation, and the minister had. Those are conversations. What. What tools are we giving people that they can use? Every day I have a practice, I get up, I look in the mirror, and I say, when I go places, when I'm doing engagements, and especially when I'm doing it with high school students or even archies, we were at Archie's. That was middle school and high schoolers. And I say, get up in the morning. And every day you get up, look in the mirror, and say, I love you. Fall in love with yourself first so that we can begin to understand what love really feels like, because that is not what we get to see every day in the world. What does loving myself feel like? Okay. And then I tell yourself, and I am of great value to this planet. Simple things like that. If we were doing something like that, if everybody was doing that every day, I bet you we would go outside. Why is it so much easier for us to make each other feel bad? As opposed to, I don't care what a person got, and I live in New York. I don't care what a person's got on. And sometimes I've seen some of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen in my life, and I'm just like, my jaw drops. But I can always find something in that person that is beautiful, and I will just say, oh, my God, that is a beautiful color you have on your fingernails. Everything else could just be off and just like, ah, I want to run and scream, but. And when you do that, there's just something that comes over them. They light up like a Christmas tree and smile. Why is it so hard for us to. To play put that forward as opposed to making people feel badlandhouse? All right, we do have to wrap this now. Okay, so what we're gonna do is do 10 seconds of just silence so we can get some room tone, and then we'll stop the recording.