Gloria Pillow and Thomas Pillow

[00:06] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Hi, my name is Gloria Thomas Pillow. I am 75 years old. This is the 20 May 2023. We're in Nashville, Tennessee. I am here with my interview partner and husband, Thomas Pillow.

[00:25] THOMAS PILLOW: Okay. My name is Thomas Pillow. I'm age 76. Today's date is May 20, 2023, in Nashville, Tennessee. And I'm the interview partner with my wife, Gloria Pillow. Okay, I guess we get started here with the discussion itself. Okay. One of the first questions I have for you is, what did you think you would be when you grew up.

[00:48] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: From an early age, I knew. I didn't think I knew I was going to be a teacher. I just knew that I wasn't sure if I'd be an elementary school teacher, junior high, high, college, university. I just knew I would teach. I had wonderful examples. And my mother, who was an elementary school teacher, and my father, who was a professor as well as a theologian. And it was just something that I had a passion for even then, learning and reading. So it's no wonder that I ended up teaching literature.

[01:29] THOMAS PILLOW: Well, it's kind of a segue to the next question in that we're here to partially discuss your book as well as the events that occur during that period of time that you're discussing in your book. But you're an author as well.

[01:39] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Yes.

[01:39] THOMAS PILLOW: So how did you go from teaching to writing?

[01:44] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Almost by necessity, I earned my master's and PhD degree at the University of Chicago. So it goes without saying that at that institution, you are going to write. You are going to write if you want to get out alive. And I did. I went on to teach literature at Michigan State University. And in that process, you know, the whole professorial tenure process, it is also required that you write. Even though I loved writing, and I won't say it was second nature like reading is to me. But I enjoyed the writing, and I did a number of articles on literary criticism. Eventually, I did write a book based on my dissertation, which had to do with the maternal psyche in african american women's literature. And coming back to Nashville, marrying you, coming back to Nashville, I felt after a while, a real need to write this book about our segregated education.

[02:56] THOMAS PILLOW: The high school that we both went to.

[02:57] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Yes.

[02:58] THOMAS PILLOW: Yeah.

[02:58] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Where you did not notice me at all.

[03:02] THOMAS PILLOW: I noticed. I didn't say anything.

[03:03] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: All right.

[03:04] THOMAS PILLOW: I was bashful in those days. Now, the background of this is that there's a lot of discussions around segregated education that, that comes after the period that we're going to be discussing.

[03:15] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: You mean desegregation?

[03:17] THOMAS PILLOW: And we're going to be discussing the area, the period just before that in our high school. The title of your book addresses the fact that we were the last graduates of a high school. That's right before desegregation occurred in Nashville, Tennessee. Okay. How does this perspective add to the conversation about desegregation?

[03:37] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: I believe that the past is prologue. The past, as Faulkner said, is never dead. It's just. It weaves its web, and we are all a part of that. And it determines in large part, what we do, who we become, how we continue as. As life changes, whatever the dynamic is. And it's really difficult to understand the process of desegregation without knowing segregation. I mean, it's virtually impossible. And sadly, so many, like our granddaughter, when she was young, did not understand the concept of segregation because her education had been so open. But to me, it's a necessary. It's a necessary beginning or backdrop, at least, to understand, for example, why desegregation was such a huge issue, even in northern cities like Boston, like Chicago, like Minneapolis. And I did, incidentally, direct a desegregation initiative in Minneapolis for three years, where there was a lot of pain in dealing with the racial issues that came up as a result of this process, of our moving from segregated education to desegregation. So, for me, it's a natural flow. It's a dynamic that.

[05:08] THOMAS PILLOW: Okay, before we go farther into that area, just a question. In terms of your family background, what were your parents expectations and how do they view your future? Did they discuss those things with you?

[05:19] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: That's a chapter that I wrote in my book, and I'm so proud that my mother was able to read this chapter while she was still with us. Because our parents had so much to do with the positive aspect of our upbringing in a hostile, racist society and educational environment. I wanted to honor them, as well as very truly tell the story of how they navigated this incredibly fine line between too much love. Not that I think there can ever be too much love, not enough love, too much encouragement, not enough encouragement. The way they used tough love compiled with deep affection and deep encouragement and deep support, is something that lives with me and with, I think, our classmates to this day. So I shared what I think my parents did. They were always there for us. They were totally supportive parents, but they demanded a lot of us. We didn't understand at the time why sometimes they were so protective, why they were so vigilant, why they didn't allow for, you know, hanky panky. Or when it's study time, it's study time. But we understood more as we grew older and grew more aware of the world outside.

[07:06] THOMAS PILLOW: You and I have discussed this on several occasions. They created a cocoon.

[07:10] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Yes, they did.

[07:11] THOMAS PILLOW: We lived literally within several blocks of where our homes were, knowing which streets we could cross and which ones we couldn't cross.

[07:19] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: That's right.

[07:19] THOMAS PILLOW: We knew what neighborhoods we could go into.

[07:21] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: That's right.

[07:22] THOMAS PILLOW: We knew the people we could trust.

[07:23] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Yes.

[07:24] THOMAS PILLOW: And we literally lived in an environment of predominantly all blacks.

[07:29] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Yes.

[07:30] THOMAS PILLOW: Until we crossed those streets.

[07:31] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: That's right.

[07:33] THOMAS PILLOW: But our teachers and parents managed somehow or another to give us a world that felt safe.

[07:37] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: They did.

[07:38] THOMAS PILLOW: In spite of all that. That's, it was pretty unique.

[07:40] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Yeah, it was.

[07:42] THOMAS PILLOW: Now back to the education piece of that. How do you feel that segregated education affected you?

[07:49] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: I'm going to go back to, well, when we married 18 years ago and I came back to Nashville having spent my entire, I was born in Atlanta, but my family moved here when I was six, as you know. And I spent my entire elementary and high school years here in Nashville before going back to Atlanta for college and then other places. When I married you, that was a fine decision on my part. It brought me back here after 40 years and I emphasized the 40 years to make this point. I got involved in our alumni association and because I had studied so much psychology and psychoanalytic theory in graduate school, certain behaviors jumped out at me that I think had I lived here I would have missed. It's kind of like if you see somebody after a 40 year absence, it's going to really strike you. If you are with them day to day. It's really no big deal. But things came to me in bar relief that I think Nashvillians who had never been away from here did not grasp. And one of those things was that we as a group of people have certain behavioral commonalities that can be placed squarely at the foundation of the racial realities of our time, educational as well as social. And that's why I named the, I entitled the book. It's a mouthful, but I'm going to say it all at once. Who we are. Cameron High School alumni, parenthesis 1957 through 71. Close parenthesis comma, Nashville's last generation of segregated education. So that pinpoints us. And I wanted to do that because I wanted to put the major factors in how and why we became who we are. For example, I've noticed this about you. I noticed it when we were dating. You don't go into a place without knowing points of egress and ingress. No, you know exactly how to get in and how to get out. That's unfortunate in some ways, because we know where that came from. It's very fortunate in other ways because you're always, again, you're always vigilant. And as a black male, I can understand that more than for me, because it was more difficult, even if I can say that for males than for females.

[10:36] THOMAS PILLOW: I'd like to add one other piece of that. That's the apprehension of even going into those places.

[10:39] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: I understand that as well.

[10:40] THOMAS PILLOW: I was a pretty good product of segregation.

[10:44] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Yeah.

[10:44] THOMAS PILLOW: Brainwashed.

[10:45] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Weren't we all? Yes.

[10:46] THOMAS PILLOW: Clearly reluctant to do a lot of things that most people would take as just naturally normal. It's taken me a lot of years to get past that. Well, even today, I have some apprehension.

[10:56] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Do you know, there's a part of the book where I talk about our group having some sort of low grade PTSD. I really meant that. I don't think that's. Yeah, I don't think that's pressing the point too much, because when I look at some of our behaviors, look how quick we are to just say to the waiter, excuse me, we're seated here, right next to the bathroom. There are loads of other tables. Could we have another table? And as soon as we say it, we're never challenged. It's just. Oh, of course. But then why put us there in the first place? We are very, very aware of certain behaviors. Sometimes maybe a little slow to smile or to approach someone just because damaging, horrible messages that you are inferior. You have no business being here. You have germs, therefore, you can't eat at the same restaurant. You can't drink from the same water fountain. You're dirty and filthy, so you can't try on these clothes before you buy them. All these messages were so invasive and so damaging to our psyches. I think that's part of why I did a lot of study on psychology. Our parents and our teachers had to work so hard, not even to overcome these messages, but to try to get us to a place where we had some measure of decent self esteem.

[12:28] THOMAS PILLOW: Let's go back to show me your experiences in high school itself. How did those days in a segregated situation affect you and your educational process? What were some of the things you were exposed to? Handicaps or things that you felt you may have been denied or opportunities maybe missed?

[12:47] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Here's something that might seem contradictory, even counterintuitive, but it's not at all when you think about why I wrote the book and the kind of work that our parents and teachers and community leaders and community members. For that part, community members did for us. We were in an all black situation. Not one white face, not among the janitorial staff, the lunchroom staff, completely black, completely segregated, as were the white schools, except, I dare say, some of the service people in white schools. And you would think that being in that situation, understanding that we were in that situation primarily, exclusively because of segregation, we would feel. We would have negative feelings. What we had, as you spoke to already, were extremely positive feelings, extremely nurturing feelings. We were in a loving, a caring, a supportive environment, safe, safe. There's a. There's a pack. There's a part in the book where I talk about us as panthers. Cause panthers were our. That. That was our. What do you call it?

[14:12] THOMAS PILLOW: Moscow.

[14:13] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Yeah. Thank you. My age, you forget sometimes I said we were. We were lithe, we were sleek, we were black, we were supple, we were powerful, we were panthers. This is who we were able to be. That's why who we are in that school, in that cocoon, in that setting, outside that setting, whole nother story. So, for me, the very power of being able to just plain be myself was incalculable. I couldn't even tell you. We could just be who we were because there were no interdictions, no prohibitions, no nasty shouts, no hostility. There was none of that. There was, you know, young lady, be excellent. Do your best. Be your best student. Be your best self. We were taught, and this is something that I'm so sorry, that we, I think, have lost, not only as a culture, as an african american culture, but as a society in general. In our nation, we were actually taught manners, comportment, behavior towards others. We were taught that the golden rule was primary. If you don't want it done to you, then don't do it to anybody else. You know, be true to yourself, but be true to your best self. Be your best self.

[15:39] THOMAS PILLOW: You know, one other piece of that were the teachers. Because of segregation, we got the smartest.

[15:46] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: We did.

[15:47] THOMAS PILLOW: And the best students, because there were no other jobs.

[15:50] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Teachers.

[15:50] THOMAS PILLOW: Teachers teaching. Teachers had the best jobs in the city for most part, unless, you know, obviously, you could become a doctor or lawyer and so forth. But the ones that taught us were always the straight a students. They were the ones that came into school and they cared. They carried that into the classroom.

[16:07] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: They did.

[16:08] THOMAS PILLOW: We had some phenomenal teachers, extremely intelligent. They created an environment. We had programs that we could participate in. The number of clubs, french clubs, math clubs, science clubs across the school were unlimited. We had chances to actually stand up in front of school and give presentations and discussions and participate in any activity involved. They created an environment that I would guess to say didn't happen in all schools.

[16:35] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Oh, I know it didn't. And I clearly said that. And this is being objective, frankly, no way. Well, I should pinpoint this. I said that our model, the Cameron High school model, I know I translated to loads of other black schools across the south, if not the country. And that's been confirmed by my friends who are senior citizens who say, I recognize myself, I recognize this was mister, Mister Morton. Your mister Morton was my misses Jackson and so forth.

[17:11] THOMAS PILLOW: In schools.

[17:12] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Yeah. I mean, it could not have been. And it was not at white schools because there, well, not just because there wasn't the need. Our teachers and parents were on a mission. They were on a mission. And I do say clearly in that book, because it is so true, they didn't give their all just because they had to fall on, you know, this job of being a teacher because they weren't being hired by any corporation. They really had heart that they brought to their job. They were all in. This wasn't a fallback position for them. And they didn't resent, oh, this is the only job I can get. It wasn't like that. It was like, my name is Ulysses Willhoyd and I'm teaching civics and I'm gonna teach these little young ones until, you know, until they get it.

[18:03] THOMAS PILLOW: You know, one piece of that that I really admire is they were preparing us for the future that didn't exist then.

[18:08] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Absolutely.

[18:10] THOMAS PILLOW: I'm an engineer. Degree engineer. At that point in my life, when a guidance counselor told me in the 9th grade, I actually wanted to be an auto mechanic, that was my limited view of the world. And she told me, based on my scores, test scores, mechanics and mathematics. Well, why don't you be an engineer? I didn't know what an engineer was. She says, I said, what's an engineer? She said, well, it's like a mechanic, but it makes more money. That's all I needed. But the point was I had never known or heard of a scene of black engineering. And after that I told people I was going to be an engineer. And I was told more than one time, well, you know, blacks can't be engineers. There's no such thing. And only until I was a senior in high school three years later, that actually saw a career day was created by our teachers.

[18:51] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Yes.

[18:52] THOMAS PILLOW: The head of school of engineering at Tennessee State, Dean Parsons, came out there and he walked in.

[18:57] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Do you remember his name?

[18:58] THOMAS PILLOW: Oh, yeah. I'll never forget the day I sit there and I looked at him and I said, he's a black man and he is an engineer.

[19:04] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Yes.

[19:05] THOMAS PILLOW: Maybe I can be one, too.

[19:06] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Can I tell you how many times in desegregated schools? Minneapolis again, for example, I became aware of guidance counselors guiding black students into non competitive career paths, discouraging college over and over and over and over again. I hadn't finished what I was saying about what being in a segregated environment meant me in my education. I do know this. I know that my two younger sisters did complete their high school education, educations in a desegregated environment. And they had nothing like the nurturing, the kindness, even you would think. I still don't understand how a system could be so evil, so heinous, that grown, grown people could treat children. And it hurts me to this day in inhumane ways. But it happened. It happened all the time.

[20:26] THOMAS PILLOW: Well, you know, Chantelle, our daughter was actually discouraged in Massachusetts.

[20:30] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Yes.

[20:30] THOMAS PILLOW: The guidance counselor told her she would not go to college.

[20:33] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Yes.

[20:33] THOMAS PILLOW: She didn't qualify for it. And in which case, I told her. I just told her, I said, that's nonsense. Don't pay attention to her. And subsequently, she went on and graduated with a degree in biology and is doing extremely well.

[20:45] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: And that's the. In spite of being told by the.

[20:48] THOMAS PILLOW: Guidance counselor that she wouldn't go to.

[20:49] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: College, when you're told by an authority figure what you can and cannot do, YouTube, you tend to listen very carefully, and if you already have a damaged psyche or self esteem profile, then you're going to be all the more open. And it has happened so often that I actually, you know, desegregation was necessary because segregation was stupid and inhumane and had no business in the land of the free as an institution anyway. Not only should it never have thrived, it should never have existed, but then slavery should never have existed. That's.

[21:33] THOMAS PILLOW: Can we move into another area farther down in terms of what we're thinking? I think this is really important. And that is your advice. What would you advise? What would be your advice to teachers, parents, and administrators? To realize true equality in an integrated setting. I think this would be helpful to teachers today that might listen to this.

[21:51] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Yeah, that's a very good question. I'm thinking about that project in Minneapolis, the three year project that was fraught with a lot of anxiety for a lot of people that I did direct. And one of the things I'd advise is we got to have a lot more honesty, a lot more sensitivity in our outlook and in our own teachings. We had a number of sensitivity training sessions where teachers would come to grips or not with the fact that, oh, my God, I've been. I've been saying this to my black students for, you know, 15 years, whereas I've been saying this to my white students for just as long. Why have I done this? They've never been brought to task to. They'd never been asked the question, why do you treat these two groups differently? What's the distinction? I, as a teacher, before the project, I remember asking a medical person who came to give us information about, you know, this is what happens when, if a child is having convulsions or if a child, you know, is losing consciousness. There was some medical issue, and the phrase flesh colored was used. And I raised my hand in all sincerity, there was no sarcasm at all. I said, but what if the flesh is so dark that you can't tell? I was criticized by my principal and fellow teachers for embarrassing them in the face of this professional. So, you know, I'm saying a whole lot needs to be done to educate, first of all, administrators, all school personnel. And I mentioned honesty because, for example, if an elected official sees January 6 as just a regular tour day at the Capitol, then something is really wrong. Something is fundamentally wrong in this country. The same thing goes with our schools. If you can open your mouth and use the term separate but equal, when we all know that that was never the case, something is wrong. We have to be honest, and we have. It starts, I think, with educating the educators. You know, it's like what I said about teaching on a university level. I was taught all these courses, all this literature, but there wasn't a single course on how to teach, right? And there has to be, because some professors leave students pulling out their hair, screaming, oh, God, just shoot me now, because there's no rapport, there's no understanding. So I think a lot of education and sensitivity training is, and a lot of honesty is necessary for educators.

[24:55] THOMAS PILLOW: How about from the student perspective? Did you ever give any consideration to what it would be like when you were in high school if you had to go to an integrated school?

[25:04] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Oh, I did.

[25:05] THOMAS PILLOW: We knew it was coming. What were your feelings in that area?

[25:09] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Some trepidation, some fear that I knew that things would be different. I wouldn't be protected. I wouldn't be free to excel as I was at Cameron. I wouldn't be free to test out my wings to be myself. I would be perhaps one of many overlooked. I use the term invisible, you know, in the chapter on segregation. And a lot of black students are just plain invisible.

[25:46] THOMAS PILLOW: I didn't have that much perspective about that. I was just simply afraid of it. Yeah, I had no interest in going to an integrated school.

[25:54] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Yes, exactly.

[25:55] THOMAS PILLOW: I had personally been attacked more than once in the streets in Nashville by white kids walking from Cameron, from our projects to Cameron High School. They used to, wait, who wants that? Throw rocks at us. So the idea of going to school with these kids was nothing I wanted in my life. It scared the daylight side of me.

[26:13] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: My fears were, in fact, validated by my younger sister's stories. To me, they'd come home sometimes in tears. Somebody had to do it. Some generation had to do it. Had to be there at the front lines, you know, it's like soldiers. Okay, well, you guys go first. And, you know, we know you're going to get killed. It's a harsh world and it's a harsh reality. But the first, we were the last generation of segregated. I do not at all envy the first generation of integrated. Oh, my God, no. And they had a very difficult time. They envy my high school experience and my older sister's high school experience because we got to go to Cameron High School. All the benefits that came therein. And there were so many, it was incomprehensible to them that they just couldn't have the same experience. But they were forging new ground, you.

[27:15] THOMAS PILLOW: Know, that leads me to remember some. We've had a lot of conversations about these sort of things. There were some incidences that happened. You were in high school that I think you would like to highlight. First of all, you know, this is a leading question. Was there anyone in particular in our high school that had an impact on you and your life? Because we all know that. We both know the answer to that question. Yes, we do.

[27:37] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Yeah. And that's my. That's my little Cameron story that I write about. Misses Lois Dunn, our intrepid french teacher who is largely responsible.

[27:49] THOMAS PILLOW: Before you praise her, we need everyone to know that. I was in her home running on my car. One day she sent home to my parents, and I was becoming a smart aleck.

[27:56] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Gee, I wonder where.

[27:58] THOMAS PILLOW: I don't know. But anyway, so you go ahead and praise her now.

[28:01] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Well, I would love to. I'll say one thing, she was so inscrutable. I'd never met anyone. I mean, if she didn't tell you, there's no way you'd know what she was thinking. Absolutely. But she was such a champion. I finished high school with the major in French and college with a major in French and, and secondary education. And even though my later degrees are in English language and literature, you know how much I love speaking French and enjoying our travels when we visit.

[28:39] THOMAS PILLOW: You believe you're French, but go ahead.

[28:41] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: I do not. That is so inappropriate. Misses Dunna went to the school board because the curriculum at black schools allowed for two years of French, whereas the traditional curriculum at white schools was three years. And what did I say about misses Dunn? She never went into battle unprepared. So there must have been strong forces to have her come back to Cameron in defeat. She told us, well, the school board does not allow third year French, but there was this core group of us, at least twelve or 15, we were so interested in French, we wanted to continue our education. She told us, she said, don't give up. I don't know to this day how she did it, but I know that she did it. And I mentioned that little pictures have big ears. Sometimes I'd be walking down the hall and two teachers would be speaking together and I'd hear the word French. And after a while, you got a sense. So something is brewing here under the COVID And before we knew it, our group was told, here's this hour, it's all carved out, you're all here, and it's going to be french club or some sort. I don't know what they called it. They didn't call it a class because they couldn't call it a class. They didn't call it french three because they couldn't. We couldn't have french three textbooks because we weren't allowed to be in a. We weren't allowed to have the class. What did she do? She got us a novel. Francois Sagan. Uncertain. Surier. A certain smile and we couldn't believe it. Oh my God. What is this? There are no pictures in this book. There's no index. There are no translations. There's nothing. What about all these tenses plus parfait? What is that? We were appalled. She didn't bat an eye. Here's your book. Here's your book. Here's your book. Here's your book. And I do recollect that we went from absolutely excruciating pain trying to work through that book to the point where we could actually relate to the heroine to some limited extent, understand part of what was going on. We learned so much through her expertise and the way in which she. That was just a foundation. Of course, we did a whole lot of other things besides that. And I do say at the end, and, I mean, this is absolutely true. I don't know if we were graded how we were graded. How could we have been graded? The course didn't exist. But I know for a fact that we were the best educated french students in the city of Nashville, and the course didn't exist.

[31:57] THOMAS PILLOW: And I benefit from that, having a chance of traveling in Paris with you. I speak no French, and I have my own personal tour guide, so it worked out real well.

[32:09] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: I'm proud of that. I am.

[32:14] THOMAS PILLOW: After covering so many areas of your life, just a little additional question. In terms of your legacy, you know, what legacy do you want to leave for your family or community on the things that you have done in your experiences?

[32:25] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Well, that sounds kind of pretentious, you know, like leaving a legacy. But I do understand what you're saying, and I know this much. I want. I want our children and our grandchild and our great grandchildren, and I mean that in the larger sense of the word. Not just our family, but I want them to get back some of those precious treasures that we had growing up through our educational process. I want them to learn good manners and kindness toward others and humanity, and to speak out against wrongs and to live by the power of their convictions and to be the best and the kindest person they can be and to not be afraid to venture into unknown worlds, to be excited about life and to love people and to understand that if there's a law and it dehumanizes a group, any group, then something must be wrong with the law, something must be wrong with the society, not with the group in question, not with the people. But let's, you know, let's have some critical thinking happen here. I'd sure like to leave all that, and that does sound pretentious, but it's really, at its base, it's just humane. That's all it is. It's humane.

[34:00] THOMAS PILLOW: You know, we had a lot of experiences in high school, a lot of people we've known over these years. Yes, I think we need to speak a little bit about success, the successes that came out of that environment of the many, many teachers. All the many teachers. Did you stop it? Because one piece we have, I think, we want to acknowledge, and that is the number of successful students that came out of our high school, the number of specialists, the number of teachers and ministers in churches. I couldn't even start to count them. It's just astronomical. Quite a few engineers, doctors named professions, but also many, many people that didn't go on and finish college, left high school, were able to go out and find jobs in factories, blue collar jobs, they had families very successful. Obviously there were a few failures. People had difficulties in their lives. So, so many. The number of successful people that came out of that high school is just unreal.

[35:10] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: It is. And again, I have to look at it, you know, our principal is legendary Ora Jackson. Ora Jackson. And incidentally, the Cameron High Alumni association runs the Ora Jackson Scholarship Fund. And that's where all the author royalties from this book are going to that scholarship fund. Because it just seems to make sense, you know, in the larger scheme of things, a labor of love, then you should return that love in any way you can. But I think because of the incredible dedication of our teachers, our administrators, and, you know, I mean, we go home, we learn the same lessons, we go to school, we learned the same lessons. They really were in loco apprentice. They really did continue the learning and the guidance that we received at home. And they made many of us just plain want to excel. They made many of us understand that, okay, maybe this world is not ready for you yet, but you're going to help it be ready. And in the meantime, you're going to prepare yourself as much as you can, as fully as you, as you can, so that when finally these barriers are lifted, then you will be there. So, yeah, we run the gamut, honey. As you know, we go from people who never spent another second in an educational environment after graduation to terminal degrees and everywhere in between. But that was made possible, let me put it this way. And this is not as had we not had Cameron, had we not had that supportive and yes, all black environment, the story would have been different for many of us, I will say that. And that's just the plain truth, old man.

[37:12] THOMAS PILLOW: Mister Jackson was a father figure for so many students that didn't have fathers, right. My father was at home. I had a father. However, more than once Mister Jackson would stop me for some reason or another. I remember one time in particular, it was about dress. And I absolutely think he knew the name of every kid in that school.

[37:29] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: I believe he did.

[37:29] THOMAS PILLOW: He stopped me. Pillow need to talk to you. I'm like, oh boy, what's now? He looked at me and says, the shirt you have on is designed to be worn with a necktie.

[37:39] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Excuse me?

[37:40] THOMAS PILLOW: The next time you wear that shirt, you come to school, you put on a tie.

[37:43] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Yeah.

[37:44] THOMAS PILLOW: Yes, sir, that's right. That was the kind of principle we had in that school. He was unreal. A lot of teachers were the same way, but so encouraging in all situations.

[37:53] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: But respect, respect was key. And my goodness, I want us to get that back. If I, in the legacy question, if I omitted respect, self respect, respect of others, we absolutely. What was that saying? That was the worst thing of all. You don't have any home training. If you said that, you know, total disrespect, that was the worst thing that could be said. You do not know how to behave in public. That was key.

[38:29] THOMAS PILLOW: One question for you. I don't know where this is going, but is there anything you've always wanted to know about me but never asked?

[38:38] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Wow. After all this time, I'd like to know how much of yourself you saw in the book, how much you related to it. I mean, you've told me many supportive things about what I wrote about, but did you see yourself a lot?

[39:01] THOMAS PILLOW: A terrible amount of times. Just one example is during my era of growing up, we had to become adults fast. I remember one particular, Nashville, Tennessee used to have this cleanup, fix up, paint up parade every fall to encourage people to fix. Literally had a parade. They don't have that anymore. But in those days in schools, elementary school, I was in 6th grade, we had what you call school patrols and we had little badges on and everything. And we had people across the street with the patrol ladies and so forth. Anyway, they had an event downtown Nashville once for all the school patrols, early Saturday morning. And Mayor Ben west was down there. Mayor Ben west was legendary in his efforts to get lunch counters segregated in Nashville through, matter of fact, as a result of his words, that happened in Nashville and spontaneously spread through the south. That was my one chance to meet him. But this particular morning, for whatever reason, I woke up late. Nobody woke up in my house. I was ten years old. I got on a bus, rode downtown to this meeting. I got there late and I reflected back on that. Going back to your book on how early. And I'm not alone. There were so many of us. I had to grow up fast. I was the oldest in my family. I literally babysitted my brothers and sisters.

[40:24] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: You had a job at twelve?

[40:26] THOMAS PILLOW: Yeah. Yeah. And that's, and that's the kind of things I saw in the book. The evolution of going from those days to where we are today and the potential of integration. What integration offered was something I wasn't aware of. But I lived through those days and I had a chance to see a lot. I saw the racial sit in demonstrations downtown, the racial rats downtown Nashville. I had a chance to meet a lot of people. Mohammed Ali in those days, he was Cassidy's clay before he became Muhammad Ali. I met him on a corner of 17th and Jefferson street, downtown Nashville, Crossman Fisk University. You know, the point is, through all of those things that you wrote in the book, in terms of the history, the, the, whether it be discrimination enough, oh, by the way, I don't want to neglect this piece of it, and let's skip that, go on to my career. There are some whites in my career that I would not have made it without. I asked mentors. I didn't understand what they were doing for me in a lot of cases in those days. But I mean, Tony Rigari, they were mentoring you. They, I mean, I have some people looking out for me. In those days. I didn't recognize Harry Patterson, who was employee relations guy when I started working at General Electric in Hendersonville, Tennessee, and so forth. So as I read that book from one chapter to the next to the next, until it led down to the essays written by all of our peers and myself, you know, I felt every moment of it because I saw, I remember the first time we sit at home on tv, Mama said, there's a black person on tv. I said, well, mama, how can you tell? She says, well, can't you see the skin's darker? That was my first real understanding of something's different about how we exist in this world. And those steps that you wrote about in the books were the things that carried me to various points in my life when I was trying to come to grips with what all this was about. Having lived in the cocoon. Yes, it wasn't always obvious to me that I was going to be treated different. In a way, the minute I got downtown, I was different, but I didn't understand the root of it. Be quite honest. I got the best grip on a lot of that stuff was really, it's going to sound late in life, because in my thirties, when the tv series.

[42:40] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Roots came on, that hit millions of people.

[42:45] THOMAS PILLOW: I had a lot of that knowledge in me, but I had never had a chance to put it together to try to make, I don't know if you can make sense of the environment we lived in, but at least make sense of it in the sense that you know what happened.

[42:56] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Well, that's why I call America sometimes schizophrenic. You know, I do that often because we've got all these great impulses and all these horrible impulses, and we're everywhere on the continuum in between. But before this is over, thank you for that because I, as much as we talk at home and everywhere else, I didn't know that.

[43:18] THOMAS PILLOW: One other thing I want to be sure. Hbcus. If I had not been admitted to Tennessee State because I was not the most dedicated student I worked. I've kept. I was a good student, but I didn't do grades because I didn't put a lot of homework doing a lot of homework. There hadn't been, for Tennessee State an opportunity to go to HBCU and them admitting me, I doubt if I would have had the career that I had. I was. I was not psychologically, academically, I think I was done okay. I was not psychologically prepared for an integrated environment.

[43:48] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Clark College. By the same token, NHBCU prepared me for University of Minnesota, University of Chicago, teaching at Michigan State University, where my own hiring became an issue with the english department. They weren't quite ready to have a third black person on their faculty with 65 other english professors.

[44:17] THOMAS PILLOW: I don't think it would been so traumatic for me or you if we've gone to an integrated school.

[44:22] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Absolutely. We had enough of the supportive years. Well, one thing I want to say real quickly, before our conversation is over, is that the reason Nashville is in the title is because Nashville is one of the factors that created this perfect storm for who we are. Nashville is the only city that had an elected person, Mayor Ben west, say publicly. When Diane Nash asked him, do you really think segregation is right? He actually said, no, that did not happen in any other southern city, period. Hands down. We had black institutions of higher education. This means something to a child when he or she can see, ooh, there's Fisk University, there's Tennessee State, there's Meharry Medical College. That's a black institution. That means that maybe I could go there. That's important. And we had all these first public parks institutions, the Methodist church where my dad worked, Baptist. A lot of innovations, racial, came through those church denominations. So that's why Nashville is part of what I wanted to build into the fabric of.

[45:43] THOMAS PILLOW: We were blessed to have been in Nashville. It was one of the more liberal citizens in the south during that era. And I know the housing situation was unique. I think a lot of even that brand new developments, the Haines area, several Haynes area, brand new houses, a person with a blue collar job working at a post office and so forth go out and buy their own home.

[46:02] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: That's true.

[46:03] THOMAS PILLOW: In Nashville during those days, you didn't have that everywhere.

[46:06] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Yeah.

[46:06] THOMAS PILLOW: So we were blessed in the sense that we were in Nashville.

[46:10] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Perfect storm, are we done? I have a few follow up questions.

[46:17] THOMAS PILLOW: Please.

[46:20] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Thank you. I would love to hear a little bit more about. And I'm going to remind you to talk to each other, right. About Cameron. And maybe if you could remind each other what a typical day there was, like putting yourself there and thinking about the sounds, the smells, the feel when you. When you walked in on this.

[46:39] THOMAS PILLOW: I think we'll offer great contrast because, well, she was a real good student. I had other plans going to school, so go ahead. First.

[46:47] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Well, when I think about Cameron, I just think, you know, it's wonderful to be able to say, I looked forward to going to school.

[46:56] THOMAS PILLOW: I did.

[46:57] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: And that's the only day I didn't look forward to. It was when Maddie King said she was going to beat me up after school. That was kind of scary. And my dad said, now, glo, you know, you don't have a stomachache. Now. Come on, now. Get in the car. Let's go. And so, you know, that just made me tougher, that's all. That was one day out of how many? Because. Oh, I hadn't mentioned that. Cameron at the time was a six year enterprise. And that's really 7th through 12th grade. Exactly. We had no middle school. We had no junior high school. Cameron High School, Washington, seven through twelve. So we had an awful lot of time to get used to that environment and comfortable in that environment. And for me, the smells were always fresh. Our janitorial staff was on the case, and they made sure everything was clean and smelling fresh all the time. I remember the smell of pine salt. I remember what the gym smelled like before and after the cleaning. I remember the ladies in the lunchroom. And I shouldn't call them ladies, we called them lunchroom ladies at the time. But the cooks in the lunchroom were also very aware that we were children. And if something was out of place, they would pull our coattails and say, you might want to pull that skirt down just a little bit, young lady. They would do that as well. It was. I knew I was gonna enjoy and be challenged every day. I wasn't afraid. Cause unlike you, I did do my homework at night.

[48:40] THOMAS PILLOW: You know, another piece of that, though. At Cameron, I always knew I was loved.

[48:45] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: That's right. That's the member. That's right.

[48:48] THOMAS PILLOW: Now, even though I wasn't a dedicated student, I was never really in trouble. But in one particular case, I don't know why I had been sent to the principal's office. I never will forget. I sit outside the office because we knew Mister Jackson. They did use a corporal punishment. They did use a paddle.

[49:03] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: They did.

[49:03] THOMAS PILLOW: I'm sitting down. I just knew I had to come. I'd never gotten a whooping before in school. And I remember Miss Owens, our secretary, his secretary.

[49:09] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: She was beautiful.

[49:10] THOMAS PILLOW: I sit out there and she just recently passed away. Over 100 years old.

[49:12] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Yeah.

[49:13] THOMAS PILLOW: I sit outside that office that day and I sit there and sit there and sweat and sweat. And she looked at me and she says, get on out of here, Pillow I was never so happy in my life to get out of that office. She let me go. I never saw Misses Jackson that day.

[49:27] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: She was always so sweet.

[49:29] THOMAS PILLOW: I carried a paper route. I worked from the time I was in the 8th grade up until I finished high school and so forth. So they knew that by the time I got, I got up in the morning at 430 to go to work and so forth. I got to school late pretty often because the papers were delivered late. And so I'd come into school, I wasn't sent, I wasn't punished. They knew I was working.

[49:48] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: That was a reality.

[49:49] THOMAS PILLOW: I remember my math class, which I took trigonometry, geometry, so forth from Miss Lydette. And I also had r1 easy class. It was some basic bookkeeping kind of stuff at the last period of the day. So I literally lay my head on the desk and go sleep. She got a in the class. So it wasn't, you know, it was easy class. But the point was that teachers were supportive in ways, yes. That are not traditional. A good friend of ours, I won't call her name. You can tell the story of pregnancy in high school and lens that people teach.

[50:24] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Well, you know, she wrote an essay in the book so I can call her name. Perion. I decided that since this was my Cameron story, but I wanted to be sure that other voices were heard. I did invite faculty and other classmates to write essays and I got 14, including yours. Individuals, I think, four teachers, four faculty members. And Perrion's story was one again of great support. She was in my class and we love her. She just had her 75th dinner party that we attended. Perrion, how did she put it? I informed my parents that our family was expanding. She was in love and she was pregnant. And the teachers misses Washington drove her to and from school. She had support from the administration. She managed to do something in the summertime to make up for the time she was off, when at any rate, she graduated with us. Didn't lose time, didn't lose. And she didn't lose her respectability either. Of course, in those days, pregnancy, it was real disgrace. Yes. And that's not what she. That's not what she found at Cameron. She had support. And there's a section where I talk about the things teachers did that nobody knew about. They were so discreet. But if you needed anything, if you needed money for a field trip, if you needed clothes, if you needed a shower, if you needed more sleep, what you needed, you got from them. So a typical day was a. I'm not trying to. I'm not trying to idealize our experience. This is true.

[52:28] THOMAS PILLOW: The days I spent at Cameron were the most. The happiest days of my life for a lot of years.

[52:34] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Until you married me.

[52:35] THOMAS PILLOW: That's right. The transition into adulthood is horrible for so many people.

[52:43] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Yes.

[52:44] THOMAS PILLOW: It was extremely difficult for me leaving Cameron. I guess I thought the world was going to be just as happy.

[52:50] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Oh, my goodness.

[52:51] THOMAS PILLOW: And then. And then reality set in.

[52:54] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Yes.

[52:54] THOMAS PILLOW: And so many years between that of Vietnam era. I was drafted into the military for a couple years. Academics, I did not. I didn't have the habit of studying before I got it through. Maybe freshman year, sophomore year, just barely. Next thing I knew, I dropped out of school. Drafted into the military during Vietnam era. I came once I got back, got married and a baby. I stayed on Dean's list. Full time job at night in engineering. So, I mean, I learned that study and did make a difference. But the point was, those were some really self encouraging days. They were happy days. They were safe. There were the days that I thought life was going to be. Yeah, it turns out it wasn't quite that.

[53:38] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Well, it did make us who we are.

[53:39] THOMAS PILLOW: It made a big difference, Cameron. That's one reason I know she wrote the book and. Absolutely, if I were a writer, I think I would have tried to do the same thing. I believe we were blessed. I think we were in a unique situation that provided us with opportunities. It was a perfect storm in life, in love, opportunities and support. Between our homes, our parents, school and church. We were given some tools that have carried us an awful long way in life.

[54:10] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Yes.

[54:10] THOMAS PILLOW: Awful long way.

[54:11] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Yes. I have, like, one or two more.

[54:15] THOMAS PILLOW: Sure.

[54:16] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: You started to do this a little bit, but maybe one more time. If you can tell each other what you remember about the other one. In high school, what was your first experience? Oh, I can't wait. Oh, Diane, let me begin.

[54:30] THOMAS PILLOW: You want to go first?

[54:31] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Where do I begin? Oh, yes, I'm going first.

[54:33] THOMAS PILLOW: I'm a question of you.

[54:34] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Okay. I'm the class of 65. Thomas was an upper class. I'm the class of 64. And you were, of course. And here's the thing. I had this older sister who was Miss thing. She was Lady Cameron. She was valedictorian.

[54:56] THOMAS PILLOW: Lady Cameron's our homecoming. Homecoming queen.

[54:59] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: She was. She won best actress in a dramatic role at our school play. I followed, but I was a little pale shadow. I was Lady Cameron, which was an amazing, amazing experience for me. I was not valedictorian. I was salutatorian. And I did not win any prizes for my little dramatic walk on part in the one play I was in. I had a very dear friend in my class. His name was Ronald Pillow. We called him Ronnie. He was the younger brother of you. And I loved him always. He died too early in life, at 30, 33, was it not? But he was always such a sweet young guy. And I knew. I knew his older brother because Ronnie was epileptic. And when Ronnie would have seizures, the teachers would let Thomas know. And Thomas would come with such determination and such love for his brother. And if it was a grand mal seizure, of course, those are, you know, those are really frightening to people who are not used to seeing them take care of his brother and just like. Like he was his father or something. And I. I remember how I admired you, your love for your brother. And the way you just. You just strode down the hall. I mean, you know, some people are embarrassed, even today by epilepsy. I mean, my goodness, it's been with us since before Caesar's time. But because of Ronnie, I wrote a paper, my first little research paper, and it was on epilepsy. And you always. I was always affected by. You were your brother's keeper and you took care of him and you loved him. And I admired that about you. Sadly, you had the hots for my older sister, a lady Cameron, class of 63. So you didn't pay any attention to me at all. I knew who you were. I don't believe you really knew who the I was.

[57:15] THOMAS PILLOW: So my impression, a couple of three things. First of all, I played in the band. I was in the 9th grade, I never forget. And Mister Morton, our band director, convinced her to start playing in the band. He put on a big bass violin.

[57:30] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Yes, he did.

[57:31] THOMAS PILLOW: I played a trumpet. And in the band room, they were on the opposite side of the band room from where I sat. And I think it was the first time I really noticed you or knew who you were. You would have been in 8th grade at that point in time. And she came and she was not. Let's put it she wasn't fat. Let's leave it as that. I sat there and looked.

[57:51] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: I'm thinking, just say what you always say to me. You had skinny legs.

[57:54] THOMAS PILLOW: Skinny legs. I'm like, why did they put that little girl on that big bass violin? And that was the first note. I'm thinking, I don't get it. And I used to sit there looking across the band. I was really confused. I'm thinking, okay, so that was not great. Later on in the 10th grade, I was walking down the hall, and your girlfriend, Willie Francis Lewis. And I looked at her, and I thought, ooh, she's cute. That was my thought. And I thought. But then I looked at her shirt, her blouse. One of blouses was not tucked in.

[58:23] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Oh, my.

[58:23] THOMAS PILLOW: And I looked at her. I looked at her. I said, she got skinny legs. I looked at the blouse, and her shirt's all up. I said, tucked. I think I better keep on going. I'm leaving. Then. Later on, one more time. Later on, I got her attention. I was a dating age by then. Junior year, maybe sophomore. And I thought about asking her out. But a good friend of ours, Ernest Dixon, we've all met the church. Her father and Gloria's father were both executives in the United Methodist church. They were both bishops. They were both bishops. Eventually, Ernest, as far as we knew in the school, Ernest and Gloria had been betrothed. I got it right.

[58:59] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: No, Beth.

[59:00] THOMAS PILLOW: Betrothed. I always say betrothed. But as far as I knew, there were going to be marriage.

[59:05] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Well, I thought it was that you were too busy calling my house and having me answer the phone so that you could say, hello, may I speak to Claudia? Yes.

[59:15] THOMAS PILLOW: I thought that was what she expected. You back to her French. Your French. You remember? I sat in a chair. If I was smarter, I sat in front of Claudia, who was a straight a student in French. And no, my ethics weren't so great that I would not copy off of her. I would have, but I wasn't smart enough to sit behind her. I know. And so I just struggled. And Miss Dunn just gave me a grade to get me out of her french class because she didn't want to bother me anymore, I guess.

[59:42] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Well, that's our saga. Who knew that after so many years because of, largely because of some of our friends from Cameron high eventually had dinner once a month. One of my good friends told him that where I was.

[59:57] THOMAS PILLOW: Yeah, that is great. Cameron had a lot to do without getting married, because we did since we turned 50. So it's been over 20 years. We've gone to dinner with a group, and Gloria's one of her best friends, was in. Is in a group. And that's how I basically stayed connected with you. And then you.

[01:00:13] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: And you always were good about calling my parents.

[01:00:16] THOMAS PILLOW: Yeah. It turns out your father was my bishop when I lived in Cleveland, Ohio.

[01:00:20] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Yes.

[01:00:21] THOMAS PILLOW: And when you were in Minneapolis. Yes, I think it was. And so I stayed in touch with your family.

[01:00:25] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Right.

[01:00:26] THOMAS PILLOW: And that's how I eventually reconnected with you.

[01:00:29] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Maybe I'll write a story about us.

[01:00:32] THOMAS PILLOW: You know, Grace has book rights for that. It goes on for years. We won't get into all that because you don't have.

[01:00:45] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: To give this. No, sure.

[01:00:48] THOMAS PILLOW: I mean, that was such a lovely, lovely.

[01:00:51] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: But I'm curious you started to talk about this, but if you could kind of tell each other, and maybe this is more you telling Thomas, but how? In what ways do you think schools are still segregated?

[01:01:07] THOMAS PILLOW: Oh, boy.

[01:01:10] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: No, no. How do we recreate the best parts of the black school experience for schools? Wow. Excellent, honey. I want to talk about our granddaughter, Raven. When we married, Raven was in middle school, and because our daughter's work schedule kept her out of town Monday through Friday, and because Thomas worked evenings at Saturn, Raven and I had a lot of time together. That's when we really bonded and truly became granddaughter and grandmother. And she. She'd come home with. So she had so many experiences. One of the things that first hit me was that the friends she would bring home were of all persuasions, all ethnicities, all races, religious backgrounds. And I would say to her, I'd say, wow, honey, your education is so much more diverse than mine was. So in some ways, at least, her experience saw her have the kind of exposure, early exposure to cultures, different cultures than we ever did. And I think that's real important. I think that's very important. There are many instances where segregation within integration occurs, and that's. I think that's a natural human instinct in some ways. Let me be where I'm comfortable. Let me go where I'm comfortable. Let me be with the group with which I am most comfortable. But I remember, on the one hand, I absolutely admired Raven's circle of friends and the diversity that she experienced. On the other hand, I was sorry again for her, as I was for, you know, my sisters, as you know, that she didn't have the kind of nurturing that we had. I think the only way we can get it back is to actually consciously, proactively legislate and work hard to bring it back in my book. I say that I think, and this sounds very old school, very old fashioned. I really don't care. I think that schools, certainly high schools, I think it would be the earlier, the better, kind of like learning a language. The younger you are when you start, the easier it is. Kind of like swimming. I think we should have courses in ethics. I think we should have courses in critical thinking. I mean, sometimes laws are so stupid. All you have to do is have the ability to critically think, to say, no, this is just plain wrong, to know that you need to do something about it. I think teachers have to work hard and consciously and conscientiously to make these things happen. They're not going to happen by themselves. Things are in bad shape, I think, in our institution. Institutions. What's that one thing on Fox News? Crisis in the classroom. Well, yes, there are all kinds of crises in a lot of classrooms for many reasons, but so much of that reason is that we don't have what you and I had at Cameron High School. And if it's not worked for really proactively, it's not going to happen.

[01:04:52] THOMAS PILLOW: I've got a couple of things. When I was in Cleveland, I had an opportunity to teach a class to high school students on business. It's a project business from junior achievement. And the sad part of this is the school sit in a predominantly white neighborhood, but all of the students were black. All of the white students had been bused out of their neighborhood somewhere else, and all the black students had been bused into. It was a conscious effort to maintain segregation, but they were adhering to the federal requirements for busing. Stupid, stupid. And waste of money and a waste of opportunity. And I never forget teaching that class. It's like every Wednesday for about ten weeks or whatever it was. So that was one point. I think the real goal needs to be to want people to get along.

[01:05:43] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: That's right.

[01:05:43] THOMAS PILLOW: To create an environment where people can socialize no matter what their environment are, what their religions are, what their sexual orientation are, and treat each other as human beings. Which brings me to my second point, because I had an experience on diversity and I learned a lot myself in this area. This is going to sound I didn't know up until my thirties, I guess it was, that blacks were the only ones that were discriminated against. I thought we had a monopoly on that kind of thing. I had not been exposed to in any other way, shape or form. When I was working for digital equipment, we had a one week diversity class, and there were 60 people in this class, 30 of them were women, 30 of them were men. Of each 30, 30 were minorities, 30 were white, and other 15, 1515. Okay. For each week, the facilitator came in and wrote on the board, men are. And they gave that to the women and sent them off into a room. Women are, and they sent the men off into a room. And we came back and we had to present those, oh, boy. All the men were mad at the women, and women were mad at the men. But then later on, they would say, whites are. They gave it to the minorities, minorities are, and gave it to the whites. All of a sudden, now, we weren't mad at the women anymore. We were mad at the whites. And they came in and we did this for a week. But one of the most eye opening experiences I had was a white woman tearing up about the way she was treated in the work environment. My first impulse was, what is your problem? You're white. You don't have any problems. But the more she talked, the more I listened, the more I started realizing, hey, wow. Yeah, she has a legitimate complaint about way she's treated in the work environment. I also heard whites later on that would come in, they would emphatically say, I'm french. My family came from France. I'm french. I'm not white. By the end of that week, you'll be amazed at the transition that you saw in people, because we had all been introduced to these other perspectives on relationships and come to realize, oh, I really don't have a good grasp of what this world is about.

[01:08:06] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Exactly.

[01:08:07] THOMAS PILLOW: I really don't understand what the problems are for other people because. But I had an opportunity to be taught, and that's why it's so sad that diversity programs are being killed today. I think people, they're good and bad in all kinds of people.

[01:08:23] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Absolutely.

[01:08:24] THOMAS PILLOW: And without limits. I can tell you there are many, many people of other races and religions I'd rather be around than people of my own because of their behavior. And so they're ups and downs. But we all need an opportunity to get exposed to each other so we can learn.

[01:08:38] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: That's right.

[01:08:39] THOMAS PILLOW: And evolve in our own way.

[01:08:42] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: You know, it's exposure combined with respect.

[01:08:48] THOMAS PILLOW: Right.

[01:08:50] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: If you have the exposure with respect, then that makes all the difference. That's where learning can begin. That's where changes in behavior can begin. But, you know, you told me a story that makes me laugh, maybe because, well, it's just a true revelation of how by our not being exposed in early days, we just didn't know you. I think you were in Cleveland, in university Heights. Anyway, you had a neighbor, and you complained to him.

[01:09:20] THOMAS PILLOW: Bobby Greenbaum.

[01:09:21] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: You complained to him, Bobby, why do you, you know, mow your lawn on, you know, Saturday? And he's like, no, Thomas, why do you mow yours on Sunday?

[01:09:31] THOMAS PILLOW: I'm jewish.

[01:09:32] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Guess what the Sabbath is not.

[01:09:34] THOMAS PILLOW: I'm like, Bobby, okay.

[01:09:36] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: We didn't know.

[01:09:36] THOMAS PILLOW: I said, bobby, okay. What do you mean you're jewish? What's it got to do with anything?

[01:09:39] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Exactly.

[01:09:40] THOMAS PILLOW: I had no idea. Oh, by the way, university Heights, at one point, ten proportion of speaking was the most populated jewish community in the country. And Bob, you didn't know. I had no idea. We were the only Protestants on the street and Catholic next door, and everybody else was jewish. That was an experience. He and I became greatest of friends. But he looked at me clean. He says, thomas, why do you mow your grass on Saturday mornings? That's my Sabbath. I'm like, what are you talking about, Bobby?

[01:10:06] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: And that's why, you know, what? If you combine. If we could have the kind of foundation that we had at Cameron and the kind of diversity that our granddaughter had in her school. But again, it's not. Exposure by itself means nothing. Well, I know that group of people. I hate them. They're stupid. That will go on and on and on until you get some humanity, some decency, some respect within yourself, some integrity, and say, wait a minute. These are human beings, too. I learned so much at the University of Chicago about lgbt community. I just. Again, exposure. Just hadn't been there before. Certainly not in our education, because that's one thing that our parents did not address.

[01:10:58] THOMAS PILLOW: We had to. Again, I can't say enough about digital equipment, which is actually part of Hewlett Packer today. Same thing. Sexual orientation. We had open discussions in those days. Be quite honest, I was raised in an environment where you were pretty much taught to mistreat gay men. I didn't know there was such a thing as gay women, Liz. And I've seen men mistreated as I was growing up, and that's what I was. And so I got to digital. I never forget sitting in a meeting and a guy came who was obviously gay. I was chairing the meeting. I ran it.

[01:11:37] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: What do you mean, obviously gay? See, that's.

[01:11:39] THOMAS PILLOW: Well, that's what I'm saying. I walked in.

[01:11:41] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Are you sure?

[01:11:41] THOMAS PILLOW: In my mind, when he walked in, I know now, but he walked into the room. And I'm ashamed to admit it, but I looked at him, and I'm thinking, oh, my goodness. That was my reaction. That's what I've been taught.

[01:11:52] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: That's honest.

[01:11:53] THOMAS PILLOW: Before time went on, I got to know him very well. Others had open conversations. I learned a lot, a lot about. I don't have those issues anymore to that degree. I'm not completely where I want to be, but I've come a long, long way, and I sure as the devil would not mistreat anyone else because of their orientation or discrimination against them or.

[01:12:18] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Their religion or their ethnicity or their.

[01:12:21] THOMAS PILLOW: But, you know, I don't know when you get to the point where you feel like you're there, but you keep.

[01:12:25] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Working on it, I think you keep trying to approach it. You know, all the seminars, all the background, all the opportunities that I've had to be involved, I'm still trying. You try to approach until the day you die, I think, but, you know. But at least you're trying.

[01:12:40] THOMAS PILLOW: The sad part is we're taught so many of these behaviors and attitudes so early in life. I'm gonna say one other thing. Remember I told you about the time when I was four years old, the neighbors and some people moved next door? There's a little white kid. We were in the backyard.

[01:12:52] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: I'll tell that story. Cause it's in my.

[01:12:53] THOMAS PILLOW: Well, he just moved in. We sit there and we played, the two of us played, played, played, played. I don't know how long. His daddy stepped out on the back porch and hollered out there, told him, get in there. I knew it was something wrong, and he went out. We were friends. The next day, I'm out front on the sidewalk, and the little boy has learned an n word.

[01:13:13] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: Mm hmm. And he called you that? Yeah, that's in my book. Because I wanted to make the point that it takes no time. No time. That's right. To teach hatred. Thank you.

[01:13:23] THOMAS PILLOW: Takes no time at all.

[01:13:24] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: I couldn't have said it better. We do have to wrap up.

[01:13:27] THOMAS PILLOW: Okay.

[01:13:30] GLORIA THOMAS PILLOW: No, that's fine. I warned you. I warned you. We're a talker. This was such a good experience. All right.