My name is Ray Ito and I'm a member of the church, my wife Jody, as well. And I'm here to this morning to help Edwin anyway, a little bit tell you about his life story, which is pretty amazing to start with. I like to introduce Wendell Love, this is Edwin's friend sitting over here on my right, and they've been friends for 20-odd years and were fraternity brothers, so that's kind of old friends coming together in a different place, which is kind of cool. And Edwin has done a lot of work researching various things, various aspects of Edwin's life, and that's pretty, pretty neat. There are some handouts on the table and they are way too long to read. I have no intention of reading them, but you can read through them at least casually read them whether you want to and electronic copy. I will be happy to send you in here, send me an email, happy to send it a copy to or work it out with Trevor one way or the other. So this is about Edwin Pythia and Edwin sitting over here and he's had a long and interesting life, lifelong Presbyterian. I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about our cause all out there for him to talk to myself and you have to learn from his experiences. So we'll turn our attention to Edwin. He was born in 1931, so he just had a birthday and he is now 92 years young and doing really well, I can tell you. He's got a better memory than I have, which is which is really pretty cool. So rather than take all the things about his early days, I thought he went to live with his grandparents in Camden, which is a small town, relatively small town in Wilcox County, Alabama, and there's a lot of information in Wilcox County in the handouts, as you can read, if you'd like. So I'll start by asking Edwin to sort of reminisce about some of those early days in his life in Wilcox County, Alabama, and tell us about what it was like so that one.

Day.

You had to use that thing, Maybe.

Is this Mike? Oh, yeah. Okay. It's on and it's kind of working, so.

Can you move it? It is stuck in the bottom there.

I think we can hear you. You don't have to move it backwards.

Okay?

You can leave it where it and.

Everybody can hear me. I'm there. Okay, Good enough. Good. Well, first of all, my life in Miller's Ferry, Alabama, and does not go an eventful one in a sense. But I want to thank both the window and rain for doing a lot of help in terms of bringing this off and making it possible. But this was a rural part of Alabama. And fortunately for my parents and so forth, we were a part of an area where Alabama, if you know a lot about south and the state is is not a really a rich country and not productive like some of North Carolina was and other things. But relatively fortunately, I'm not sure how my grandfather hooked up with the persons property that we lived on, which was William Henderson was a white guy and he was a colonel in the Army for the Union Army and was part of the the war between states. And so that's how my grandfather got hooked up with him. I have no real idea about it, because we really didn't talk about the experiences that my family had. It was just there. We just kind of put it into the whole process. But Henderson was a very well known and large land owner that he had various sections of Wilcox County that he had purchased and had a part of. Fortunately, to some degree, my grandfather was an overseer of one of those parcels of land that he had. He had about three sections with in the hand his operation. So because of that, I'm not sure how many. I think we have one. If you have number of families that lived on his property, which were somewhere between 20, I think of some families that that was on their property. And he grew cotton for the most part, but he also grew not grew, but had a herd of cattle, which was his next kind of thing that he owned and had. And so my grandfather was and was overseer for part of that operation. So I grew my my early part of my life was spent on those properties and kind of Roy around sand and everything else, getting to know things. The thing that I remember about that time was that everybody and everything in living in that area had a reason for being. If you didn't have a reason for being, you weren't going to be there very long. So dogs, cats and other animals in the process had a reason for being there. And if you weren't producing and if you didn't have a lot, including me and a lot else, why I grew up some size. You had a reason for being on the property and being part of the family. My responsibility, as I remembered at the time, was really bringing water and keeping my family supplied with water. So with a will was pretty much out from the house and everything. And so my job was to keep my aunt and my grandmother supplied with water, fresh water. There were no refrigerators. It was anything else. So what I had to be brought up from the well that replaced the people in the house and so forth. So everybody had a reason for being, if you want any reasons for being, you didn't belong in a place and you had a responsibility for making sure that that part of the family that you were responsible for was there. So that was one of the earliest point I remember about this. The thing was that by the time I got up some size to be able to go to school, we walked three miles each way back and forth. So that meant that you had to get up early. There was no supply of lunch. And so if you want to eat and bring some distance, while you were in school, which was all day, you had to bring your lunch. So you might have a paper bag and you brought that. And so that was the acid. The thing was that there was no public facilities for educating blacks in that area. So if it were not for some other benefits beneficiary and that happened to be the Presbyterian Church. So the Presbyterian Church supplied along with William Henderson, who oversaw the whole place. What supplies that you had. So that community served for miles around all of the residents. And it was very as well as other parts of Wilcox County. There was no schools or anything else available. So somewhere along the line, I can't tell people that the benefits that the government had 20 acres on AMU was a nice thing, but you may not have been able to survive about it because if you didn't have anywhere to sell your crop, you didn't have anywhere to get supplies. You were still kind of out there on your own with 20 acres and a mule mule, and that wouldn't have been good for you. And so your family had to survive. Fortunately for us, that was, as I said, going when William Henderson, who owned property and my grandfather had the benefit of being able to supply the families, own that place, a place to live and house, and that's for that area. And really that's what that that was.

Yeah. Okay. Very, very good. So maybe you can tell us a little more about this. See, you end up being a judge. Judge William Henderson. Yeah, I know. He was influential in a lot of ways in your early life of you want to talk about some of the schools. And so the things that he did and the fact that he was not a well-liked man in many ways.

Well, that's true. He was not well-liked person in that area. But despite the fact that he was not well liked, he still made the responsibility available to the people that lived on his property. They were relatively safe because nobody was about to come on his property to do anything with people who lived in his area. So we were fairly well protected in that sense. But there was still a limitation as to what you could and what you could not do and so on and so forth. So but he did not restrict people from leaving his place and going other places so that there was a way out. The connection was that he happened to be a Presbyterian at the time, so that because of his influence in the community as well as him being a Presbyterian, he relied on resources from Presbyterian Church to get busses and and everything else to have them go to areas within Wilcox coming to pick up young people and families and so forth. And he had a kind of the Hendersons themselves had a kind of strict mind that you did not keep your kid out of school to pick cotton plow and in a way that restricted their ability to learn. So it was I don't know whether it was more convenient to him as a and a landowner because he would have the benefit of them being educated and learning to increase his supply of property. But whatever it was, he was adamant about making sure that the children and the families had a place to have an education and had been exposed to things.

You know that there was something in the church at that point to talk to you about the importance of having an educated lady to really fully understand the Bible and the literature, literature and liturgy and all that. So that was part of his thinking too, because he was a devout Presbyterian from Scotland at some point, right?

Right. Yeah.

Well, no, I know he was very involved with the Presbyterian Mission schools, and particularly the one that you were provided with was the one in. Ellyse Perry And maybe you could talk about how that came about. If you have some comments.

Well, that was the thing, was that the school was the only school really that was there for the people. And the interesting thing of the principles were based on the teachings of presbytery, so forth. So pretty much from my perspective of it and exposure, he kind of practice exactly what was with the church, with teaching and with what religious indoctrination, indoctrination that he had and applied it so that regardless of what your religious background was or where you went to church on Sundays and everything, there was no pressure that I am aware of that instructed you to be a Presbyterian. But the school and the resources for the school were available to you regardless of what your dominate denomination was, which way you knew what you were. It's where they were baptized. A method is of any other thing, and I don't think that they, the residents, were treated any differently or encouraged to be Presbyterians, but it was a resource that was available to you that no other denomination that I know of was providing at the time. And the way that they practice it was everybody was respected as individuals, as people. And so that was you want succumb to any kind of ridicule where you dressed, whatever you had, if you were present and available, you got the same kind of attention that anybody else did. So that that was one thing that kind of stuck with me was it didn't make any difference whether you had any issues, whether your clothes were not properly in sequence, that you got the same kind of treatment and the same kind of teaching and help to survive as an individual in that particular time.

Yeah, Well, you tell us a little about the clinic that Henderson set up at the school. Well.

As I said, the school was pretty much well equipped with, but transportation for the kids to come back and forth. And he had the Hendersons build a magnificent institution. And really, it was an education for not only the kids in Wilcox County, but people came all over who did not have any resources to us. They had a dormitory for girls, a dormitory for men of boys, for teachers. And so it was a it was a sizable place compared to the environment that you were in at that time. In fact, I mean, I'm not sure whether or not there were busses and transportation for whites at the place, but there were and as Ray was saying, that he built a complete operation. So there was a infirmary where if you got sick or something else, you had somewhere to go. And he had a relationship with a doctor that would at least come down and pay attention to you and get some treatment and health care if that was needed. So it was it was that kind of environment that was entirely different from what was surrounding us. In fact, one of the times he got into a discussion because I think some white guys decided there was too much favoritism with blacks and not enough in terms of what they were doing. And because we had an infirmary and they built the place down, they burning the place down. Now he rebuilt it, but he also got shot. Man. And thank you for attempting to be favorites. You were treating black people as if they were decent individuals. So he was not only just an outstanding person in that standpoint, but he certainly did not be able he wasn't able to go off his way. And in a way, absolutely, because white people didn't necessarily like him very much because he was doing a decent job of of trying to give services to race. And he happened to be Presbyterian and took advantage of all the systems and the things that were provided for the people who lived on his property.

Yeah, I just can't you can read a lot about the business schools. Select six of them in Wilcox County and there's a handout showing all six of them and some background information as well. You can take a look at it if you like. But he clearly had a big influence in educating blacks on. At that time and in that place. And I think that the record of that is pretty, pretty amazing, actually. I thought that was really cool, actually. So let's move on to a bit and let's talk about you and your father or that your father loved the role. He was interesting guy. You want to tell us some recollections you have of your father? Well.

The interesting part, I think, is that my my my grandfather also I do I did not know him very well. I was a very small kid when he passed away before I got in his eyes. But there was a time and there still is time. It is time that people valued education as an important factor to get out of the situation that you were in, even though that may not have been supplied by the state. Anybody else in government for blacks necessarily, but therefore so that my father was a product of that. I mean, my that were I'm trying to think five or six people who went to school. My aunt graduated from New York University as a librarian. One of my uncles went to Benjamin Franklin University in Pennsylvania and got a degree in business. And so they were very good in terms of education. So Henderson was part of that whole process and use a resource that he had with every student to help the residents in his area to do that. Yeah.

Okay, very good. So let's see, your father was pretty active guy and now in trying to get educated in various ways, but they lived in D.C., you're your parents and you eventually moved to D.C. when you were about ten years old. Be with them. You want to tell us a little about that?

Well, if you were in Alabama and you were a black person, that would limit the time of being able to be able to move out of your situation. So you were pretty much stuck in whatever situation you were in, unless you could be fortunate enough to be able to accumulate some funding or money, knew somebody to move out of the area. Fortunately, I guess the people who were on Henderson's place were not restricted in terms of what they could accumulate in the place. Fortunately, that my father, my grandfather basically was an overseer, so therefore we lived in what was called at that time a big house. So the big house, if you live in a big house, you had access to a lot of other things. And because he Henderson's cat, we had cattle as well as a whole slew of cotton areas and a place to join them. We had some access to being able to have some funding to be able to move out of our right. So my father went to Birmingham and lived in Birmingham where I mean, my mother was also a part of it was very educational system and so forth, but they eventually moved out and went to Birmingham. So he moved to to Birmingham over there and eventually to Washington, D.C. Now what got him to think that Washington, D.C. was a place where that was up to it, that I have no idea. But problem was that probably that he wanted to get out of Alabama so as he could get out of Alabama with some other kind of ventures were there. So but to save money, to buy a ticket, to catch the train, to go to mill, to go to Washington, DC was certainly an adventure. And part of doing that because he had accumulated enough money to buy a ticket. And you probably know somebody somewhere. I bet you had to be creative enough to survive in that kind of environment. So my father, apparently it was like history and so forth. So he got a job at the National Archives and and and made his way to Washington, D.C. to take it to do to take advantage of the time. So my mother went to Alabama state and and Major. In nursing because that was another opportunity for you to to be able to survive and make a living and out of this. And so together they finally went to Washington, D.C. My mother worked for a family. That was what they still and she worked for this giant as part of a caretaker for a handicapped, mentally handicapped child. That starts here. And the story goes and to some degree, that a mother showed up at this giant office and answering an ad that she had put in the paper about some caregiver for handicapped, mentally handicapped child. And when my mother knocked on the door and the lady came, the seniors came and asked her to answer the doorbell. And my mother said, well, I'm here to see apply for the job. She said, But you got what it takes to be a Negro. And she was just and she said to my mother's pain, is it? What's that got to do with it? So she finally started and hired her as be to be a caretaker for her handicapped, mentally handicapped child. But somewhere along the line, the cook that she had also didn't show up for one of the events that she was having. And she was kind of stuck out there trying to find out how she was going to be able to make this happen. The event that she was having without having to have it changed to another time. And we'll all say, well, I can do that. You know, I can I can fill in for you and so forth. So she filled in for her and they did a very good job at that, at being a hostess for a while, the lady and her clientele at that time. And so because the cook didn't come, my mother said, well, I can do both of these jobs, but I'm living in Washington, D.C. I'm not coming all the way out here to Maryland. And this lady lived on the border of Maryland in Washington, D.C. to do this. So you have to make some provisions if you want me to do both jobs. So proud of the students, I'll build them a an apartment over their garage. So my mother then finally took advantage of that. And so I used to come to visit them. And all during the summers time, I was about eight, nine, somewhere around there. But, you know, it was coming to see them was a difference in terms of where I knew who my grandparents were. I could get away with a lot of stuff my grandparents certainly could get away with when I came to visit them. So I wasn't enthused about the whole process of going to see my band. I didn't mean very much to me at that time. So. So but that was the situation and they were adventures in that and that aspect was out there. My mom, my father was a the cook, something else like that until he got into National Guard for that.

So I know you remember you're talking about your father having strong interest in education. And I'm sure some of that kind of rubbed off on you because you've had a strong interest in education. Well, also very involved in the Presbyterian Church where you can talk about that.

Well, I'm not sure that we had the same kind of interest and desire about this. My father kind of put me into a lot of things that I had no idea what they were putting into. It was just a way to get out of There was strictness in terms of my upbringing. But so but he exposed me to a lot of the activities of the church. And in terms of the summer camps and the kinds of things that you did and all in terms of of being a part of education and exposure and the continuing thing that I recognized at the time and when I was exposed to this was that the routine church did not really make any difference about who or what you were, whether you were Presbyterian or whether you were not materion If you participate in the activities for children who were there, they treated you the same as if you were. And there was not really any major. It's meant to join the church. So but it was part of their activity to give you some exposure for education and activity and keep you going in a particular direction to stay out of trouble. So my path put me on a lot of things that I had no idea of what I was going to do for them. It was just activity that I had to do. So they provided to the Presbyterian Church the exposure for educational activities and enlightenment as part of their services that they did. And it went fine myself. I found myself mostly in a lot of classes and schooling situations that did not have a lot of Presbyterians in, but there were people who were from any part of the community that had an opportunity to go and participate in those activities.

So I know your parents had an opportunity to travel pretty extensively, actually, and they'll tell us about that, how that came about. Well, again.

I think it it is really due to the fact that. They were, in a sense, opportunist. So the existing situation was there and available. They took advantage of it and took all of the benefits that came along with it for getting them exposed and knowledgeable about what what situations were going about this person. The Stones actually had a heavy catch out and she had not. And since they were fairly wealthy, I had funds. They set up a an estate for her so that she would live well even when they were not there. And so my mother, basically, because of her care for that, took advantage of that now. So by the time that she grew up and they made provision so that that child would be able to take vacations, even though they she may have been in a special educational or sheltered place to do that. So because of the care and the intensity that my mother had with doing whatever she did, and that was whether it was providing me with outlet or punish me when I didn't do right of the same kind of thing. So when the child was, of course, it made provision for this person to take trips and get adventures.

Overseas and so forth.

And when they asked the child will with who she wanted to go with or not allowed, and it would not be my mother, mother also said to my father, Well, you better get yourself together and get some money. You are go, because I'm going. So you need to be able to be able to take it all in and take advantage of the whole process.

So all you have to do, you see as a little of small, small town, narrow wheel stock is for somebody to tell us a little bit about your small school high school experience. Well, my junior high school.

Was basically we moved to Washington, D.C., went to junior high school. There were only in Washington, D.C. at the time three of four high school for that. And the area there was an academic school, there was a business school, and it had an industrial training school. And so they can do what we did in Washington, D.C. and that was it. So you had to go wherever the accommodations were available to you. So you lived there. And as you heard from your country situation with people very friendly to everybody else, you had to know how to maneuver around and adjust and survive in the area. So as a as a young person, my parents just said, okay, you're going to this school and here's how you get there. But how do you want to go? I want to go to school and anything else. A while you had to learn your way around the city and how to get around the youth transportation network that was accessible to you with everything. So, you know, that was my exposure to it. And so there were different degrees of how welcome you.

Were and where you went in the place.

Like, be very, very nice way of trying to get around the impediments that were there. If you if they had a relative or friend or someone else, they lived in one part of the city, those closest to the school that you might then be able to attend. They did because it was an interest to go were they would say, okay, you can use my address and therefore you can be in this school by the time you get to to junior high school. So there were more high school, junior high schools available in areas that someone is going to enjoy somewhat more. Well, they had more resources than no, and so they would pass well or interested in keeping you and. To do that. They have a role to play on the resources world. It was your responsibility to give it and survive in the area, because if you only find one part of the country where one part of the city and schools in another part of the city and you are part of the people who go to school, you have problems adjusting not only to the teachers but also to the team. So. So that was a whole new adventure. That was one time my mother worked at Google greatly, and so we lived in Southwest and. In the south, east and north, south west, over schools in southwest, in northwest D.C. This is.

Going to be singled out. Right.

And so in gets the over there.

And so one day I happened to be coming back from school a little late. I'm not going to be on the.

In the same area. And she's getting a lesson. And so I was making it on the bus without paying because if I could see what someone wanted to have a little boy extra and, you know, but I had to wait once before. And so my name was to sneak up the back of the bus. So I happened. It was pretty good based on the back of the bus. And I squatted down to get into the back of the bus. And as I stood up, I looked in my mother's face.

Looks like she was coming from work.

Oh. That's how you go for what you want. You asked me if I.

Was a millionaire, so I was.

Really, really mad about the whole process. So I was a genius. And terms of was a manager and he world to my benefit so that they were instrumental in seeing that I attended school. And all of them were working all the time. They made provisions for to come to. To teach to teach association and. Schools that had an interest in how their children were growing up. And those.

Circumstances, what empowerment was there to tell you that although.

I was always told this is what I was hired to do.

It was there. So I said, We're talking here. There is a sort of uncertainty about school or whatever and all that. And yeah, you went to the college prep school. So you went to Howard University, one of the best historically black colleges universities in the country. So that's sort of the transition.

Well, I didn't know what I was.

Going to do.

When I was in high school, so I had no direction of what kind of career or anything else a.

Professional wanted to be. And I did know that I didn't want to be a doctor. I didn't want to be a lawyer, and I certainly didn't want to be a teacher. I knew were there a couple of kids in terms of trying to teach them something when they had not necessarily entertained because they had no idea where they were going to be unless they were going to be one of the three professions that black kids got into doctors, lawyers, teachers. Neither of those things were of interest to me until I was I got out of college. I was immediately.

Inducted into the service.

And so I had a chance to go overseas and see a different environment and exposure of other races and both the heritage and the place. And I said, you know, this is I don't want to be a teacher and you don't want to be a doctor. What else is there for me to get into? So I can't because the opportunities were open. It explored what kinds of things I could get into, what kind of careers I could go to.

So I enrolled in an American university and thought, I want to be a.

Teacher Now that sounds good, taking care of people and doing services and so forth. So let's see what that looks like. So I went to American University for a while while and I didn't have real desire for that because if you wanted to be a politician you had to go to a state. I wasn't interested in moving out of Washington, D.C. at the time. And so that didn't seem appeal and I wasn't moving.

So I didn't graduate.

And get a degree in political science or something like that. And I wanted to be a politician. I had to move to a state somewhere else. So that didn't excite me until this. So but also the other thing that excited me was that by that time, the African nations will becoming independent and getting some visibility and so forth. And so the other thing I me, I said, well, maybe there's a way that I can be an ambassador of something else to one of these countries. This is going to be something that is growing. So I dropped out of school. I stayed out of American University, Georgetown. Georgetown was the school that if you went to Georgetown, you were pretty much you had a niece and an AIDS and trying to get into foreign service. So I said, okay, let's go enjoy some sort of Georgetown. When I put my application to Georgetown, look at my application and said, Listen, you will not survive and make any kind of a into the graduate school of Georgetown, all of the education that you had where it won't qualify you to do it, even though we may accept you. So because why not take some of that? You've going to have at least some consideration of your effort and that will put you in upper class. Man, I don't regret it from college and the undergrad school. So I said, Well, okay. And being and building on the resource of my path in terms of taking advantage of situations that that come upon, come available, I said, Well, okay, I'll enroll as an upperclassman at Georgetown. Well, Georgetown then gave me another opportunity to see another side of the. Culture that I hadn't been exposed to. So the thing that stood out for me in that situation was the Army Rangers said that regardless of what your exposure was and your education background, if you have an ability to do something, we'll put you in charge of doing that. And so the army made kind of an effort to bring what that doctrine was in terms of being able to utilize your talents. And then I said, okay. And so the thing was that I ran into students who were from other schools and who had much more exposure to knowledge and exposure to things than I did, who didn't know as much as I did. I said, Wow. So just because the opportunities for the education and the degree of education is available does not mean that it is automatically that they make you smarter and smarter. So it kind of increased my ability and my confidence and to what you did, as well as what the confidence of black schools had to offer in terms of. What the students graduated from did not mean that they were inferior or less knowledgeable about the things that you do. So I said, Well, if I go out of get out of Georgetown, I still got to go to grad school, you know, to be able to do qualify and and be productive in that environment. It's not going to do. The other thing was that you had to learn that foreign language and that at that time your parents or somebody else that you knew had to have some money because being an ambassador, again, to that degree, I wasn't really interested in be an envoy for somebody in charge of that. And I knew in a sense, but I wanted to be at a top level making a contribution for a thing, and using my skills and be able to do that. So my thing was that I found out that and that's just part of the culture and every thing to do would be a good difference. Was it one of the ways that politicians and self get to Congress and so forth and you get appointed? This was it. You had to have some money that you contributed to their cause and they in turn saw you as possibility for being able to contribute to their well-being as well as the well-being of the country. So that yeah, that was not what I was going to be able to do from either standpoint financially as well as from the standpoint of influential, you know. So I said, well, this is not going to work out. So I had to find something else to do and that's it. By that time, civil rights was kind of being in full force and there were people who were instrumental Urban League and all of those in the details of those organizations were in front of you and supplying the leadership of that movement that was taking place. So I happened to be employed at the National Institute of Health at the time and and the psychiatric unit that was East Mountain and people who had mental problems, they brought a whole family into the the facility for treatment. So they didn't just treat the person who was mentally ill. They treated the family in terms of what their contribution was to the illness or how they affected and how they the illness. And so and this is something new that I've seen and heard about this kind of activity and part of that activity in terms of the doctors.

And the community and. People who were in the middle, the area.

The medical field and who contributed. There were a nurses and a social worker. So it was curious. I was curious about what the social workers contribution was to this group of people. Any other doctors and psychologists? Our resident is a social worker and so I got to talk to her and get to know her. What's he doing there and what are the contribution was to the team? So that gave me an impetus, an idea that maybe that would have a role to play in terms of contribution to things that were not necessarily in those professions that I just mentioned. And so I was going to have a look around to see where there were schools of sociability and it fell into place. And it just happened that how the university is socially. I also knew that at University School of Social Work, but that was to me from my point of view, wasn't equipped and had as much as how we address the school social work. So I had a role in how it was a school of social work, and that's where I got my degree in social work. That's what we associate with.

Very sorry. So we stuck with it and then we started working at of private youth enterprises and outside of gas station. And he tells that, well.

That was a time for practicality kind of thing, as is that I, I saw the opportunity that came out of the civil rights movement and the civil rights movement and Kennedy and his group. I got to know how things began to function to some degree made a big difference in dealing with how the country functioned. Basically, money from federal government to help state governments. And though they can't then counter this flow basically from the federal government to the county government to state government to come and go and so forth, they carried is disrupted that whole process and did not have to go through to that traditional flow. So if you had to apply and they created another agency to handle that kind of transition so that if you had an idea and an idea of trying to help the country grow, develop people who were part of making sure by helping the country grow at a local level or else the money went to you. So my idea of basic was to I knew that basically about teenagers and that group of people always have the problem of knowing where they fit in and how they could contribute, what they could do. And a lot of time their activities and getting into some work was basically exploring stuff and learning how to do things. So I decided that the United Planning Organization, which was the agency that handled the funding program for the intervention program, was an agency that had a pot of money that they would get into anything, that they had creative ideas that they could set up for the benefit of educating and exposing individuals to how the country worked and so forth. So like you said, young people basically at.

That age group.

Level comes and they like to build cars and experiment and not be open with repair cars. And this thing that was going on with this in mind eventually was it? This is if I could acquire a place where this could happen, then the athletes come here to work and get a situation that gave them that opportunity. Then they had a direct way of seeing the impact of being able to be educated in this particular way. So therefore you got exposure to a whole different environment. You also began to learn a different kind of responsibility. So I was forced to do that. At that time, you unite that organization and the ability to draw volunteers to help them implement that program for private industry and other places. So they had programs that if you have a good idea and you and you find it and is part of it, we will supply your seed money for this. So this is this is like starting a got Gulf oil and that was to give that to. Right. A service station for you that had a training facility within this base? Totally. Because at that time, the automobile and the service station industry were really kind of getting out of the being in the business of being in the inner city. So they they had.

Buildings and and service station.

That were not being used. And so it was just time for me to be able to be an idea. And other people with any type of mission would agree to come.

To work at the time. So I made the example they want to just imagine. So it was later that that when did go to hear Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech in 1970 1963. Sorry.

So if they want to talk about that later, I think we have time for it right now. But I.

Was to get the Georgia Tech that.

Well, that that's that's also an interesting idea on their website. The civil rights movement ended up ruining opportunity, exposure and getting other races and blacks exposure and other opportunities began to grow. And. Different. And so the traditional organizations then kind of once they and the government federal building set up a kind of another structure for providing money for a new approach to other programs. They will begin to grow and flourish. And so. I've done a lot of consulting at the time in a long term with this with other organizations, and they travel throughout the Southeast and other parts of the country, helping other community groups extend programs for expanding their opportunities and ideas in their own little communities. And I happen to come down to Atlanta, and I knew what the South was and what it would be doing in terms of this, the regions and strict segregation and so forth. Well, that was a different kind of town. And so I came down and that exploded basically because I was helping programs that were funded by federal government and local areas to help them set up their operation. But I didn't come by United Planning Organization with the organization.

In Washington, D.C. I worked for the time before I left and to do with the.

Service station operation and my thing with the service. Now we just finished operation, but to be able to do another kind of community development organization that helped families and everything has to go. So I was kind of exploring what was going.

On and being a consultant.

To those things in other parts of the country. So I came to Atlanta and began to see the changes.

That Atlanta was going through at the time. This was before me. It may have been, but it was.

During that we hit the big time. So I came down as a consultant and one of the guys that I talked to and that was in the Department of Commerce, Reid's office said that Georgia Tech was looking to establish a minority business program at Georgia Tech. I said, You sure you don't want to do exactly that? He said, Yeah, Well, and from my observation in terms of Georgia Tech was not interested in having and know it's time working for it as custodians or anybody else. So that was another kind of exciting adventure that Georgia Tech is going to this program as well. And we got to see was to see what this was all about. So I came down and we talked to the person that had sent me from Commerce, their opinion of there trying to this program. And guess what? At the time they weren't being successful in doing so. So I talked to them and they said, yeah, we had an.

Extension in our business program and. Believes he see that in a.

Time where a lot of agencies were applying for money from federal government because the money was available while they were about to do since early on that it didn't make it to make the difference. It would have to change to get the resources that were available to them at the time. Okay. So I came down and explored that and said, You know what? It sounded very good.

And I'm going to forgive you for this. But I think that's what's going to happen this year, right? Well, that story is going to move on because you've had so much more and we can really get into it today. So I have time for all of your questions, I hope. Let's see if you go ahead and ask William. Well, he went on to tell us a little bit about it. And I think that's where you get right across his group. Yes, I did watch it with all. A couple of decades ago, I encountered Edwin at the Hudson Institute. A group is a boutique strategic planning firm, and we work full time every day with small businesses. We have done some work with larger organizations in the metropolitan area and really some some organizations across the country, but we've grown primarily based here. And when I started with the A.G. Group and I were.

Part of it together to do the groundwork.

We did the civil rights for the computer systems, and we've been an annual guy. I got with Edwin and said, Let's organize the modems and records and all of that and have them where we don't have to do willy nilly kind of stuff. And he looked at me, and so we discovered through that exchange we were fraternity brothers and a whole bunch of other things. And before I finish with that, I have to share with you that about 75% of what Edwin had shared of some new nuggets, even after Ray and I and so much of the group was there has always been we don't know if you want me to finish. Okay. So let me just share with you why I'm up here. Everyone has insisted that I be up here, but part of the reason for that is because I kept sharing with Ed. My dad is the story of the Presbyterian principles, and the church had been to everything he said when he did not share about the sphere experience. I think what he did say some things about the fact that Anderson was a Presbyterian member. The church was blinded by Freedman's View and Presbyterian time, and so its schools were funded by the Free Spirit and the Presbyterian Church, and there were six of them. And he did say these were the primary schools for that area of the Camden area and the county, Wilcox County, you still had the poorest counties in the country. So those things in their name, that I think is what was missed here. And one of the things that I wanted to bring to this group was the fact that the high school they attended started in the basement of the 15th Street Presbyterian Church. So that had it in high school. So that way he doesn't dismiss, at least tell you more about his personal story. He didn't tell you about the historical.

Part of that.

The 17th Street Baptist Church was the first Black Presbyterian Church in D.C. This room he attended was the first school for for blacks in D.C. and he's been started in the Presbyterian Church. Knoxville College was supported by the Presbyterian Church is where he got his first degree. So these are the things that I wanted to make sure that this audience had some knowledge of. Right. The thread of all of the things that Ed has done has come through the Presbyterian Church for very good. I appreciate that very much. That's right. So, Edwin, you get the last word on this life. You ready to raise your phobia and let's see what's going to happen?

Well, the thing is, I think is that. My support over here.

And being able to take advantage of this was basically my experience with.

Christian Church and what they they contributed to the education of blacks in the South. And very because we are still needing that kind of effort from churches and Presbyterian Church is expanding because there is nothing that restricts them from doing this outreach. And the more they get involved in the communities that they sit in and the people who are surrounding them, the better off any group that the citizenry is going to be, because there may not be any other way for them to be able to take advantage of the status that restrictions and people in the states will restrict them from having those opportunities with the present. But the church has an effort unprecedented to be able to do that, so they must be on their faces in order to be able to fit in and provide the resources to be available to the community that they surround. And that's a thing that I think that is significant to me.

At the Presbyterian Church. And they've done.

That in the sense that they haven't said you need to be predatory on this, you can do that, you can take advantage of this. We're going to be the savior for the needs of the community and for the benefits of the church and for its existence as it continues to grow. And so as long as we continue to put the emphasis on service and not on the indoctrination in terms of being able to finance industry, that's an important aspect to me. And that's where from this church we're sitting in the middle of it and we should be able to take the opportunity to also expand those opportunities to take advantage of what we have here and what we can extend to the community and with the resources we have as a people in the church to be able to offer that growth and stability and education and experience in.

Surrounding the communities that we have, which is sitting here very, very much so. I just have lost her. And then they asked questions because it was in the leg and we have to go. So I hadn't really thought much as a local. So I'll be glad to sort of think about questions. And, you know, you can actually watch as I play. The other thing that one.

Little thing that I wanted to add were whether it was really the person that said to me, we were considering.

Roundtable at one point and just kind of discussing things a little bit.

You are a special person, so privileged. So it was always the same with you and I was able to the same kind of discrimination that you are. And therefore, what is my experience that makes me different terms of who was it? And we had a discussion. And then that was the thing that kind of pointed out to me that even though I was in the middle of all of the rest of the things that were going on and this segregation and that there are other individuals who have an opportunity and exposure differently from the same people that we have, and they need to use their influence and expression to continue that and to educate other people about the lack of that and that reason. There is no place in terms of the education.

System.

That has taught us as a group of people how to get along with each other. It's not in schools. It's not anywhere else. And because of Presbyterian Church as a church has the opportunity to do that, we should take advantage of it. And that seems to be. The thing that with him and this and that makes us.

In a different kind of character. So.