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Legacies Project Oral History: Curtis Howard

When: 2022

Transcript

  • [00:00:14] Curtis Howard: A portion of it was finished where I was talking about my kids. That's the last thing I remember that I talked about. Did not get into anything professionallyCur and all, work life, so I don't know where the questions are going to go. Donate more. I suppose we've got one more of these to do?
  • [00:00:42] INTERVIEWER: Yeah. I'm sorry [OVERLAPPING] I'm going to look over something and let me ask some questions.
  • [00:00:49] Curtis Howard: Okay, that's fine. You guys, you're doing the editing.
  • [00:01:00] INTERVIEWER: Yeah, that's when he is going to start to read for me and get five minutes in. Was okay.
  • [00:01:10] Curtis Howard: Tap you on the shoulder. Yeah.
  • [00:01:23] INTERVIEWER: What was your primary field of employment? How did you first get started with it? Was it a tradition or scale or job that you were interested in?
  • [00:01:32] Curtis Howard: Primary. My first job or my major job you're referring to? Major career?
  • [00:01:43] INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
  • [00:01:43] Curtis Howard: Okay. After I was discharged from the military, had to go find a job and there was a research center there in Birmingham, Alabama that was a non-for-profit organization that I started working in the lab. That job's pretty much description was that I was working in an organic chemistry department. I was the glass washer. I did that for several years and started going to night school. Started working actually in '69 there. In the early '70s, '71, there was an opportunity to transfer to another department only because of the Federal Civil Rights Law of affirmative action, which I have a benefit from it, because the research business did not employ many blacks in the professional laboratory settings and I had the opportunity to transfer to that department. I worked there for 13 years doing cancer research. During that period of time, actually after that time, the labs were closing out because the government was closing down and started to not fund cancer research as they did in the '70s and '80s. An opportunity presented itself to relocate to Detroit, ventured up here, made a visit, had a job, did not like the city, so I went back home to Alabama. Three months later, I received a call from a facility here, Park Davis and Warner-Lambert that they had a job opportunity for me here in Ann Arbor. Took that chance, came up, took an interview, took the job four months later. My career spanned for 25 years, almost in Ann Arbor, 24.5 working primarily in cancer research, oncology. That was doing animal research. That's how I got started in research and that was my major career. Started out as just a associate scientist and ended up being a senior scientist as well. I had a great career.
  • [00:04:23] INTERVIEWER: Cancer research is something that the overall population doesn't really know about, but we don't need for. Is there anything interesting you can?
  • [00:04:33] Curtis Howard: Well, I've been removed from the literature. I used to stay up on it quite readily. But cancer, it's almost like shooting a bullet at a target. Sometimes you may hit it and sometimes you may not. What works for me may not work for someone else. But I think the strides that have been made over the years has been tremendous; cloning, genetic research. This thing that's going on now that we had not a clue back in the early '70s to do. I think research wise, we've definitely made great strides in that area.
  • [00:05:14] INTERVIEWER: Have you felt that in your job occupation, you changed over time?
  • [00:05:20] Curtis Howard: I've changed. Yes. Because if we don't change, then you've got to grow. We've got to grow in dome instances. Having the opportunity to travel a lot to various. [NOISE]I will just ask the question again.
  • [00:05:40] INTERVIEWER: I can go back and repeat the last. Having the opportunity to travel a lot over those years. [BACKGROUND] Do something else? [LAUGHTER] Cut. Fell asleep on the wheel back there. [OVERLAPPING] Did I grow a lot or something like that.
  • [00:06:12] Curtis Howard: Did you change over the years in your job?
  • [00:06:14] INTERVIEWER: Did I change over a lot. Well you could just take that first part that you were doing and you can just put the question however you want to rephrase it right now, couldn't you? Yeah. When is this project due? When is it ending? Do you guys have to get everything edited and turn it in? The end of the year? Okay.
  • [00:06:41] INTERVIEWER: We don't have somebody who can do next trimester. We're going to film then for next trimester and get all the clips and then third trimester and end it.
  • [00:06:51] FEMALE_1: Three hours of footage.
  • [00:06:56] INTERVIEWER: We can do a three-minute video.
  • [00:06:57] UNKNOWN_1: You're taking a break, right? Okay. Good.
  • [00:07:01] Curtis Howard: The three hours will be just three minutes?
  • [00:07:05] INTERVIEWER: Yes.
  • [00:07:05] Curtis Howard: You guys are really doing some major editing here, getting some of the points that you want to highlight. That's going to be challenging. I'm looking forward to seeing that final cut. [LAUGHTER] [BACKGROUND]
  • [00:07:39] INTERVIEWER: She doesn't look different.
  • [00:07:42] Curtis Howard: I have been wearing the same shirt, pants every day so I haven't changed.
  • [00:07:49] INTERVIEWER: That's the false friends with you or we can't see.
  • [00:07:51] Curtis Howard: Yeah, I get it from here anyway. Sorry. I have a meeting after this anyway.
  • [00:07:56] INTERVIEWER: That's something.
  • [00:07:56] Curtis Howard: To look professional. How many moments?
  • [00:08:07] INTERVIEWER: Like four or five minutes.
  • [00:08:11] Curtis Howard: Oh yeah four or five minutes to just chill.
  • [00:08:18] INTERVIEWER: Oh, no, although [inaudible 00:08:18].
  • [00:08:20] Curtis Howard: It's nice outside.
  • [00:08:22] INTERVIEWER: Yes. Skylights phrase.
  • [00:08:26] Curtis Howard: After my meeting and going to school. But some sharks all along.
  • [00:08:33] INTERVIEWER: This is good.
  • [00:08:37] Curtis Howard: That was his major backup on your 14. Trying to get around the curve there. What is it What's going on? What's that? Can you do that Ben? Traffic marriage to get them back on 14?. No, that that area is if the car has to merge over riding, they have bank that was a moment in a car that I don't how she kept down. Yeah. She wasn't she wasn't anything.
  • [00:09:07] INTERVIEWER: I was just yesterday I was driving and it was just an intersection, but it was so simple. It was just like a room my cat food places or whatever. Just in the middle there. That was blocking looking up because just in the middle of the intersection of two cars, they just never going and it was weird because they both going.
  • [00:09:27] Curtis Howard: Opposite directions. It's scary. Too much cell phone, reading paper, ACP word I read a book. Oh yes. It's crazy.
  • [00:09:44] INTERVIEWER: That's awesome. I love watching a movie like on their farm with their phone up with them.
  • [00:09:47] Curtis Howard: Yeah. It's crazy. I don't know if you guys look.
  • [00:09:51] INTERVIEWER: For, but not all driving.
  • [00:09:52] Curtis Howard: Too much technology and people are so against the driverless cars. I don't think I was getting one yourself.
  • [00:10:01] INTERVIEWER: I think 50 years.
  • [00:10:04] Curtis Howard: Somewhere down the line it will be guarantee you they will be, yeah.
  • [00:10:08] INTERVIEWER: One important people do it because.
  • [00:10:11] Curtis Howard: You guys really liked the Jetsons. You ever seen that from looking at cartoons to Jetsons and.
  • [00:10:16] INTERVIEWER: I've heard of it.
  • [00:10:16] Curtis Howard: Yeah. It's like it's like. That was far-fetched, but.
  • [00:10:22] INTERVIEWER: It couldn't be a public service the CEO says, no.
  • [00:10:26] Curtis Howard: Yeah. You them has a little.
  • [00:10:28] INTERVIEWER: Like a neighbor. [NOISE] [inaudible 00:10:34].
  • [00:10:34] INTERVIEWER: It's mostly using when your nasal you could just then come back with.
  • [00:10:42] Curtis Howard: A little scooters. That is, I'll put minus.
  • [00:10:47] INTERVIEWER: Here, enter Vermont band those because they're just leaving them or not.
  • [00:10:50] Curtis Howard: They're leaving out. People are getting injured. The city of Birmingham, they are compensating.
  • [00:10:56] INTERVIEWER: It's basically [inaudible 00:10:57].
  • [00:10:58] Curtis Howard: Storing other like wow, Good morning. Cut. No action. We we were right in the middle of this. [LAUGHTER] That's this guy. I was reading.
  • [00:11:21] INTERVIEWER: I was whatever. How do you feel you've changed over time through your occupation?
  • [00:11:38] Curtis Howard: I've changed over time during the occupation. Just going mentally, looking at research on where it has developed from when I started in the late, early '70s until now, it's been tremendous and I think the strides have really benefited society.
  • [00:12:04] INTERVIEWER: What was a typical day during your working adult life?
  • [00:12:08] Curtis Howard: My working. Typically how I would start my day and my lab at 6:00 AM in the mornings. The reasons why is because folks back to my daughter that someone had to be at home to get her off the bus, would go and we would have a schedule booked on what we would do every day. We would do those things, and once we completed those tasks, then we had the opportunity then to actually go to the library, read literary tour, right at reports, and it was basically it, so if we had a fundamental schedule that we had to find and follow each day.
  • [00:12:47] INTERVIEWER: There any specific training skills your job?
  • [00:12:54] Curtis Howard: Training skills? Yes. That was done yearly. Being able to do injections, I worked in a lab which was all animal research, and I know people sometimes made frown on animal research, but it's beneficial, and that's about it. Ask another question.
  • [00:13:21] INTERVIEWER: What technology changes [inaudible 00:13:22]?
  • [00:13:26] Curtis Howard: Technology, the computer. I started out early '70s. We did not use computers. You did everything by hand and we had to calculate data by hand. We had the access to calculators. But I think my boss sees a slide rule to do calculations all the time, so I think that was the biggest benefit was using calculators. Not really calculators, I would say, I would say computers was a big test of.
  • [00:14:03] INTERVIEWER: What do you feel the biggest differences between your field of employment then and now there?
  • [00:14:09] Curtis Howard: Then and now? It's hard to say because I'm not working now. But back when I started, I think the inclusion of people more so now than it was then. Like I said, back in the early '70s, there was no one that looked like me in the lab pretty much throughout my career. I was the only Black in my lab, and so I think things have changed now tremendously because, I've gone to the meeting several years ago that I see people that look like me, and that's been the biggest impotence. Even in, I would say leadership role as well, has been really fantastic.
  • [00:14:57] INTERVIEWER: Did you have a feeling parameters being the only black person there?
  • [00:15:02] Curtis Howard: Politeness plus pressure. Because I felt that I had to be the best at what I did. I had to go beyond sometimes what others would do. My work was never challenged. It was always appreciated because I I did a spot on job of doing research and so yeah, I think they added pressure or being the only one had its benefits and so I think the challenges was was good for me in that essence as well.
  • [00:15:37] INTERVIEWER: Would you say you are a role model to the two Black kids in the community?
  • [00:15:45] Curtis Howard: Not really. Because the community that I'm in here in Ann Arbor was not Black kids. It was more diversity. The the kids that I associated with my church, yes. But not primarily in my neighborhood community.
  • [00:16:06] INTERVIEWER: How do you judge the excellence within your field?
  • [00:16:09] Curtis Howard: How do I judge just my excellence? As it says in research, your data is not any good unless it is being able to be able to read reproduceable. You got to reproduce what your results are and my results were pretty consistent of doing that and hits a lot of the work that I did where it was published as well, so I did a good job.
  • [00:16:33] INTERVIEWER: Would you say you are a well-respected?
  • [00:16:36] Curtis Howard: Yes.
  • [00:16:38] INTERVIEWER: What did you value most about what you did for the living?
  • [00:16:41] Curtis Howard: What I valued most. The work itself was beneficial knowing that I would have an opportunity to benefit mankind case in point. Since I've retired now and I volunteered and bought student hospital. In the oncology pediatric department. I've seen drugs that I tested in my lab that's now being used against with two children, and that's a great accomplishment.
  • [00:17:13] INTERVIEWER: Can you tell me about any lose you made during your working years retirement prior dues who didn't move to current residence?
  • [00:17:21] Curtis Howard: A bidding in Ann Arbor for 35 years. Same neighborhood two different locations, not far apart from each other and they move, so we didn't move around a lot. Pretty, pretty stable.
  • [00:17:38] INTERVIEWER: How you feel about your current living situation?
  • [00:17:41] Curtis Howard: Excellent.
  • [00:17:51] INTERVIEWER: How did family life change for you when you or your spouse retired and your children left?
  • [00:17:58] Curtis Howard: How did things change? More time, travel, pick up various hobbies. I would say volunteer as well, which has been a great asset to me, but children leaving home, passive, that's a part of life. Grand kids, have an opportunity to visit them. So it's been really great for retirement.
  • [00:18:37] INTERVIEWER: What does your family enjoy doing together now?
  • [00:18:39] INTERVIEWER: Well, if I wasn't doing this interview right now, my wife is working out at the gym. I would be there. That's where I was yesterday. We do that quite often together in the mornings. We eat out a lot, ticket a movie every now and then, but just enjoy each other's company.
  • [00:18:58] INTERVIEWER: What are your personal favorite things to do for fun?
  • [00:19:01] INTERVIEWER: My favorite thing to do for fun, dependent on the weather, I love to golf. Be on the golf course would be probably a better explanation for it. Like to enjoy volunteering. I love to sing, I love to go to church. There's a lot of things that keeps me at my schedule pet each day.
  • [00:19:22] INTERVIEWER: Are there any special events or things you especially enjoy at this time of your life?
  • [00:19:29] Curtis Howard: Special events. I have an upcoming special event that's coming up in, hopefully, four weeks, which will be the birth of another grandchild, which we're expecting shortly. So that's the big major importance right now in our lives.
  • [00:19:46] INTERVIEWER: What would you say is a typical day in your life currently?
  • [00:19:49] Curtis Howard: Typical day. Dependent upon the day of the week, because Thursday's I volunteer in MOT, but just relaxing in the morning when I wake up, I'm an early riser. And with telephones now I'm always reading all the newspapers around the world, things like that. Get up, we have breakfast, go workout, come back and do probably nothing, and then get ready for lunch and a movie, and then we just go out to dinner. It's a very sometimes a boring day.
  • [00:20:21] INTERVIEWER: Would you say any historical or social events taking place affected you or your family?
  • [00:20:30] Curtis Howard: Any historical. Throughout my lifetime?
  • [00:20:35] INTERVIEWER: [inaudible 00:20:35]
  • [00:20:43] Curtis Howard: None that I can think of on the top of my head that really made a major impact on my life or my kid's life. Let me go back and think. I would think the major impact would be the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. That was a major part of our lives because my son had served two tours there, had been to Kuwait, Bosnia, and all those foreign countries as well. The major impact was his death in Iraq in 2006.
  • [00:21:21] INTERVIEWER: Do you have any family heirlooms or keepsakes for moment ls you possess?
  • [00:21:28] Curtis Howard: Yes. I have a set of a wing table that I have that I inherited from my parents, and it is older than I am and I don't know how old it is, but it's been my family for many years, and I've denoted that it's going to my daughter and then her child will inherit that as well. So that's the only heirloom that we really have.
  • [00:21:57] INTERVIEWER: Is there a story behind it?
  • [00:22:04] Curtis Howard: Not really. It's a generational thing because when I was a kid, there was not a lot of conversations between parents and children. When parents would talk, adults would talk, kids had to leave the room. Whereas when my kids were up, we would discuss a lot of things. I would tell them stories about their families. So a lot of that is being lost it down in the annals of handing down things that are important and generational to each other in the family.
  • [00:22:39] INTERVIEWER: Thinking back over your entire lifetime until now, what do you think you're most proud of?
  • [00:22:45] Curtis Howard: My family. The accomplishments, and even my immediate family, my brother and sister as well. Even though we live in different cities, we're still close, but I think our parents would be very proud of us of where we came from and where we are currently here today.
  • [00:23:12] INTERVIEWER: What would you say has changed the most from the time that you were my age until now?
  • [00:23:21] Curtis Howard: Integration. I lived in a segregated world when I was a child, and I think that is the biggest explosion that I have seen. The opportunities of us now more so than when I was a child.
  • [00:23:40] INTERVIEWER: What advice would you give to my generation?
  • [00:23:42] Curtis Howard: What advice? Talk with each other, listen with each other. There's not a lot of differences between any of us. We all have the same drive and want to be able to be successful, but just talk with each other. That's it. You can agree to disagree. I've talked with a lot of people through the years. We don't have the same philosophies of things, but we can share some moments, and that's the main thing.
  • [00:24:15] INTERVIEWER: I'm going to go back to high school years since [inaudible 00:24:17]
  • [00:24:33] Curtis Howard: On your point when you asked the question about what I should share with you guys, be honest with each other. Don't hold back. If you have a riff with someone, disagreement, talk it over. Don't go home angry and fall out about something. Life is too short. So talk things over and be friends because you never know through years past when you may look around the corner and you may need that person's help.
  • [00:25:08] INTERVIEWER: Can you describe the differences between when you went to high school and now?
  • [00:25:15] Curtis Howard: I don't remember has it been that long? Yes. Look at all of the things that are in this classroom right now that we did not have at all. You guys have an elevator. We didn't have it one floor only at high school. The athletic departments that you have here is just tremendous. The support that you have here is tremendous as well. We had to go to the library, open up a book, and go to the catalog and look up books to find it. Now you can just say, hey Siri Google this for me. That's a major difference in or the advantages are for your generation to really learn Excel is just mind-blowing. Sometimes I'm envious of it as well.
  • [00:26:13] INTERVIEWER: What were any specific social normalities different from now?
  • [00:26:18] Curtis Howard: Trying to compare '60s, '70s to in the '20s now, there was nothing that was similar. Places that I could go had colored on it. There were restrictions on where we could go. Our downtown area that we shopped was all black. Our movie theaters were black. The first movie that I went to that was an integrated movie theater I had to sit in the balcony where now you can go and you can sit anywhere you want to and that's the major part, is the inclusion of everyone in society.
  • [00:27:07] INTERVIEWER: How about within your high school experience?
  • [00:27:10] Curtis Howard: Within my high school experience, I won't trade it because I think my high school was set up that was no reason for failure because everyone wanted you to succeed, and because the support was there, teachers were there. Here, I think now with my children going through the school system, kids were falling through the cracks and there was no one there to set up the system on. That was the largest part that I could see of my school's education that you're experiencing now.
  • [00:27:50] INTERVIEWER: What would you say, the difference between a girl's experience and a boy's experience was?
  • [00:27:58] Curtis Howard: It'd be tough to do. I can tell you about the boys' experience though. Boys experience we were not really segregated from each other but just a typical high school settings, boys did their things, girls did their things as well. There were always clicks. Everybody, friends here, you don't associate with this group even though it was black, there was segregation within our school as well because if you didn't fit in, that's the way things are. But really no difference.
  • [00:28:39] INTERVIEWER: Do you feel that men and women had the same opportunities during school?
  • [00:28:44] Curtis Howard: During school? I would say during school, yes. Occupation-wise, no because I think there were some things that doors were not open for women as much as was for for men in those days.
  • [00:29:00] INTERVIEWER: Have you noticed any changes or reason why the changes are happening now?
  • [00:29:08] Curtis Howard: There are so many things going on now. Wow, I tell you. Just recently, two or three weeks ago, we're looking if we're going to really bring this current and then the political realms of things or the Me Too Movement, Gay Rights Movement that was unheard of back in the '60s and '70s and '80s and here we are now. I think things are changing in the right direction but I think again, people aren't listening to each other because we all have our own views on how things should be done instead of just looking at the beneficial benefits of societies as a whole.
  • [00:29:44] INTERVIEWER: Today we see these movements and different ways of activism. Would you say that your generation even thought about it or considered these things back then?
  • [00:29:54] Curtis Howard: Oh, we considered it because that means our movement was in the '60s, which I'm really proud of. [NOISE]
  • [00:30:04] FEMALE_2: Attention staff. This is SLP Principal [inaudible 00:30:12]. Currently, we are going into what's called a soft lockdown. This is not a juvenile.
  • [00:30:19] Curtis Howard: A soft lockdown.
  • [00:30:19] FEMALE_2: Soft lockdown means that you continue your instruction. Please keep students in your classroom. Further communication will be coming shortly.
  • [00:30:37] Curtis Howard: Yeah, lock the door.
  • [00:30:38] INTERVIEWER: I've heard what's going on.
  • [00:30:38] FEMALE_2: [OVERLAPPING]. We are currently on soft lockdown mode. Please continue your instructions and do not release your students until an announcement is made. Thank you.
  • [00:30:53] INTERVIEWER: [inaudible 00:30:53]
  • [00:30:58] Curtis Howard: That goes with their cell phones down there. [LAUGHTER] Do you guys have a soft lockdown when you have to?
  • [00:31:06] INTERVIEWER: No, we've never had a lockdown.
  • [00:31:07] Curtis Howard: [inaudible 00:31:07]
  • [00:31:11] MALE_1: Hi, guys. I'm so sorry, Mr. Howard. It's a nearby situation by the school, which is why it's a soft lockdown. We really apologize. What I intend to do is I'm going to lock the studio door, I've got Greek owned media center so the student will be locked for a few minutes to resolve outside. It's all a soft blackout. It's like when there's a situation near Skylite.
  • [00:31:51] Curtis Howard: No. Watch your local news tonight? [BACKGROUND] Go back to this school thing because this is a great impetus of it all because we didn't have this stuff like this. It was great. We didn't have doors locked. We announced stuff like that and then my school we didn't have policeman and stuff like that. It was nice. It was easy. Because the things you guys have to face is just, men, is tough. It's tough. Yeah, it really is. Are you feminists? Were you? I didn't if you'd like, roll it too. You never tried it out. But yeah. This is a difficult part that I can't seem to fathom in particular painter. My generation is growing up in school it was difficult learning, but not in the sense of being concerned about violence in the schools. That was not even thought about in our schools and for your generation to go through this, I can't put them together. I just cannot put them together at all of the way that the way society has gone. Again, we didn't have a lot of the things that you guys have now, which they adhere saying attributed to all the violence. We didn't have video games and as they're seeing that a part of that may be going toward the psyche of individual displaying video games these days. But had a peaceful transition from middle school to high school. That I would not trade and I wish I could trade it for you guys generations to be able to go back and come to school. You don't have to worry about your backpack being searched and all that kind of stuff. Metal detectors didn't have that. We could go to the airport, you could take your whole relatives to the airport and check out and say goodbye. Now you can't do that. Even though there was a violent society, which the comparison back there and with my generation of what the generations are, with their Me too, the civil rights movement was a movement that started it all. That's my feelings about that.
  • [00:34:27] INTERVIEWER: Would you say as the progression continues in our society as we progress a step, we take a step back in a different situation?
  • [00:34:38] Curtis Howard: What's a step back? I think we should we should look back and learn from those things. But I think we are looking back and we're removing the area now that we should not be going toward and hopefully, somewhere down the line things will change. In case and point back in years ago with women's suffrage, when women did not have the right to vote back then. Now you look at 2018 and women's going to have the right to vote and they're going to have some issues and things to change some things. History changes sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. I think sometimes now we're not really learning from those things that happened in the past to make the future better.
  • [00:35:23] INTERVIEWER: Would you say it's more disguised and we don't adjust it as much because they think everything is fragile?
  • [00:35:30] Curtis Howard: Well, I think really, yeah, I wouldn't say disguise because it really hurts now I think it's social media. You get all sorts of stuff. You can put anything out there. You don't know who he is, my name could be Larry, and so you could post anything or say anything about anybody and that's really a detriment to the contrary of tweeting, so to speak. That's semi, but if you're prison in the United States, you can tweet, for example, is that setting for your body out. It's a positive step, but then it's a negative step. If we use it correctly, then would be a great nation.
  • [00:36:08] INTERVIEWER: Did you guys have lock down, [inaudible 00:36:11] and strangers?
  • [00:36:16] Curtis Howard: We had a fire drills where we had to go outside and line up in a quiet order and go out. Stone girls tornado drills. Not really a lot that I can recall. But those were the only drills we had all orderly and that's it. Unlike here, drills and lock the doors and I'll let say, we had nothing like that growing up as a child.
  • [00:36:53] INTERVIEWER: Is there anything you'd like to add about your high school years?
  • [00:36:56] Curtis Howard: My high school years. Wow.
  • [00:37:07] Curtis Howard: I guess the best part was safe. If you send your kids to school, you know they always returned home safe and sound, hopefully have learned a few things throughout the day. I had some very supportive teachers, my favorite teacher was a shop teacher. He taught woodwork and he was the guy that really pushing me to always one person I want to teach you that students in the right direction. But no, I would not change anything, the only thing that would change if I had to do it all over again, I would not have been allowed to skip two grades, we're not allowed to skip two grades, I missed a lot I think in my formative years of missing that part of growing up. But maybe not having the relationship with other ethnic groups might have been beneficial as well, I don't know, I don't think so, I think growing up in a neighborhood and community that was segregated had it's benefits for me. I had some great mentors and things, but being set apart into society of coming from all-black society and community in the thrust in a situation where you're the only minority, that's when it's frightening. My biggest experience is that when I went to University of Alabama, Birmingham in a science class and a lecture hall, it was conceived 300, but there may be 200 students and I was the only one that looked like me there and that was difficult to grasp and I wanted to stop no, I can't deal with can do with this, and you just move on. But we have to learn from experiences and those experiences come when we allow ourselves to be open-minded and don't let someone say what you cannot do and I was apart when somebody said I can't do something, it pushed me even harder to do as well.
  • [00:39:25] INTERVIEWER: Through our lives, we have different stages, different things that makes our ideals and personalities and everything changed, how would you describe your progression through life?
  • [00:39:36] Curtis Howard: Progression through life? That's a good question, our progressions through life. That's a really good question. Going back a few years, I guess I tried to cap it is like a little snippets of my life of elementary school, not having a lot, my parents working a lot, not really struggling but sometimes didn't have things that we really wanted to have, toys, things like that, so we struggled through that period of time in growing up as a child. But during that period, The same kids in my neighborhood were struggling through the same thing. If I didn't have something and had something extra, then my friends could have that same thing because we would share a lot and that was a great part of growing up. Moving it forward to now, it's just the opportunities that are available to young people. That's just tremendous in soda in all, and if I would've had somebody opportunities in the middle-school that we went to that was a new school and a gym would've have basketball goals in the gym, because the school the board could not afford it. Now I look around and you have a gym and you've got nine baskets around, you've got to track around, you've got swimming pools, my community in my neighborhood where it was only one swimming pool for the whole city, for blacks. Do you imagine that? We couldn't go various places and the segregation was I thought was not a hole back for me and I'm not bitter about it, but I think it's saddened me as I think about it now of how human beings can mistreat each other. Think that one group of people are superior than others and that startles me for some reason and the violence that's going on in our cities and states as well. But right now, retirement, it's not bad, getting an opportunity to sit and then to share a few of my moments of my life with you, it's been tremendous and a learning experience for me and I appreciate.
  • [00:42:38] INTERVIEWER: We, as students here, are very privileged to have everything we do here, what would you say about and the reasons why there's still schools and places where the things haven't progressed and things, they don't have all the resources and stuff that we do now and why is it that in those communities, they follow minorities?
  • [00:43:07] Curtis Howard: Comes down to dollars and cents economics, if you have a community that has a great tax base, great jobs, educational system is fantastic, you have more dollars and cents to go around and so that's why there was a disparity throughout the nation, throughout the world that way. That you have one part of society that's flourishing and then you have another part that's poor, if you look around the United States, if you did a survey or you did some research on schools in Mississippi, poor, maybe the median income, maybe $12,000 a year. If you go to another community the median income, maybe $75,000 -$80,000 a year. That's where the disparity comes in, if you don't put that with schools, if you look at food, you got a lot of kids going to bed, hungry at night. Here we are in the great United States that has all the money and resources and we're not doing the things that we should be doing as a government and sometimes communities that have it all don't appreciate what they have and some of these schools that are just barely getting by. Kids are doing the best they can and you have situations where families of the poor neighborhoods, their parents haven't even finished high school, let it not they may not be even thinking about college. There is not a impotence of being successful because our communities and the environment that moles us as individuals and if you see everything that's the same every day, violence every day, that's all you know and that's how the society is and economics plays a major part of that.
  • [00:45:25] INTERVIEWER: You lived in the civil rights movement and you've seen the progression over the years, what would you say race has to do with reasons why in places that haven't been progression even though like in Michigan, we have people who are privileged and we are honored to have that privilege. If their kids also in Michigan that don't have that privilege and they mostly minorities, what do you think the connection is? Is it that you haven't because are we leaving something out because we're saying that we have progressed?
  • [00:46:03] Curtis Howard: The Bible says, there will always be poor, that's just the nature of the beast it seems why that will be I don't have an answer, a part of the portion of that may be that we're not reaching back, helping those that are poor. That's the major factor I think we are in our own worlds, I have it, if you don't it's up to you. I made it the best I possibly can and that's how society reflects itself because when we close our doors at night, we just think about ourselves, we don't think about the kids in Mississippi, kids in Alabama. We don't think about the situation in Indonesia where over thousands of people were killed in the Tsunami so we are individuals that think about self too much and not others.
  • [00:47:15] INTERVIEWER: Going back to your year, would you say that.
  • [00:47:22] INTERVIEWER: Racism and the aggravation of segregation influenced your communities pop culture?
  • [00:47:33] Curtis Howard: Pop culture.
  • [00:47:34] INTERVIEWER: Or like your culture in general?
  • [00:47:34] Curtis Howard: Our culture? Well, the church was a focal point, schools as well, but I think in some instances, in some points, integration hurt us because we had a pride in our communities back then. We had the schools, the churches, of course, but our black businesses as well flourished. We had our downtown area, theaters, barbershop, clothing stores, we had all those things that were ours. When in the middle '60s, late '60s when integration started, what happened? We thought that the grass was greener on the other side of the street so we forgot our identity. We failed our own businesses and our own people of not shopping within ourselves in our own stores because we all, again, it goes back to economics. We had power then because we had our own success in our communities, and we left those stores and went elsewhere and forgot about our stores, and those stores closed up, and we will never regain those stores anymore. We hurt ourselves in a good way and then sometimes in a bad way and society now was trying to recapture that, but I think it's a little bit too late to do those things.
  • [00:49:16] INTERVIEWER: Using your [OVERLAPPING].
  • [00:49:19] MALE_2: Time's up.
  • [00:49:19] INTERVIEWER: Okay.
  • [00:49:19] INTERVIEWER: Time's up.
  • [00:49:27] INTERVIEWER: Cut.
  • [00:49:29] INTERVIEWER: Cut. That is the director back there.
  • [00:49:29] INTERVIEWER: I'll move that back. [NOISE] Check your lighting. I did move the light a little bit. [BACKGROUND]
  • [00:49:48] MALE_2: Where it is last time? A little bit to your right, I believe. Because you got a little glare right there.
  • [00:49:50] Curtis Howard: On my glasses? [BACKGROUND]
  • [00:49:50] INTERVIEWER: Is that better?
  • [00:50:04] MALE_2: Yeah.
  • [00:50:04] INTERVIEWER: It's good?
  • [00:50:04] MALE_2: Yes, that better.
  • [00:50:09] INTERVIEWER: Ready?
  • [00:50:17] MALE_2: All right, we're ready.
  • [00:50:17] INTERVIEWER: Okay, so you wanted to touch on. [LAUGHTER]
  • [00:50:23] Curtis Howard: I wanted to touch on that. Yeah. Looking back and thinking about the progression of names for racist in this present time, probably your generation refers to blacks as African-Americans. However, when I was growing up as a child, my parents were colored. The progression of that for me, growing up as a child, I was a Negro. Then the progression after that in the '60s was black. Now we're viewing the African-American's situation. The older generations were hard to grasp that change even from blacks to African-Americans. They were still referred to themselves as colored, but now the progression, I think for the generations that are currently going on now it's an African-American thing. I'm an interchangeable person because I relate myself more as black than an African-American because it's like I'm not from that continent. That's the change that I've seen since I was a kid until this present time right now.
  • [00:51:37] INTERVIEWER: Did you think the progression had anything to do with like, is it different from the time when the civil rights movement was going on and then after, was it like that change or just slowly evolved?
  • [00:51:49] Curtis Howard: It slowly evolved, 10, 15 year increments, maybe so at 20 years to get to that point. But I think it was a positive change and people grasped upon the change in the naming of, I guess, the new name of a racist and an identity for ethnic groups.
  • [00:52:11] INTERVIEWER: There's also been discussion about how not all black people are African-American. Some are like Latina, some are [inaudible 00:52:20]. What do you feel about that? Because some black people get offended when they call them African-American because they don't consider themselves as African.
  • [00:52:32] Curtis Howard: I haven't run across too many. I guess it's a generational thing. Because it's like, well, I'm not from Africa, I'm here in the United States and in my generation, pretty much confine yourself to say, I'm black. That's a better connotation than being a Negro, but I think it's just what you're comfortable with. There's a whole litany of things when you're doing applications of what you're actually your ethnicity is and you just have to check a box and feel comfortable with it.
  • [00:53:04] INTERVIEWER: Have you noticed that it's more of white people that say African-American?
  • [00:53:09] Curtis Howard: Yes.
  • [00:53:09] INTERVIEWER: Because you don't call yourself [OVERLAPPING]
  • [00:53:12] Curtis Howard: No. I'm black. That's just the way it is.
  • [00:53:27] INTERVIEWER: What else do you feel like progress from when you were living in the [inaudible 00:53:30] community?
  • [00:53:33] Curtis Howard: Progressed? I would say opportunities which are vastly improved now than was when I was a kid. Being able to go anywhere and do anything that you wanted to do within reason. I have seen a decline however, and then I guess an increase that would really be the best way to put it with police brutality as it was back in the day versus now. That's been a detriment for both races.
  • [00:54:10] INTERVIEWER: We as black people we pay taxes or our police, my protection. You have to fear to get hurt or killed by police or police brutality or something, what's it like that back then?
  • [00:54:27] Curtis Howard: It was worse then because they didn't have anyone to answer to. If you were walking across the street and you didn't obey their laws, you could be beaten right then. Even going further back in history, you could be lynched for a little nothing and there was no repercussions, the justice system, but the progression now it says improved, but still there are some much important things that the justice system need to look into.
  • [00:54:54] INTERVIEWER: How would you describe life like when there is a lack of opportunities or restriction of opportunities?
  • [00:55:02] Curtis Howard: How was life like? I move past that real fast in growing up. The opportunities were not there as much for my parents as it was for my generation. I didn't feel a stigma, there were some things, places that I could not go. I could not eat at various places. I couldn't go to movie theaters and things like that, which was a hindrance, but I think the best part that I came up with during that period of time, was just a situation where that I knew that I had to do better and the opportunities that were out there had to take advantage of.
  • [00:55:41] INTERVIEWER: Are there any specific stories or situations where you feel like lasted in your head? Can you turn?
  • [00:55:52] Curtis Howard: Situations.
  • [00:55:55] INTERVIEWER: Involving like an opportunity or a place he couldn't go, like discrimination, desegregation, is there any story that leg straight in your head?
  • [00:56:06] Curtis Howard: The most poignant story was when my brother and I tried to go bowling and there's a 30 lane bowling alley and there were only two lanes being used. The owner said, hey, we're busy right now, we have no lanes and that was the first time it really hit me. Going downtown I really didn't feel any segregation. Only just looking at going to a water fountain. One was colored, one was white, restrooms. The hospital I was born in Alabama. We had to go to the basement. All the waiting rooms are down there. I felt that as a kid growing up, but not as really a detriment to me as a child because my parents took us away from that type of atmosphere, the environment.
  • [00:57:01] INTERVIEWER: Through places and hospitals and stuff or restaurants, did White people serve you guys or hospitality reasons or restaurants?
  • [00:57:15] Curtis Howard: Well, it depends on the period of time. Before segregation. We had to go to the back of a restaurant to get our food. We were not allowed to go inside, just like department stores. We were not able to go in and sit at the lunch counters to eat lunch or whatever. The movie theaters. We had a separate entrance. We paid our tickets, but we had to go sit in the balconies. The other the separate part was definitely there. Educational wise. Things were separate, but they're supposed to be equal. The equality never came in. I think that's what set things back in the '50s and early '60s. Those because the government, yes, pass laws, but those laws were not enforced the way it should have been enforced back in the days.
  • [00:58:07] INTERVIEWER: Was white privilege even part of that?
  • [00:58:11] Curtis Howard: No it was common. It was a white privileged didn't pop up until, I guess, in this particular era of time because they were the dominant race. They had all the power, all the elected officials, the police department that was no segregated societies there as well. You didn't look at them as you knew that they had the power, and that's how things work back in the days.
  • [00:58:41] INTERVIEWER: Was any white people or people the democratic side? Like expressway provision, if that makes sense.
  • [00:58:55] Curtis Howard: No, it wasn't. It was just a given. If I like a particular soda, that's just how it is. Then there was no changes. People just live their lives the best they possibly could. The older generation didn't want to make waves. You'll see the case and point during the civil rights movement when Martin Luther King Junior came to the city, the older Blacks were saying, no, you won't need any change we're doing just well as we are. There was always a group of people that were not ready for change. Even though the change was important. They were just satisfied with how the Halley was living. They didn't want to make any ways, so to speak. Recalling when I would go to work and would ride the bus. Majority of the people on the bus were women, Black women. They were riding the bus because they were made they took care of people's homes, cleaning and all that stuff. They went over, they would call it the mountain because that was the neighborhood was called Mountain Brooks, where the well-off Blacks, not Blacks, I'm sorry the Whites lived. They would go there and that was their main jobs. You could see the differences in occupations where you would pass the bus stop and 99.9% of the people catching the bus where black going to work and only because they were doing menial jobs.
  • [01:00:30] INTERVIEWER: Would you say you guys perceived it as you Black people didn't have equal rights to them. Other than like, Oh, they have more privileges?
  • [01:00:44] Curtis Howard: With privilege comes money. If you've got the cash, you can do what you want to do. There were well-off Black neighborhoods where the doctors, the lawyers, the teachers, professional people lived. That was always there, that was always in the black neighborhoods. But I think looking at the funds that were spread out equally along racial lines was not equal because poverty was more increased in the black neighborhoods than it was predominantly white neighborhoods.
  • [01:01:20] INTERVIEWER: Were the more privileged black people like Dr. John, were they treated differently than you guys were by people?
  • [01:01:32] Curtis Howard: In some cases, yes. But they still could not go and eat at the restaurants. They could not drink out of the water fountains like it was until those signs came down. Those signs finally came down in my memory when I was working at a research facility in 1968, late '68, early '69. The company took the signs down. You'll still see the prints on the wall that were there. The company itself then the worker is still segregated. Their break room for blacks were way upstairs on the ninth floor. The whites had a nice cafeteria down on the main floor. And so when the signs came down, people that were working there was so programmed that hey, I've got to go up here on the eighth floor to the break room. I'm not going down on the first floor. That was ingrained in them. Me being just a new person it's like I'm going downstairs, that's where the break room is. The same innocence is riding a bus, I don't ride in the back of the bus anymore. When segregation and integration came in, I started to sit at the front of the bus, and so that was a I hate to break that mold, but some individuals never change that mindset. It depends on how a person perceives and thinks about themselves, whether they want to make that change.
  • [01:03:03] INTERVIEWER: Before integration started progressing did you ever just be like, well, I'm just going to go into the light. I'm just going to go there because [inaudible 01:03:13]
  • [01:03:16] Curtis Howard: No, not really. I didn't know he had the opportunity to go was never thirsty for one, which was good. I didn't have to go to the restroom. I don't know if I would have broken that mode if the opportunity presents itself. I wasn't really a radical person. But I was never put in that situation that you have to do a particular ticket situation and change it differently though.
  • [01:03:40] INTERVIEWER: Going back to labels for black people, what do you think changed from negro to black?
  • [01:03:53] Curtis Howard: When the movement started with the Black Panthers, and they brought a significance of self-importance. James Brown made a solemn, hey, I'm black and I'm proud. That changed the number and the thinking of individuals, black isn't that bad. But still we segregated ourselves sometimes as well because of color. If you were fair-skinned and very light-skinned black, you would treated differently, society looked at you much differently. If you were very dark-skinned, it thinks we're looking at it differently as well. There were advantages for being black but not black insignificance of being dark-skinned black. I think that movement changed only because of the Black Panthers and the radical movement that finally clicked in people's heads that black isn't bad.
  • [01:04:52] INTERVIEWER: [BACKGROUND]
  • [01:05:44] Curtis Howard: Yes, it did. Do you know what I said? Soon as I went but got this frequency close up. They'd been trying to find a location on the same side of the town but they haven't, so I don't know if they've only ever get back into it. You got to close them, you know, bottle fragile and they went out of business. That went out of business and lost her lease actually.
  • [01:06:13] INTERVIEWER: [inaudible 01:06:13]
  • [01:06:19] Curtis Howard: They're putting their geo what they're putting in, it's actually over there and in its place. A marijuana shop. Well, just what I need on my side [LAUGHTER] Now where are we going with this interview?
  • [01:06:41] INTERVIEWER: I don't know.
  • [01:06:42] Curtis Howard: You don't know? Wherever you want to.
  • [01:06:46] INTERVIEWER: You want to talk about changes [inaudible 01:06:49]?
  • [01:06:49] Curtis Howard: As with all other things going on in the world. It's frightening.
  • [01:07:10] Curtis Howard: You guys ever watched the show? That's it's an old, a sitcom but it was like a Western Dr. Queen. She was a physician back in the, I guess when they were cowboys and all that good stuff. But she was a modern physician. She caught a lot of resistance because she was a female and no one wanted to go to her because she was a female physician. Then the episode a couple of days ago, there's a black couple that lives within the community and they wanted to purchase a house within the community as well. There was a lot of resistance because they were black. They almost attract and lynching at the end of the episode. But it's just a significant factor of how things have gone back then and how where we are today. All the episode. It was back in the 1800s, probably early 1900s. But the situation that things are going now compared to back then I had a friend, we're at a dinner last night and we were talking about something that the question came up. Well, did you ever have any problems when you grew up as a kid? Now he's 80 same years old, he's Caucasian. I said, well, we had a few things we can go for urges, colors only man. I was born down in the basement of the hospital, you know, stuff like that. There was always discrimination. But we knew where we were and where we fit in to the community, which was okay. My childhood was alright, but in comparison to where we are now, we have never imagined as being here now. It's mind-boggling. But here we are. Well, he grew up in threatened Pennsylvania and they moved to Florida. His job transferred him there. Let's see, he had three kids. During that time, busing was implemented back in the '60s. He was open-minded. It's okay. They were kids. I mean, it's the government. We have put my kids on the bus, no problem. But he had neighbors that were Floridian said that those are hallways and they resisted it. They said, grandma, I'm not sending my kids bussing, you know, back-and-forth, things like that. The only thing that he really experienced was the negativity on the white community side and not his side. It happens. That's how things are today. You've got some for, some against and here we are in this present day in time.
  • [01:10:12] INTERVIEWER: Can you see some similarities to link the color zoning, stuff in school districts and staff where majority Black, Sea in Detroit [inaudible 01:10:23]
  • [01:10:29] Curtis Howard: It was the same. My neighborhood, was totally black There the neighborhood that was primarily white was, I would say, less than a block from where I lived. There was no interaction at all. It was a pluses and minuses and all of that. With me didn't have any problem because when you grew up in a situation and environment and that's all you know. Unless you experience something negative that will impact you growing up, then you would say, I had a great time. We did not work for a lot of things, maybe our facilities were not at the highest standards as a white communities were. But we survived.
  • [01:11:25] INTERVIEWER: Were there any significant differences between the two of you? Were you staying closer?
  • [01:11:30] Curtis Howard: Our homes. Homes were different. You had large houses, the house that I grew up in, it was a duplex and it was basically shotgun house. You could look through the front door and you can see the back porch as well. We had a decent backyard, but the railroad tracks went right behind the house. Those things, if not run into the white neighborhoods because they were several miles apart. When the freeway came through in Birmingham, it took away the black community. It did not take any white neighborhoods at all. They separated us in that instance. But changes are made and it seems it affects those that are economically deprived of those things and their voices are heard as much as those that have privilege.
  • [01:12:40] INTERVIEWER: Speaking of your career stuff. How did that change your careers?
  • [01:12:45] Curtis Howard: How did it change it? Probably, I would say the only thing that really aided me in my career was the affirmative action plan. When I got out of the service, I didn't really know what I wanted to do, but I started working at a non-profit research facility in Birmingham. During that time there was only one black technician that worked in the labs. The company was based upon, in a lot of their contracts were government-based contracts. The government says, we're going to give you X amount of millions of dollars for a period of time. But most of the contracts in my lab, were four or five-year contracts and it was for cancer research. If we're going to give you all these dollars, you going to have to open it up and have some minorities working in the labs. Those that were had been there for a number of years or reluctant to do it because they were like, no, I don't want to change. I don't want to go to this career path. I may fail in this in that. I opted, I'll give it a shot. That's how I got started in my career of research because of the affirmative action plan.
  • [01:14:22] INTERVIEWER: Economic disparities that created a problem.
  • [01:14:27] Curtis Howard: As always, even so today, there is not an equal amount of pay for jobs, education, or whatever. Women are paid less. Back then, minorities were paid less. But it was a job and you just had to do what you had to do to survive and take care of your family.
  • [01:14:51] INTERVIEWER: Back to so-called progressive nation. Why do you think that this stuff is still going on.
  • [01:14:56] Curtis Howard: That's a good question. It's mind-boggling to me on how these United States has taken a left turn in everything. Me looking back at my life and growing up of especially with all the economic opportunities, educational opportunities, of how things has perpetuated itself for us to be here now, now we are with all the radicalism that terrorism, sexism, all the isms that's out there these days. I can't understand it. It shouldn't be that way.
  • [01:15:44] INTERVIEWER: Would you think that it's happening more now or it's just more in the media as you have talked about?
  • [01:15:51] Curtis Howard: Well, both. Because with social media that's out there now you can get news in a new slash. That's a good thing and a bad thing. But yeah, some things aren't put out and pushes people's agenda to the front. Because if I keep hearing the same story and this is how things are, I'm against this particular group. It sticks in your head and it grows in you. We pushing people's thoughts towards the wrong ideas of how society should be. As you can see that a lot of things that are going on right now, people that are perpetuating these things. They're not all people. I would think, back in what was growing up and finally gotten in our 30s. It's like that, well, Bull Connor has died. He was the biggest racist in Birmingham. It's just like when he goes, things are going to change and we'll just move on. But we're going with reverted back for some odd reason and it's difficult to somewhat understand.
  • [01:17:11] INTERVIEWER: Do you think there is a reason why history keeps repeating?
  • [01:17:16] Curtis Howard: That's the old adage. History always repeats itself, and sometimes we don't learn from history, and we get ourselves in a situation of repeating ourselves. We can see it coming. But we just for some reason can't prevent it from happening and I don't know what to say.
  • [01:17:39] INTERVIEWER: As you grow during the civil right movement and then you raise children later on. What were the differences that were the most significant between your two childhoods.
  • [01:17:55] Curtis Howard: Between my two childhoods?
  • [01:17:58] INTERVIEWER: Between you growing up and your children.
  • [01:18:00] Curtis Howard: Oh, my children. I didn't want for my chest as a kid growing up. My parents both were working. But I think the opportunities were vastly different and better for my kids than it was for me, better and respect that I had a better paying job than my father did. My wife worked as well. I think the opportunities is the main part of things of how my life vastly different from theirs. They didn't have to face a lot of things that I faced and I saw as growing up as a child. But other than that, that's about it. I think their circle of friends were larger than mine. All of my circle of friends were all black. Their's was just like in a relational thing with when they were 20, grew up his kids and went to high school and middle school around here.
  • [01:19:05] INTERVIEWER: Were there any like public cases of discrimination that your kids experience that you noticed?
  • [01:19:14] Curtis Howard: The only thing that my son faced was being I know harassed. We had a neighbor that was the torture of our subdivision, and so she did some things that were not pleasing, and I think that it was done because he was black. She had two daughters, and my son was or maybe two years older than both of them, and so that was the only instance that we've ever faced any dealings with, maybe discrimination or just prejudices at that point.
  • [01:19:53] INTERVIEWER: Can you give a specific example?
  • [01:19:55] Curtis Howard: I better not.
  • [01:19:59] INTERVIEWER: How did raising your kids change you and [inaudible 01:20:04]
  • [01:20:04] Curtis Howard: How did it change me? I had to grow up being a dad. That's the main thing. Each one of my kids were vastly different. Two girls and one boy. The oldest, having cerebral palsy gave us a sense of caring. My son, did well in high school, went off to college. College wasn't his thing and decided to join the military, which was a good thing. My daughter ran track, went to college, got a degree, did well. My kids did really well. The only downside to those were two of my kids had passed early, and so those are the things that we had to deal with as parents during this period of days.
  • [01:21:02] INTERVIEWER: What like emotional toil did that take on you and how are your views different because of the experience.
  • [01:21:11] Curtis Howard: Tough emotionally during this period, during that time, I had issues and just actually recently my biggest hurdle was telephones. I think I mentioned that earlier of this terrified when the phone would ring because always bad news comes with phone calls. But it has given me a sense of appreciating people, family, and life itself. Because things can change very quickly and sometimes, I think people don't look at life and value life enough to change their views and get closer to the people themselves. But I, death doesn't frighten me anymore. I've gotten used to it. But people call and says someone's passed. It's like, okay, how old were they, circumstances, but it changed me, and I think for the better though I'm more sympathetic, and I can talk with people a little bit more openness and share my experiences with them as well.
  • [01:22:30] INTERVIEWER: Going back on how you were raised and stuff. You said in your last interview that you wouldn't want to grow up in our generation why is that?
  • [01:22:41] Curtis Howard: Too many things going on. I think technology has really made a major impact on the generation that we're in now, the millennium set as they call it. Because there's not a lot of communications verbally anymore. There's a lot of texting, and Snapchat and all these other things that's out there, that's done on social media things. Because you can write something, and once it's out there, it's shared with thousands and thousands of people, and sometimes you can write something completely false, and people will take it as like this happen obligate skyline today and it could be completely false, and people will take those things the wrong way and you can write something and after reading, after you send it, it's too late to take it back. Even the wording of something just say so. I think the communication's is the biggest factor. But I, hopefully I'm still encourage that the younger generation will get it together, and I think they will.
  • [01:23:54] INTERVIEWER: Do you think technology and stuff has to do with that all epidemic of local conflict?
  • [01:24:05] Curtis Howard: Yes. I laugh because when you have a president, that's on Twitter. I don't have any Twitter account. But I can make statements or all of us, any of us can make statements that can change a person's perspective and even thought of what things are, and some of those statements can be false, and we just take it and we run with it. But yeah, technology is a main key. I was kid, everyone didn't have a telephone when I grew up, and if parents needed me, they would send someone else down in the neighborhood and tell us to come home or whatever. I think that's the biggest in person. Technology is great. I love it. I have my smartphone, I keep up with things. But when it's used for the negative aspect of life, that's when it's not good.
  • [01:25:09] INTERVIEWER: What elements did your childhood have that ours doesn't contain?
  • [01:25:17] Curtis Howard: What elements?
  • [01:25:21] Curtis Howard: More so now I think it's my religious background was molded into us as kids. We were taken to church we were taken to Sunday school. Our values I think were more religiously bound the generation that's in now going to church and having a spiritual connection with a higher being in our power. I think that may be an underlying thing in what's going on in school with us. I know if you don't know, it goes on now, but I know it doesn't go now. The part of prayer, we pray even morning in school. There was a pledge allegiance and starts back end and all that stuff was there, but prayer was a focal point and then starting our school year. I think that to me is a negative aspect on society right now.
  • [01:26:22] INTERVIEWER: In high school, [inaudible 01:26:22] a lot and was were there any diversity and they were just views in your schools?
  • [01:26:36] Curtis Howard: The diversity was the denomination of a person. Baptists and Methodists, Catholic protestant and all that stuff. But there were no Muslims, there were no Asians and so it's all black. We had a strong hold on who we were because there was no diversity at all. We had no white teachers in school. I think that was a positive aspect on me. It was difficult once we left that world, so to speak, and when finally got reality is like, wow, I've got to deal with other cultures and other individuals that's out in society as well, so it made a difference in that respect.
  • [01:27:33] INTERVIEWER: Would you say that created culture shock or like [inaudible 01:27:36]
  • [01:27:40] Curtis Howard: No, it was like a culture shock. When I went to the university and went to the lecture hall and everyone was white and I was black and said wow, man, what's going on here. It would take you a little time to get used to that, form your own defense mechanisms. But it was a challenge starting out, but something you'll recall. Something I hope came anyway.
  • [01:28:16] INTERVIEWER: Did the black community in anyway or like communicate with other minorities?
  • [01:28:26] Curtis Howard: Not that I'm aware of, no. I wouldn't say minorities. I guess that would be my minorities. If you were non-black, the store owners in our communities. They were not black. It was amazing. We did have a few stores that were black-owned, but those grocery stores that were doing better economically they were white stores. They came into our neighborhoods and made all the money and then they moved out. They didn't move out, but they lived in their own communities, that was a difference in.
  • [01:29:15] INTERVIEWER: Like you guys didn't see any other minorities just like people.
  • [01:29:22] Curtis Howard: Only if you went to the grocery store in your neighborhood, that was it. Besides that, it was completely different. It was all black.
  • [01:29:32] INTERVIEWER: What was your grandparents and great grandparents experience with racism?
  • [01:29:36] Curtis Howard: They face a lot because I was grandparents were during the time of really segregation. I didn't hear any stories with them primarily, but I'm quite sure that they would have had some great stories to tell about lynchings, Ku Klux Klan, and I'll bring up crosses and things like that growing up. I didn't see any myself, all I can remember just the bombings back in the '60s. But I'm quite sure that they experienced some tough days.
  • [01:30:21] INTERVIEWER: In our last interview we experienced a real lock down what would you say is different from like when you were growing up and what was your views on that?
  • [01:30:40] Curtis Howard: Different. Had never experienced a lot then. My school, the only thing we went through or maybe fire drills and have to name those. But no, we didn't have that was we didn't know that was even a term back then when I was going to school lock-downs. There were maybe a K10 locker searches. Only thing they will find maybe a pocket knife in somebody's locker or something like that. But it's a different culture and atmosphere that is going on now in 2019 that surprises me and it concerns me because you would think that everything that that's going on in the world of how families are doing better, even though some are left behind and we're still at this point. But the lock-down was that was amazing. That wasn't a rare to me though.
  • [01:31:46] INTERVIEWER: Why do you think you didn't happen back then that happens now?
  • [01:31:49] Curtis Howard: I don't know. I can't seem to get a handle on how kids are behaving now and back then, when it seems like there's just too much that's out there for kids now. In a good way, in a bad way and I think if I had the answer, I think I could just play the lottery tomorrow night and win at $500 million. But there're so hard answer and I don't know possibly maybe there are youngsters that are having meetings and they're talking and trying to figure it out. But there's no answer for it.
  • [01:32:37] INTERVIEWER: Have you or like any of your friends like have you in your childhood experienced mental illness and was stigma or mental illness?
  • [01:32:47] Curtis Howard: Growing up as kids it wasn't called mental illness. Back then if somebody had some issues, it was just crazy. That was just the way it is. It was not talked about, a lot of subjects that are out now in the forefront of news and communication is just talked about now. But me as a child, it was not talked about at all. Being gay was not talked about this at all, as a child. Even though we knew people of sexual orientation, that was something that was never discussed. That's just how things were. Teen pregnancy back then was just frowned upon, was a stigma applied to young girls that were expecting and we're not married so now, it's a bit. It's like, how far along are you in? We'll just move on. I think the morality part of some things to me growing up as a kid were great even though, I think now the openness that we have now in society, it's fantastic though.
  • [01:34:16] INTERVIEWER: Being in a Black community, which is a minority, you have experienced dissiparities and oppression and so many. Were you guys sympathetic to people on different sexual orientations. Are people there [inaudible 01:34:30] ?
  • [01:34:32] Curtis Howard: Not really, sympathetic with them. Let me most of the time he had his kids is just like a just a running joke. This person was gay. But no, there was no severely stigma placed upon anyone during that time. But let me be positive in that region. Let you be aware of this, that we were not the minority in my community. We were the majority, because when whites came to our neighborhood, they were the minority because it's only a few of them and it was hundreds of us. In that essence, we had the good side of things.
  • [01:35:17] INTERVIEWER: Don`t you think you guys were privileged ones?
  • [01:35:21] Curtis Howard: Privileged wise? Sometimes, yes, sometimes no. It all comes down to economics. If you have some cash, you can be able to do some things and go places. You can see things. Take for instance, now, you go to the inner cities of Chicago, Detroit, Birmingham. Those kids who have never experienced anything besides what they see each day. They don't know what a museum look like and other various things like that. But those kids, that parents have the economic potential to show them and take them to various places. They're doing great. Even here 2019, it's the same as it was back in 1965 and 1970.
  • [01:36:19] INTERVIEWER: Do you think that a lot of guys changed positively wise and what do you think [inaudible 01:36:30] .
  • [01:36:30] Curtis Howard: We're going backwards? We're going backwards. For me. I've got a different perspective because I'm at the end of my chapter and career. It's for young people that are coming up now that's facing all these challenges. That challenging that I thought would have been alleviated back in the day, and it seems that I don't think that's going to be solved anytime soon. Here, we were, eight years, nine years ago when we had a black president. If anyone thought we were going, not everyone a lot of people thought we were on the right road. But yet and still you have those that are saying no. We`ll do everything possible not to allow this president to succeed and we have a president now that is doing everything that's against the least smart sense of morality and things that it's acceptable. I don't see any time soon we're going to change things. Just wait and see, and as I say, I'm a religious guy and I'm just praying that [LAUGHTER] thanks for change.
  • [01:37:51] INTERVIEWER: [inaudible 01:37:51]
  • [01:37:56] INTERVIEWER: Almost we`re covered. Tell me about how safe you are as you answer. Do you feel safer now than you did as a child or the other way around?
  • [01:38:08] Curtis Howard: All the way around. The only person that back when there was really a segregation where maybe people of not of the black community. Because of racism. But we didn't have guns many people had guns but nothing like nothing. You've got open carry now, things like that. Like I said, we would have occasional fights in school, but that was a rare occurrence. But violence is unreal.
  • [01:38:44] MALE_3: [inaudible 01:38:44] who's excluded this interruption, just another reminder to seniors before you ever leave lunch so by the time I was seeing here orders are in for your graduation announcements. Thank you. [BACKGROUND].
  • [01:39:04] MALE_4: You guys want to do.
  • [01:39:05] INTERVIEWER: Oh, because it's late worms, so you have to stop right there. [inaudible 01:39:07].
  • [01:39:09] MALE_4: Oh, I get you. Yeah. I was waiting for the bell and command being.
  • [01:39:12] INTERVIEWER: [inaudible 01:39:12].
  • [01:39:15] Curtis Howard: But we could talk off camera and we didn't jog my memory and it's like, well, I don't remember 30 years ago. [LAUGHTER]. It's tough to go back and put things together. The older I get is like I appreciate things more. Now, life was simple when I was a kid, I remembered me very few people had cars. We had to ride the bus. We walked to school. I think our friendships were better because our neighborhood I live my life and I were talking the other day. It says a who did you walk with you when you went to school? As a whole, I left my house with my brother I would walk. There was another neighborhood, gave it walk with us, another kid. We did that body system walk to schools, things like that and it was great. I think we only had a ride from school, wants weight. Once it snowed in Birmingham, Alabama and my father got picked us up. But winter time, we walked to school. That was fun. We had a great childhood relationships. My best friend. We went from a little wooden school all the way through high school, and he's still my best friend now and I go back to Birmingham would get together. It's good to see.
  • [01:40:40] MALE_5: You in the terminal. We can do is this [OVERLAPPING].
  • [01:40:47] MALE_4: This is all. Go ahead.
  • [01:40:49] INTERVIEWER: Do you think like anxiety and teams like activism has changed and just expressed.
  • [01:41:06] Curtis Howard: I think some of it is increasing for the better. I mean I think last week or this week there's a day in vital mental thing that's going on. Which is, I think important. But I think what's happening with causes. I think it's a rainbow. Let's back in the day with Jesse Jackson, the Rainbow Coalition, that more ethnic groups are getting involved. Civil rights, it was primarily I mean it wasn't 100% black, but most black kids are getting out and doing things now it's like you see all generations and ethnicity that's out. That's doing they're constants, which is great.
  • [01:42:04] INTERVIEWER: Okay would you [inaudible 01:42:04].
  • [01:42:07] Curtis Howard: This path on Sunday with it Saturday, yeah. I actually have a sap eating dinner. My wife Marrie we've done a lot of things. We're going to restaurant. A couple associated my phone which is janitor and it was, this and that. A couple sit by, he says, yeah, my wife and I went downtown, we were just pulling into the parking structure over here and we just drove out of there real fast and came to his restaurant that you guys. But yeah, we sort of getting afraid of little things. Balloons popping, [inaudible 01:42:43] says as an active shooter, well, unless you see an active shooter, I can use say one exist. That's what they know, because people set fire oh, hereby get something goes wrong at a movie theater. It's tough being these guns think about guns in New Zealand they just mowed down a guy, one guy. Guns throwing kills over 50 people down there, he also represent himself and he's not old guy. That's the thing. That's what mind-boggling to me. It's like you've got all the opportunities in the world to go where you want to go, do what you want to do. Yet and still, there's so much hate that's out there these days. It up to you young people to try to straighten it out you've done it but you've got to stand up. Yeah, and sometimes we don't hear things and we don't we don't speak out. I was in my fitness center last week, relaxing in a nice whirl pool it was so nice, warm, and two guys were talking. They were Black and they were just talking really loud and one guy, and I haven't heard this right here but not when I was a child and he said the inward and it's like what did you just say? He says man you got to be kidding me. Yeah, I'm sorry.
  • [01:44:18] INTERVIEWER: It was a Black guy?
  • [01:44:19] Curtis Howard: Yeah, it's a Black guy. Back in the day we would, we use that word like if it was an enduring thing. But now it's completely different. You can't say it. Yeah, but that's just how things are. We all say things without friends or whatever and we've got our slains we got out on stuff, we call this person this, this person that. It's there, and sometimes we just don't, we want to admit it and I think I opened this should be if we hear things that I guess, [inaudible 01:44:56] you hear something and you don't know, just chilling that right now, I'll keep that somebody else take that off campus or whatever. Sometimes it'll get you there in the wrong circumstances I've done, then you tell it you don't tell me what to say, people do that stuff. You got to stand up and sometimes people to ostracize you for that and we'll label you as that. But stand your ground and hopefully you are the person will have a gun though. You got the stand your ground low. I don't know what you guys view on you hear all the stories of standing your ground and all the police shootings that's going on here. You see the video tape, and just like okay, that doesn't seem to be right. Too much force was used, but then they are found not guilty. That's a big issue there that I wrestle with as well. It's like, first thing policemen will say, well, I was my life was threatened. I felt intimidated. I thought, well, that's your thing. That's how they get out of stuff, but it's tough. Now, back when I was a kid, it was acceptable. Police did what they wanted to. There were no cameras, everybody's got their smartphone so you have to be mindful of what you do these days because you're going to be on video and that's a good thing sometimes.
  • [01:46:24] Curtis Howard: It's a little better.
  • [01:46:25] INTERVIEWER: That's it. That's the benefit of technology. Some is bad. Guy in New Zealand and he's on Facebook for what, 15, 20 minutes live streaming you're seeing people getting killed. I'll always go a long way to go with a lot of things we've got to addressed and hopefully you young people straighten it out. Try it because I don't have much time here and hopefully things will get better and I think of my grand kids is like, she's cute . She'll be here.
  • [01:47:05] INTERVIEWER: Really?
  • [01:47:05] Curtis Howard: Yeah..
  • [01:47:06] Curtis Howard: End of the month. She'll be here . But yeah, it's scary. Like I said, my faith in my Lord keeps me through a lot of stuff that it does. If it wasn't for that I would I lost my mind a long time ago. Because like I said, it wasn't a mental illnesses are colored by the crazy back then and we avoid people.If there was somebody that also sexual abuser he was the guy, you don't associate with that guy. He's not the one you would associate with. But see now, people are coming out saying, hey, so and so and so and so did this to me, and which is a good thing. But back then, no one even talked about things like that. He's going to raise kids it was a forbidden subject to talk about those things like that.
  • [01:48:14] Curtis Howard: Yeah, I also think that there's a problem I guess the society doesn't realize that [inaudible 01:48:20] sexually abused.
  • [01:48:25] Curtis Howard: Well, it's like in men,much as we are afraid to y anything that's just like, man, yeah, how can I tell anybody somebody did that to me, and the stories now with the female teachers, with as young as 13 year old boy. They're married with kids so it's crazy. Never heard any stories like that when i was growing up as a kid. No, I don't I don't think so.It was. It may have been I won't say what was it. But it was like I'm thinking of your name and I lost it. I don't why it won't even come to me. It's in the back of my head. Don't worry about. But I was thinking to myself, I don't know why. This is off camera right now. Nothing Raleigh?
  • [01:49:22] MALE_6: You can't hear it so yeah, it's basically off.
  • [01:49:25] FEMALE_3: The sound is off.
  • [01:49:27] Curtis Howard: Okay. They may be reading my lips. [LAUGHTER] But I told wife, I was 13 years old, and I've got this attractive woman, female that she's a sexually attracted to me. I'll never tell anybody. I keep it to myself. But if let's say we do, we tell nobody. Everybody [inaudible 01:49:51]. Wow, really, because the first thing I look at, when the stories come out, I looked for the teacher. How old is she? How does she look? Okay, that she's hot, really man. I wish I was 13, 14 years old back then, but yes I think so that sounds [inaudible 01:50:16] sometimes. But that was unheard of back then and now you're here because it's all in the news. In the stories and things but people are finally addressing things, with you guys with the R, Kelly thing and people are getting brainwashing things like that those things do happen. People already and I know a young man no sexual stuff like that. But married someone and now he is told it is only sounding okay. The didn't have anything to do with them. Very bright guy he's a doctor. Very bright young man. But I'll tell you right off your family, cut off all connections with them so things like that can happen so I don't think that people can't be brainwashed and told me to get off their patterns of thinking.
  • [01:51:07] INTERVIEWER: So you feel like your life, it wasn't as affected by everything else that was going on?
  • [01:51:16] Curtis Howard: I had a great time. I had great parents. I had a brother and sister. My support system was fantastic. My teachers were great. None of that really affected me. Because when you have support around you, people that want you to succeed. When I wanted to quit college, like I said, when I went to the lecture hall and it's like, whoa, I'm the only one out here. So scared, I went to my former junior college teacher and I says, I don't think I can deal with this stuff. I don't think I can handle. You can handle it. You are who you are. We have prepared you to do what you need to do to be successful. We were always given a push to do well. That was an excellent plus when I was growing up as a kid. I think a lot of that is not in the school systems now. Because of if you look like me, I'll help you but if you don't look like me, I really don't care. Then you just fall through the cracks and that's how society is now. You look at that in the hiring processes, jobs, I hire people that look like me. If you're a White male, you're going to probably hire a White male. Until that things are balanced, it's going to be that way.
  • [01:52:50] FEMALE_4: Because it's always unconscious bias.
  • [01:52:54] INTERVIEWER: Yeah, it is. When you do that then I think sometimes a lot of job interview you still can listen and say, oh, really, I could sort of pick up on the accent, things like that. But yeah, and we can't get beyond color. It's there. People. says, oh, I look at you and I don't see Black. Really? You got to be kidding me. That's me, that's who I am. We just accept it and move on. I just need to look at a person as a human being. I don't judge you on how you look when you talk. It's your personality and how you treat me. If you treat me well, I'll treat you well. If you don't, I must move away from you and I'll do what I have to do.
  • [01:53:45] Curtis Howard: It's not really a legislation that changes society [inaudible 01:53:48] But it's mainly how people treat each other, society as a whole. Because but also if society doesn't change in their values and their growth, like how they respect others and all that. A lot of that has still continued throughout time.
  • [01:54:17] Curtis Howard: Yeah, but you would think that those things over time, we would change for the better. But we all have our different views of how we think things should go. But when it impacts others as dramatic as things are going on in the world, that's what I cannot understand. If I don't like a certain restaurant, I just don't go eat there anymore. That's just me. That's how we should be. Instead of me, I got a bad day at the drive-in and I'm going to shoot the clerk in there that didn't give me ketchup on my hamburger. I mean, come on, people. Yeah, we've got to the part now that when you push me to the point, I just, we never heard of road rage back in the day. All these things are going on now. It's tough. But I think it comes down to the part of people need to talk with each other honestly and try to address it and do the best you can because there's going to be differences, so we're going to disagree on some things, but we shouldn't take that disagreement so far that we've got to be violent with it. That's what I don't understand.
  • [01:55:35] INTERVIEWER: Do you think that connects with the lack of communication in our time now?
  • [01:55:42] Curtis Howard: I think so. But it should be an easy way to communicate because the levels of technology now, you can text somebody, you can even messenger or what do you call it? This other stuff with the video chat and all that stuff. It's always there so the communication problem is there, but are we using it effectively?
  • [01:56:08] INTERVIEWER: Sometimes over the Internet, there's a lack of emotion.
  • [01:56:08] Curtis Howard: That's not all, unless people says you angry because you put everything in caps. What does that mean? Because you could say anything you want to in a post, you are anonymous. Nobody knows, so where did that one come from? They don't know anything about you, but they are posted. Mental abilities are so fragile that they will accept it, believe it, and then harm themselves behind that. We didn't really have the sense of we had bullies in school, but not the bullying type that's going on now. In our instance of bullying, you just go out and jumping. We'll have a fight, four against one. You're not going to bully anybody anymore. We saw the hell of a lot of our own bullies back then. But now it's a different way to bully people. And a lot of that is bullied because of words and they are very destructive, and people don't realize that.
  • [01:57:21] INTERVIEWER: Was there a certain pressure put on your generation to be a certain way, act a certain way like what's so called societally right? Because [inaudible 01:57:30]
  • [01:57:33] Curtis Howard: Societally right, but just manners. We said please, thank you, we opened the door for ladies that went into the door first and things like that. I don't remember any of my teacher's first names. They were all Mr. and Mrs. That's just the way it was. Now these days you have kids calling their parents by their first name. Go figure. I don't know. It was really a different growing up period back then, but yeah, if I walk down the street and had a neighbor sitting on the porch and I did not speak to that neighbor, I heard about it when I went back home. I heard you pass Mrs. so-and-so house and you didn't speak. Oh, really. Corporal punishment was allowed in my day.
  • [01:58:36] INTERVIEWER: There's a lot of racial disparity in the incarceration system now. was it like that back then? Was it worse?
  • [01:58:45] Curtis Howard: I think it's more publicized now. I think now it's a big business. We'll build 2,500 big prison and we got to fill those beds. Three weeks ago, I don't know if you guys read it or not, there was a judge that was just brought up on charges because he was sending minorities to this prison. He was getting kickbacks for setting each bed. It comes down to dollars. Sometimes people themselves, yes, they commit crimes, violent crimes and there should be some punishment for them, but there are some crimes that are done, especially drug-related crimes that the disparity is just not correct and I think some of those things needs to be addressed. But if you have money, you can do things, case in point, which is all in the news now, all of the school scandals of getting into USC, Harvard, Yale, parents paying for ACT. Who would ever would have thought that that could go on? Maybe one or two people buying to get in college, but it's a lot of money. I paid 800,000 for my kid to get in college. That's a lot of cash just to say, hey, you know, you're going to this university. Our morals are going the wrong way.
  • [02:00:21] INTERVIEWER: Involving drugs and stuff, how was your generation with that?
  • [02:00:29] Curtis Howard: Drugs were used, not as prevalent as now. Back then, you may take a pill here and there that people were talking about yellow jackets. I don't know, I thought a yellow jacket was an insect growing up as a kid, but pretty much pill, drinking wine, beer, stuff like that. There was nothing that's talking about shooting heroin and things like that. That's currently now. I guess the thing now it's opioids that's being addressed. We didn't have major, no drug issue. There were no drug pushes in the neighborhood, things like that.
  • [02:01:09] INTERVIEWER: Was weed as popular then as it is now?
  • [02:01:09] Curtis Howard: Marijuana? There was a big stigma. We don't do marijuana, that was nothing that was out there. Now, it's a recreational thing. I don't know how that's going to go. We'll have to wait and we'll have to see how that goes off.
  • [02:01:47] INTERVIEWER: [BACKGROUND] We want to get some video shots.
  • [02:01:47] INTERVIEWER: Okay. Hopefully, they'll open it up.
  • [02:01:47] MALE_7: Yeah, it can help.
  • [02:02:01] INTERVIEWER: Left, right?
  • [02:02:05] MALE_7: Left.
  • [02:02:06] INTERVIEWER: All the way? Up the stairs?
  • [02:02:10] FEMALE_4: [inaudible 02:02:10]
  • [02:02:10] MALE_7: Okay.
  • [02:02:12] INTERVIEWER: Where do you want me to go, sir?
  • [02:02:13] MALE_7: Walk up to the halfway up and then we'll be good.
  • [02:02:19] INTERVIEWER: [NOISE] Stop.
  • [02:02:25] MALE_7: Good. Keep going.
  • [02:02:32] MALE_8: Walking too fast.
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2022

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Legacies Project