City Parks Administrator

[HistoryMaker] Mr. [Charles R.] Jordan we had--we were just talking about when your family moved to [Palm Springs] California in 1950, so tell us a little bit about what life was like on the Indian reservation?$$Well, there was no grass, of course, and most of us had centralized facilities, in the middle of the reservation at certain places there were showers and bathrooms and washing areas that we would go to and I mean just all sand. Cars rolled on sand, I mean there was no roads there were pathways that cars had created over the years but there was no pavement at all. And we all lived on the reservation surrounded by desert, just as far as the eye could see mountains and desert. And it was--we used to make bow and arrows and we would go hunting in the desert with bow and arrow--(simultaneous)--$$So did the Native American children there teach you how to make the bows and arrows and--(simultaneous)--$$Oh yeah, and we would all go out in the desert, 110, 115 degrees and we would go hunt and walking in the desert, hunting, and they would have Indian burials that lasted three to five days. I mean the same way, I mean, three to five days. The chief, Chief Ward, he lived a couple of doors from us and it was a--but we could go to movies, and movies were integrated, the schools were integrated. But Louis Armstrong came to town, he had to stay on the reservation, and yet he performed downtown. It was sorta strange; it was half and half there. But it was rich, wouldn't have changed it for anything. And then I started school, middle school.$$What was the name of the school?$$[Nellie N.] Coffman Middle School [Cathedral City, California], the first year of that, two-year school and from there to high school. But I started playing basketball on the reservation, I started--there was a Boys Club [Boys & Girls Clubs of America] in the middle of the desert that I would go to and the gentleman's name was Frank [ph.], I'll never forget him as long as I live. I don't know whether he was properly trained to be a Boys Club director or not, that wasn't important. And that's--and so now, when I became a director I realized the importance of caring, the kids don't care how much you know they just wanna know how much you care. And that's why I'll always remember him. I knew he really cared about us; there was no doubt in my mind. And we had a basketball court paved, it was pavement and oh, and we used to go out there at night and play five and six hours and that's all we had. But I remember Frank was so kind and never forget him. And we'd play basketball at night and during the daytime we would sit under mesquite trees, play dominoes, my parents [M.C. Shepard and Willie Mae Glaspie] would and I would be shooting baskets every day of my life, every day. I didn't miss a day during that four or five years--$I was appointed by President [Ronald Wilson] Reagan in 1984 to serve on a presidential commission. It was the President's Commission on American Outdoors [sic. President's Commission on Americans Outdoors]. He appointed seventeen Americans to travel around this country for a year and a half and talk to Americans about the great outdoors and what they wanted to do in the great outdoors for the next thirty-five years and on that commission he had one black and one woman. And I was that black. And we traveled around the country. On that committee was Pat Noonan, I didn't know who Pat Noonan was, but he--but of course Reagan had his real shakers and movers, you know the big ones, [Sheldon] Coleman [Jr.], the Coleman Company who has all of the camping gear, Gil Grosvenor [Gilbert Melville Grosvenor] of 'National Geographic,' he had the heavyweights on there, I was the lightest one on there (laughter). And--but during that--(simultaneous)--$$Say you.$$--time as we traveled around every region of the country--talking to Americans, thousands of them about the great outdoors and what they like to do in the great outdoors and what they wanted to do. We were gathering information; we had studies, hundreds of studies from people at hearings, people were coming out, sharing their dreams and hopes with us about the great outdoors. And there weren't very many people of color, so that was stressful for me because I knew that we cared about the outdoors but we were not coming out expressing it and so I was trying to be objective and listen but I was also trying to speak on behalf and that's--that was hard to do and so I struggled with that. And we finally came up with the report and when the report was finished, Pat Noonan, whom I hadn't--I just knew him I didn't know him very well, came up to me and said, "You know," he said, "I saw your struggle and I heard your story and I want to help you tell that story." And said, "I want you to come and serve on my board." That was, what, that was eighteen years ago and I didn't know anything about conservation. But, "Come and serve on my board." So I looked into it and I did and that guy, he got it then, I mean he really, you know, I didn't tell him, he just noticed, and he has opened doors. You talking about someone who can open doors, that I never would have been able to even darken, and he just started opening doors for me and putting me out there and making sure people heard my story because I tell it from a black perspective and not, you can see not angrily, I'm not angry--so, you know, that's why it resonates because I'm not angry with anyone. I just tell it from someone who has seen and has grown up in America in a black skin. And so there are times when I saw a different America, it's not the one you're explaining to me, that's not what I saw, but let me tell you what America I saw. And therefore what's important to me, and so I can do that without offending people because I'm not angry. And so I've had a chance to do that all around the country and he just opened doors, I mean just incredibly so and ever since I've been on his board he has done that.

But, the old man who was real good to my father [James Butler] was a Caucasian, and his name was Levert, last name. George, that was his name because he named my brother after him, my dad did, and he was always nice to my dad as far as we knew because we used to go over to their house occasionally and we called her, you know, the wife of Mr. George Levert. Well that's what we called her Ms. Levert and she told us one day, she said to you she said my name is not Ms. Levert. Well we didn't know what to say. We didn't know what to call her. And so she said you call me mama Laura and you call George, papa George and that's what you do, and that's what we did 'til they died.$$That's good, that's unusual.$$But, then he was always helping my father with some things. I remember one time it was really funny though we had gone over to her house on a Saturday. They had some fruit trees in the yard, and we were to clean this yard. So, when we got finished with the yard, papa George said, now this is the man I've just told you about, I want you to go up there on the hill to Will Atkins' store and give him this note and he would put the stuff in a bag and bring it back to you. Well we did. We went up there and in this store was a great big old iron stove, you know, for heat and several of them were sitting all around the stove talking and smoking and spitting tobacco and everything else, I guess. So, one of the guys said to the other one he says oh he says you better go over there, he says and go tend to them little niggers he said. There's George's niggers over there looking for something. Now this was the man sitting over there by the heater. So, we went on back, we got the stuff and I told my two brothers. I said George (George was named after this man we called papa George), I said you and Louis (ph.), I said you go right on I said I'll come on back behind you guys with the stuff. So, we got our bags and we went on down there. Well when we got almost to his house he had come out looking for us because we had stayed so long, and so he said, well how come you guys didn't come sooner, and I said well they didn't give it to us any sooner. And he said well what do you mean? I said well they were sitting around the heating smoking and going on and I said so we had to wait I said until we could get the stuff. He said to George and Lee, and that was my brother, said you go on and take that to Laura. He said you come on and go back with me. We went back up to that store and that was the first time that I had ever seen that kind of behavior before that he cursed that old man out at the store who owned the store and he says those are my kids. That's the way he pu, put it. He said if they come up here after anything else, he says, and you don't protect them and get what, give them what they need and come back down there, he says I'm gonna come up here, he said, and I'm gonna blow this D store up. That was the words that he used. He said now, he pulled it--the first time in my life I had ever seen a gun and he pulled that gun out the back of his pocket and he said now you apologize to 'em. The guy said well George I didn't mean--(unclear)--he said I said apologize to 'em, and he did and he went on back out there and we got in his old car and went on back to his house. And I had never seen or heard of that before. So, we told our father about it, and my dad [James Butler] said to him he said well he said, you know, he said I don't believe you ought to send them up there anymore. He said whatever you need, he said, I'll just come and get it for you. He said no they going back and they gonna treat 'em just like they're human beings, and we never had no more trouble out of 'em.$$Well that's an interesting story.$$Well, it's no lie. It is no lie.$$Yes ma'am.$--Raised money for the NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People] and what, what were some of the local issues the NAACP was dealing with and those things?$$Well, they had a lot of problems. First we had the problems with the police discrimination, being mean and evil to black people when they arrested 'em. Maybe they weren't guilty, maybe they were, that's left for the courts to decide not for the police to decide and slap up on 'em and that sort of thing, worked on stuff like that. And my husband [Ovid Wesley] worked with one group--I don't really know what all of 'em did I tell you the truth. My problem was not a problem, but my aim was to raise money because you know you cannot hire lawyers without some money. I don't care what you belong to. You got to have some money to defend yourself and, so McBride could tell you--McBride and--(unclear)--and that bunch. What was that other man name, he died?$$Watkins--(unclear)--$$Watkins and wait a minute there's another one. Oh God he was a preacher. Anderson, Percy Anderson.$$Okay.$$Yeah, those people they can tell you more about the discriminatory cases that we were fighting, you know. And they fought diligently in the early part of my membership at--for the NAACP to get a dishwasher hired at Kress's, a dishwasher. I remember her name was Inez (ph.) Finney (ph.), and Inez was such a good person until they kept her until she died. She passed away, you know, of old age. She worked there many years. She retired from Kress's, but there were a lot of things. We weren't so concerned, the group that I was working with, about what this--are you gonna take this nickel and buy some cheese or are you gonna take this penny and buy some chewing gum, as long as we knew we were gonna fight discrimination with it and that's what we were working hard for is to get this money together to give to the branch. It all went to the branch, and we made accurate accounts as to how many ticket we sold, to whom we sold, and our books were always in order because I don't know maybe it's ignorance or whatever you wanna call it, I don't care what you call it, but I'm ticky about pennies. If I--if you give me a penny for this, I'm not gonna spend it for nothing but that. And if you want it spent for anything else I'll give it back to you and say here you go spend it yourself I'm not gonna do that. I'm ticky about certain things, but we did raise money and, you know, it went to the NAACP because we made accurate account of the tickets that we sold and how much to the tickets were and how much money we cleared, you know, and it went to the treasury for the NAACP and of course they had to be monies raised so that the officers those that were gonna go to the National Convention and stuff like that they had go to regular meetings and I guess whatever they did with it we didn't care since it was used for that purpose, for the purpose of fighting discrimination and trying to get a little bit of freedom. We didn't worry about that. I think it was eight years I held that position.$$You were the chair of the Women's Auxiliary or something of the NAACP? What was the official name of it?$$It was the Women's Auxiliary.$$Of the NAACP?$$Yeah.$$Okay.$$A bunch old hens like me. You remember that don't miss?$$(OFF-CAMERA FEMALE VOICE): When I first came here.$$Yeah, we worked like convicts.$$That's pretty hard.$$Well we did. We worked hard.$$Well in the old days. Convicts now they don't work as hard.$$I don't know, but they used to, but it was something that I enjoyed and after I retired that gave me something to do see because there were other little things that I was involved in that, you know, gave me some things to do. And my husband was always very supportive.