Public Relations Director

All right, so let's continue to talk about the, the neighborhood. So we started with your best friend and her father, and you were telling a story about playing Monopoly, but something about the safe? About the combi- (simultaneous)--$$(Simultaneous) We got in the safe and we got real money. So when they came home that night and it was a Friday night, 'cause Friday night was always fish, we have fish and we were at Aunt Willow's [Willow White (ph.)]. We had hundred dollar bills, fifty dollar bills, we had real money playing Monopoly spread all over the living room floor, and of course they had a stroke. But the o- only other thing I wanna tell you about that, about Aunt Willow and Uncle Ed [Ed White (ph.)] is that because of Uncle Ed when we came south that summer to visit, we stayed at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis [Tennessee] where black people could not stay. And we stayed there because of Un- Ed's connections. Now I don't know what those connections were, okay. But when we got into Memphis and we drove over to the Peabody, we drove around in the back to the alley. We were led in through the kitchen, we were taken to the servant's elevator and we went upstairs to our room and we stayed there. Dinner was brought to us and, and I remember them telling us that we could not go out in the hall. Now Aunt Willow probably could 'cause she was very, very fair and one of her children were fair, but the other one was about my color. But they also had this long lustrous hair, and of course you can tell I didn't (laughter). But anyway and we stayed there. And that morning, they brought us breakfast and we ate, we went back down the service elevator, back through the alley, got in our car and came on south. And in those days you couldn't stay in hotels.$$Did you know the significance of being able to (simultaneous)?$$(Simultaneous) Do I know what?$$Did you know the significance of you being able to stay at the Peabody at that time?$$No not then, we were too young. But later I knew (laughter).$Talk to me about Okinawa [Okinawa Island, Japan], about what you--were you able to just go anywhere you wanted to go on the island (simultaneous)?$$(Simultaneous) Anywhere we wanted to go we could even ride--I even learned, well actually I spoke pretty good Japanese by the time I left. Now I don't remember any of it because what you don't use you lose. And I probably don't remember anything but (speaks Japanese), I probably can count ichi, ni, san, yon, go, roku, shichi. You know, some few little things like that. But I had learned enough to even read the buses and you could take the, the Okinawan buses and go from one base to another. Like we--we'd leave Kadena and go to Sukiran [Camp Sukiran, Japan], which was I think at that time, I don't know if it was Marine [U.S. Marine Corps] or [U.S.] Army. And so you could go mostly anywhere. We had one uprising that I remember that we were a part of. We were coming from the teen club and at this point we had moved on Kadena Air Base [Okinawa, Japan], 1407 Stillwell Park, Kadena Air Base. And we were coming from the teens--teen center. And all of a sudden there was this push of people, it was an anti-American riot and they started rocking the car, you know, 'cause we had to stop we couldn't get through. And I heard somebody say, "American baby-sans," and all of a sudden out of this crowd came sailors and Marines and soldiers and [U.S.] Air Force folk, and they surrounded this car and they pushed people back and we had armed guard into the base. And I don't remember now what the uprising was about, but I do remember we were terrified there for a minute. They were telling us to go home, down with Americans and you know this sort of thing. And my--one of my most beautiful memories from Okinawa was being at White Beach, which is really to the northern end, I believe, of the island. And it's up on a, you can go up on a high bluff and you can look down at the sea. And we were up there one day and the [U.S.] 7th Fleet came in and if you wanna feel pride, is to watch a fleet of [U.S.] Navy ships move into an area. I mean it's just, the ships looked white, the water was blue, the day was golden, the sky was azure, it was just, I mean, I don't think I've ever had a more patriotic moment than see those ships coming in. It was like, problems, we're here. And they came in and we got to go on board one of the ships. And you won't--this is incredible, we went on the ship and we got to tour the ship, and the sailors were giving the kids their caps, the girls, their caps. One sailor, American black gave me his cap. I met him again years later, he remembered me, I didn't remember him, at Jackson State University [Jackson, Mississippi].$$That's, that's amazing (laughter). That's amazing (simultaneous).$$(Simultaneous) It's amazing.