Beatrice Morse

Carpenter: This is Nathan Carpenter with Oberlin College, I'm here with Ify Ezimora and Kaylee Elliott, both also from Oberlin college and we're here with Ms. Beatrice Morse, who has agreed to be interviewed for the Africatown Oral History Archive Project. It's January 7th 2019, 5:25pm and we're in Mobile Alabama, or just outside of Mobile Alabama and I just want to clarify on the recording that Ms. Morse, you are welcome to decline to answer any questions that you'd like and that your participation in this project is voluntary so if at any point you'd like to stop you are free to do so.

Morse: Okay.

Carpenter: So I guess I just wanna start with, you said you're originally from Prichard

Morse: I was born in a portion of Prichard that was at that time called Bull's Head but it is a part of the incorporated area of Prichard now.

Carpenter: And so you began to go to Mobile County Training School at what age?

Morse: Oh, I started at Ella Grant School in Prichard and I went there from grade, what we call primer, I guess that's what we call kindergarten now, to grade seven. Those are the grades that I completed there. But at the time, there was no high school in Prichard to African American children. So we had the choice to go either to Mobile Country Training School which was in Plateau - that's what we called it, Africatown, it's in Africatown- and downtown Mobile there was a Dunbar High School but there was some confusion with the system and the schools with regard to the feeder patterns. Dunbar had the tenth, eleventh, 00:02:00and twelfth grades only. As I understand it, I didn't go there. Mobile County Training School had what they call the eighth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth. I'm sure you have heard that from somebody in your previous. Now, that did not mean that we didn't go to the same number of grades because the elementary schools that fed to Mobile County Training School did not have a primer, or a kindergarten- I guess you would call it kindergarten now but I went at six years old to Ella Grant School and at six years old was the only time you could go, I went to primer and I went to Ella Grant School through seventh grade. When we got ready to go to high school if we had gone- we couldn't go to Dunbar. They didn't have an eighth- they didn't have a freshman class to put it the way, in 00:03:00our vernacular today. So we went to Mobile County Training School for the freshman year and my mother actually wanted us to go to Central, I'm sorry- well, it was called Central about that time, they changed it from Dunbar. You guys should- I forget the history but Dunbar became Central High School and my mother wanted me and my brother who's just one year older than I to go there too. But because the older brothers had started out at County and when Mr. Baker went to then Central High School and it was, used to be Dunbar, my mother forced them to go with that school. Now she wanted us to go to that same school because she had the greatest of respect for Dr. Baker. And we had school loyalty, we had 00:04:00to go to County one year. So after we went that one year we didn't wanna go the other three years down there. So we pleaded and she let us stay there. But all of my mother's children attended at least three years. My older brothers went three years and went to... Central at that time, but it was the Mobile school. And my second brother went three years and my younger brother who's just a year older than I all went four- we went all four years over there. I know that doesn't make any sense to you. (laughs)

Carpenter: It's all good, all good info. Can you talk a little bit about what your experience was like as a student at Mobile County Training School, what it was like to go there particularly, I guess, for someone who- who didn't live in 00:05:00Plateau or Africatown?

Morse: Well, I don't guess I had any special or particular different feeling. I didn't have any choice. School was school, you know you- I actually was a very young child. I completed my grades primer through seventh and I actually might have been eleven years old - I went to Mobile County Training School- let me back it out. I graduated at fifteen. So fourteen, thirteen, twelve, eleven. So I went to Mobile County Training School at eleven years old. I didn't- I mean, school was just school. I was gonna go somewhere for sure and that was where we had to go. We didn't really have a lot of choices. I found the kids were probably a lot less colloquial than they are now. You know, I didn't find any 00:06:00difference in those of us who came from Africatown cause a lotta kids came from Saraland, a lotta kids came from Satsuma, Mount Vernon. I don't know if you know the geography here, but Mount Vernon is thirty miles from here. Because there were no schools for African Americans except these. So, I'm simply saying I didn't find any difference in the children who lived in Africatown or Whistler or whatever, our differences came more just with who you chose to be your friend.

Carpenter: So you're talking about how some- some students had to travel thirty miles because the school system was segregated-

Morse: Absolutely. There's a young man who's- he's still alive, he's- he was a judge. He was an attorney then he became a judge up in the North somewhere, his 00:07:00name is Dalton Robertson, he was in my class. He had to come from Mount Vernon every day.

Carpenter: Some of the folks that we've talked to have talked about they also came from, you know, Prichard or Satsuma or some of these other places and they described having to, you know, go by the white schools that were closer to their house on the way.

Morse: All of us did that. And the transportation was horrific. We were very poor but there was no free busing for anyone. I do recall that early on, they had what we call the special bus it was dedicated just to taking kids from areas then over- I don't know if they did for Mount Vernon and all those, they did for Prichard. I don't think they did for Mount Vernon or Whistler or some of those other places, I don't know for sure but those buses were dedicated, meaning 00:08:00nobody else got on that bus with us and they didn't have to make any stops to pick up anybody else. They had special places where they were gonna pick you up, and they were goin' straight to Mobile County Training School. But- and the price was a little bit different. I think regular busfare might'a been a dime, we had to pay a nickel. (laughing) So, that tells you how old I am! But, uh, if you missed that bus- and I missed it a lotta times, I had to hump over. From down Highway 45- you see where I am now up off of Highway 45 but down Highway 45 about three miles, I had to hump all the way over to Plateau. I had to walk past kids who were riding a bus to their school, and who would throw spitballs out at 00:09:00you, out of their bus and I started before them, they got on the bus after me- distance wise- then they got off the bus before I got to where I was goin'. If you understand what I'm tryin' to say. But that was the status quo, I mean, if you ask me now how I felt, it was just normal. But certainly when you look back, as I look back now, we all know that it was not the right thing to do but school was school. I loved going to Mobile County Training School. And I learned a lot there. I will tell you now that I have two graduate degrees, I have a Master's degree from Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois and I have a 00:10:00PhD degree from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. I got there late because when I wanted to go to the University of Alabama I was not allowed to go. But I have never had to - I got a Bachelor's from Alabama State University, I forgot to mention that- I have never had to take a backseat academically, I don't care what school I was in. The only time I felt a difference in my education was when I first went to Illinois Wesleyan, I was majoring in Biology and I had gotten a high school teaching certificate in mathematics and in biology. I couldn't use the microscope adequately when I got to Illionois Wesleyan and that's the only shortcoming I ever had in trying to compete with 00:11:00other students. And the reason I couldn't use the microscope as proficiently as the rest of the other students because all of them were Caucasian, there were three of us who were Black there- when I went to college at Alabama State we had about four microscopes in each classroom. When I got up there every student had his or her own microscope. So in undergraduate school I was just lookin' at the teacher do all of that. And certainly he didn't want you touchin' it either. If he put his on the- you know, you a scientist, you know what I'm talkin' bout- he put it on a spot, and he didn't want you to move it. So that's the only thing in my entire academic career I remember having difficulty with. And once an undergraduate student showed me how to use a microscope, I didn't have any more 00:12:00trouble with that. I can honestly say that I went to Ella Grant School- I know we're talkin' bout Mobile County Training school but I went to Ella Grant School in Prichard and I had an English teacher in the seventh grade named Miss Alberta Davies and at Mobile Training School in the- I think it was eleventh grade- I had an English teacher named Mrs. Esther Picket Lang and I will honestly say, I learned all of the English grammar that I currently know right now between those two teachers and I don't boast but I think I have a pretty good mastery of the English language. And I honestly say that. I have never learned any more grammar 00:13:00since that time. I don't think a lot of kids can say that today.

Carpenter: You mentioned that you love Mobile County Training School and I'm wondering if you'd be able to just kind of speak to why.

Morse: (pointing offscreen) my book here. (interviewer hands Morse her MCTS yearbook) the mighty Whippets! We had the best football team around, and there was always this big rivalry between Mobile County Training School and what became Central High School because of course the principal left Mobile County Training School. He was promoted and he took a large number of his teachers with him and, as I indicated before, my mama made my brothers go down there. It was this big rivalry, we're gonna beat this school, they messed our school up. They 00:14:00took our students, they took our teachers. And it was a friendly enough rivalry but we had a whole lot of fun (flipping through Mobile Country Training School yearbook) and it was basically athletic. And we had a lot of outstanding athletes, I'm sure you're aware of that now even from just the most recent history.

Carpenter: And you also, you mentioned a specific teacher from County as well and we hear a lot from alum that we talk to how important teachers were.

Morse: I don't mean to diminish the quality of any others but that was just an example, I'm tryna say of how those schools formed you so early and it's always to me a shame for people to think that those schools were not capable of producing very good students. I don't think that that is the truth. We had a number of outstanding teachers, most of them were outstanding teachers. I wanna 00:15:00believe they were outstanding teachers because they were outstanding people who would have been something other than a teacher today because they did not have that opportunity to become the president of the United States or a Harvard lawyer or a geologist or a psychologist. They just didn't have those kinds of opportunities. So outstanding academicians were who we had for teachers. Not only were they good and smart academically, the whole demeanor around education when I came up was everybody needs to get an education and everybody is going to 00:16:00respect the teachers or the deliverers, whoever is givin' it to you, you're gonna respect them, you're gonna do what they say to do. And the teachers' attitude was, every child can learn and we're gonna make you learn, and your parents work with us. I don't know if we have that now. I really don't. But I just know that there are so many people who have achieved, in my opinion, significantly, who came from what we today call "poverty stricken"- all of us, I was poverty stricken for sure. I didn't know what poverty was, but I was poverty stricken. We didn't have any- nobody bought our books; the state didn't buy out books. And I was thinkin' about your uh, (pointing offscreen towards Ify) you're the scientist, chemist? Oh, wrong person, sorry about that! (pointing back 00:17:00towards Kaylee) (to Nathan) You saw me point at her just now, you didn't stop me! People ask, I have a- my oldest brother majored in chemistry at Dillard, my second brother majored in mathematics at Alabama State, my third brother actually went to Alabama State but he graduated from the University of California and he was an engineer and my fourth brother was an accountant. Now people ask, say why all y'all went into math? I said because if mom and daddy bought one set of books this year, you were gon' use those books the next year. So we had to take the books that the elder one had. My brother had chemistry books that's what I had to study, chemistry. Because nobody bought your books then. Now I don't know they still do that- well they don't use books anymore do they? Do they still use books in schools, or do they use all of the technology?

Carpenter: I've used books but, maybe that's outdated

Ezimora: I think they use a mixture. Like colleges use textbooks but I know elementary schools and high schools that are using primarily technology now.

Morse: Okay, well- I know they don't do a lot of homework anymore because, that's why I though they didn't use books and I thought the reason they were saying they didn't do homework was because kids didn't have the technology at home. I don't know, I've been retired since 1994 and I haven't kept up a whole lot with the movement in the public schools with regard to stuff like that. But I tell ya, as I said, I became a scientist because my brothers were all scientists. Had to use their books. But I had a wonderful experience at Mobile 00:19:00County Training School, I can't think of a teacher over there who did not appear to care for every child that they taught and they were determined to make you not only to intellectually achieve, they wanted you to be mannerable, they wanted you to dress appropriately, they wanted to teach you healthy habits, it was just- it certainly was different from the schools I see now, I can tell you that.

Carpenter: I'm curious if you have any specific stories that, you know, that just stand out in your memory as moments where teachers kinda showed how much they cared about the students.

Morse: Well-- You know, uh, corporal punishment was allowed during those days. 00:20:00And I'm old fashioned enough now to believe that anybody who disciplined you loved you and tried to make you do better. I couldn't- the only episode I can remember, and I was angry about it because I was punished, one girl pushed another girl off of the chemistry stool, you know that tall. She didn't push her off of it, she pulled it from under her as she sat. That girl sat really on the floor and hurt herself. Well the girl didn't see who pushed her, she thought it was I. So, she swung and hit me. And of course, you know, my reaction was I hit back. And we had a fight. I didn't fight in school, but I fought then. Well, the chemistry teacher- nobody saw the incident but the three of us. The chemistry 00:21:00teacher took his meter stick and spanked our legs. We go back to homeroom; he has told our homeroom teachers "yo' little girls were in there fighting" she spanks our legs. Then she calls my mom and tells my mom I was at school fighting and mom spanked somethin' more than my legs. But I'm telling you, it was that kind of relationship you could have. I don't think that would have happened that way today. I don' know. What do you think?

Carpenter: No.

Morse: I said, and I, to this day, I was so angry with my mother and with my homeroom teacher and with the chemistry teacher cause the girl who pulled the stool out got nothin'. I couldn't convince them that- you asked me something I remember and I just thought I think of that as being funny but I know that those people cared about us and even though we got a spanking nobody viewed it as 00:22:00being abusive. Certainly, my mom didn't because she abused me worse than they did.

Carpenter: I'm curious also, and again I know you weren't from Plateau or Africatown, but if there were any specific places in the Africatown community or any stores, anything off-campus that you remember spending time at at any point.

Morse: Think about what you're askin' me. I came on the bus and I certainly wasn't gon' miss that bus. I was goin' back home. I was eleven years old, twelve, thirteen, fourteen. I wasn't allowed to go anywhere. I remember the Hopes had a store that you could see across the fence from Mobile County Training School and I remember- I didn't do this, probably cause I didn't have a 00:23:00nickel- but the children from Whitley school got out of school earlier than we did, like younger children. You know- do you know where the community center is now over there? I think that's where Whitley School used to be. They're located over in Prichard now but I think that's where the first Whitley School was and those little children would be gon' home and we would maybe be out at PE or somewhere, and the kids would give those little kids a nickel through the fence cause we weren't allowed to go off campus, to go to that Hope Store- it was no more than three houses over and bring them a cookie or something back with their money and somebody told the kids, if somebody gives you money to go to that store, you take it and you go home. (laughing) So we finally had to stop doing that. But to answer your question, Hope Store is the only little store I know, 00:24:00and I never physically went into it because, as I said, we were not allowed to go off-campus and I was riding the bus. I got in that bus, I got there when the bus put us off. We did go through; I will tell you this area- I don't know how the geography is now but Turner Road was where our bus put us off. That's where that old International Paper Company was. And we had to walk through the woods to get to the school. And same way, we had to walk back through the woods to get to Turner Road. So, the most, really even to this day, the most I know about Africatown's geography is probably that little bit because I was, we were obedient kids. We didn't run around, and we didn't have money to go sit down and eat, and if we had had it, I can't think of a place we would have been able to 00:25:00go to eat.

Carpenter: And so, you said you graduated 1953 is that right?

Morse: Mhmm. There's my yearbook.

Carpenter: There's your yearbook right there. Where'd you go after that?

Morse: I went to downtown Mobile to what was then a branch of Alabama State teacher's college and I went two years there and that school is now Bishop State Community College. And after I graduated there then I went to its main campus in Montgomery, from which I graduated in 1957 as a secondary education teacher in mathematics and biology.

Carpenter: And what was that experience for you like, in college?

Morse: I guess just-- let me say it to you this way. It never occurred to me 00:26:00that I was poor and that I was not going to school and that I was not going to college. I mean, goin' to school was what you did until you got a degree in my family. My parents were not educated but the same reason that we were going eight or ten miles to high school my parents would've had to go 40 miles to high school from where they were born. They were not- and of course that whole generation before me they didn't have any transportation, they lived in the country. My mother actually did get her GED after she was married. My father never got any education above the seventh grade, but education was very critical and very important to my mother. And I think it had to do with the fact that it 00:27:00was very important to her mother. Now my mother was the, let's see-- my mother's the fifth of eight children. The first and second went to high school and then her mother died, and they were reared then by their father and a surrogate mother and nobody else went to high school. It appears to me, and my mom said this, that her mother was determined that her children were gonna be educated. My oldest uncle actually came to Mobile County Training School from the country because Mr. I.J Whitley was from Frankville, Alabama, and that's where my mother was from. Mr. Whitley's brother married my aunt. He said to my grandmother, according to her mother, your children need to come to Mobile to be educated so 00:28:00she sent that oldest one there. She sent the second one to Selma University and then she died. Nobody else in my mother's family went past that little school they have there in the country. But that gave my mother a dying thirst for her children to be educated. My dad had six children. I can remember doing his income taxes for him in about 1948 or '49 he had made $2,000 that year I was in the eighth grade doing his arithmetic. My mother never worked but all six of my mother's children, all five of my siblings and I, all of us were college educated. Because that's what you did! So, when you ask me how did it feel when 00:29:00you- it didn't feel anything. I'm not trying to be funny; I'm just simply saying that's what I thought everybody else did. That was our routine.

Carpenter: And you mentioned a couple times that your family didn't have a lot of means when you were growing up, but you never really felt poor and I'm wondering if you could expand on that a little more.

Morse: Well, I didn't say I didn't feel poor but everybody I knew was poor. I knew I didn't get all that I wanted. I know that daddy would patch your shoe 'til he couldn't patch it anymore. I'm looking back in retrospect but at the time, that for me was normal. I know this, I never wanted for any major things like food, shelter. I never- but I might not have had the coat I wanted. But I 00:30:00always had a coat. And I'm sure there's a lot of other African Americans who were a lot less deprived than we were at that time but in the neighborhood where I lived, hey, you were just like everybody else. It's difficult for you to understand how you don't know something is unusual if everybody around you is doin' it.

Carpenter: And so, when you went to the main Alabama State College in Montgomery what was it you majored in there, was it chemistry?

Morse: What did I major in? I majored in education as a teacher, but my teaching field was mathematics and biology.

Carpenter: And then after you graduated?

Morse: I taught mathematics in the public schools for about 14 1/2 years.

Carpenter: In Mobile?

Morse: Mhmm. Here in Mobile Public Schools. I really was, I preferred to teach biology but it's ironic that I never taught it because they could never find a math teacher. They could always find a biology teacher. I could remember having a big argument with my principal, I taught math 4, 5 years and then a biology position opened and I asked for it, and he says no, he hired a brand new teacher for it. We fussed about that but he says "I can't find a math teacher". That hasn't changed very much, has it. I don't think they can find a lot of teachers in the secondary schools now. But I, so, even though I have a master's degree in the teaching of biology, and I tell people this all of the time, I got my degree 00:32:00before they discovered DNA so don't ask me anything about biology, I don't know it. But I taught math for 14 ½ years and then- what did I do?- I went to- I took a job in the summer at Spring Hill College in an Upward Bound program and I taught math there and God blessed me, they asked me to come to teach over there. So, I worked over there first in, just doing remedial math for students who came there and then later on I did the chairmanship of the department of secondary education at the head of the teaching of math. I stayed at Spring Hill eight years. But at the time that I was over there I only had a master's degree and 00:33:00probably would have died there with a master's degree except that the state of Alabama made rules and regulations that made it very very unprofitable for Spring Hill College to continue their secondary ed programs. They still have, right now, elementary ed and early childhood but I still don't think they have secondary ed programs because when you do secondary education, that's diverse. I can- you gotta have every subject area covered. And I thought we did a magnificent job at Spring Hill College because we used the arts and science people to teach the subject areas and we used people like myself to teach at least some of the math but I taught how to teach math, I taught psychology and 00:34:00all of the teacher education but the state of Alabama came up with a rule that said for every secondary program that you offer, you have got to have a person with a PhD degree in that education. Not chemistry but chemistry education. Not history but history education. At Spring Hill College, we didn't have any of that so the president said he'd have to spend more money hiring PhD degrees than he would have students because it was a very small school. So, after that I went back to the University of Alabama and I got a degree, but I didn't do the math- or the, uh- the biology. I got a PhD degree in what they offered then called educational research and statistics and I grabbed that because of the math and 00:35:00the teaching. Educational psychology, research and statistics, I'm sorry.

Carpenter: And what kind of drew you to the field of education?

Morse: I wanted to be a nurse initially. There weren't too many options for African American women at that time. I wanted to be a nurse, I actually got a scholarship to Tuskegee where they offered nursing and I had a four-year scholarship with tuition but my family didn't have enough money to send me with the room and board. And then when somebody offered to try and get me the room and board, I was only fifteen and they said you had to be eighteen to enter the 00:36:00nursing program. So, what they told me was to go down to the college here and major in science that I was doin' anyway, cause of the books and after three years to come to Tuskegee and they would take care of my expenses and whatever. And I guess I was stupid enough to think that after three years I was gonna do one more year and I was gonna be a nurse. At that time, it took five years to become a registered nurse. I don't know how long it takes now but I don't think it takes five years. But I already had three years of college education in teacher training and one more year I'd be out and done. I wasn't about to go five years. But as it turns out teaching has been the most rewarding experience 00:37:00I could ever have. Because I love children and I think that I did some children some good, I don't know. I know that I've had experiences where people tell me they could never do math well until I helped 'em with it but I don't know but I just loved it. If I had been told that I had to teach instead of going to nursing school, I would've been very unhappy. If someone told me, you have to do that. But as it turned out, I'm just as happy as I could be. Very happy.

Carpenter: And throughout all of that did you stay in touch with your classmates?

Morse: We used to have a class- I don't know whether we had the first one, but I think it might have been Plateau like the 20th or 25th I don't remember but after that we would have one every year or two. And then we started dying. And so, it got to the point that there were so few left we stopped having them. But what we do even now, if any of the classmates in this book (tapping yearbook) come to Mobile, Alabama from wherever they live, we get together and have lunch or something, breakfast or something. Most of us are- you know, most of my classmates are older. I'm old too, I'm 81 and I was only 15. So, they're like, 82, 83, 84. Yeah. Yeah, so we do have a lot of them who are not able to get 00:39:00around and to do well and then unfortunately there's- we have a large number that's deceased. But we still talk to each other and get together every now and then. (flipping through yearbook) But you know, we're not as active with our alumni as you are, I'm sure.

Carpenter: Ify, is there not enough battery? (Ify replies off-camera) oh nevermind, sorry. And it sounds like- and you said you were at the Alumni Association meeting, is that right? Are you involved with the--

Morse: Yeah, I'm on the board of the Alumni Association.

Carpenter: The board, that's it.

Morse: I go to meetings and I was at the event that we had Friday after thanksgiving.

Carpenter: I'm curious since you kind of stayed in the mobile area and been involved at least with the school if you are able to speak-

Morse: Stop, stop, let me stop you there. I lived in Mobile all of my life. I have not always been involved with the Alumni Association. I needed to feel that it merited my time and when it did then I joined it. I did do a contract, a consultancy with the Mobile Public Schools after I retired, and I did some work with some of the teachers over there, I think. And I volunteered and taught math for three weeks for a minute when one principal didn't have a math teacher and I 00:41:00went over there for her and taught until a teacher came, or she got one. So, that's been the most that I've done with the school per say.

Carpenter: I'm curious if you are able at all to kind of, over the years if you've seen that community in Plateau or Africatown change at all and I know you never lived there and didn't spend much time outside of school there as a student but--

Morse: And I can't say this, but I certainly believe this, I do know that the community has deteriorated physically. I want to believe it's because most of the people who were educated have not returned to that community but that's pretty much standard here, even in the city of Prichard. I was born in Prichard but most people who were born here don't live here anymore. My sister and I live 00:42:00here but all four of my siblings, my brothers left. They went to California because they had careers they couldn't get a job with. They didn't have any Black engineers around here when they graduated, or Black accountants, Black chemists. They didn't hire any of those, so my brothers left. I'm going to believe that the same thing has happened with Plateau- Africatown.

Carpenter: And one thing about-

Morse: Have you heard some of the other people who are from there say that?

Carpenter: We have talked with folks who are there and, yeah. I think folks have mentioned that there's just been, you know, people leaving the community. One thing I wanted to return to, I forget to ask earlier, I'm curious at all how much you were aware of or how much the kind of history of Africatown was 00:43:00discussed while you were a student at County in terms of the original people and the Clotilda?

Morse: I don't recall emphasis on Cudjo Lewis, the Clotilda. We had a lot of what we called then Black history taught to us. Every year we had to recite a poem and most of the poets were Black. Every year we had to attend what they called a cultural event down at the Theater and most of the performers were Black. So, we got that kind of Black heritage, so to speak. It wasn't History then, but it was our heritage. I can't remember a whole lot about the current 00:44:00status until John Smith became mayor of Prichard. I know it was in the mid-60's. And he started bringing up Africatown and the history. But no, to answer your question, one of the - did you interview Doris Allen Lee somebody did a- probably was that group, they have some interviews that an athletic school, sports school, somethin' because they had so many athletes over there, Doris Lee was an athlete, that's why they interviewed her. But Doris Lee was my seatmate at Mobile County Training School. Do you know what a seatmate is? Do you 00:45:00remember those desk where the back of somebody's seat was the top of - have you ever seen where the back of their seat was the top of your desk, and two people sat. So, if we were coming down the row you might have 6 seats but that's 12, plus 2, that's 24 people. Because one, two sat there. Three, four sat there. Five, six sat there so if you got, you see what I'm sayin? So, you had a seatmate and I sat right next to Doris Lee and I mention all a' that to say that Doris is one of the descendants of Cudjoe Lewis. She- and I never knew that, and we were the best of friends in high school. So, I didn't get that history. Others may have gotten it, others may have known it, but I don't remember 00:46:00getting that.

Carpenter: I think that's all I was kind of wanting to ask, (to Ify and Kaylee) I don't know if either of you two have any questions? (to Ms. Morse) Is there anything else you wanted to add?

Morse: I just hope that, I hope that people can appreciate how people my age appreciate the kind of school that Mobile County Training School was. The relationship between the faculty, the staff, the families, the parents. Even the teachers who worked over there visited our homes in Prichard. You stayed absent; they came over to see about you. That was a part of their job. So, that school 00:47:00along- I can't keep Ella Grant School out of it, I know that's not what we're here about. But Ella Grant School and Mobile County Training School gave me enough background and enough education to succeed anywhere that anybody can succeed.

Carpenter: Ok, well thanks so much for your time, this was really great.

Morse: You're welcome.