Lois Watson

Zimmy: I'm Zimmy Chu, with the Oberlin College and the Africatown digital archives. I'm here with Ms. Lois Watson, it's -- what day is it? -- March 29th. And we're in Mobile, Alabama. Ms. Watson, could you go ahead and say your, um...see I have my cheat sheet. Your full name, your birth date, and your birthplace.

Ms. Watson: My name is Lois Smith Watson, my address is 2300 Wagner Street, Mobile, Alabama. 

Zimmy: And your birth date and the location.

Ms. Watson: My birth date is September 2nd, 1933.

Zimmy: And where were you born?

Ms. Watson: Pardon?

Zimmy: Where were you born?

Ms. Watson: Mobile. Alabama.

Zimmy: Great, fantastic. So if we can just start off with you talking a little bit about Whitley Elementary? You're a teacher there.

Ms. Watson: Okay. I was fortunate enough to be assigned my first year teaching at Whitley School. I have a lot of precious memories for that school because it was where I taught as soon as I finished my college education at Alabama State University. I found Whitley to be one of the best secrets that could be found. It was a good school where teachers cared about students.

Zimmy: Wow, yeah. So you said it was a well-kept secret?

Ms. Watson: A well-kept secret because it's a small town, and the parents there were so interested in their children. They put their children first and that interest just spilled over into the schools and the community. It was a place of learning excellence.

Zimmy: Do you have any specific memories or stories about teaching there that you'd like to share?

Ms. Watson: Well, I can say I was the youngest teacher on the faculty. And I was given the opportunity of getting the best that each of the older teachers had to give as far as what was good for students, how to get parents to 00:03:00cooperate, how to get students to learn to the best of their ability.

Zimmy: So it sounds like you learned a lot there.

Ms. Watson:  I did learn a lot at Whitley. I learned what it takes to be an excellent teacher. I learned to give my all. Students always remember those teachers who gave them their all. And if you sit down with any of them, they can tell you, 'My favorite teacher was...' And I always wanted to be that teacher.

Zimmy: That's great. That's really great. And so you came back a little bit later as principal of Whitley, correct?

Ms. Watson: Yes! I had the opportunity of being offered a principal's position there. So I was principal there for about two years, and I got a chance to really see what principals really went through in dealing with teachers and 00:04:00students and parent relationships.

Zimmy: And what was that like there, specifically?

Zimmy: What was that like at Whitley Elementary in particular?

Ms. Watson: Oh, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it because I had a chance to share with young teachers what they needed to know in going into the classroom where there were students who were waiting for them to give them what they needed to prepare them for life.

Zimmy: And what do you recall of the Whitley Elementary area being like when you were teaching there?

Ms. Watson: It was an area where parents were very concerned about their children. They gave them what they needed. They gave them what they wanted. But all of them were really interested in their children growing to be the kinds of 00:05:00citizens that we would want them to be. And this was very important to them.

Zimmy: Yeah. So, before we started the interview, you mentioned education and religion as being the two most important driving forces--

Ms. Watson: Yes, bringing both of them together. Religious values and the desire to know more created a desire to strive for excellence. In that little town, you had a lot of older people there, and they were very influential in seeing that Plateau was on the map. They gave it all that they had, and I was one of the younger ones to step in behind them and carry on that tradition.

Zimmy: And you grew up in Prichard?

Ms. Watson: Yes.

Zimmy: How was that, and how was teaching in Whitley after having grown up there?

Ms. Watson: So it was an opportunity for me to get more of what I needed in order to be the teacher that I'd always wanted to be.

Zimmy: Yeah. And can you speak a little bit more about growing up in Prichard?

Ms. Watson: Well...growing up in Prichard was very interesting. I'm from a large family. My father was a minister and my mother was a teacher, however, she never taught after marrying and having children because she had eight. But she always had the tools that a good teacher needed. And she instilled in all eight of us, the value of a good education. And how important it was -- along with my daddy. So we got it through the week and then we got it on Sundays. Then we got it all through our lives, from Saturdays to Sunday.

Zimmy: Wow, yeah.

Nathan: Can I follow up on something?

Zimmy: Please.

Nathan: You mentioned a couple times the tools that every teacher needs. And I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit more about what those are and what you learned about -- I mean, perhaps specifically, to the community you taught in. And then, perhaps more generally as well.

Ms. Watson: Well, I always thought of a teacher being the kind of teacher that she would want for her children. And if that teacher had all the characteristics 00:08:00of the teacher she wanted for her students -- for her children -- that would be the perfect teacher.

Zimmy: And can you speak to those characteristics a little bit more?

Ms. Watson: Really, in order to teach, you've gotta...you've gotta love them. You gotta care for them, and just think of them as your own. Give them all of the things that you would want your child to have. And not miss a one, so that child can be a well-rounded student.

Zimmy: That's fantastic, yeah.

Nathan: You talked a little bit also about working for the school district through the process of the school district integrating, and I was wondering, kind of, what that was like and what impact that had on the school district as 00:09:00you were working in it.

Ms. Watson: Well, at first it was scary. Walking into a school where there had not previously been not even one Black teacher -- in a totally white environment -- was quite a challenge for me. And I don't think that most of the teachers there -- the principal and all -- had not had the experience of working with a Black person and I had the qualities that would let the principal know that I had all the tools that I needed to work with to educate that child. Children are 00:10:00children. No matter what color they are, every momma, every daddy wants the best for their child. No matter what color they are. If you keep that in your mind and you keep, 'Now, is this what I would want for my child? 

Zimmy: Alright. So, just to kind of clarify, were you -- you were still working in the Mobile Public School District during integration?

Ms. Watson: Yes.

Zimmy: Okay.

Ms. Watson: And I found that children, they're just children. Everywhere -- no matter what color they are -- they're children. And they need what you have to offer them. No matter the differences, they all have a thirst for knowledge and as a teacher I knew I could give them the things they needed to prepare them for the world. Children are children

Zimmy: I think that's all the questions I have right now, *to Nathan* how about you?

Nathan: I have a couple I wanted to follow up on.

Zimmy: Yeah, please do.

Nathan: So when we were talking about the Africatown Plateau community earlier, you said that you have always found it to be incredibly warm, and that when you go to visit the community that people are always saying, 'Hi Ms. Watson!'

Ms. Watson: Yeah, always! I look forward to it.

Nathan: Yeah, can you talk a little more about, kind of what your relationship with the community has been over time?

Ms. Watson: It was a warm relationship, So many of them I taught in the first grade and then I taught their children later. And it was just so rewarding-- so warm. They loved their teachers. If you taught in that community, they loved you. And if you gave them all you had, they knew it and they didn't' 00:12:00forget you. It's always such a warm experience meeting students of the past.

Nathan: Were those warm relationships between students and teachers something -- like, was that something you knew was gonna be the case when you started teaching, or is that something that you kind of discovered over time?

Ms. Watson: You're learning a whole lot more than you think you're learning, by being out there with students and teaching. You think of all of the things that you have learned, and the things that you know children need, and you just work towards giving it to them. The best way you can. I always gave them all I had. If I had a talent that I wanted to share like piano --- I shared it with them.. 00:13:00 New skills would develop new interests. I tried to give them new experiences. It's something when you teach kids and watch them grow. Watch them really want -- they're very hungry, and in need of good teachers.

Zimmy: And, kind of to follow up on the question that Nathan just asked, did you find those warm relationships were particularly common in Africatown, or did you find them everywhere that you taught?

Ms. Watson: If you're a good teacher, you'll get it everywhere you go. I just was in that area. But they're all just as warm, they're students, they're 00:14:00parents. So no matter what color you are...you know, it doesn't matter. If you're in that classroom and you give it all you've got and teach those kids. The relationship is established and they'll always love you.

Nathan: So how did you work for the school district for?

Ms. Watson: You know, I want to get that information. And I'm gonna get it because I worked...thirty...about thirty-seven years. And...yeah, I worked about thirty-seven years in the school system. And I had a chance to really -- I was one of the first Blacks to be placed in a white environment to teach, and they sent me to Semmes, a little suburb town, very nice, but I had never been to 00:15:00Semmes. I did not know anything about Semmes, but I had to go there because if I was going to do anything with my education, I had to go where they sent me. And it was an experience I'll never forget. I enjoyed it, I was accepted just like anybody else, you know? So I could even tell other teachers what to do, and how to. How to go in and do what needs to be done without looking at color. And you just have to do that. And I enjoyed my teaching. It was a joy.

Nathan: And so, over those almost forty years that you spent in the school district, how did you see it change or evolve over time? I'm curious. Like, how it was when you began versus how it was when you left.

Ms. Watson: It was -- when I first went into the school system, it changed, because it allowed -- integration allowed teachers to work with others on that same level. And work with kids and get the best out of them. 

Nathan: And then, I think my last question is, through your, kind of, 00:17:00the time you spent in the Africatown/Plateau community, I'm curious how you'd seen that community kind of change and evolve from your first years, you know, working at Whitley and growing up in Prichard and all that to today.

Ms. Watson: How have I seen it change? Well, it has changed, because you had different people and more were being educated. You know, at one time, as long as you received your high school diploma, that was all that was necessary as far as so many communities felt. Students at Mobile County Training School grew to desire more and wanted to further their education. They wanted to go as far as 00:18:00they could go, and you have doctors, lawyers, teachers, college professors, and every profession that you can think of.  You have many prominent, productive people that have come from Mobile County Training School.

Nathan: Is there anything else that you wanted to add that we haven't talked about, or from your days at Whitley, or...? Anything else?

Ms. Watson: I can only say that I've enjoyed all of my teaching experiences. And if I had to do it again, I'd do it.