Anderson Flen Full Interview

00:00Fiskio: Alright, this is Janet Fiskio from Oberlin College, I am here with Anderson Flen who is the president of the Mobile County training school alumni association and a graduate of the school. We are actually on the grounds of the school next to the bell, and I will do the first couple of questions, then I'm going to be turning this over to Kerensa Loadholt and Nathan Carpenter who are students at Oberlin.

Anderson, before we start, I'd like to just get on tape that you have consented to be part of the Africatown digital archive project for this interview.

Mr. Anderson Flen: That's correct, I have consented to be a part of this project--and look forward to it.

Fiskio: Thank you. And, I would like to also point out that the copyright for this interview will remain with Mr. Flen. So anyone who wants to make use of this interview needs to get his permission.

So Mr. Flen, actually the way I wanted to start out was asking you to tell us a 00:01:00little bit about the story of how this school was founded.

01:00 Mr. Flen: Mobile County training school was founded in 1880, and the history that we have of it, it started, really, from the last slave ship--the descendants of the last slave ship that came to Africatown. More precisely, they actually came to Magazine Point which is a part of the Africatown community.

Africatown is made up of Mobile, Magazine Point, Prichard, Happy Hill, Hog Bayou, and a couple of other areas--Lewis Quarter. The school started at Union Baptist Church in Magazine Point. In 1880.

It eventually started growing and they moved it to its current site around 1900, 00:02:00and the land that the school is situated on right now was donated by Jeff Jiles(Spell Check), a descendant of the Clotilda enslaved Africans who came from Africa on that last slave ship.

02:10 The school went from the first grade to the twelfth grade until around 1950. And after that, a second school--an elementary school was actually built across the street from the school called WhitleyElementary School, which was named after the first founder of Mobile County training school, Mr. Isaac Whitley. Prior to the school being named Mobile County Training school, it was called the Plateau Norman Industrial School for Coloreds.

02:57 And in 1950 Whitley elementary school was founded. The school was really built on the principles of the descendants from Africa or the original enslaved individuals who came from Africa. Mobile County Training School had some very, very strong principles that--I wanted to share some of those with you today.

Fiskio: Yes.

Mr. Flen: As I've researched--and by the way, I'm a 1968 graduate of Mobile County Training School--and as I've researched Mobile County Training School and looked at its history, there were some real fundamental things that was put in place that I benefited from as an alumnus of Mobile County Training School.

One of those core things that we benefited from, were the five 'wells'. And the five wells were: being well read, well spoken, well travelled, well balanced, 00:04:00well dressed...did I get 'em all? *laugh* Sometimes I can't--sometimes I remember 'em quite differently and I'm gonna go back over it one more time. Well spoken, well read, well dressed, well travelled, and well balanced.

Fiskio: That's five.

04:16 Mr. Flen: The key with those five wells as I've grown to realize is that they were put in place because of the circumstances and situations in which African Americans and African people in general in the United States--the issues that they had to face.

I've learned that the well balanced piece is one of probably the most important of the five wells because of the segregation and of the hostile environments that Blacks had to face. Being well balanced and really being a critical thinker 00:05:00to navigate our society for Blacks was very very important.

04:58 The other principles that were part of the Mobile County Training School system. Mobile County Training School was a student led campus. The campus was designed by which students would be in positions to actually lead this campus. For example, we had an elected body of students. We had a senate set up, we had the president of student body in government, every home room class from first grade to twelfth grade actually had a president of the class. Each one of those individuals were members of this senate body. The other thing that made this campus so unique and distinctive in terms of that process, that discipline and 00:06:00activities were planned by the student body in conjunction with the faculty and staff.

06:03 With that in mind, we have what I call the four 'p's. Those four 'p's are: purpose, planning, passion, and program outcome. And so that we stay focused--as an organization, as a school, and as students--on really making sure that whatever we did, that those four p's was a part of that process. The other thing that made Mobile County Training School so unique and special is that--and I'm not sure if this was directly or indirectly instilled into us--I think it probably was both.

We had what we would call the three 'R's. And the three 'R's were: respect, responsibility, and reward. And those three 'R's were really internal 00:07:00principles, that you looked inside of yourself to respect yourself first. That you looked inside of yourself to ask the question: "am I being as responsible and as responsive as I can be?"

07:10 And any reward that you got was internalized and therefore you did not need anyone on the outside to champion what you had done or not done. Because as we grew up in the South and in Alabama and across the nation, many times the Black community in particular was disenfranchised, and in many cases, was put down--either directly or indirectly with words and with products and services that were provided for and to us.

Therefore, Mobile County Training School was really a haven to share with us how to be the best at all times.

07:47 We had a motto at Mobile County Training School, and that motto was just 00:08:00simply: "Each one, reach one, teach one, and never give up on anyone." And so that was part of our process. We also had at Mobile County Training School, an oratorical contest. We were always talking about -- and getting back to those five wells. Every student, and every class, every year, had to learn (Indecipherable). And they said that (Indecipherable), that competition began to narrow down to the best and the brightest who could sell the point.

At the end of this whole process, there was going to be one person selected who was the best orator in the school, but the process was so important because it taught and gave each individual an opportunity to be able to share and express themselves in an oral setting. This is part of the training that was taught at Mobile County Training School. And this training was instilled in every activity 00:09:00that we had in that process. Mobile County Training School--I was also fascinated because as I began to understand and learn this history, doctor Baker (Name Check) was a very unique individual. And what made him unique--he came to Mobile County Training School in 1926. Of course, in 1910, the school became a part of the public educational system. Prior to that--the thirty years prior to that--it was a private institution, pretty much self-sufficient on its own. By coming into the school system, in 1910, it began to get funding and moneys from the school in order to do a better job at equipping the things for the students and for the campus.

09:39 Isaac Whitley came in 1910 and they brought him in and he set a very very high standard. Isaac Whitley was a descendant of Booker T. Washington. Even though he went to Hampton Institute, he was from Franklin County, Alabama and 00:10:00was brought to Mobile County Training School to be the principal because of his outstanding educational history and also having been a descendant of Booker T. Washington.

10:06 I think part of his coming here may have been attributed to Booker T. Washington because Booker T. Washington visited this campus many times in his lifetime. And in fact, it is said, one of the last places that he visited before his death in 1915 was the campus of Mobile County Training School. Also, Mr. Whitley died in 1921--around '21, '22. Dr. Baker came here in 1926, and when Dr. Baker came here, he took the school to a whole 'nother level. Off of the foundation in which Mr. Whitley had built. Dr. Baker instituted all the different social clubs and organizations on the campus. He started out with all 00:11:00the social clubs. Each social club had to have the four 'P's as a part of that organization. Just like all of the classrooms and organizations had to have the four 'P's as a part of that.

11:08 Each organization had to have the five wells as a part of their process. What made that so important was that the president of each one of those social clubs was also a part of the senate. He wasn't just the presidents of the classroom but also the presidents of those organizations was a part of the senate as well. And so they had an opportunity to help shape and form the programs and activities that took place on this campus and also in the community.

When Dr. Baker, or when the other administrators would come to this school, and if the community had paper on the grounds they would designate a class to go out and clean the community and pick up the paper on the grounds. Of course, the school did not have a gymnasium until 1953/4. Prior to that they had an area 00:12:00which they called the Bowl.

12:02 The Bowl was an area that you could stand on the hill and look down and they would have all their assemblies in that bowl. They would have the students line up from the first grade to the twelfth grade with the twelfth graders being in the front, and they would go grade wide in terms of lining up, for the bowl assembly, and they would do that once a week, in terms of that. As we -- as the organization around the school was perfected by Dr Baker, when activities, we would make, actually make a program for the whole year that everybody would give their program to the senate and we would implement that program.

12:44 By the same token, the other thing that was unique about Mobile County Training School and had been discontinued by the time I became, in high school, a senior, is that they had students that covered all of the organizations from 00:13:00the honor roll to the attendance -- students were in charge of that. The students would get the reports everyday of who was on time, who was not on time, and the whole nine yards and that. Also, if at one time every student on Monday morning had to turn in their Sunday school report card to they say the went to Sunday school on Sunday. If they did not they had to go home and bring their parents back to school, and stuff. So kids were rallying around to make sure that card was signed by their Sunday school superintendent.

13:41 The other thing that was so unique about the experience at Mobile County Training School and the kind of thing that we got is that every student had to 00:14:00look up to other students. We had clubs in the sixth, seventh, eighth grade, and ninth grade. You went through those clubs and when you got to be in the city high school those clubs would select you to be a part of their club, but you actually got training in the early grades of how to run parliamentary procedure, how to conduct yourself in clubs, so that when you became into the senior high school you know how to run those organizations and do things. So you got your primary training in the early earlier years and in the secondary years you were in a position to run the school.

14:35 Also, Mobile County Training School had a uniform code, we were blue and white. What was so unique about that is you had an organization called the big sisters and the big sisters were in charge of girls conduct, dress, and appropriateness and they would be the ones who managed, disciplined, and 00:15:00referred individuals who were out of line to the student body in terms of addressing that issue.

15:01 The boys had a group called the marshals, the marshals were sort of like the police force on campus. The marshals would do the hall monitoring, the campus monitoring, and discipline and they were highly respected. And so conduct would be referred to the marshals or whatever.

15:17 *electronic bell rings in background* Mr. Flen: that's the bell * Fiskio laughs and announcement plays*

Mr Flen: Okay?

Fiskio: Okay.

15:32 The Marshals were to police on campus, they were really looked as the authority for all individuals and so their role was to make sure the guys adhered to the rules and regulations as they related to the guys. As a seventh grader eighth grade the marshals absolutely intimidated me. I was more afraid of the marshals than I was of the teachers sometimes because of just their presence and the way in which they carried themselves. But the unique 00:16:00thing about both the marshals and the big sisters, you were to emulate them in terms of their mannerisms and their dress.

16:11 The other things that made Mobile County Training School unique in terms of the student led part of this campus is that once you became a senior you had the opportunity and the privilege to wear red ties -- both the boys and the girls. Girls wore red ties just like guys wore read ties -- the girls ties were sort of a bowtie that they sort of stringed and fixed on them.

The other thing that was unique about girls' ties was that the girls wore different styles of uniform. They wore the V-8 dresses, the pleated skirts, the white blouses -- so there was a uniqueness about the different uniforms the girls could wear in terms of that. And every girl looked forward to being the neatest girl on campus in that uniform and wearing that red tie which brought pride to all seniors at Mobile County Training School.

17:04 Do you wanna cut?

Fiskio: till the kids go, do you mind? sorry.

Mr. Flen: No problem.

Fiskio: So if you don't mind, there was something you brought up earlier that I was hoping to hear the story of. You mentioned -- I think it was you or your class president maybe -- that the first junior prom that was held in a hotel and I would just love to hear that story, what that was like. When was that? What year was that?

17:44 Mr. Flen: In 1967, which was my junior year in high school, a great number of things started happening in Mobile. Mobile is one of the last cities to really -- from a desegregation standpoint -- to really get engaged with desegregation. Mobile was the only city, the only major city in Alabama that Dr. Martin Luther King did not walk in and march. He did come here but he did not march because of some political things that were going on both in the black 00:18:00community and in other places. However, in 1967, because we had a couple of teachers who were involved in some community social groups -- they wanted to test to make sure desegregation was taking place -- and they asked us if we would consider having our prom at the Mobile Battle House in Mobile which is a major hotel in downtown mobile.

18:45 Prior to that no black or negro school, as it was called at that time, had ever had a prom at a major hotel in Mobile, Alabama. So in 1967 I was the president of the student body and a friend of mine, Fred Brown, was vice president and we reversed those roles as junior officers and we went down to the Battle-House to negotiate the first ever contract in the history of Mobile of a 00:19:00black high school to have a prom in a major hotel. I'll never forget that prom because we had it in the crystal ballroom.

19:25 Next year will be our fiftieth anniversary of the class of 1968 and we have committed to go back fifty years later to have our fiftieth-class reunion in the crystal ballroom at the Mobile Battle house hotel. That was significant for a couple of reasons. Because, once again, the training at Mobile County Training School was all about student leadership and about carrying out that student leadership in a very precise way. I would have never guessed fifty years later, over my journey in life, that those experiences have been very beneficial for me, in that process. The teachers in Mobile Alabama Training School were 00:20:00just not teachers, they were family.

20:19 Theres some stories that I would just like to share with you about how those teachers was really involved in our lives. One of my classmates, when she was a junior or sophomore in high school -- we always had pageants that were represented by the different classes -- this particular classmate, and I cant recall if it was her sophomore or junior year, or freshman or junior year, but she was selected to be the class queen for that particular class. Well, after being selected, she told the teacher: well my parents will not let me do this year because they're going to have to go out and get a gown for me to wear to be a part of that procession and so I know they're not gonna let me participate in this here. The teacher walked home with her that day and sit down 00:21:00and talk with her parents and told them whatever it took he would help make sure she had that particular gown because she had been selected.

21:28 And you were selected at that time based on two things: your character and your grade performance and the things selected to be a part of certain activities. That was one of those activities. That was one of those activities, that you had to have the grade point average but you also had to have to character to even compete to be a part of that and the teacher felt that that student represented both of those particular traits and did not want them to lose that opportunity, to be a part of that process.

21:59 They're other instances where teachers played major roles in our lives. There was a situation whereby one young man went out to the football team -- and sports for us at Mobile County Training School was a ritual and a tradition and 00:22:00this bell thats behind us is a part of that ritual and tradition. Whenever a game was played and won this bell was rung. When a football team went out of town and won a game and the call would come in -- before they got back to town everybody knew that had won the game because the bell was rung.

22:36 There was a gentleman -- everybody wanted to be on one of those teams -- the football team was the high-profile team -- this gentleman was in the ninth grade, and he had gone out to participate in the football team and had been cut. He was going home and as he was walking home he was crying --down this particular street -- and the gentleman by the name of Tommy Jones -- he's the brother of Cleon Jones who played with the New York Mets in the amazing Mets -- Tommy Jones saw this young man named Gabe Coleman and he asked Gabe: "Why are you crying?"

23:13 He said because Coach Ross, who was notorious and famous coach, had cut 00:23:00him from the football team. So, Thomas Jones asked him: "what position did he cut you from?" "He cut me from the quarter back position." So, Tommy Jones told him, said: "Go back tomorrow and go back for (Indecipherable) "But he said, he told me he said he cut me from the quarter back position" he said "that was yesterday for quarterback, you go in for a different position, and if he cut you tomorrow for (Indecipherable)you go back the next day for guard, and if he cut you for guard you go back for center, and if he cut you for center you go back for tackle." and he said "you keep going back."

23:49 Gabe went back five days in a row. Coach Ross selected Gabe to be on the team because of his perseverance and the determination. When I became on the football team my freshman year the one word Coach Ross would write on the board before every game was the word "desire." He said "we will win or lose this game 00:24:00based on, not the training or the preparation we did on the field, because we know we've done that, we will win this game because of the desire in your heart to win this game. It is not how big those players are, or how fast those players are, it all boils down to the desire thats in your heart." Those are the kind of examples that I saw, and I experienced on this campus and in this community.

24:48 The other thing that community people would tell us, especially they would always be inquisitive to recognizing those students who were gifted both in terms of athletics but especially academics. They would always point out, and literally point to your head and say, "get it up here they cant take it from you." Because they understood, for so many of them, including our teachers, 00:25:00they had been denied continuously opportunities, not because of their talent, only because of their color. They understood that times were changing, and they wanted to prepare us for the best and so, when I talk about those five wells and I talk about these experiences, all those things begin to come to together, in terms of talking about Mobile County Training School.

25:44 My goal and ambition for Mobile County Training School is to, somehow, make sure that the students and alumni that went through this school understand the DNA of this school. Now just any school can give you books to read even today they can give you computers to work on but do they put the DNA in your bone marrow to have the desire to succeed, and not only to succeed, to give 00:26:00back. Because one of the mottos of Mobile Training School was to give, is to give back.

26:22 Our teachers constantly gave back. Every teacher that I went to at some point in time came to my house, they knew my parents, they talked to my parents. There was one teacher, a principal, or gentleman in the community named Mr. Lemmy O' Keaby Mr. Keaby (Spell Check) was a 1930 graduate of Mobile County Training School and he grew up in Magazine Point. Mr Keaby didn't have any children he was a direct descendent from the slave ship Clotilda. Mr. Keaby, to me, was the meanest man in the world. He never smiled. Mr. Keaby was probably about six foot two and stood with a position of just authority. I found out later on Mr. Keaby was a math and English major from Tuskegee.

27:12 I'll never forget, Mr. Keaby would call my father and ask my father to 00:27:00send some boys over to his mothers house, usually to do some work. I'll never forget, we had a situation where we went over to his mothers house and he wanted us to pull some nails from the planks and boards to save the best boards, to straighten out the nails, to separate the nails, to put them in different containers -- and so it was five of us who did that: Cal and more, Sam Keavy, Raymond Griffen, Russel, Mitchell(Spell Check) and myself.

27:44 And at around noon time his mother gave us a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and some water to eat and drink. We worked for Mr. Keavy from eight O'clock that morning to six O'clock that evening. At six o'clock that evening we knew we were gonna get a big paycheck, Mr. Keavy gave us 25 cents total and asks us to spend it one place and to share it with each other. I went home and I told my father I would never again work for Mr. Lenny O' Keavy for under any 00:28:00circumstances at all. My father looked at me in a most stern way and he said to me: "if Mr. Keavy calls you, you will go"

28:26 My father could not read or write. Mr. Keavy -- and we didnt have a car when I was growing up, in high school -- my father saw me play football for the first time when Mr. Keavy brought him to a football game. When I graduated from high school and my freshman year in college Mr. Keavy sent me 500 dollars for my college. That was a teaching moment for me and a learning moment of understanding that people will wait and see what I was gonna do and to see if I was worthy of receiving those kinds of gifts, and stuff. And so, I remember that particular situation as though it were yesterday and there are many many many situations similar to that that I can share. Not on only with myself and with 00:29:00other students.

29:16 And that is what I encourage my peers to do. One of the things that my classmatesand us are gonna do -- and our theme is remembering the old days -- for next year year in 2018, and our theme is around remembering those individuals, and so what we are in the process of doing is making pictures of everybody that was a part of our class to remember those individuals. We're also going to make pictures of all of our teachers, our parents, and community figures who were a part of that. We're gonna rent a ballroom space and put all of these particular artifacts and things on display. We're gonna bring back and invite our children nephews and nieces to share with them how we grew up and the things that we played with from packorollers(spell check) to skateboards to the whole nine yards -- that we made these items and we're gonna make them again to 00:30:00popgods(spell check) and so on -- that we did that.

30:18 Part of the reason that we're doing that is that we wanna share this history of Mobile County Training School in this community to our descendants so that they understand, yes, we have done well, yes, we are much better off than what our parents were. But if it wasn't for that foundation, those things that which they taught us, those rituals in which they sent us through, those trainings that which we had, we would not be the persons that we are today.

30:48 Our churches did the same thing -- and just speaking a little bit about our churches -- Union Baptist church, which I think some of you visited, was where the school was started -- but Yorktown church is another school church in which they had opportunities and procedures - activities there. Yorktown church is the considered the founders of Mobile County Training School as a public school. That is where the seven individuals who partitioned the school system 00:31:00and brought Mr. Whitley to Mobile came out of, out of that particular school.

31:23 The first millionaire in Mobile, in the black community or in Africatown -- black millionaire in Africatown -- was Mr. Nelson Adam(Spell Check) There is a school named after Mr. Nelson Adam. Nelson Adam was the man that helped finance Mobile County Training School with land buildings and so on in terms of working. So Yorktown church played a very valuable role in Mobile County Training School because of those seven individuals, and others. Hogwell is the church where the original bell came from in 1915 that is believed to come from the Clotilda. When the church, Hogwell(Spell Check) was burned in 1915, and when that church was burned that bell was reconditioned by a social club called the Just Us Club, which was an all-boys club on Mobile County Training School campus 00:32:00and brought to this particular campus in 1915. That bell was displaced in the late nineties or early two thousands somewhere and so we had to go out and find another bell which you see behind me and we had a dedication of the new bell in August 2017 of this year.

32:40 So all of those pieces are a part of what make Mobile County Training School special. Mobile County Training School -- when you think about the Africatown community, we had at least twenty grocery stores out here, we had clubs, we had movie theaters, we had restaurants, we had pool rooms, we had pool rooms, we had hotels and motels, we had laundry mats, we were a self-contained community.

33:06 Mobile, the plateau Africatown community, did not become a part of the city of Mobile until the 1950s when it was incorporated into Mobile. And that's 00:33:00a real interesting story as well because, in order for Mobile to first gets lights and power out here from Alabama Power, their condition was three people had to buy stoves from the power company in order to be qualified to get power put out here in the Plateau area in the 1940s. Those three people were: Mr. Robert Hope, his brother, and Dr. Baker who was the principal of Mobile County Training School. Those people purchased those stoves in order for power to be ran out here, as a condition to get power into this community.

33:58 It's real interesting because the whole family have eleven children and even though they had the stove they couldn't hook it up because they couldn't afford to pay for it. So they had to still use the gas lanterns for lights they had it all hooked up but they couldn't turn it on and stuff. So that's an 00:34:00interesting story in and of itself in terms of how this community came about, in terms of doing some things.

The other thing that I learned about the community was that Dr. Baker always shot for excellence. So, one of the things that he did -- if there was any national program from the Boy Scouts to the, uh, any organization including accreditations for high schools, Dr. Baker would apply for those accreditations. And so if you talk about the High School National Honor Roll, or you talk about the National Boy Scouts, the Mobile County Training School has a certificate for that because Dr. Baker was gonna apply for it.

34:53 In 1934 it is said that Mobile County Training School became the first Black school in the south to be accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Universities in the history of Alabama and in the South, in 1934. There was a gentleman by the name of Brown Pygmy (Spell Check) who just died 00:35:00this year, Brown Pygmy went to Dunbar High School and graduated from Dunbar High School in 1933. He wanted the thing to be on his certificate to say that he graduated from an accredited high school so he spent another year, came to Mobile County Training School and graduated from Mobile County Training School, in order to have that certificate on his diploma that he graduated from an accredited high school in Mobile Alabama, and stuff. Mr. Brown Pygmy, I never met him, but his nephew Mr. Isaac Pygmy taught me -- it was one of my mentors, and he's still living and he's here in Mobile, Alabama. So, it was those kind of stories that we were taught in Mobile.

36:02 The song, the school song, of Mobile County Training School is written by Dr. Wally Bolden. Dr. Wally Bolden will be ninety-nine years old this year. He's 00:36:00in Atlanta, GA. and every time I get an opportunity I go by and see him. He told me that the two professions that, if you wanted to be paid the most money in teaching at a school, the two professions you wanted at that time in the thirties and forties, were you wanted to be a math teacher or you wanted to be a agriculture teacher because Mobile County Training School grew its own food to feed its own students when it had the cafeteria here. It did everything, it had the cows, and he often asked me: "what did y'all do with the goat?" Well I didn't know nothin' about no goat. But he said they goat that was in the entrance of Mobile County Training School, when you came in the goat was there. "I don't know nothin' about the goat," I said, "we're still looking for the goat, okay."

36:58 But it was those kind of rituals and stories that were told to us and shared with us about things. All of the social clubs and service clubs usually met on the weekend and at somebodies house, and it was typically on Sunday 00:37:00that they would meet at people's houses. When I was a senior we had a ring ceremony. In terms that we did a dedication of our graduation ring ceremony and we had that at a house and each social club would have that dedication for that particular senior group in terms of the dedication of the ring ceremony. So, we learned how to have those wellness moments of celebration and embracing and appreciation in everything that we did.

37:49 Everything that was done at Mobile County Training School was a celebration. It was a celebration because in the broader world, as we understood it and saw it, we were constantly being put down and denigrated by larger society. This was really a sanctuary for us. And one young lady, who is a 00:38:00descendant of the Guilard Family(Spell Check) who lives in Atlanta. There were eight girls in this particular person's family, Guilard family, and she talked about the fact that she looked forward to coming to school because at home there was suh a rigid standard there that she got an opportunity to have autonomy, flexibility, and leadership, and an opinion at Mobile County Training School that she didn't even have in her own household. Because that was an opportunity for us to express ourselves in the confines of the protocol that we had. So, she looked forward to that.

38:55 Most students did not want to miss a day of school because that gave them an opportunity of being in leadership roles, whether it was in sports, whether it was academic, whether it was a social club, or whether it was just activities in general. They had the autonomy to make those decisions, make recommendations. 00:39:00Because, at home you did what mamma said to do, and that as it. So, it was just such an ideal place.

39:22 The other thing that made Mobile County Training School so wonderful, and the connection between the church, the school, and the community was that you didn't wanna get in trouble at school, because you had two other venues you gonna be in trouble with. You gonna be in trouble with home and getting home because the kids are gonna run ahead of you and say, well, "he got in trouble" and they were gonna call you over and say, "what you doin' getting in trouble" and then pop you upside the head. When you got home, your parents were gonna chastise you because they would tell you "you don't disrespect the teacher. Then, on top of that you gon' get in trouble on Sunday because it got to Sunday school you got in trouble and they were gonna discipline you.

40:06 So you were just at every corner and as you got older and you began to realize what they were trying to prepare you for was one of those 'wells'. And 00:40:00that 'well' was well-balanced. That you had to recognize and live up to authority. Because if you didn't there were situations that could literally take your career from you or worse than that, take your life from you. If it had not been for Mobile County Training School, for many individuals, they would not be the people that they are today.

I sometimes look and I wonder at my peers and others and I say we all have been blessed tremendously because of Mobile County Training School and the environment in which we grew up in. And I guarantee you if you ever talk to anyone who went to Mobile County Training School they can tell you stories as I've told you today and share with you, as I've shared with you today, stories that will resonate with you and leave a lasting impression on you. And so, one of the things that concerns me is that many of my peers and some of the older 00:41:00alumni, for whatever reason, do not believe that it matters. And this happens with families, this happens in many situations.

41:25 The reason that I come back to Mobile every month, as often as I can, and as I do the things that I do, is because I know that one person can make a difference. One person made a difference in my life, and many one-people that made a difference in my life. One gentleman that made a tremendous difference in my life was Curtis Hardin.(Spell Check) Curtis Hardin sent me down as a junior in high school. I had the world in the palm of my hand. I was president of the class my senior year -- this is my senior year -- I was president of student body, vice-president of the National Negro High School Association, quarter-back on the football team, and captain, second-base all-city player, honor roll 00:42:00student, math and science club. Could go to any prom because the president of student government got invitations to all the proms as a special gesture. Could go to any prom that I wanted too. So, I had all this stuff going on and so my head got swoll' beyond belief. Curtis Hardin set me down and he said, "I've heard that you've become negligent and you've become arrogant" and he said, "let me tell you a story."

42:53 And that was what was so wonderful about our teachers. They did not tell you what to do. They told you a story and that story was to try to illustrate to you: make the decision. Because, in life you have to make the decision: look at the story. And after he told me a story about himself, the Tuskegee and the things that had happened to him at Tuskegee and he said, "the world is yours but 00:43:00you're gonna have to make a decision" and from that experience it made a difference in my life and to this day I'm constantly in contact with him, sharing with him how much I appreciate him and all the things which he did for me.

43:34 The story goes on and on with so many different teachers so many different community people. So, I say to my peers and others that I've learned and met: lets give back cause we have something to give back. To the future generation: my hope is, and my class is moving towards this year, is to get our descendants to understand: this is your legacy, this is your DNA, be proud of it. Let's make it excellence. We come from people who invested in excellence, thats why they taught us the five 'wells'. Thats why they taught us the four 'p's. Thats why they taught us the three 'R's." It was about 00:44:00excellence. And so, we have a responsibility to share with them this excellence and encourage them to embrace this excellence and make a difference. We can do it, we must do it, one person at a time. And that's all I got to say. *laughs*