Eyes on the Prize II; Interview with Robin Gregory

Take one, scene one, mark. When I first went to Howard, it was in 1962, and I was like, hey, what's going on? When I first went to Howard, it was in 1962. I didn't really know what to expect when I got there, but when I did get there, I found that there was a lot of stuff I had a lot of resistance to. It was a very social kind of scene. There was the freshman sort of atmosphere, you know, they wanted to include you in these activities that I wasn't really interested in being in. There was a party atmosphere, I remember that. I felt like an outsider, essentially, when I first went there. Let me think about that a little bit.

The first year at Howard was pretty uneventful. I was just studying, well, one thing I do remember was the sort of provincial mindset that was there. One of the things that first happened when we went there was that all the women had a special assembly. We were brought in, Patricia Harris was the Dean of Women at that time. We had this lecture on etiquette and how we were supposed to dress and how we were supposed to behave. We were supposed to be ladies. I didn't quite accept that for myself. I didn't feel like I had to conform to that sort of thing either because I didn't live on the campus. I lived in Washington DC. What was the attitude of most of the students you were? They were middle-class students and they wanted to be good. They wanted to succeed and they wanted to have a good time. A lot of them were looking for husbands, I remember that. I didn't find that there was a lot of thinking.

I felt that there wasn't a lot of deep thinking going on among the students that were there when I first went there. What kind of impact did you begin to experience from the movement from the campus? There was a gradual sort of falling into it in a sense. The first year I was there, well I had a lot of history from my family, but the first year that I was there, I had a first year that I was there. The first year that I was at Howard, I had a work study job. Start all over again. Just start from that point. The first year at Howard in 62, I had obtained a work study position. It was in a part of the library that a lot of the students didn't know existed. In fact, the students that came there were the African students and graduate students from other universities like American University. It was called the Moreland Foundation and it had everything that had ever been written essentially by black people in the world.

It had publications, periodicals. So I got introduced to a lot of the literature. It was there in that particular room that I first met Stokely as a matter of fact. Only I didn't know who he was at the time. He came in there a lot and worked on papers. So what kind of events were going on and how were you beginning to interact with? There was nothing going on in terms of... Well, I didn't like the social thing. I wasn't interested in a sorority fraternity scene at all. I was just there to study. I had a few friends that came there with me who went to high school with me. Well, essentially, I'm sort of alone or anyway. Nothing really happened for me politically until the next year as a matter of fact. In the summer, the summer between 62 and 63, I was working in the government office for the summer and I heard about the March on Washington that next summer.

And that was really my first introduction. I worked on the March on Washington committee is what it was. I met a lot of people through that. I was in the strategic offices setting the whole thing up before, during and after. So that was my first introduction. When do you first make a personal decision to start wearing an outfit? How did that come about? That was in 1964. What was going on? I was working in the SNCC office. I was a liaison in the Washington DC SNCC office between the Voter Registration Project in the South Mississippi specifically. And the liaison part was that people would call me from Mississippi in the office to chronicle some of the incidents that were happen so that I could contact Nicholas Katzenbach's office in the Attorney General's office and report. And so they would send people down to the polls or wherever these incidents were happening.

Marshalls, they would send down to either prevent them from happening or to protect people while they were trying to register to vote. And that summer was the 1964 Democratic Convention. And I went there and some women from Mississippi came up and they were wearing the hair natural. And so I was real turned on by that statement. And as a matter of fact, in the 50s, I had an aunt who was wearing her hair and a natural. It was a real radical thing to do and everybody in the family always talked about her. So it wasn't something that was completely far in the image itself. But it was exciting for me to see that somebody was doing it and so I decided to do it too. And what happened? What was the response? Pretty negative. I came back home and I was wearing my hair like that. My family was pretty horrified. I got a lot of comments from people in the street. People got angry about it. It was like I was exposing a secret. That was the first reaction.

That reaction went on a long time because I didn't have a lot of company. There weren't other people doing it. Maybe one or two other people were doing it. There was one person in particular who had won her hair like that for a year prior to that. Or maybe even two. And that was Mary Lovelace who was stokling Carmichael's girlfriend at the time. So there was a precedent before that. But the response was pretty negative. Okay. To the homecoming queen who had been spring of, I'm sorry, fall of 66. Or two. Now how did it come about that your campaign for homecoming queen was put together? Where did the idea come from? What kind of things were you trying to do with the campaign? A lot of things were happening in 1966. In terms of the movement, where the movement was going,

it was just beginning to be the dawn of the whole Black Power movement. Getting away from the more conservative approach to change through the way the civil rights movement had been going into a Black Power consciousness. And it was like right on the edge of that. And there were a few students at Howard who were very politically involved in things. And I was one of them. But someone came up with an idea that we should make a statement around the homecoming because it was such a superficial kind of thing that kept affirming old values that we were trying to resist or trying to overthrow. So I was approached by some men from the law school actually. And they asked me if I would do it because they wanted to make a statement about the Black aesthetic. And they wanted to resist the whole image with this whole homecoming queen thing. It's kind of hard to describe the atmosphere of the way that it went. But it was a lot of fraternities who the fraternities would nominate a candidate

who would run for the position. And it was a popular election, by the way. But you had to be nominated by some on-campus organization. And usually they picked someone who was as close to white as they could possibly get. I mean, it didn't have to be skin color. It was just the whole image of the person. And so they said, well, will you do this? We want to run somebody that has a natural hair style. We know that you're politically active. And you're like, let's take this particular context and use it to make a statement. And so I was willing to do that. That's how it happened. You had together an organization campaign. What kind of things did you do? I got support from, well, first of all, the school didn't want to let us do it at first because they said, well, you can't just put an independent person in there. But we found out we could. So I had the gentleman from the law school. I had the few radical active students on the campus. I was a student in the College of Fine Arts, so I had a lot of support from them. They were real, sort of non-conformist types.

So they gave me a lot of support. And we did it on a shoestring. I mean, everybody was sort of shocked, you know, I think, that it was happening and resentful. Yeah. Can you remember the coronation? Can you describe what happened at the moment that your victory was announced? How did that unfold? How did the students learn that you had won? Well, there were a series of events that you had to do the series of things in order to campaign. And our approach to it was to put as many black images out as possible, you know, black men and women who were wearing natural hairstyles who were accepting that image for themselves. And I think that most of the, like, my co-candidates didn't believe that, you know, they couldn't take, they didn't take me seriously, you know, they just, they were real irritated by the fact that I was making a political campaign. So the night of the coronation, actually, we were all standing backstage and no one really had any idea who was going to win. I mean, sometimes I think in these things somebody knows.

But when they announced my name, all the other women were really shocked. They just were flabbergasted, you know, they couldn't accept, they couldn't accept, you know, the fact that someone looking like I was looking, right? I mean, the way you're looking at me now, I mean, you can't perceive it. But, you know, the style then was a, it was a short natural hairstyle that was, you know, it was African looking hairstyles. Okay, we're just, this is going great. Mark three. All right, now, near coronation ceremony, what happened as you were actually crowning? The actual moment of crowning was, well, the Pandemonium actually began before that because when they made the announcement and I came out, okay, we were backstage waiting for the announcement as to who had won. To me, it was important because it was a popular election. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't a committee election or anything like that.

The general body of the student population. And, you know, my thing was that I wanted people to start looking at themselves and accepting themselves. I mean, that was the aim of the campaign in the larger political context. So, when it was announced that I won, all the other candidates were shocked because, I mean, this was, you know, they, they couldn't, it was, it was a concept they couldn't grasp. And they were just stunned. So, when I went out, there was Pandemonium in the auditorium. I mean, it was people were screaming and jumping up and down and just sort of going nuts, you know. There is a photograph, you know, I think I had my mouth wide open, you know, sort of a high moment, you know. And it was very important, you know, in terms of self-acceptance because, I mean, it seems superficial in a sense because it's an appearance thing. Somebody who lived through that, there were years of self-denial and abnegation, you know, a non-acceptance of the way that black people looked, you know, to themselves because of media images. There was a lot of shame, you know, the reason why people were so angry with me was because I was coming out in public in a way that I shouldn't have been revealing myself, you know.

It was like this secret, you know, you're not supposed to show them, do you have nappy hair or something. So, it was a really dramatic moment, yeah. Okay, yeah, there was a truck, huh? What did we say there? What was the secret? Nappy hair. Should I start it? Yeah, can you start about what you were bringing other people? I mean, kind of self-acceptance that you're trying to feed up yourself. Yeah. I felt it was real important at that time, you know, because the black power movement was new, that we, as a people, begin to accept ourselves, you know, just as who we were. Because the, over the years, I mean, there was a tremendous amount of shame, you know, we were, we were made to feel ugly, essentially by media images and things of people told us. And we did everything that we could so that we wouldn't look like who we are, which was, you know, descendants of African people.

So, that, that moment was, I think it was real important for a lot of people. What was the response to your victory? How were you officially accepted by students and by faculty? And even by the nation, what kind of, what kind of perception? The reception was very interesting. Officially, I wasn't accepted at all. I mean, the university administration did not like it. And the general population, you know, the people who had been doing this stuff for years didn't like it. I mean, I'd like to sort of bring up that film, the Spike Lee film school days is a really good illustration of the atmosphere that was going on in terms of how people felt about themselves. So, the administration, a lot of things that they did for homecoming queens, they didn't do for me. I mean, essentially, I was unaware of a lot of it because I had never been involved in it anyway. But, you know, they would give a reception to the homecoming queen and I didn't get one.

You know, it's the dean of students would do something he didn't do that. There was supposed to be a float that the students put together for the homecoming queen and they didn't want to do it. I had to get some other people to do it for me. So, there's a lot of snubbing going on. In the media, though, when the media began to report this stuff, people were really turned on by a lot of men wrote to me from prison. They were really excited about what I was doing. They were saying things like, I've been waiting for something like this for a sister to come out and just be her natural self and to say, you know, that we are beautiful as a people. So, I got a lot of positive feedback from prisoners, male prisoners. I got some marriage proposals. It was interesting, you know, because then people began to focus on other things. You know, the things we really wanted them to focus on.

So, I have to do a thing like this to get people to look at other issues on the campus. People were really energized. People were very energized by it. Well, because they began to focus on the other things that I was doing politically on the campus and what the people around me were doing. A very small percentage of the population that was politically conscious, you know, even then. And so, they began to, we began to be very visible. And they started noticing and there was a lot of dialogue going on, you know, just out on the campus itself in the newspaper back and forth. Mark IV. I was wondering how your coronation and the reaction, the energy that grew out of it, connected to other political things that started going on and how it began. How were you aware of it because of that? Well, I was aware that my coronation and the whole thing that I was the queen became a pivotal point for other activities that were to follow. People that have been wanting to get involved and wanting to get information about a lot of the political stuff that was happening around there were beginning to come out of the woodwork, so to speak.

One of the things that followed that was a demonstration against General Hershey who was the head of the draft board at the time. And in order to see the larger perspective, I think it has to be realized that Howard University was run like a plantation. Washington DC could not vote. The people of Washington DC could not vote. It was run by a Southern Committee of Southern Senators called the District Committee. And as well, the university was controlled by those funds. And so, there were these white Southern Senators who were essentially very racist, who were telling us what we could not do on the campus. And General Hershey was kind of a part and parcel of that whole thing. And I can't remember who invited him to the campus to speak, but it was a very touchy time. People were just beginning to wake up to the fact that a war was going on in Vietnam. And that people were getting drafted and sent over there. And we were trying to focus on that too.

So when General Hershey came to the campus, we decided to mount a protest. We were outraged that he was coming. It was a sensitive subject for a lot of young men who didn't want to be drafted. And then there was the racial issue too. A lot of black people were being drafted and sent over Vietnam. So what did you do? I, with a number of other students, put together demonstration. He was supposed to speak in the auditorium. And we weren't going to let him speak. I mean, that was the plan. So there were some people that had placards. And a whole bunch of us was spread out in the audience. So that as soon as he would try to speak, we would just jump up and start shouting things. One of them was beast. People sort of loved that word. And so they were shouting that. Every time he would try to speak, someone would say that. And then at one point, some people rushed the stage. That had a big aftermath because I don't think that he was able to speak at all, which is what we're trying to do. On the heels of that, he was hung in effigy on the campus.

So we were trying to focus on things that we thought were important issues that the sleeping middle class students of Howard University should wake up to. Okay. Mark five. So how did the coronation lead to other political efforts? The coronation itself was a pivotal point. And it energized a lot of people. Causing them to begin the question a lot of the issues that we were bringing forward. And one of the things that happened that was a big incident on the campus was the spring after the coronation, the spring of 1967. Someone had invited General Hershey to the campus. And General Hershey was the head of the draft board. And people were just becoming aware of the Vietnamese War. And the fact that people were being drafted and sent to Vietnam and that a large number of those people were black people. So when we found out that he was being invited to speak, we decided that we didn't want that to happen. And we staged a demonstration. And in essence, we didn't allow him to speak.

There was a lot of shouting from the audience. There were a number of people who had placards that stormed the stage. And just boot him, essentially, out of the auditorium. And after that, there were some incidents where he was hung in effigy on the campus. And there was some statements being made to the University newspaper about Hershey being there. That was also used by the administration seized on this and tried to expel me. There were trials and there were hearings on the campus of the people who had been identified as being a part of the demonstration. And there was a lot of reporting in the media about it. So that was an energizing event as well. I have one back this time when we talked about her. Just because you want to talk to her. You want to talk to her about how you decided to wear your hair. What was it that made me feel that you could do that? Well, essentially, I saw it as an affirmation of who I was.

I don't know if you could just start from... You saw what as an affirmation. Oh, you want me to... Yeah. I didn't know what they were going to pick it up and put it in there. The decision to wear my hair natural happened in the summer of 1964. I was at the Democratic National Convention. It was the summer that the three civil rights workers had been killed in Mississippi. And their bodies had been found when we were at the convention. There was the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party who came up to be in the convention. And there were a number of women who were working on that project. Can I hit stop? Yes. That's okay. Mark, six. So how did you make the decision to change your hair value? When I was at the 1964 Democratic Convention in Atlantic City. That was the year that... Well, it was the end of the freedom summer. It was when they found the bodies of the three civil rights workers that were slain.

And we were at the convention at that time. And the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party had come to speak at the convention and try to run a delicate family with a hammer. And some of the women that came from the south were wearing the hair and a natural. And I was really turned on by that image. You know, that I felt that it was an affirmation of being who we were. The energy was very high. Emotion was very high. Getting a sense of who we were and what we were doing in the context of history was really acute at the time. And I just decided that I was going to wear my hair that way. Make a statement that way. As far as you wonder on the question, is there any other recollections of how are being transformed? Like, just speaking about these years, it's brought to your mind. Does anything else you want to share about how people were away from you to a new identity, to a new cultural and political struggle? Well, there was a lot...

There were so many things going on in that period of time. Like I said, the black power movement was just coming into being. There was a lot happening internationally in terms of how it was going to impact on black people's lives. And I think that being at Howard, you know, the students were the ones that were getting a lot of the energy moving there, that they had to begin to be aware of things. I mean, you can't sleep for so long, you know, when a lot is happening around you. And I just think that those of us who were on the campus, we did wake up a lot of people. You know, it's like forced them to look at things whether they wanted to or not. It's hard to focus on anything specific because when I think about it, so many events were happening, both there and in larger community.