My Journey Through Life 5e5g4s

My Journey Through Life

Loretta Hall

Copyright © 2013 by Loretta Hall. ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4797-5353-6 Softcover 978-1-4797-5352-9 Ebook 978-1-4797-5354-3

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Contents

Holidays

Pride

Meeting the Challenge A Speech Given for Christian Education

Speeches I Have Made in the Past Negro History Speech for CBS

Different Kinds of Fathers Speech Given on Father’s Day

Photos

This book is written and dedicated to my husband of fifty-five years, Sidney J. Hall;

Our children, Sydney Jay, Darryl, and Kasha Hall;

Our grandchildren, Terrance Dennae’, Sidney Willard Borel, Nina Rose, Sydnie Strong, Samatha Hall; and

Our great-grandson, Micah Leonidas Hall

God will not help you achieve goals that are outside His will.

Walk on the dust forever, and it never answers back.

Indian proverb

My journey began when I was born to Leon and Rosetta Hall on July 25, 1937 in Birmingham, Alabama. After my birth at Jefferson-Hillman Hospital, I went home with my parents to Thirtieth Place where we lived for two years, then my parents were able to buy a house. The address was 3343 Thirty-First Way no. It was a two-bedroom house with a little toilet at the back porch, a small kitchen, a big backyard, and front yard. I the dirt was very black in the yards. The whole community was surrounded by factories that blew off toxic fumes day and night. We were also surrounded by railroad tracks with slow-moving trains, but as a child growing up, I thought I lived in an all right neighborhood. The summers were very hot and winters were very cold. When I was about four or five years old, I went up the street to a house where preschool was being taught. I went to that little school until I reached the age of six, then I went to the real school, Hudson Elementary School. My first-grade teacher’s name, of all things, was Mrs. Hudson—nothing to do with the school’s name. She was a tall, medium-sized woman, and to my little eyes, she looked very important. She only had to speak to me once. I do she dressed very nice. My second grade class was very exciting because of the teacher, Mrs. Hill. I never will forget her sternness. My days in elementary school were very hard but full of fun. My family was very poor, so I made up for it by getting good grades and applying for any extra acting, dancing, and speaking activities the school had to offer. While I was still in Mrs. Hudson’s class, she sent me to Mrs. Hill’s class to get a girl. I walked in and asked Mrs. Hill for the girl. I can’t her name now. Mrs. Hill said she was not in her class. I hesitated for a moment, and she spoke louder, “I said there is no such animal in this class!” I ran out of that room. I was a Girl Scout, Y-Teen, and school representative for the downtown s. I met Bull Conner, the police chief, in his office, and he said words I never forgot. His quote was “You are a pretty little Nigro girl.” He could not even pronounce Negro correctly, and I did not have sense enough to be insulted. My life was lived like a fairy tale. I lived the life of the young white girls in the books I read, but the real truth was, I built up a hard shell inside me to shield the pain. I learned to laugh at myself, to defend myself, but the most damage was done to be very critical of myself. What I did not know was that God was setting me on a journey, that He was uniquely setting my life to be used

by Him. I had three sisters and one brother. The sister younger than me was Barbara Jean, the middle sister was Margaret Lee, the baby sister was Gwendolyn Joyce, and the only brother was Leon. When Leon was about one or two years old, my father’s brother John D. was put in an institution. His wife ran off to Milwaukee, leaving three very young boys behind. As they were the sons of his brother did not want to see them go into a foster home brought them to our house, adding our family to eight children and two adults living in a two-bedroom house. The boys’ names were Dwight, the oldest; Anthony, the middle son; and Timothy, the baby son. They became my brothers. We grew up together. I was the oldest of eight children. Space was tight at night when all of us were trying to find space to sleep. Dwight grew up and got married, but his life was cut short in a car accident. His death left two young children. Anthony is still alive. He too had two children. Timothy is also dead. He got hurt in Vietnam. He lived for a while, but with pain and suffering, he eventually died a very young man. We had a neighbor who lived up the street. We called her Suala. We had given our brother, Leon, the nickname Jim. And today, everybody calls him that name. We cut Timothy’s name short, so we all called him Tim. Suala would the house where Jim and Tim would be on the porch, and she never separated the names. She would say “Good morning, JimTim” and keep right on walking. My mother worked two jobs, leaving home early in the morning, returning about 3:00 p.m. to make food and see that we were all in the house, and leaving again about 6:30 or 7:00 p.m. to go downtown and clean the building of Local 92 where she retired from. She worked during the day, cleaning Mrs. Brooks’s house over the mountain. It was Mr. Brooks who got her the job in the evening. At one time, she worked in the stove foundry, casting in molten metal. I seeing her come home, wearing her coveralls and, of course, me being the oldest in the family, I had burdens put on me that no young girl should have had to carry. My mother was a very stout woman who demanded her way from us children. She never listened or asked questions. Whatever she saw or thought she saw was an answer to everything. The house we lived in had a long back porch. If you opened the kitchen door, all you could see was the very long dark hallway that led to the backyard. At that time, there were no streetlights; only the moon and stars gave light. And if it was

a cloudy night, it was just black. My mother told me to go out there and get the mop. I opened the kitchen door and all I saw was black. I got real afraid for some reason. I had heard God could do all things, so I stood in the door and asked Him to bring me the mop. As I stood there waiting, my mother screamed, “Bring the mop!” I held my breath and ran into the blackness and got that mop as fast as I could. No, that was one prayer God did not answer. I guess it was then that I learned there was a bit more to praying and receiving than a little girl knew. My mother’s life was not easy. She worked very hard and had to take a lot from my daddy, trying to live with him. She had close friends that she was able to share her life with. They all talked about their unhappy lives with their husbands. They never tried to change their living conditions. They only existed by putting one foot before the other to survive and grabbing what little fun they could. My mother took her instructions and directions about her life from her mother, Mama Nellie, a beautiful little, wiry very dark woman. When I looked at my grandmother, I thought of how pretty and wise she was. She lived on Brown Hill, located just above L&N City. We would walk the railroads from Collegeville to her house and climb the hill that was surrounded by trees and mountains. The train tracks went around and through those mountains, where we were able to pick up clay dirt and eat it and drink cool water from the streams that flowed from the rocks. I have a lot of beautiful memories of Brown Hill but also some sad memories. I a room in the big wooden house—a room where they kept my greatgrandmother, a full Sioux Native Indian with that same beautiful smooth black skin my grandmother had and brown eyes. I guess she had today’s equivalent to what we call Alzheimer or dementia. They used a cane-bottom chair that they removed the bottom from and sat a bucket under it so she could use it as a toilet. She had a sheet tied around her to make her stay until they moved her. All of us children were warned not to get too close because she had these long fingernails, and she would grab you. One noonday, she enticed me to move in close, and being about six years old, I did not fully understand what these nails could do; she grabbed my upper arm, and I bear the scar today. The wooden house had no lights and no running water. Mama Nellie used kerosene lamps. She had an old windup phonograph. The outhouse was even farther up the Hill. It too was a wooden enclosure with a wooden-stool-like instrument over a deep hole that smelled to high heaven. Mama kept her wooden house scrubbed clean, but she could not clean that smelly toilet.

We would go to my grandmother’s house on Sunday evening after church. My mother had a big family. She had four sisters and two brothers. Aunt Augusta had nine children, my mother had eight children, Aunt Doshie had two children, plus we had other cousins living on the Hill. My Aunt Gaston and Aunt Margaret did not have any children. We would sit in Mama Nellie’s big yard, eating some of the best fried chicken, collard greens or string beans with potatoes, good corn bread, and homemade ice cream and cake. We played games and we sang songs. We had a good time. One day as we sat there, a young boy appeared nude. He was about fourteen or so years old. My grandmother quickly got him in the house from our view, and when he came out of the house, he was wearing clothes. He lived a ways from where we were, but if I correctly, his story was that he had gotten in trouble with his father, and his father had put him out with nothing—no clothes or shoes but only what he was born with. “Naked I came into the world.” This was all the young boy had when he stumbled into our yard, but when he left, he had clothes on his back, shoes on his feet, and a bag with food to last a couple of days. And he could jump on one of those box cars and ride away to a new future. On Mama Nellie’s land, we could milk cows and have fresh milk to drink. We could check the henhouse and have chicken to eat and fresh, warm eggs. Those were the good times. The bad times were when we would take that long walk to the Hill when my mother and father had been fighting. And he would come there, drunk out of his head, and make us take the long walk back to Collegeville where we lived. And sometimes, the fighting would continue. The next morning, we had to clean up while my father slept off his hangover or went to work with the hangover. The amazing thing about this whole situation is he never drank until Friday night when he got paid off, and he would drink until late and sometimes all Saturday night. He would manage to spend all his money and fight, trying to take my mother’s money. We children loved our daddy, and some of us loved him more than we loved our mother. But we knew if he got the money and spent it on women and more alcohol, we would go without some of what we needed the coming week—unless Daddy had a job killing a hog. You see, we were a family who lived from payday to payday. I vowed in my youth that when I got grown, I did not want to live that kind of life. Because of my background, I was determined not to marry someone who drank alcohol, and I wanted to always have a little something left over and no fighting with my husband. My aunt Doshie owned a café where she cooked and served the cement workers

who worked at the plant, so that made her better than we were, and she did not mind letting us know it. She had her home built to her specifications from the ground up. It was a beautiful brick house, but it was a house where we poor family were not welcome to stay in very long, and we could not touch anything when we visited. My uncle Sylvester, my mother’s brother whom we called Uncle Buster, went to the army, and we thought how handsome he looked in his uniform. I had many aunts and uncles whom I grew up around. They had their own weird lifestyles. They did not believe in teaching as much as they did in criticizing and disciplining. I having dinner at my aunt Margaret’s house, and she cut some corn bread and put it on the table. I picked up a piece and smelled it. She got very angry and told me never to smell her bread again. I did not know why she got so angry. I just always liked smelling freshly cooked corn bread. Now that I am older, I know it is not polite to pick up food and smell the bread when you are a guest in someone’s home. She never told me that. Each of them could whip you if they felt you needed it. There came a time my daddy stopped my uncle Fred. I had an older cousin, about a year older than I was. Her name was Nellie Mae. She was Uncle Fred’s daughter. We had a half school day. The school was located across town. On our way home, we had to through town where the Frolic Movie House was. She suggested we go in. They had live entertainment. We really enjoyed ourselves, laughing at the comedians. It was late when we got out and got home. I believe it was dark, and no child was allowed to come home after dark. Going by her house, her daddy was waiting for us. He found out where we had been, and I thought he was never going to stop beating us. When he did stop, I went home and showed my daddy the welts on my arms and legs. Daddy went to him and told him off and instructed him and warned him to never touch me again. My daddy, whether drunk or sober, was always my hero. I thought he was the wisest and smartest man in the world. He did what he could for his family. His lack of education, his location, poverty, and the company he kept made him a man walking in full darkness. But he had his principles, and deep down inside of him, he carried a wealth of knowledge. Around the age of fifty, he began to change. He gave up drinking, smoking, and fighting. He became a good man. He began going to church, working on his house, and planting and watching his flowers grow. I wish I knew if he was a real happy man, but I do know he became content. He tried very hard to know God. He read his Bible. I wish the

ministers around him could have taught him about the real, loving, holy, and comionate God we serve. But they hardly knew any more than Daddy knew. He repented his sins and lived a saved, God-fearing life. We children always called our mother Madea. Daddy and her family and the adults in the community called her Eddie Mae, even though her real name was Rosetta. She remained the same, but her lifestyle changed because her husband had changed. Now she and Daddy go to church together. In the past, she would send us to Sunday school, and if she finished her work in time, she would go to church. Now she and Daddy are regular attendants in church and Sunday school. Hudson Elementary School, where I attended, was not a block from my house. If you stood on my front porch, you could see the door entrance into the school. The teachers were very strict. We were taught how to obey, stand up straight, and respect our elders. The girls had to wear ribbons in their hair, and the boys had to wear a tie. Some of us were too poor to own materials for ribbons for our hair, so we learned how to make a paper bow and put it in our hair. Girls were not allowed to wear pants. We had to wear socks, dresses, or blouses and skirts. It was the same for the boys. They had to wear shirts and pants. They made paper bow ties and pinned them to their shirts. Blue jeans were not allowed. We learned a lot. A lot was expected from us. Our teachers were like our parents. We saw them seven days a week. We lived in the same neighborhood, attended the same churches—it was like one huge family. Some families had a little more than others, but most of us were poor, living from payday to payday. But we had God looking after us. We all believed that. Our households had an outward appearance of religion in our families, but I cannot say we had knowledge of a relationship with a living God in obedience to His word. There was an older man who sat at the corner that I had to whenever my mother sent me to the store. We called him Po-Love. I have no idea why we called him that. He only had one real leg, and the other leg was wooden. I would stop and talk to him, and he would tell me stories that did not make too much sense, but I would listen. And he was always there, day and night. We had another man who lived in the middle of the block. He sat on his porch, and I had to him whenever I went to my grandmother’s house or to the other store called Ben Thomas Store. I would stop and talk to him too. One day, I went to the store to get two eggs. In those days, you could buy eggs like that. On my way back home, he asked what I had in the sack, and I said two eggs. He told me he could show me a trick. I was to take the eggs out of the sack and press them

together a certain way and they would not break. I did it, but the eggs broke, leaving a big mess on my dress and shoes. He laughed, and I had to go home and face my mother. What a cruel joke an old man played on a child. There was no real entertainment in the neighborhood. We children got up in the mornings and went to school during the school year. When school was out, some of us went to summer school to skip a grade, and when school time came again, we would go back to school being a half grade ahead. Looking back on it now, it did not make much sense. How could you, for six weeks, learn what took you months in real school to do? Our parents did not look into it at all. It was just a place where we could go and not be in the streets playing or at someone’s house, playing jacks, jump rope, and hide-and-seek. We played ball when we had a ball. We made our own dolls by using a Coke bottle and some ice strings for the hair. We would put paper clothes on the bottles sometimes, and sometimes we didn’t bother with clothes. The main thing was the hair. This type of rope would come apart, and we could braid it in many ways. We went barefooted all summer. We only wore shoes when we went to church or to the one movie house in North Birmingham on Saturday afternoon. For this, we were usually given twenty-five cents: ten cents for the movie, and for the rest of the quarter, we could get popcorn, candy, and a soda. Before Daddy gave me the quarter, I had to do the buck dance for him, and he would just laugh. There was a little crack in the painted dark window of the movie house. We could peek out and see if it was about to get dark. We would go into the movie house—that’s what we called it— for the first showing and stayed and watched the same movie over and over. Of course, we ran out of popcorn, candy, and drink, but we stayed until we thought it would soon be dark, we were not allowed to be outside after dark. One summer morning, I got out of bed and ran to my friends Yvonne and Olivia’s house. Their mother looked down at my feet and said, “You did not wash your feet last night.” And I looked down too and felt real ashamed. I had gotten in bed with those dirty feet. I think I tried to make sure I cleaned my feet before I saw that woman again. This was what we did, go from house to house, playing, very little teaching, and training for any of us, but we all fell in love with reading. We read all our books over and over. We talked about what we read with one another. I guess this is why I love books today. I buy lots of books and I try to read as much as possible and I try to be well-rounded in my reading. But the majority of my books are Christian books. I keep on hand a variety of Bibles for cross-references. I am also prepared to give one to anyone who need or like and ask for the one I am reading at that moment. We had no formal

training during the summer unless we went to summer school, but we had a lot of fellowship and friendly relationship—companionship with one another. One evening, I had to go to my grandmother’s house, my father’s mother. We all called her Big Mama. I loved my Big Mama because of her ways and her actions. She knew who she was, and she stood on her own two feet. She took no mess, and she tended to her own business. Her married name was Mary Adams. She was married to her second husband, a reverend Johnson Adams. Her first husband was Neil Hall, nickname Brown Mule. He was killed when my father was nine years old. He worked at Reams Factory. He was a gambler. The night before his death, he gambled with a group of men; one was white. My grandfather won, and the white man got angry, and of course, with a nickname like Brown Mule, he was no pushover. Granddaddy got the best of the white man. He knew my grandfather’s time and the route he went to work every morning. It being still dark, around four in the morning, he lay in wait for him, and as Granddaddy approached, he shot him dead. And of course, he was not charged. White men at that time would not be charged for killing a black man. His death left my grandmother to raise five children on her own. This made my father grow up real fast without a father. On my way back from Big Mama’s house, about dust dark, a boy jumped out of some hedges. And it being dust dark, it scared me so bad, I lost my voice. And it took me some time to gain it back. In those days, you did not go to a doctor for something like that. I can only say God was always with us whether we knew it or not. how I said we went barefooted all summer? One summer day, I was running and playing and stepped on a broken cold cream jar and cut my foot real bad. My mother washed it. And Mrs. Thorston came over, and they reached inside the fireplace and got soot and smeared my foot with it. They wrapped my foot with lots of rags. My mother had me to lie down as she went about her work. My foot just would not stop bleeding. As soon as she was out of sight, I jumped up and went about six blocks to where my daddy worked. I always knew where to find him. The place was so hot, you had to watch where you stepped because solid iron heated to a certain temperature turned to liquid, and it ran down a trough where Daddy was pouring it into molds and stacking them to cool. He was paid according to the molds; he worked very hard and was paid very little. Because he kept his hands crooked all day, making molds, by the time he retired, he could not stretch his hands out, and he had calluses in his hands. I watched as I stepped, leaving a trail of blood as I moved. My daddy saw me come in the door, crying. He stopped his work, called a cab, and took me to

Dr. Patterson, our black doctor who treated us black people. He put fifty stitches on my foot. If I had not had sense enough to go to my father, I do not know what could or would have happened to my foot. I have no resentment against my mother’s decision. She did the best she knew what and how to do with the very limited education she had. But at that time, I felt my daddy was smarter. When we got back home, Madea was on the porch, very upset because she had lost a bleeding child, which she had left on the sofa. Of course, she and Daddy had to have their usual argument. This did not stop me from running around barefooted after that. There was a couple in our neighborhood, one of the ones who had a little more money. The wife was a schoolteacher, and the husband ran a bookstore downtown. They bought the first TV to come into our community. What a big deal for us children! Some evenings, they would let us come over and watch funny cartoons. Of course, we had to give them a dime. Later on in the years, another couple had a telephone put in their house. Now that was a really, really big deal. We all ran to see it. It was tall and black, the receiver hung on a hook at the top of the phone, and on the base of the phone were the dialing numbers. It had a party line; therefore, if anyone else in the community was on their phone, you could pick up your phone and listen to their conversation and you had to wait until they finished their call before you could make a call. By the way, to use our neighbor’s phone, it cost a nickel. I May Day in our school. This was a school holiday. It was a big exercise and show day where buses came to our school and took us across town to our only large sports field called Legion Field. Our school’s football and baseball games were all played at Legion Field. We practiced for the May Day festival. Bands from our schools marched, and we danced around the flagpole in our outfits. It was a big day in my life. There were days at our school when s would bring apples, oranges, milk, potato chips, and maybe some candies if they had an oversupply from the white schools. Those were good days. Every year, we were able to get our school books that the white children had already used. Sometimes the books had writing in them; some even had their names left in them, but we were glad to have them.

Holidays

Holidays were a big deal in our lives. We loved them because, somehow, our parents could always find money from somewhere to buy us toys and sometimes new clothes and always fruit, nuts, and candy. Christmas was the greatest holiday. It seemed everyone was happy that day. Even though the church talked about Jesus, we sang Christmas carols up to Christmas Day. The day of Christmas, we did not think about Jesus or sing carols. My focus was “What did I get as gifts, and what did my friends get?” I never saw a connection between Jesus and Christmas and it being his birthday. They were like two separate things; I guess Jesus was at the Church celebrating His birthday. It was Christmas and Santa Claus was coming to my house to bring me something new. I never thought of Jesus that day. It was a day for us children. I one Christmas trying to learn how to ride my new bike. Those of us who got bikes decided to go to the field to learn how to ride. I got on the bike, but I did not know how to stop. I saw the cow, but I did not know how to stop or how to turn the bike. So I ran right into the cow. I went down, and the cow ran away. This went on until someone decided to spoil it for me, telling me there was no Santa Claus and that my parents had gotten me toys for Christmas and had hidden them at my grandmother’s house. Of course, I was saddened to learn all this. It gave some kids joy to spoil the fun for the smaller children, but I guess someone had spoiled it for them at one time. I still celebrated Christmas, and my parents continued to buy things for us and hide them until they knew we knew better. Then there was Easter when we always got new clothes and shoes and our hair was fixed. We were cleaned and ready for Sunday morning. About two weeks before leading up to Easter, all the children of our church who were old enough practiced for the Easter program for the church. I still one of my speeches, holding my Easter basket:

Why are you looking at me today? I did not come to stay;

I just come to say, today is Easter Day.

Also, we children enjoyed an Easter egg hunt before the big evening program. Our Halloween was not like today’s celebration. Today, parents go out and buy costumes for their children. This was a no-spending holiday for most parents. We made-up our faces, put on grown-up old clothes, and that was it. But there were parents in the community who gave parties. We would bob for apples, eat candy, and play games. This was also a very fun holiday. Our other big holiday was the Fourth of July. We got new shorts, blouses, and sandals just to walk to the park and play baseball and run races around the park. We then went home where we enjoyed barbecued ribs, bread, potato salad, pork and beans, and homemade ice cream. That night, we might have some sparklers. There were no fireworks we could watch. All the fireworks were over the mountain, and we had no transportation. We looked up at the moon and stars that were beautiful and bright. Another big holiday was Thanksgiving. We would have a good dinner that day. We had cheese and mac, green beans, corn bread, candied yams and stuffing. But we never had a turkey. We had a large hen. This dinner was topped off again with homemade ice cream and one of the best baked pound cakes. My mother was a great cook and baker. We believed in certain traditions and customs we followed like—on the first day of a new year a man had to enter the house before a woman. When we walked on the street we would not step on a crack—we said it would break our mother’s back. Another one we believed was if we left home going out and ed we had forgotten something, we had to spit before turning around and going back home. These were acts we thought would change our luck. Now that I am older, I do not believe in luck, my luck now is my blessings from God and I thank Him for His peaceful presence. At the age of eight, I became a legal member of Shady Grove Baptist Church by being baptized in a small lake located on Bias Hill by the pastor Rev. L. J. Rogers. I never knew any other life except church life. I was groomed by the church for adulthood. I managed to get through elementary school with good grades and being very popular. I was outgoing and friendly, but of course, I had some enemies that I soon got out of my life. If you did not like me, that was your

problem, not mine. Even though the things I said about myself still held true as I grew, I could operate outside of these boundaries because of the shell I lived inside of myself. I graduated from Hudson Elementary School on January 19, 1951. Going to high school was a giant step in my young life. The school was called Parker High. I had to walk about one and a half miles every morning to North Birmingham where there would be school buses lined up to take us black children past the white schools to the south side of the city. I wonder why the school system could not come to my neighborhood and pick us up. It sure would have helped us; then we would not have had to get up so early in the morning just to get an education. All in all, it was a good four years. The first year in entering high school, we attended what was called the annex, which was about eight to ten blocks from the main campus. This was due to overcrowding. I carried on my same activities as I did in elementary school, but I was able to add my activities. I ed the drama theater class and interpretation dance class and became head of the cheerleaders. Every year, Parker High School held a talent show to raise funds for our sports activities. One year, my band director asked me if I would headline the talent show by singing Big Mama Thornton’s song “Hound Dog.” I know Elvis Presley made the song popular in the white music listener’s world, but we were singing, listening, and dancing to the song long before Elvis copied it. God was with me, and the talent show raised a lot of money for the school that year. Just about every student in the school got to know me from my cheerleading, acting, dancing, and singing throughout my high school years. During my high school years, I began to grow a little closer to my mother. She began to show me the side of becoming a young lady. I saw a lot of good, love, and knowledge in my mother. There was a softness about her that Daddy did not have. And she loved the Lord. She also had a very beautiful voice, and all the church used to enjoy her singing in Sunday service. My mother was one of the greatest cooks. Her pound cakes would melt in your mouth. She also taught me about politics, which was a good subject for me. I was in high school, taking a civics class, and it was good to study it because it taught me that I had privileges and obligations as a citizen even though I was denied these rights because we were living under segregation. We were not allowed to vote, but we could root for the leaders we thought would be kind to

us when they got in office. I as a little girl having to learn to read at an early age in order to drink from a water fountain that read Colored. Colored was above or on any door where we were allowed to enter. Even if we rode the city bus, there was a sign that divided the bus: Colored in the back, White in the front. The sign could be moved. If quite a few white people got on the bus, the driver would get up and move the sign. Then he would make us stand in the back of the bus, and the whites could sit down. We could not go into stores and try on dresses. The clerks would hold the dress up in front, not touching us, and estimate if the dress would fit. If you got the dress home and tried it on and it did not fit, too bad; there was no return. There were so many places we were not allowed to enter. I never knew what a white school or white church looked like on the inside. We could go into some white movie houses downtown, but we only could enter the side door that led us up the backstairs to the balcony where we colored, as they called us, could sit. We could look down where the whites sat in comfort and watched the same movies. My heart aches today to see our beautiful young black boys dress themselves with their pants so far down below their butts and putting anything on their bodies to make themselves look less than decent. We always dressed our best when we went out. If a hole got in our pants, we patched them. We gave the other race no reason to treat us bad. It did not matter how much I was mistreated. I never hated. We lived in an all-black neighborhood with one white Italian family who owned most of the neighborhood. We bought and rented houses from them. The couple was known as Joe and Mary Lucas. They owned and ran the neighborhood store where we bought our groceries. Round about 1952, the colored grew weary under the heavy burden of doing the gruesome jobs and mistreatment. The men worked in the hot stove foundries, and some women worked there also. But most of the women worked in the white homes, cleaning, cooking, and raising the white children. Long hours and little pay. I my daddy’s pay check, $13.00 per week after taxes. Men came into our neighborhood, talked with our ministers, and got the people organized and mobilized into a new level of thinking—that we did not have to live the way we lived. My mother was all for it. A lot of talk was in our house about freedom. We knew it would not come cheap, but we were ready to go through anything to have the same rights that whites had always enjoyed. By this

time, my mother had been able to get us a small black-and-white TV. She and I stood and watched on the one TV she was able to get us as George Wallace, the governor of Alabama, said, “It does not matter what law that was trying to be ed.” He would stand in the door of any white school and block the way before he would allow a colored child to enter. We knew how to hurt the white man and that was in his pocket. By this time, they had started buses running through our main highway that was called the Pike—a turnpike that ran from L&N City to North Birmingham and onto downtown Birmingham. Most of us did not have cars, so buses were our mode of transportation. We all stopped riding the buses. We stopped shopping at any store except Miss Mary’s store. That’s what we called her. She was just like one of us. She was a good Italian white woman. She did not cheat us; she helped us. On Sundays, we wore our work clothes to church to show the white men we did not have to wear suits, ties, and hats to worship our loving God. Meetings were held on Monday nights at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, where the four little girls were killed one Sunday morning as they attended Sunday school. The church was filled to the rafters with colored people and about three white men. We were there to listen to leaders from the king’s headquarters, and other places speak and encourage us to keep doing what we were doing and following instructions and directions. Before they began their speech, they spoke to the white men about their presence. These were men from the sheriff and police department (Bull Conner’s men). Our leaders sent a message back: “Go and tell all you saw and all you heard. We are on a move, and there is nothing short of killing us that will stop us.” They did some of this, killing a lot of black men and boys. The more they bombed, destroyed our churches and homes, and killed, the closer the colored people came together. I miss the days when we looked after each other. We had a few sure-enough colored people who infiltrated our group and went downtown and told the Conner group our secrets. They kind of knew when we were going to boycott a business or sit in them and be refused services. The officers knew when we were going to march, so they had their police and fire department ready to react to our movements. I am saying their police and fire department. This was also supposed to be our services because we were citizens, and we paid taxes like the white man. Maybe not as much taxes because we made so little money. But we paid taxes on food, clothing, and anything else we bought. But as far as the services were concerned, we were treated like people from another planet. We were denied these rights and privileges. We could call if our house

caught fire, sometimes they would come if the trains did not block them before our houses burned down. But that was about it. The policemen cruised through our neighborhood to collect their money from the bootlegged whiskey houses or to see who they could lock up. They were never cruising for our protection. Election night, when we were getting a new president of the United States, was a big night for my mother and me. We would fix us a pot of coffee to keep us awake to see which one won the election. My mother cooked for the church. She was on the Usher Broad. She and her best friend, Alvesta Coley, were the mothers of the church. She was over the young matrons of the church and the missions in her church. Soon she worked her way up with God’s help to head missions over nine churches in the city of Collegeville. This was when I began to learn that I wanted to be like my mother—to walk on a better path than my mother as far as any husband I chose. I was going to love and respect my husband, but he was not going to dominate me like my father did my mother. I listened to a lot of her sayings. I tucked them in my heart, and I lived my life by them. I have the looks and smiles of my mother, and maybe some of her personality. But most of my personality and principles came from my father, and no one but God was going to crack that shell I was in. When our goal is to honor the Lord, whatever our hopes and dreams may be, when we humans place them in God’s hands, whether setbacks or successes, it is all under His control. I knew God. My soul was in Him, but I lived in the flesh. That was all I knew. Jeremiah in his prayer 10:23 reads “I know, O Lord, that a man’s life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps.” I had my big high school graduation on January 21, 1955. After this was over, my school life was over. The question in my life was, now what? I hung around the house for about a month, and as always, God stepped in. We had a neighbor by the name of Minnie Holston who worked at Jefferson-Hillman Hospital, where I was born. The hospitals used the basement to house the black patients. Everything in the hospital was divided by race. Minnie asked me if I wanted a job. You might be asking yourself, what about college? Well, what about college? This never entered my parents’ mind, and because of my parents’ mindset, this was the way I also thought. I never thought that maybe I could get some kind of college funds and continue my education. And because of my thinking, I told Minnie “Yes, I wanted a job.” I was about seventeen years old. I went to the hospital and was hired in the kitchen. They gave me a uniform and trained me, and my new life began.

One early morning, as I stood on line at the coffee station, I saw a very goodlooking, well-groomed orderly come through the door. He was reading a book. I watched him as he picked up his tray and put it on the rail and pushed it toward me. Never looking up, he asked for coffee and a little cream. I filled his cup with a little coffee and the rest of the cup with cream. As he ed, he took a sip and made a noise. He looked up from the book and saw me, and that began a courtship. I later learned his name was Sidney J. Hall. We shared the same last name. We were not kin to each other. He told his other girlfriends I was his cousin. Proverbs 18:17 points out “All stories have two sides.” After working at the hospital for about a year, I was offered a job to supervise a kitchen for Hillcrest, an aging asylum hospital. During the summer months, in the evenings, I worked as a manicurist in a barbershop in downtown Birmingham. We had a DJ who lived in our neighborhood, and I also worked with her when I had the time, emceeing programs for concerts that were being held in our area. I was never broke. God was very, very good to me. With all these blessings, I still felt like I was missing something. I was going to church often, but it was not enough. I felt bored. So I got another job at night. I was host at a nightclub, so I made more money. And life was too busy to be boring, but I was still missing something. My parents put no responsibility on me to add to the household expenses, so I never learned how to manage money or how to save for the future. But having God in my life, the verse in Proverbs 16:9, “In his heart, a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps,” truly worked in my life. the orderly I met at Jefferson-Hillman Hospital, Sidney? A man who, somehow or somewhere, had learned how to save, and his parents did require that he add to the household finances. This is how it was God’s steps that were carrying me along. In my heart, I was planning with all these different jobs—a fast life of finding happiness wherever the grass looked green. I had a large group of friends going in the same directions—working, having fun, and soon, getting married, having children—that was life. As I look back at my life, I believe and know God had a plan for me. But I did not know it at that time, so I just kept moving forward. I had no intention of going backward. Every step I made, I wanted to better my life. I held no one responsible for where I was or where I was going, but I did have sense enough to believe God was with me. Somehow, Sidney came to the conclusion that it was time for him to settle down. And in order for him to do this, he needed a secure future. Besides, I had made

up my mind that it was time to leave Birmingham, Alabama, and head north. I knew I could take care of myself because my father built that into me from the time I was born. I do not this, but Daddy would tell me the story about how small I was when I was born. And during the winter, he had a wool overcoat with large pockets where he would put me in one of those large pockets to keep me warm when he carried me out. By the way, he nicknamed me Peewee, the name I grew up with. When I go to Birmingham today, everybody addresses me as Peewee, not Loretta. The things my daddy taught me were lifesaving. He taught me how to take care of myself in all kinds of situations. That is why I could get all kinds of jobs. He taught me never to fear any man, be kind to a man, look him straight in the eye, and read him. Always respect the man but always that whatever, whoever he/she was, they were no better than I was. My daddy was known in Collegeville and other communities for killing hogs and pigs. And as far back as I can , I was Daddy’s sidekick. People in those days raised their food —chickens, pigs, cows, and vegetable gardens—to feed their families. Daddy sometimes got paid with money, but mostly, the pay came in parts of the hog or pig, and this is how Daddy always had meat for the family. We had what was called an icebox that sat on the back porch. The icebox was divided. The top portion was to hold the ice, and the bottom portion held the meat. Now, you have heard me use hogs and pigs. Boar hogs are huge. They are uncastrated male swine—very mean and can weigh well over five hundred pounds and more. What Daddy would do was get in the pen where the boar hog was in, and I would stand beside him. He would goad the swine to our area, then he would pick me up and put me on the swine’s back, and I would straddle his back. Daddy had taught me how to use a thin-bladed knife and the area of the hogs neck to stick him. And as soon as I stuck it, Daddy would grab me off quickly because you never knew what the actions of that big hog would be. You knew it was going to run until it fell to the floor of the pen. The timing of my daddy’s movements had to be precise, and Daddy was never late. I wonder what the laws would say about this today. One time, we had to go to Bias Hill. From the directions we were going, we had to cross a river with only a wooden handmade bridge, very narrow, and my dog fell in the river. Daddy tied a rope around me and let me down into the river to pick up my dog. I was never without a dog in my life as I grew up. My mother heard about it and was very upset. Daddy and I just sat and looked at each other, I being unable to realize

how much danger I had been in. But my daddy was not bothered because he knew how skilled he was with outdoor survival, and he also knew I trusted him and his word and would do exactly as he directed. We went every year to the woods and picked our Christmas tree. One year, we brought home a very small pine tree and planted it in the front yard. It grew and grew to be a very large and beautiful tree. When I had a falling out with my friends, I came to my daddy. One of those times, it was with a girl who lived at the end of the block. She also had very long hair down her back. As my daddy and I sat on the front porch, she strolled by the house, flinging her hair, looking at me. Daddy told me to wait until she gets back home and sits on her front porch, then I was to walk past her house, shaking my head and putting a little twist in my walk because I was prettier. And that I did. I felt so much better when I got back home. All that was in my mind was that I had won the battle. If I looked silly, at that time, I did not see it. As another verse in Proverbs reads, “Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm.” My daddy gave me a pig and a goat as pets. They lived in the backyard. They had the whole yard to roam around in, eating whatever we threw their way. My goat grew to be real big. When it came time to kill him for food, I was sent away to play, not knowing it was going to be my last time seeing my goat. Mr. Honey, the goat killer, saw to that. Words cannot express how sad I was to come home and see my goat hanging from a clothesline. I guess that is why I do not eat goat or lamb today. The pig got so big. He began to destroy everything he could. My mother had a duck in the backyard, and the pig decided to eat part of it. My mother got the duck finished, killing him and cooking him for dinner. As I write this, it looked hard. But during that time, it was a way of life. I one time, someone brought my mother an opossum to cook for dinner. She and this person both thought it was a good thing. My daddy had a fit seeing it on the table. Any kind of animal or fish that he thought was unsanitary, he did not allow us to eat. Every Friday night was fish night for the community. You would have thought we were Catholics, but we were not. We were Baptist, and my mother, when she was buying fish for dinner, never bought catfish. Daddy said they were bottomfeeders. I do not eat catfish today. The name of one of my dogs was Jack. He was a large gray-black German shepherd that followed me everywhere I went. He was very protective of me. If I

wrestled with other children, he would jump in the mix. I could always stop him. My father, seeing this, decided Jack had to go. Again, I was sent away, leaving my dog, Jack, at home. I came home and was told Jack was missing. I looked for days for him. One day, I came home from school and saw my daddy and his friend Raymond sitting on the porch, talking. This was after Jack had been missing for over a couple years. Raymond lived across town. He asked me if I missed Jack, and I said yes. He told me Jack was doing well; he was just getting older. That made me feel very good, hearing that the dog I loved was still alive and doing well. God is still guiding my life. Sidney asked me to marry him. I thought to myself, here was a man who didn’t drink, seemed to be honest, hardworking, and dependable. But this decision did not send me to my daddy but to my mother. I was now nineteen years old, and to make my argument, I told her he did not drink and he did not smoke. She pointed out to me that there were things worse than drinking and smoking. And for the two years we dated, she had observed him and thought he was a very nice young man but that my daddy would never give permission to marry Sidney and no other man. He felt there was not a man good enough to marry me. I thought about everything she said, but she did not explain what was worse than drinking and smoking. I thought very highly of my father and what a good man he was and how much he loved and took care of his family. He would have been almost perfect if he did not drink. I thought all fathers were like this. I did not know I was supposed to take this big decision to God in prayer. Instead, I told Sidney what my mother had said. He proceeded to find a place he thought where there would be no requirement to have a blood test, just get married. The place he chose was Rome, Georgia. We made our plans, leaving Birmingham early in the morning on March 25, 1957. Driving to Georgia, we stopped in the woods to change into our good marrying clothes. The reason we had to use the woods was no blacks were allowed to rent a motel room or stay in a hotel, so all we had were the woods. I cannot where we ate because we could not go into a restaurant. Some restaurants had back doors that would hand us out food. For some reason, I just cannot the food part. Maybe we were just full on getting married. We went to the courthouse and met with the judge who said the rules had changed, and we would need a blood test. So we rushed to the hospital and got the blood test and rushed back to the courthouse before it closed. We had no

witness, so the judge called a woman from the back to stand with us, and all I about her was she was pregnant. The judge was young, and they both were very nice to us. We were not used to white people being that kind to us. We were married, we got our certificate, and it was signed. We did all that in one day. The total cost of our marriage was $2.25. We still had to drive back to Birmingham. We got back about ten that night, and that’s when all hell broke loose. I think my mother kind of had an idea where I was, but she was not about to tell Daddy. I left my new husband in the car while I went in alone to face Daddy. I carried my marriage license in with me because I knew I would need proof with my daddy. Now it was time for Daddy to be as angry as any man could get. He refused to believe the license was legal. My mother made him take a second look, so his mind said, if he got rid of the husband, the problem would go away, and I could come back home and things could go back to being like they used to be. It got so heated, my mother sent someone to get his mother, who was tougher than he was, to control him. My Big Mama was another of my role models. Her name was now Mary Adams because she had remarried Rev. Johnson Adams. He did not pastor a church, but he was asked a lot of times to preach at church. I spent time with Big Mama and Reverend; that’s what I called my step grandfather. When I would go to their house in the mornings, Big Mama would get dressed and put on her earrings and a nice, clean apron before she began her daily chores. I she would make large biscuits, chicken, and gravy, and I would be out in the front yard where Rev. Adams had a shoe shop. He fixed shoes and we talked. Wednesday evenings, he would close the shop early. Big Mama would take off her apron and put her hat on. I would clean up a little, and we would go to church. If Rev. Adams had to preach, just before he got up, she would sing “It is getting late in the evening and the sun is going down” Those were good times for me—to watch my grandparents work together. I was very close to Rev. Adams. I when he got sick, I would go and see him every day. One Sunday, I went but I soon left and went to Hightower’s Café. I can’t who it was who came and told me to hurry. Rev. Adams said he had something to tell me, I believed he was dying. I hurried as fast as I could, but when I got there, it was too late. They had already covered all the mirrors with white sheets. They did that in those days. As I write this, I have tears in my eyes. I wish I knew what he wanted to share with me before he died. This was a time I came to know death and how it felt to lose someone you love.

Well, Big Mama came to the house. Her house was only about two blocks away. She got him and took him to her house. With all this shouting and confusion, we forgot the new husband who was supposed to be sitting in the car in front of the house. Even with Big Mama coming and getting Daddy, we never thought of the car with the new husband missing. A little while later, the car came back, and Sidney got out of the car, trying to be bad. And that’s when I let him know. “I do not care who you think you are, but my daddy is very important to me.” I did not know anything about the scripture Genesis 2:24, “Where the man and wife leave their family and became one flesh.” What I found out later was he had gone and got his brother’s rifle to defend himself from Daddy. Thank goodness for Big Mama. She was not called Big Mama for nothing. She talked him into reality, and he needed to calm down. The night finally ended in peace. Daddy did calm down, but it took him years to believe that maybe Sidney could take care of me. There was no one else but God who was working the plan of my life. There could have been a worse repercussion as a result of my actions. I married young without the permission of my father. But with God taking me on a journey with His plans for my life, it all worked out. That was fifty-five years ago and I am very thankful to God for His amazing grace. I stayed back and forth with his parents and my parents until he left for basic training and radio electronic school in the air force. This was a very hard time for him because he was going into a field where blacks did not go. They did whatever they could to discourage him. I wrote letters and phone calls to encourage him to not let them win, and he did this by always getting high scores so they had no legal reason to put him out of school. I was still working, but I would take a couple of days off and go visit him wherever he was, and this helped his morale. I would travel by train. I one time going to Belleview, Illinois, and the train dropped me off quite a ways from the station, and I had to lug my luggage to a bus that could take me to the base. It was always good to see him, and he was always glad to see me. I did this until he got out of training and was given a base where he was going to stay for a while. He came to Birmingham for me, so we packed what little we had in his first and only favorite car that he had named the Great Blue Pretender. The base we were going to was called Shaw Air Force Base located in Sumter, South Carolina. There we were, two young people going to another place we had never been before, just like when we went to Rome, Georgia, and got married. We arrived a little after one or two in the afternoon, and all we had was a car, $25.00, and the spirit of togetherness. Mary Stoudt, the news reporter for the Shaw Air Force

news bulletin wrote an article on Sidney and Loretta Hall’s arrival to the base and said we were among the homeless, looking for a place to settle soon. We ed a café that had a sign out front that read No Niggers and Dogs Allowed. We knew we could not eat there. We were smart enough to know that in every town, there was a black neighborhood. We went searching for that neighborhood and we found it. We also found a room we could rent with kitchen privilege. We only needed a place to stay until we could find a permanent place. The next morning, Sidney checked into the base. We soon found a place before I lost my mind. The room and kitchen was very nice and I wanted to keep it that way. , we only had $25.00 when we got to South Carolina. We knew we had to make it last until Sidney got a paycheck. We also knew we had to have enough to move in when we found a place. That meant we had to eat sparingly and cheaply. Cooking in that nice kitchen was a headache I always wanted to leave it as clean as I found it. One day I cooked some macaroni and cheese, the casserole dish got burned and I scrubbed the dish until it was back like I found it. I can say I was truly glad to cook in my own dishes when we found our own place. It did not take long for us to find a place to get settled. It was almost across the street from where we were staying—with one bedroom, living room., kitchen, and a shared bathroom. To us, it was like heaven. The couple we rented from was called Bernice and Cookie. What a couple. They were very irresponsible. We paid rent and half of the utilities of the house to them. They paid their share if they felt like it. Of course, this caused the different utility companies to come out and shut off gas, lights, and water. And we, having very little money, could not afford to pay all the bills. We stayed into it with them, just trying to make them pay their share of the utility bills. One evening, we went out and returned to see them removing the heaters from our side of the house, trying to pawn them. Thank goodness, we came home just in time because it was so cold outside, you could see your own breath. Of course, we made them put the heaters back. It did not take long for us to collect dishes because for every gallon of gas Sidney bought, they gave us a plate, bowl, or cup and saucer. I am still holding on to one of the saucers today. Things had been moving so fast for us all in one year. We could now settle down and begin to learn about each other. This was about the time I learned my husband liked to play jokes on me. The house had a long hallway, and one evening, I filled the bathtub with warm water and bubbles. I was sitting in it, relaxing. As I sat there, relaxing, I heard a loud explosion. I jumped out of the tub, ran out of the bathroom, right on the linoleum hallway

floor. I kept sliding all the way to the back door, and there he was, standing outside, laughing so hard. He said, “Loretta, you should have seen yourself.” He had put a firecracker under the bathroom door. I began to laugh too, looking at myself, wearing nothing but bubbles. Things were very hard, but we stuck together, budgeting every dime Sidney brought home. Then came our first Christmas. We were too poor to even think about decorations, gifts, or a special meal. It had snowed all night before Christmas Day, and we hardly knew anybody. As we sat that morning, enjoying what little we had—a roof over our head, a little food to eat, and warmth as it snowed outside—a knock came on the door. The man next door stood there and asked if we could drive his family to North Carolina for the day. Sidney and I looked at each other and said why not. We had nothing else to do. Lo and behold, it was one of the best Christmases we ever had. That day, God gave us good and lasting friends and safe transportation in spite of the snow to North Carolina. The place where we went to had loving, kind people who fed us plenty. We truly enjoyed ourselves. When we walked into the house, the woman of the house said to me, “I have seen you somewhere before.” I said no, this was the first time I had ever been in that part of the country. After we sat and began talking, it dawned on me she was talking about the daughter of my father’s sister, Ernestine, who with her husband had been stationed at the Army Base there in North Carolina a couple of years earlier. The Hall line carries a strain of a certain look, you can tell a Hall anywhere you see one. We arrived back in South Carolina in the early morning of the next day. Santa Claus did come that Christmas Day in the form of Jesus Christ, blessing us with His gift of love, peace, and joy. I did not know it then, but God was already setting me on the path to a closer understanding of Him from the little girl who stood on the long dark hallway and called the mop. Living with that unrealizable and worldly couple got harder and harder. They had used the utilities money once again. When Sidney asked her about it, she got real nasty, and the four of us got real loud. Someone called the police, and our one black police officer came out to bring peace and he did. His name was Officer Green. He told us he owned a house that was for rent on the next street. He rented it to us. In the meantime, with Sidney and I and our money problems and trying to get to know each other, my sister Margaret got pregnant in Birmingham. She was young, and my parents sent her to us. This was just another thing that was added to our lives. God was with us and saw us through this pregnancy. And from it came Chip, short for Chipmunk. He was born red

and very hairy. We named him after my husband, never thinking we needed to save the name for our first son. But God was still working on His plan. We moved in to our new home on Walsh Grove. It had a living room, one bedroom, a full kitchen, and a bathroom that was all ours. When Chip turned six weeks old, my mother and father sent for them. We put them on a train, and Margaret and her baby went back to Birmingham. Sidney and I had so much joy in that little house. We made so many friends that we still have today. Being poor was not so bad anymore. We were surrounded by people who loved and helped us. I would go out sometimes and come back home to find a bag of groceries on our front porch. One of those families was the one we went to North Carolina with. They were the Robinsons, Ernest and Agnes, who had three boys. The baby boy, aged around six or seven years old, became my little boy. He was very kind, gentle, and cute. We called him Tommie. This family became my family. When I got pregnant and craved cinnamon rolls, which I could not afford to buy, Agnes went to the store and bought me a whole package. I was so thankful. Leoner was another friend I met who worked at a tomato factory. And when I craved tomatoes, she would bring me a whole bag of green tomatoes. This was after I ate all the green plums and lemons off the trees in my backyard. Another friend was Addie Rush, who ran a beauty shop. I ired her, for she could earn a good living and lived a full life that she enjoyed. I loved her for her heart that was always ready to help us young military families. When we moved to Washington, DC, she drove her car all the way there for a visit. Sidney and I went back to South Carolina for our fortieth wedding anniversary. When Addie turned ninety years old, we flew to her big celebration. It was beautiful. Mr. and Mrs. Moses and Gertrude Burns were our next-door neighbors. What a merciful gift God gave us, giving us those two people who truly taught us how to live a married life—how to use money wisely, how I was to and love my husband the right way, to love him for who God made him to be, to not try and change him. She taught me how to allow him to be the man of the house even though I was running the show. She said I was to stand behind the door and prop him up just like you do with a broom. I listened to her advice just like I listened and used the advice my mother gave me when I left home. She said, “Never put on your husband what you are not willing to take, and never take what he is not willing to take from you.” She also said, “Never start your marriage doing something you are not willing to keep up.”

Mr. Burns did not talk very much, but he carried himself in a manner that all husbands should. I have never heard or saw him angry in my life. The main thing Mrs. Burns taught me was how to have a relationship with God, how to read and understand scripture. She said not to put other books on top of my Bible because if I did, I would see and read them before I read the Word. She pushed me to want to read the Bible. Today, I know that it was God who used Mrs. Burns to help me to see the cross, just like He used Paul to help the Gentiles. I was with her the day she died at the community hospital on December 24, 1960. Mr. Burns had already ed away. Before she died, she gave me a roasting pan, and I still use it today. Mrs. Burns ed away, but the seed was planted, and I wanted to learn as much as I could about the wonderful God she had told me about. It was through Mrs. Burns that I realized what had been missing in my life. God was at work within me, and I began to hunger for a closer relationship with Him. As the love of God and His people surrounded me, my faith grew stronger. So I enrolled in the school of Bible prophecy and learned a lot about how God was slowly fulfilling every prophecy He promised. Reading and studying His Word made me want to live a righteous life, pleasing God at that time. I continued my education in religion until I went overseas. I got pregnant in 1958 and had a beautiful baby boy on February 27, 1959. Since I had already given away my husband’s name, we named our first son Sydney Jay Hall, which worked out well. God always knows what is best. It was a long, hard labor. I stayed in the hospital nine days before he was born. And when I finally made it home, Mrs. Burns told me how hard my husband had worked, cleaning the house after he came home from work, trying to make it perfect for me and his new son. I was also able to vote for the first time in my life on June 1, 1959, right after the baby was born. I was classified as a Negro. It was still not legal for blacks to vote in Birmingham. We continued to grow as a family. We shopped on the base and made friends with other military families and lived a military life. Then on January 1960, I became pregnant again and had our second son. We named him Darryl Hall, no middle name just like I do not have a middle name. He was born on September 26, 1960. It was a quick labor, nothing like my firstborn, and I did not crave anything. Sidney and I had saved enough money to move across town to a better house— two bedrooms, hardwood floors, a brick house. It was across the street from South Carolina State College, which was good for my husband and me. We both had a healthy attitude regarding education. He was taking classes in radio and electronics to better himself in the job he was doing, and I was still taking

classes. We did not leave our friends behind. We visited them, and they visited us. One day, Sidney was driving home from the base. He spotted a beautiful car. He wanted it and drove it home. He used to go TDY a lot. The boys and I were secure. One of the times he left, there was a huge storm coming through Sumter. And wherever the base was sending the airplanes for safety, he had to go with them. The storm was so bad, the mayor of the city asked everyone to go to a shelter. I was very afraid, looking at my two babies and the weather outside, where I would have to go and raise the garage door, which was very heavy. There were trees falling. I thought it best to stay in my house. I stayed in my house, but I did not sleep. I walked the floor, praying and taking care of my babies. Soon, daylight started coming through the windows, and we were safe. God blessed us that night, and soon, Sidney called to check on us. As soon as the weather was better, he returned to us, and that’s the way it has been all our married life. He never stayed anywhere overnight unless he was ordered to do so by his commanding officers. We bought nice furniture for our new house. We were living a little better, not thinking about moving. We were close enough to Birmingham that we could drive there once a year for a vacation. Right after Darryl was born, Sidney’s father ed away. I talked with Mr. Hall on the phone and told him Sidney and I had a baby that looked just like him. He said, “Hurry and bring him home so I can see him.” But Mr. Hall died on April 23, 1961, before he saw the baby that looked so much like him. I was very sad to lose him. I really liked Mr. Hall. Then we got the real bad news—at least we thought it was bad news at that time. Sidney was ordered to Lajes Field in the Azores, October 1961. We had to make some hard decisions. We were told that there was a housing shortage on the island, and we would have to wait about nine weeks for a house. Whenever a crisis came into our lives, it drew us closer to each other—to talk to God and look at all our options and do whatever was best for the whole family. So our decision was to allow the air force to come in and pack the large pieces of furniture and put them in storage and our smaller pieces on a ship to the Azores. The island we were going to was called Terceira Island. The boys and I would go to Birmingham and wait out the nine weeks, only, the nine weeks turned into nine months. What a mess. By this time, my parents’ house was filled with my sisters and babies. Daddy said he needed a traffic light to get around in the house. The fight was not over for the blacks’ civil rights. So I jumped right back into the struggle, attending meetings and marching. It got real bad, and this fight lasted

the whole nine months I was in Birmingham. And when I left, the fight was still on. Sidney and I were writing each other. He wanted a letter every day, and I was struggling, trying to keep my two little boys safe. They lived in a house with about four other little boys. I was trying to keep their bottles and pacifiers sterilized. The house still did not have hot running water. The house somehow had now gotten another bedroom, but it was filled with a sister and her children. It still had only one bathroom. My little family had no bedroom. The three of us slept in the hallway. What a mess. What an unhappy time this was, but it was a time for learning that sometimes we can truly outgrow some things, and that I had done. As much as I loved my parents and my sisters and brothers, I had made up in my mind. I would never go home to live again, and it did not matter whether Sidney went away for nine weeks, nine months, or nine years. I was going to stay just where I was until he returned, or we could him. When I got the news that a house was ready for us, I was overexcited. Sidney could not wait for us to come to him. He came to Birmingham. I was glad to see him until we found out he could not fly to the Azores with us. We had to leave him in North Carolina, and off I went with these two little babies to a land I knew nothing about. It was the first time I had ever flown on an airplane. This was what I had stood in my backyard and looked up at as the few planes that were flying in 1940 and wondering whether I would ever fly on one. By this time, you would have thought I would have flown on one. No, only Sidney worked and flew in airplanes. What a flight that was. We flew to Bermuda, over more water than I had ever seen in my life. Before the plane landed, the pilot had radioed the tower to bring out all the emergency equipment because he was having a problem landing the airplane. We, the air force families, did not know this until the time of the landing. He announced to us to put our heads down and be ready for a hard landing. The plane was full of military families and very few men, mostly women and children. And again, God was right there because he had a navy officer sitting across from me. The way the seats were arranged on the plane, we all faced each other. He could see I was having trouble trying to hold my two babies, and he reached over and took care of Jay. When we landed, it was hard and it felt like we were riding on a very bumpy road. The firemen had sprayed the runway with foam. I guess in case of fire. When the doors opened, I was impressed and amazed. All the high officials were out there, about two hundred people, all applauding as we stepped off the plane. I looked back at the plane and saw that the plane had blown out all its tires while landing. It was a miracle that we all walked away and no one was hurt. I think it was then I gained respect for the air force. We were put in nice rooms. I could not enjoy it because

all I could think about was where my husband was, still in the United States, trying to get a hop out. That is what they called it. This was before cell phones, so we had no . Somehow, I got word that another plane was being sent from the United States to Bermuda to fly us to Portugal. I made sure I was where I could see the plane land, hoping Sidney would be on it, but he was not. And as the apostle Paul said, “I learned to be content” and allowed my heart to yield to God to work His plan. In Bermuda, I was able to see the bluest beautiful water and observe cars with steering wheels on the right side of the cars, just like the little postal cars here in the United States, except these were real Americanlooking cars. I saw the beautiful native people. It was the first time for me to see another place outside the United States. Soon we boarded the plane to travel to our destination. As soon as we landed in the Azores—a group of Portuguese islands in the North Atlantic, west of Portugal—a man from the embassy got on the plane and told us their rules, and we were to abide by them. And if we thought we could not abide by them, we were to stay on the plane. I had lived all my life by rules, and I knew I needed to really obey these. Again, when we were allowed to step off the plane, the military men were there to meet their wives and children. Of course, Sidney was not there because he was somewhere trying to get to the Azores. There was a guest family there to meet me because my house was not quite ready for us to move in—another disappointment. That was when I met a black woman out of the United States who had become stupid once she left her country. Here on the island all the military wives had to do was wake up, shower, and dress themselves. They had housekeepers, maids, seamstresses, and babysitters. They forgot where they came from; they forgot their background. I knew I wanted no part of these out-of-control women. I asked the woman whom I was staying with for some clothespins because I had washed my babies’ diapers, and she told me I would have to ask the maid because she did not handle those kinds of things. That’s when I let her have it. I knew what it was like to grow up all my life as a second-class citizen. And to see a black person take on the role as superior over a group of people only because they were dirt poor, this made me very angry. There was no middle class of people. You were either rich or poor. To see this hurt my heart. The next day, I found the house we were supposed to move in. I checked it out and saw what needed to be done. I found the landlord. I spoke only English, and he spoke Portuguese and a little English, but I was able to make him understand

that I was going to move in that house today and he had better get it ready, and he did. Later that day, Sidney showed up. Now I could thank God we were all together again. He checked in to his squadron, and they handed him papers to immediately leave for . He came home and grabbed his bags, and I watched his plane fly over the house. He was gone again. This was all right. I was quickly learning to take care of myself and the boys. He was assigned into the Fifty-Seventh Air Rescue Squadron. I was informed that the air rescue service was a unique military organization in that it was developed specifically to save lives. Their mission in the Fifty-Seventh Squadron was to provide rescue capability in the area surrounding the Azores. Sidney was assigned to the Communication and Electronics Section as a radio repairman. His job was to maintain airborne radio equipment. He was only gone about a week, but it was enough time for me to learn how to be strong in every area of my new life. I knew he would be leaving us often, and I prepared myself to deal with it. I learned not to think of myself as higher than anybody else. After being there for a while, I did bring in a seamstress and a maid, mostly to keep the children while I ed many things. I ed the Airman Women’s Club where I met a lot of sensible women who were doing works for military families and for the Portuguese people. I was welcomed into the teaching staff of the Protestant chapel Sunday school under the direction of the chaplain Major Benjamin J. Shinn on December 1963. I was very proud of my husband. He was an exceptional man, moving up the ladder in getting more stripes and becoming Airman of the Month and a gun marksman. He made a lot of friends, who came to the house and looked to Sidney as a man of wisdom. My friends were Mary Smallwood and Marge Hearn. They each had children who played with my children. I enjoyed my life in the Azores. I was able to drive in the countryside. It was a beautiful island. One Sunday, we were taking a drive, and when I came around the mountain, I had to hit the brakes hard. There was a chicken in the street. I saw that it had been tied, and if I had hit her, it would cost me quite a bit of money. The Portuguese had figured out how to make money from one chicken. They had counted up how many chicks would be hatched and how many eggs would be layed. Poor people are always looking for ways to make easy money. The weather was never too hot and never too cold. The weather reminded me of the weather in San Francisco with one exception: I believe San Francisco is a little colder. The streets in Azores were cobblestone. They were very pleasing to

the eye. It was good to go into the public bathrooms. They were as clean as they could get. The people were very hospitable. There were no streetlights to direct traffic, only lighted lampposts. They practiced the rest time where the whole city shut down for about two hours every day. When they killed an animal for food, they hung it from a line by its hind feet to allow all the blood to drain from its body. They drained the blood into a pan and used the blood to make gravy and other edible foods. They drank wine with their meals as a beverage. They did not look at it as alcohol; they served it to their children, and I never saw anyone drunk there like here in the United States. I am sure there were some; I just never saw them. The island was Catholic. The people loved and worshipped their priests. The priests’ funerals were something to see. They marched through the streets with the coffin being carried, and the people marched behind. The Portuguese held bullfights. The matador would come out in all his splendor and paraded around the rodeo. This was after the picadors had plunged those sharp things that pierced the bull’s back. They did not kill the bull, but it was bloody and weakened when the fight was over. I one Sunday afternoon. We were home, watching TV, when a news bulletin flashed, asking all Fifty-Seventh Air Rescue Squadron men to report to duty immediately. A plane that was having problems was coming in. It did not turn out too good for the two pilots. They both were badly hurt. The good part for me was, when Sidney got to the base, he was able to call me and tell me to go to the balcony and look at the plane as they were guiding it onto the runway. Then there was another recue in 1964. The Fifty-Seventh Air Rescue Squadron rescued the Lakonia after it caught fire. It drifted aimlessly in the Atlantic, about 150 miles north of Madeira, one of the nine islands. The squadron lost two of its men, rescuing more than nine hundred engers from the large ship. I would buy material, and the seamstress would make cute outfits for the boys and nice suits and dresses for me. Everything was cheap there. We were there for about three and one-half years, and it was there that Darryl had his first seizure. His doctor warned us to watch him as closely as possible. Any time he had a fever over one hundred, he would have seizure. He was such a busy little boy. You had to watch him, or he would have killed himself. They had slot machines on the base and in the airport. I had never played one, but I promised myself I would use a dime in the airport and play before I left the base. I put the dime in my pocket and forgot it was there until I was riding on the plane, returning back to the United States. I was a little disappointed. One day, I was on the base and saw a blue-and-silver plane come in. It unloaded some of the prettiest black men

I have ever seen in my life. They were wearing powder-blue uniforms. I do not know where they came from or where they were going. It was my excitement of the day. When God created this world, He made so many things none of us humans will ever be able to see all until He returns. Sidney received orders for us to leave Lajes Field and go back to the United States. What a happy day that was for me. I would be able to see my family. It had been a long time. As long as we were in the States, we went to Birmingham once a year and spent about a week with both our families. We had much to do to prepare us to travel—getting our ports in order, packing our household wares, getting the car ready to be shipped, and all other things. Somehow, the saltwater had caused the rings in the car to go out, and Sidney had to order them from the States to come to the island in order for the mechanic to install them. Well, that did not work out too good. When the rings arrived, they were too big. Somehow, they got the car working enough to get it on the ship. But the car Sidney had fallen in love with was about gone. Packing the household goods was another funny episode. The workers had most of the truck packed when one of the men came rushing into the house. “Miss, hurry.” I ran with him to the truck to see all the workers standing, looking, and listening to a sound coming from the truck. I listened and explained to the best of my ability that it was the boys’ train, and in packing it, they had hit the on switch, and soon, the battery would run down, and it would stop, not to worry. I should have had them go through and look for it, then I would have seen they had packed the boys’ live turtle. The poor thing was good and dead by the time it got to the United States. I had to explain to them we could not bring it back. We would just have to buy another one. The day finally arrived. We were to get on the plane. When we got to the airport, what a surprise again. There were many friends there to wish us well, even the chaplain I worked with. They had become my family. I was so grateful to them, I began to cry. No wonder I forgot to put the dime in the slot machine. I wanted to go stateside, but I did not want to leave all the friends I had made. We were headed to Andrews Air Force Base in Washington D.C. Sidney would stationed with the 1004 Communication Electronics Squadron. We arrived in July. I was wearing a three-piece wool suit with lining. We all were about to burn up. We were to move into temporary housing on base until we could get settled with the apartment we were trying to rent. We got to DC about 11:00 a.m., but we could not move into housing until after 3:00 p.m.

We picked up the car and found it was smoking—another addition to the broken car. Sidney checked the water gauge and found it to be bone-dry. The person who drove it from New Jersey to DC did not take care of it. As we waited for three o’clock to roll around, we decided we would drive out to the apartment building to see where and what it looked like. We were surprised to see so few people on the streets. We saw the building, but we had to wait to see which apartment we would be put in. We had no idea it was located in one of the poorest areas in Washington, DC. We finally were able to get into housing, and it felt so good to get bathed and put on clean clothes. The boys were happy too. When it got dark, we went again to the Southeast to see the neighborhood we would soon be moving into. We got another surprise: the streets were full of people, and they all were black. We learned that because of the heat, the people chose to be indoors during the day and outdoors at night because it was a little cooler. While we were still living on base, we went to Birmingham to see our families. I thank God for He kept both of my parents alive while I was overseas. They buried my beloved Big Mama just before we went to Birmingham. I had to wait and get the paperwork for the apartment complete before we could leave. I was sad I missed her funeral, but I was learning to make wise choices and follow God’s lead. I like the promise in Isaiah 26:3, “You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast because he trusts in you.” We moved into our apartment. The address was 116 Brandywine Street, Southeast. We began to get involved with the community. We put our children in Draper Elementary School, the boys enjoyed the school. Soon I was voted as president of the PTA and where I worked for many years in every department of the school. One of my jobs was to go to the school board’s special meetings and represent our district. I worked with Mrs. McNamara. Her husband was Robert McNamara, the eighth secretary of defense of the United States. I enjoyed the company of many great women: Mrs. Margaret G. Carter and Mrs. Henrietta Wright. We did much for that community. It was there that I learned that the wives of the president, vice president, and their cabinet worked hard for our poor people. I was invited to a conference at the John Philip Sousa Junior High School where the topic was “The school dropout problem in the district and the nation is every bit as serious as the crime problem.” The keynote speaker was Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, who said, “Many youths are failing to take advantage of today’s new opportunities because they are suffering from a kind of ‘social paralysis’ caused by one hundred years of deprivation.” The vice president urged

district schools and vocational programs to begin experimenting with changes in curriculum and training programs in order to hold students in classes. There were over eight hundred delegates from forty-two Southeast parent-teacher associations present at the conference. My seat was on the first row, and I was truly blessed to be sitting where I could look into the face of our vice president. There was another blessing God gave the Hall family. Sidney was given an award in recognition for his participation, on behalf of the Armed Forces of the United States, in the Presidential Inauguration of Lyndon Baines Johnson on the twentieth day of January 1965. Mrs. McNamara and I were able to get funds enough to get a bookmobile to come into our community. The children loved it. That was in 1967. And just to think about now in 2012, we are still talking about our children dropping out of school and the crime problem. We put our oldest son in the Cub Scouts, where I became the leader of the Ways and Means Committee, working to make the meeting hall comfortable where the parents and the boys could play and work. I was still sewing then. I made the curtains for the windows, set tables, and play areas. And we went on many outings. The whole family ed a church called the Johenning Baptist Center Chapel, where I learned a lot more about God. I was still taking classes. I earned a diploma from the Bible school Amazing Facts. Sidney became a Sunday school teacher for the boys. He had a large class, and I was proud of the way he handled them. He was also treasurer of the church. Most of the leaders and teachers in the church were white even though it was in a black neighborhood. After I went to school and was trained to teach primaries, I was given a class. My class consisted of both boys and girls. Some Sundays I had as many as forty to sixty children in the class. I ed the Mothers’ Club in the church. Sidney and I attended Bible study classes and many workshops the church held. One of the classes was called What Baptists Believe. I was invited to go into the heart of downtown Washington, DC, and represent and speak to the congregation that ed the Johenning Baptist Center Chapel. I spoke on our thankfulness to the church for their , how the chapel was growing, and the ministries that Rev. Bernard Reid and Mr. and Mrs. Donald Whites were leading us into for a better understanding and fellowship and relationship with God. Thanks be to God, I was warmly received. My family loved that church. It was like a home away from home. I ed the Sewing Club, the Ceramic Club, and much more. I became a friend of the lady who

founded the chapel. Her full name was Mrs. Anna B. Johenning. She lived in Brentwood, Maryland. Just think this rich white woman looked around and saw a need, she set out to fill that assignment. She came to the poor area of DC and found a building, and I am sure using some of her own funds and funds of others. God’s Holy Spirit blew life into that beautiful building that became a spiritual place for many black families. After I moved to California, I got a letter from her, and she told me she had just celebrated her seventy-ninth birthday and she hoped that my family had found a good church. It was also around that time I heard from my two friends from the Azores. Mary Smallwood and her family were living in Wakefield, Maryland, and Marge Hearn and her family were living in Jonesboro, Georgia. It is so good of God to place people in your lives you never forget. They built a new apartment around the corner where we lived, so we filed an application while it was under construction. When it was finished, we had a new apartment where no one else had ever lived in. No matter where we moved, we always looked for better living conditions. Every weekend that Sidney was off, he took us sightseeing or we picnicked in the park in Maryland where it was beautiful. You see, Washington, DC, was divided like East Palo Alto and Palo Alto is today. The park in Maryland was in a white, well-kept neighborhood, so we left our bad area and spent our weekends in a lovely place. I had never lived in a place where you could cross streets and be in another state. The United States was in the midst of a great war called Vietnam. The Armed Forces needed every able body person to go there. Sidney’s number came up, and he was chosen to go. This was a real crisis. This could be the last time I had a husband and the boys, a father. The number of military men being killed or coming back really wounded was staggering. We had another decision to make; at least that’s what Sidney thought: do we go to Birmingham and wait for whatever, or stay in Washington, DC, and wait? He heard my decision, and we agreed together that the boys and I could stay just where we were. Sidney packed. He would be leaving at the end of the week. I was praying, our church was praying, and our school was praying. He went on Wednesday for his final medical release. They checked his blood pressure, and it was very high. He went into Andrews Air Force Base Hospital the research department. The boys and I would visit him every day. He could come out and play ball and other things with them. He was there for a month, and his blood pressure continued to fluctuate. The service continued to treat him for a year. They never could

determine the cause of his high blood pressure. They tried all kinds of test on him, including diet. Maybe it was somewhere in his DNA. Andrews Air Force Base Hospital was one of the places, they brought the wounded from Vietnam and doing the month Sidney was hospitalized I witnessed large buses pull in to the hospital grounds where they had removed the seats and built beds around the walls of the buses. To stand and watch these young people get off those buses so disfigured with limbs missing. Some being carried off because they had no legs. A soldier was being buried every fifteen or twenty minutes at Arlington Cemetery. The whole country was sad, and God was with my little family. He looked down from heaven and blessed us. This is why I feel so sad today when so many people talk of war. War is nothing to play with. I think of young men eighteen and nineteen years old in the prime of their life, having to spend the rest of their lives with no legs, no arms, and even worse. It is, to me, very selfish for old men who had rich parents and kept their sons out of wars but send other poor parents’ sons to fight, using lies or politics for their actions. During the year when the air force was treating Sidney for his high blood pressure, he was taking a class to get his FCC license. The doctor who was treating him said, he would always have high blood pressure and he made a way to separate him medically from the Air Force. Sidney applied for work at the United Airlines, and God once again blessed us with him being able to the health examination. He scored high in the FCC examination, and Sidney was able to continue to work with the job he liked (airplanes). United gave him a choice of places where he could work, but Washington, DC, was not one of them. When I heard the choices, I encouraged him to fly to California. He did but his visit, he did not like. So he flew back to Washington, DC thinking he would fly to New York. I said no, we would drive to New York. I knew he would not like living in the city of New York. I had been to New York about four or five times, visiting my sister Margaret. I would only live there if I could live in the far-flung state. I packed the car, and we four drove there. The sanitation department was on strike. What we met was not a pretty sight. It had snowed, and most of it was dirty, plus the garbage piled up. We still went to a rental office. The Realtor showed us a high-rise apartment, where Sidney said I can’t live, and we drove back to Washington. Sidney was very disappointed because New York was very close to DC. We talked on our way back, and I encouraged him to return to California again. We ed he had a friend whom he grew up with in Birmingham, whom he could kick it with for a couple days. His name was Fred Phillips, and he lived in Vallejo, California. He called Fred, and he went to Vallejo. He was able to see a new

California. He went to United and told them California was where he wanted to live and work. He found us a place to stay before he came back to DC. Once again, we were packing, moving, and leaving friends behind. He came back to Washington and after taking care of all the business we had to do. We set out, driving to Birmingham to let our families know we are now moving to California. We drove all the way from Birmingham to California. I had gotten some good advice from the principal of Draper School. She told me of the motels we could stop and spend nights. It was a good drive. Sidney and I took turns. We made it like a vacation. We stopped along the way and visited all the recreational sights. Finally, we made it to California. I can still crossing the long San Mateo-Hayward Bridge and then into San Mateo where we were going to stay. It was late at night. We stopped at the store and picked up fresh milk, eggs, and bread. That was in 1968. The next morning, we woke up to a new state. And for the first time since my boys had been born, I could say to them, you can make lasting friends and not worry about having to leave them. We got them ed in Turnbull Elementary School, and two months later, we bought our first house. The furniture finally arrived, and we were on our way to a permanent, settled, and God-blessed life. We did what we always do. We get the boys involved, and wherever they are, Sidney and I them. I had been a stay-at-home mom up to this time. I was always very busy at the school or church or whatever, but it was never where I had to punch a clock. The boys were in school all day, and I decided I would look for work. I applied at Mills Hospital, where I retired from. I really enjoyed working for Mills. After working there for about eight months, I was home, making seven-minute frosting for the boys’ school. I needed to make a lot. So I decided not to use my double boiler. Not knowing too much about science, I put some water in one pot and put the frosting in the other pot and put them together. You have to stand over the stove with a hand mixer, mixing as the syrup and sugar cook. Well, the pressure between the pots began to build. I was not looking down at the boiler. I was talking to Darryl, who was standing in the doorway, giving him help with his homework. The pressure continued to build up and the boiler exploded and all that syrup and sugar went on me and the ceiling. The pain was almost unbearable, but I stayed calm enough to reassure him that I was all right. I told him to go to his room. I took my dress off and stood under the cold shower, trying to stop that pain. I was finally able to call Sidney who was at work and told him what had happened. He was home from San Francisco Airport in no time. He rushed me to the hospital where they kept something in the refrigerator

that was colder than water. They removed my clothes and covered me with a sheet and poured that over me. In all my pain, I forgot to remove my wedding ring. And my hands were swelling so fast, the rings began to cut into my flesh. They had to cut them off my finger. I heard the doctor asked for a room for me. I told him I could not stay because I had no family here and my husband had to work and I had to keep my children. He only allowed me to go home if I promised to return to the hospital every day for him to check me and redress my burns. Sidney drove me home like that, and he took me to the hospital for about a month every morning. I was off from work close to three months. The skin where I was burned soon healed—on my face and arms and other parts of my body. For a long time, I had to be very careful with makeup. God allows things to come into our lives, always to help someone else. After I was healed and was back on the job, I had to go into room 109 to visit a patient. When I entered the man’s room he was facing the window with his back to the door. I asked him if he would not mind turning around to talk to me. He said, he did not want to face anyone because his face had been burned and it looked real bad. It was then, I ed a coworker of mine who came to visit me while I was trying to get well. She burst out laughing when she saw me. She said, “Loretta, you look like a raccoon.” And that is how my face looked. So I said to him, “At one time my face was burned and, I looked just like you. You should turn and see me now.” He did and we talked, and by the time I left his room, he felt better and he was filled with hope. In the book of Titus 3:1, it reads “Be ready for every good work.” I made a lot of everlasting friends. Mrs. Ruth Cline was my boss. She and I became close friends. After she retired from the hospital, one of the later directors came to my desk and whispered in my ear, “Loretta, the emergency room just called down here saying they have a lady by the name of Ruth Cline upstairs and she wants to see you.” I rushed up stairs as fast as I could to find her looking so sick with black marks in places on her forehead. These marks were the places where they had found the cancer. I kept in touch with her until she ed away. It was a joy to go to work. Everyone I worked with was nice. Oh, there were a few grouse people who complained all the time. I felt sorry for them, but they were few. I used time to allow God to use me, in the kitchen and on the floors, helping people to come to know the Lord. One day, I was sitting in the office, and a friend of mine, who had become a limousine driver, stood at the back door with his cap in hand to take me on my first limousine ride. When he worked at Mills, he would tell all the women, “The only one of you I would take out to dinner

would be Loretta. All she would want is a hamburger and Kool-Aid. You ladies would want lobsters, shrimp, and wine.” The old Mills building had a very special ward for the really wealthy that came in. I met and talked with Bing and Kathryn Crosby and Mr. and Mrs. Hearst. And speaking of hamburgers, Mr. Hearst loved them, and I made sure they were specially made. The uncle of Sammy Davis Jr. was brought to the hospital. I met Charles Colson, who was a delight to talk to. He had just given his life to God after the disaster in Washington. There is one memory of a friendship I made with a coworker who got sick and asked me if I could take her to the doctor. And I did. When Sandy came out of the office, she was devastated. The doctor had just diagnosed her with terminal cancer and given a short time to live. I did all I could to help her calm down. I told her about God and His son, but she did not want to hear it. While visiting Sandy one day in the hospital our other friend Kate, a Christian came in I soon left and went home. Kate called me and said Sandy had died but before she died she was trying to say something, we both hope it was her receiving Christ in her heart. Soon, my number came up. I went to see my doctor and had a Pap smear taken. My body felt fine. I was home, cooking dinner. The phone rang. It was my doctor. He said, “Hon.” (He always called me that; I never knew why, and I never asked him why.) “You have A1 cells growing, and I want to see you in my office tomorrow morning.” Of course, I lost my appetite, and I did manage to make it through the night. I went to his office like he told me, and he said I had cervical cancer. What a shock. Here I was, thirty years old with two young children—that was all I could think of. He worked as hard as he could to get me in surgery quickly. It took only a week—long enough for me to truly connect with my God. Sidney worked in the evenings. And when I put the boys to bed at night, that was when I would go into my living room and sit and pray and talk to God. I the day of the surgery so well. He took me in about midday. The person who was wheeling me in was talking. I had my eyes closed, and Dr. Meyers said, “Sh, she is praying.” I began to wake up after dark. I saw him open my door and come into the room. And he bent over my bed and said, “Hon, I got it all.” I try to live the scripture, “We look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen, for the things we see are transient. Our eyes are fixed

on the eternal.” As soon as I was healed, I was back on the job at Mills and my ministry. I went to one room, and as usual, I asked this woman what church she belonged to, and she said Pilgrim. I said, “Pilgrim? I have never met you.” And she said, “I have not attended there in about ten years.” After meeting quite a few of these people, the Lord laid it on my heart to come up with something that would cover these people. Up until then, there were three ways you ed the church: (1) baptism, (2) letter, and (3) Christian experience. It was through Christian experience that you could come back to church, under this banner, after being in no church for many years. Through the grace of God, as a member of the Christian education, we added a fourth way to come into the Church. We called it Restoration. The boys continued to do well in school. But did I get a big surprise in 1972. After fourteen years of having two boys and five years after my surgery, I got pregnant. Not only was I surprised, but also Doctor Meyers and he knew it was going to be a risky pregnancy. I, for some reason, thought thirty-five was too old to have a baby, so I never went into his waiting room and sat with the young mothers. I used to run the back stairs at the hospital with one of the doctors. One day, I was moving a little slower and he wanted to know what was wrong with me and I told him I was pregnant. He wanted to know where I was carrying it. We had a big laugh. Kasha was born on January 27, 1973. I had to go to ICU after his birth, and they had to give me six pints of blood. When I had visitors and they would ask what happened, my answer was “I was too old to try and have a baby.” Guess what it was? A boy. The two boys graduated from middle school. They both attended Hillsdale High School, and they both were in the school’s band. When Jay was in the tenth grade, the band director at San Mateo High School asked if we would allow him to transfer to his school and be a drummer there. We allowed him to. Both he and Darryl were good in the band. Sidney and I would travel with them when the band went out of San Mateo, like to LA and other nearby places. Darryl also was in gymnastics, and when he graduated, he was invited to the gymnastics team at Jose State. Jay graduated and got a law degree from Howard University. My parents had older grandchildren, but none had gone to college. Jay was the first grandchild to complete college and get a law degree. Daddy loved Jay. He looked so much like him. With Howard University being so close to Birmingham, Jay spent a lot of time with my parents. After kindergarten in public school, we put Kasha in private school, San Mateo Christian Academy,

and then we sent him to Crystal Springs Uplands School. After graduation, he went on to graduate from UCLA with a degree in psychology. The boys grew up and got married, and they now have their own wives and children. Darryl was the first son to get married, he has one son Terrance Dennae’, who I practically raised. I was having problems with my computer the other day. I called Terrance. He came over and made my problem disappear. My caring for him, with the help of God, has given birth to a fine young man, and he is very smart. He is grown-up and working and has his own apartment. And he blessed me with my first great-grandson. They named him Micah. I call him Mr. Micah. Jay got married and had a son, Sidney Willard Borel. We call him Bo. He is in college, studying to be an engineer. He too is very handsome and smart. He excelled in wrestling and karate while growing up. After a little over a year, Jay and Cynthia gave me my first granddaughter. I was never so happy. They named her Nina Rose, who is so beautiful. She is in her last year of high school, getting ready for college. She knows what Grandmom wants her to choose as a career, but I am not going to push. I am going to let her choose. Kasha got married and he and Shannan do not have any children yet. Jay married a second wife, Karen and, a son was born, Sydnie Strong, and I can really be happy I have a second granddaughter whose name is Samatha. God did not give me a daughter, but he gave me granddaughters and loving daughters-in-law. I thank God for my daughter-in-laws. They each have their own ways. You take Darryl’s wife. I love her and she is a joy to be around and she is always happy to be with the family. I love Shannan, Kasha’s wife. I do not see them too much because they both work full-time and live in San Leandro. They have a dog by the name of Zina and a cat called Licorice. They are very happy. Jay’s wife Karen is very quite, but she is always ready to the family in getting together, she like to cook and I like to eat. As you can see, the family found a church around the corner from where we lived. And as usual, my husband and I went to work in the church. We ed under Rev. A. Jarrett. I started teaching. Sidney worked with the boys. I worked wherever they needed me to work in the church. I was still taking Christian classes. Once I started the Christian Counselors Group. I decided I needed an education in Christian counseling, so I enrolled at Highlands Christian College, working all day and going to school at night. I finally finished in 1993. When I ed Pilgrim, there were quite a few older ladies in the church. Some of them needed help. I set out to help them—helping to get them settled in nursing homes when they had to go. I have people asking me, why is it that when people

get old, they get so cranky? I am not an expert, and I do not claim to be. But what I believe is they have been cranky all their lives. And when they were younger, they controlled it, but when they got older, they felt they have the right to hold nothing back. We have had older people in our church who were a joy to be around until the day they died. Mills Hospital was located in San Mateo, it was a few blocks from where I lived and I use to walk to work. Peninsula Hospital was located in Burlingame, the two hospitals decided to merge. After working many years at Mills in San Mateo and after the merge I was moved to Burlingame, where I retired from Mills— Peninsula Hospital in 1996. I started writing on a journal in 1999. My journals consist of a lot of my prayers and my everyday living. I used to be able to pick up one of my journals and be able to read where I was the year before. They hold a lot of my secrets. I told one of my daughters-in-love, as soon as she hears I have left this earth, to hurry over and burn them. You might ask, “Why don’t you get rid of them before something happens?” It is because I like going back and reading how God has worked in my life, how He has blessed me and my family, how He has taken me to a higher level of understanding Him. In the late seventies, I was invited to Bible Study Fellowship. It was like a whole new field of answers opened up to me. I know it was the Holy Spirit leading me again to a closer walk with God. The only drawback with BSF was, I had to be at work at 11:00 a.m., so I had to leave BSF before the lecture was over in order to get to work on time. The rule at BSF was, you must stay until the end to get your next week’s lesson. One day, I was talking about this in church one day, and Mrs. Wesson heard me and said, “Come me at Community Bible Study. It has the same structure as BSF. The only difference is, when you arrive your lesson will be on the table, waiting for you.” That was truly a divine offer. At CBS, I met a group of ladies who surrounded me with love, just like it was at BSF. And out of this group came one of my closest friends, Margarita. We began to walk together, pray together, shop together, eat together, and many more things. Today, we went to Grace Bible Church to hear David Hocking and Tim LaHaye speak. A couple of years ago, she invited me to help work the Billy Graham event at the Cow Palace. To witness seeing so many people come to my Lord was amazing. When I retired from Mills in 1996, I became a core leader for Community Bible

Study. I enjoyed it so much. I started inviting as many women as I could to and learn about Jesus. I began teaching in the county jails at night to see if I could help stop so many of our young men from returning. One night after I finished teaching, a young man asked me if he could come to Christ. God in all His goodness revealed Himself to that young man who was so serious about repenting his sins. God continued to lead me to places to help people. It is apparent that the ability to love and care for one another is a gift God gives His children, and it is a gift He expects us to use. And by His spirit, I went to work for Hillcrest Ministry for juveniles. My job was to meet young girls who were released and help them stay out of trouble and teach them how to live a fruitful life on the outside. I was on the Memorial Committee for the Community Action Agency of San Mateo County. I was involved with the spiritual leadership in ministry for the Bread of Life East Palo Alto. In the years of early 2000, I slowly began to walk away from church work. We had a good pastor, Dr. Larry Ellis and more Christian helpers. In the year 2000, I also left Community Bible Study and became a group leader for Bible Study Fellowship at First Baptist Church, where I stayed until September 2012. I can truly say the God I serve has been mighty good to me. I went back to Community Bible Study, not as a leader but as a student. It really was a joy to see the women from Pilgrim Baptist Church, whom I had invited to CBS, are leaders in that ministry. I was asked and I do hold a Home Bible Study in my home for my church. So much did happen. In 1996, my father got real sick with renal cancer. And because I was still working, I could only go to Birmingham to be with him a short time. Then one Sunday, the dreaded phone call came from my sister Joyce, saying she thought Daddy was dying. I told her to run across the street and get the minister to come and pray with him. She did, and to show how good God is, there was another minister visiting with Reverend Gilmore. They both came over, and they each took Daddy’s hand and prayed him into God’s hand. I went to Birmingham again for my father’s funeral. I have said many times, when they put Daddy in the ground, that was one of the saddest days in my life. Charles Swindoll said, “Walking with God is the most exciting and rewarding of all experiences on earth.” I should add, it is also the most difficult. I don’t think I’ve ever met an exception to the rule, that those who walk closest to God are those who, like Jesus, become acquainted with trials and testing. God takes us through struggles and difficulties so that we might become increasingly more committed to Him. Daddy had a big funeral. So many people attended, they

could not all get in the church. That spoke to his standing in the community. Soon after my Daddy died, my mother got very sick and was hospitalized. She was diagnosed with pneumonia. I would call the hospital and check on her after I got home from work. One night, I called the hospital, and the nurse told me my mother had lost her will to live. I told the nurse to put the phone to her ear, and I told her to hang on. I left the next morning and flew to Birmingham. When I pulled back the curtain and saw my mother, I thought I would out. I smiled at her and told her I would be right back. I rushed into the bathroom and cried. As soon as I composed myself and put on fresh makeup, I went back to her room and I sat and comforted her. I stayed with her. I would only go to 3343 ThirtyFirst Way to change clothes. She began to come around. I found a psychologist and asked him if he would talk to my mother, and he agreed. I told my mother, “Do not hold anything back. Tell him everything, just how you felt.” She asked, “Will you go with me?” And I said yes. I took her to his office, and she began to talk. It did not take him long to figure out. It was Daddy she was missing. I thanked God for such a wise man. He put my mother back on the right track. She soon healed and I took her home. In the meantime, I got word that my mother-in-law, Sidney’s mother, was gravely ill in a hospital across town. I called one of my sisters and asked her if she would stay with our mother just long enough for me to go and check on Mrs. Hall. She said, “No, I do not have time for that.” But thanks be to God, I had another sister, Joyce, who said, “Sure I will.” Mrs. Hall was in a coma, and they had her on a tube feeding. I said, “Look at you. I just saw you in September and here you are sick.” She opened those pretty blue-gray eyes, trying to focus, but they soon closed. I went and found her doctor and told him who I was. We talked about her condition, which was critical. Mrs. Hall soon died, and I got word to Sidney and he came to Birmingham and we buried his dear mother. In 2008, my mother had a stroke. And I was told she would recover and everything was being taken care of, not to worry about going to Birmingham. I was keeping in close with the family member who was taking care of her. I grew up with another friend in Birmingham who also had moved to another state. She called me and said she was going to Birmingham for a visit and she would make sure she would go and see our mother. That was the way she phrased it. I told her that our mother was in the hospital. She said, “As soon as I return back to my home, I will call and give you a report on how your mother is doing.” She was there close to two weeks. As soon as her visit was over, she called me and spoke three words: “Go home now.” I tried to talk to her,

but she simply repeated those three words. I hopped on a plane, and it was late when I arrived in Birmingham. I rented a car and went straight to the hospital, and what I encountered was unbelievable. And this harassment lasted for the entire three months I stayed in Birmingham, trying to care for our mother. The first night I got there, I stayed up all night, waiting for the doctor to come in and explain what had happened and what the state of my mother’s condition was. It was a woman doctor. And I almost went down to my knees when she said every vital organ in my mother’s body was shutting down, and they needed to move her from the rehab unit that she was on and to move her to the palliative care unit. After pulling myself together, I called all the family together so they would know what was going on. The doctors expected our mother to die in a couple days, but my mother was not ready to leave this earth yet. While my mother was in the palliative care unit, my pastor Rev. Ellis came to Birmingham from California for his personal business. But he took the time to come and visit my family and to pray with us. I love him for doing that. We soon took our mother home. She lived for three months. And when she was assured all the work she had done here on earth was going to be continued and her legacy was in good-standing condition, she closed her eyes where she died in her own bed on January 22, 2008. Before she died, she was able to witness George W. Bush being voted out of the White House. She could not speak clear words, but she was able to clap her frail hands and say yea. I observed the hospice workers as they provided all medical comfort they could to my mother. I saw them provide physical, emotional, and spiritual . And with the gift of love in my heart from God, I saw a new assignment He was giving me. So when I got back to California, I called and was enrolled in a hospice class. In the class, I learned that as a hospice volunteer, I could play an essential role in making a difference for people facing serious illness and their families. I am still a volunteer, and God’s Holy Spirit has blown a whole new meaning into my life in this world and the world beyond. During difficult times, I cling to the Lord’s promise that He is in complete control. This comforting truth is a reminder that nothing is left to chance. Look how He took my friend to Birmingham and she making that phone call to me— me observing the hospice worker and the rewarding work coming into my life and observing my pastor’s comion for me and my family as he stood beside my mother’s bed and prayed. We laid our mother to rest on February 2, 2008. I wish the funeral could have been a little sooner, but like all the thinking in Birmingham, I had to wait. I am so thankful to my sister Margaret who came

from California to help me even though she was sick herself. My mother’s funeral was even larger than my father’s was. We had to change churches to hold all the people. I smiled in my heart as the motorcycle policemen led the many cars about six blocks long to the cemetery. I wish I could have been spared a little less grief, but God was by my side the whole time, and He kept me sane. Nothing happens by chance. This was only a test to teach me how to grow in forgiveness, not to allow a root of bitterness to grow in my heart. I read in the book of Praise that bitterness and a bitter spirit should never characterize a person who has experienced the saving grace of God through Jesus Christ. No matter how seriously one may have been wronged, if he has known God’s forgiving grace for his own wrongdoing, he should manifest that same grace in his life toward others, even though they do not merit it. “For neither did he merit God’s forgiving grace himself.” Bitterness is a characteristic of the ungodly. “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness” (Romans 3:14). A Christian must never try to rationalize it as “righteous indignation” or to think that certain injustices give him the “right” to be bitter and resentful. “If ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above but is earthly, sensual, devilish” (James 3:14-15). Rooted bitterness will soon “spring up,” not only robbing the bitter believer of joy and true fruitfulness, but bearing bitter fruit whereby many others will “be defiled.” The antidote, of course, is never to “fail of the grace of God.” That is, we need to be “looking diligently,” moment by moment, at the wonderful grace of God by which we were saved through faith and in which we continue to live each day. Therefore, “let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:31-32). Otherwise, we not only hurt both ourselves and others, but we also grieve “the Holy Spirit of God.” I was so thankful to God as I read that. Christ is my king and high priest; if He had to learn obedience, what about me? He is my shepherd and my guide. I need to get myself right and get ready for the great coming of my Savior. Again, I am very thankful to my friend who made the phone call, otherwise I might not have seen my mother alive. I am also very thankful to my dearest friend Venita. We grew up together. We played through the fence when we could not leave the yard. I am thankful to her because she was able to make me see why I had to endure so much while trying to care for Madea. My Venita went home to be with the Lord on Friday March 26, 2010.

My husband and I flew back to California together. It felt so good to walk once again in my house. It was still daylight but late. I was able to go in the backyard to survey the damage of three months’ neglect. My husband’s idea was not to walk around the backyard and water all the pot plants but to go and pick them all up and set them on the patio, then he could stand at the back door and water each plant using very little energy. I did not complain because he had been very good to me while I was in Birmingham. how when I rushed out, I did not expect to be gone for three months, leaving my grandbabies behind. Every other day, my husband was sending me boxes with clothes and shoes, stamps, envelopes, and whatever I needed. In one of the boxes I opened, he had sent food and candy. I felt so blessed to have him. I stayed in the house a week after getting back, just trying to wind myself down emotionally and spiritually. The whole time I was in Birmingham, my mind and body was on autopilot mode. I believe facts do matter, love matters, and comion is the wrap that hold God’s people together. It is hard for me to wrap my head, heart, and mind around a liar. I have not lived in fairyland since I was a child. I live where light is day, night is dark, and gray is a blurred vision that will cause me to lose my focus on God. Anytime anyone asks me what my favorite scriptures are, I tell them, look at Micah 6:8 and Jeremiah 6:16. Lasting accomplishment is a life characterized by deeds of love and resting in God’s unconditional love. I have come a long way from watching an election for the president with my mother on our little black-and-white TV and finally getting the right to vote. Now I am working the phone bank, encouraging others to get out and vote. I wish my mother could have lived long enough to see a man of her color be put in the White House. After the 2000 elections, it has been made harder to see your choice of a president be voted in. In 2004, the Supreme Court gave us a president. Then an upset came somehow in 2008. Barack Obama got in, and they said from the first day he was sworn in, he would be a one-term president. To achieve this, they have shut down the government in congress. The president has not been able to many bills since the house was taken over by the other party. He has done more to equalize and help the middle-class people than any other president in history. In spite of all their nastiness, the Obama istration accomplishments rank number one today. He inherited a huge debt from their party, and they are blaming it on him. People still need jobs. Now it looks like they are trying to buy the presidential seat with money and lies. I believe God is going to allow whatever we need to get in office. “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord; he directs it like a watercourse whenever he

pleases” (Proverbs 21:1). God is our king over all the earth. I believe He is coming soon. In the conference I attended yesterday, they talked about how many prophecies had already been fulfilled. The reason I believe He is coming soon and how dark the world has gotten. Children are not respecting their parents anymore. They hold their parents responsible for the decisions they make when they are adults. Some children do not mourn the death of their parents. All they want to know is, “What did they leave me?” They talk to them any kind of way they please. When I was growing up in my small community, not one of us dared to talk back to our parents. We knew better. Number one, we respected and loved our parents. Number two, we knew we would get a good whipping if we talked back. Somehow, Satan saw this and put men in power to set up a law where the parents could be charged if they whipped their children. And now, look at the prison system filled with blacks. The people who have money are buying stocks in prisons. They have raped the public schools, and our school system is badly limping in academics. Gun violence is everywhere. People are walking in schools, theaters, workplaces, and just killing people, not to mention black killing blacks. And nothing can be done about it because, once again, rich people invest their money in the gun markets. Jesus spoke two thousand years ago much about money. We are seeing this today. Men are craving money and power, and they do not care how they get it. They will do anything to get it. That’s what the scripture means when it says “the love of money.” We have evil people who have dumped drugs all over the United States and made zombies of our young children. They crave these drugs so much, they will do anything to get them, including killing their own parents. We need a wake-up call that is going to wake us all up to the fact that God’s people are one race, one church, one faith, and one body in Jesus Christ. These are the ones that belong to God. All other ground is sinking sand with evil spirits doing the work of their master, Satan. If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it’s a duck. There’s a verse in Isaiah 45:22, “The whole earth must look to God to be saved.”

Pride

“Pride has been called the only disease known to man that makes everyone sick except the one who has it. Pride is the oldest sin in the universe and shows no signs of weakening with age.” “It isn’t your sacrifices and gifts God want, He wants you to be merciful” (Matthew 9:13). “When we have no Christ, we have no message; when we have no spirit, we have no power.” “Whether I hear God’s call or not depends on the condition of my ears, and exactly what I hear depends upon my spiritual attitude. Many are called but few are chosen.” I have enjoyed my life. It has been a long life. Sometimes it was good and sometimes it was bad. But just like the song says, “All of my good days always outweigh my bad days,” I believe that. Looking back at my humble beginning and how far God has brought me, I can do nothing but sing God’s praises.

Meeting the Challenge A Speech Given for Christian Education

Are we proclaiming God’s word with our lifestyle as well as our lips? Are we trying to be more like Jesus each day? Are we growing spiritually in Christ? Are we still babes on milk? Or have we grown enough to eat meat? Can God take a look at us and say “Oh, faithful servant, well done”? Are we building our spiritual house with living stones? “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit.” This is the mandate, are we meeting the challenge? According to the word of God, the initial work of God is for us to believe in Jesus Christ (John 6:29). But apart from entering into a vital relationship with God and coming to know Christ, we have to know God’s program. We cannot even begin to work for God until we do, and we do this through the study of scriptures. We must cheerfully learn to obey God’s will. God’s will becomes our will. One of the most awesome requirements of God is that we be righteous; that is, we must conform to His ethical and moral standards. We must be right standing with him. Read Psalm 15. Since God is holy, we must become holy. We must learn of Him. We should sit

under the teaching of God’s word, understand and apply its meaning and implications, and serve God and our fellow believers. The spirit of God has given us spiritual gifts, but these gifts are worthless unless they are put to use in the service of God. We cannot overlook God’s work in the world. We cannot continue to stand idly by and watch those who are weak in faith, those who are crying because they are hurting for love of some kind. We cannot stand by and watch our brothers and sisters be lost. Satan’s workers are busy, so we had better get busy. We must bear the inferiority of the weak. We must affirm and encourage those weak in faith or poor in applying Christian truth. We must be personal examples. We must have an active model of Christian character. We must demonstrate the life of Christ at work in our lives by the things we say and do. We must show great love and affection for and to others. We must learn to love God more than ourselves. Oh yes, we can meet this challenge. By keeping a daily appointment with God, meditating with Him, hiding His words in our hearts. Be humble, kind, meek, long-suffering, patient, and full of joy. Let us turn our eyes from worthless things, renew our lives according to his word. We cannot be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our mind. “And let the word of Christ dwell richly in you” (Colossians 3:16).

Speeches I Have Made in the Past Negro History Speech for CBS

As a young black girl growing up in the South, my whole life was centered around survival. And the only way we knew to do that was to keep our eyes on Jesus. We believed that God would make a way somehow. Everything we did was on the basic of God’s orders and commandments because we had no rights. We have come a long, long way. It was all done in an attitude of work and who you are. I expected to live this life until I died, but we did have the hope that it would get better. We got this hope from our church leaders and through our school systems. Our teachers and ministries trained us well. Our pastors would tell us when to meet and what to do. Nonviolence was said at every meeting. the words of Jesus: “Live by the sword, ye shall die by the sword.” I would like to leave you with these words: The highest reward for man’s toil is not what he gets out of it but what he becomes by it.

Different Kinds of Fathers Speech Given on Father’s Day

There are many different kinds of fathers. Some are short and some are tall. Some are strong and some are weak. Some are brave and some are meek. Some are educated and some are uneducated. Some are good and some are bad. George Washington was the father of this great country, but since his time, there have been many great fathers down through the years. Let me tell you about a few great black fathers:

1. George Washington Carver, a great scientist 2. Lewis Hayden, the daring leader of various slave rescues 3. Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church 4. Frederick Douglass, a fighter for freedom 5. Booker T. Washington, founder of Tuskegee 6. Daniel Hale Williams, a great physician 7. Robert S. Abbott, a crusading journalist 8. Paul Laurence Dunbar, the Robert Burns of Negro poetry

9. W. C. Handy, Father of the Blues 10. Charles C. Spaulding, executive of world’s largest Negro business

The best father is the father that loves his children, one that trains his children to be obedience and love the Lord. The greatest father of all, the father of the whole world. The prayer in Matthew 6:5-13: “Our Father in heaven.”

My parent’s visit to Califonia Sister Margaret, Mother Rosetta, Father Leon, Me Loretta, Youngest son Kasha

The House I grew up in Kasha my youngest son and my Father Leon Hall

Youngest son Kasha and Husband Sidney

Community Bible Study Group Leaders

Loretta, Jay and baby Darryl

Loretta’s Baby picture

Latest photo of Loretta Hall