This interview was conducted on behalf of Charleston County as part of the project: Stories from Historic African American Communities: A Journey to Equal Education, W. Gresham Meggett High School, James Island, SC. Charleston County was awarded a grant from the Department of Interior and National Park Service (NPS) in 2018 to conduct this oral history project aimed to provide insight into the lives of African American students during desegregation. The project is structured by the NPS research framework: Civil Rights in America: A Framework for Identifying Significant Sites (2002, rev. 2008).
This interview was conducted on March 20, 2019, at St. James Presbyterian Church, James Island, Charleston County, South Carolina. Mary Beth Reed (New South Associates) was the interviewer; Jenna Tran (New South Associates) was the technical assistant.
Mary Beth Reed: So, my name is Mary Beth Reed. I’m with New South Associates. And today we are St. James Presbyterian on Secessionville Road, and I have the honor to be interviewing Mr. Wilder. So, the first part of this is really tell me about you, your family, where you grew up.
William “Cubby” Wilder: Yeah. Make sure, Bill “Cubby” Wilder or William “Cubby” Wilder—
MBR: Okay.
WW: …or William Bill “Cubby” Wilder.
MBR: That’s right. I knew.
WW: Because my nickname was all through high school.
MBR: Was it?
WW: Yeah.
MBR: I wondered about that.
WW: [Indistinct 0:02:39] Cubby.
MBR: Because everybody calls you Cubby, so I figured it’s in your—
WW: Yeah.
MBR: So, Wilder is W-I-L-D-E-R.
WW: That’s correct.
MBR: Right. So, what would you like me to call you? I can call you Mr. Wilder.
WW: Cubby.
MBR: Okay.
WW: Yeah. Cubby Wilder’s fine.
MBR: Let’s start with you tell me about, you know, where you grew up, your mom, your dad, how many brothers and sisters you had, and kind of get a sense of what they did for a living. Can you tell me a little bit about your family?
WW: Yeah. My mother name was Rebecca Wilder, and she was an elder in this church. And my dad Harrison Wilder II, he was a fisherman and a fireman [indistinct 0:03:23] and my mother was a domestic worker. She worked mostly on Folly Beach as a domestic worker. My family consists of—it was eight of us not eight, but at the current time it was nine of us in the house there. There was—I have five girls and two boys, only two boys. My brother was named Harrison Wilder. Everybody called him Harry. And we all went to this church except for my one older sister. She went to First Baptist Church.
And so, out of the nine of us, my mother is deceased, Rebecca Wilder. She lived to be 94. My father died when he was about 55 from a heart condition. And two of my sisters are deceased, Thomasina [phonetic] Wilder and Susan Ann [phonetic] Wilder. Thomasina died when she was seven. And Susan died—she was 65 when she died, something like that. But she’s deceased. So, right now five of us.
MBR: Are there. Did either of your parents go to school?
WW: Yes, my mother went as far as sixth grade. She always said she wanted to be a teacher, but she had to stop school to work on the farm. And my father, he was always finishing and farming. He could never get a government—he was trying to get a government job or he’d go to a CWPA job that they had back in the days to clean the ditches and do stuff like that. But it was a government job, but he never got on. So, his entire life he worked as a fisherman and a farmer.
MBR: I see.
WW: And he would take his product down to the Charleston Market before they got commercialized.
MBR: Oh, okay—
WW: Yeah.
MBR: Was it, like, truck farming? [Indistinct 0:05:29]
WW: Truck farmers. He was like a truck farmer.
MBR: So, did you live near here?
WW: Yeah. [Indistinct 0:05:34] about two miles from here.
MBR: Two miles, okay.
WW: Yeah, about two mile from Folly Beach. And the [indistinct 0:05:42] can make their own boat, their own nets, and everything like that. And the farming part, before farming got commercialized, there were small farmers. And like you said, they were truck farmers, exactly.
MBR: Oh, okay. Did you parents value education? Did they want you to go to school?
WW: Oh, yeah. The main thing my parents want. Say, “You’re not going—you’re going to school. You’re not going to stop, and you’re going to finish school.” Because that’s what we wanted to do, but we had to work. And so, they stressed, especially my mother, my mom. Dad thought he wanted use to—he was always trying to get us to do what he did. He was a fisherman making his own net, making a wooden boat. He made that. They made oars. They made everything. Yeah. That’s the [indistinct 0:06:32] that. So, they was from the [indistinct 0:06:35].
People [indistinct 0:06:35] a lot of the West African culture, making the nets, making their own boats, and the oars and everything. They were self-sufficient. That’s correct. So, my community, when I came up, there were no whites living on the Seller Creek [phonetic], in the Seller Creek community. It was all black fishing community, farming community. And that has all changed with development. And people wanted to be near the water, because I’m only two miles from—we’re only two miles from Folly Beach and it’s beautiful.
MBR: Yeah, I’m sure it is.
WW: [Indistinct 0:07:11] Islands out there. And at one time back, my parents told me they had to take a boat to get to Charleston. They had to pack up their product. There was no bridges, so they had to take the boat. [Indistinct 0:07:29] Bluff is the highway. Down there they call it the bluff, yeah. They load everything in their little horse and buggy, and go on down to the end of the creek down there called Limos [phonetic] Creek—not Limos—Ella’s [phonetic] Creek, and they take their product down there, the fish and farming product, and take it to the end Dove Bluff [phonetic], catch a ferry over to the market and sell their product, and they’d come back home. They finally got a bridge. It was the Wappoo Bridge to get over here. And then, when they got the bridge, they really became truck farmers with a horse and buggy. Yeah. So, anyway, in the mean thing, when they got done with the bridges, Folly Beach opened up. And they were—my mom became a domestic worker on Folly Beach. And they had a little truck they used to shell vegetables, the home-grown vegetables on Folly Beach. And so, yeah.
MBR: Well, where did you attend elementary school?
WW: Okay. So, at the age of about six, my aunt—my grandmother died. She died in 1947. And my aunt came down. And at the time, the older folks didn’t mind. They had so many kids, they didn’t mind giving up the kids. So, my aunt wanted me, so she took me to New York. And so, I raised up in Harlem. I lived on 127th Street between Greenwich Avenue and 5th Avenue in New York.
MBR: All of you have such incredible stories. This is—so you grew up as a child—
WW: Yeah. And I attended PS 68. And I went from first grade to sixth grade. I graduated sixth grade. They had a graduation ceremony then for sixth grade. So, I graduated from Ps 68 in New York. And then, I moved down to Charleston, South Carolina, back down to Charleston, South Carolina, and started W. Gresham Meggett the seventh grade. And from seventh grade to the twelfth grade, I was at W. Gresham Meggett.
MBR: What did you think of the school? You’re coming from New York, you went to—
WW: It was a brand new school, so I was highly impressed. The school I attended in New York was a nice school. It was four story, and we used to always have fire drills and all that kind of stuff.
MBR: And that was an integrated school, wasn’t it?
WW: Integrated school. I didn’t know about segregated until I came out here and my [indistinct 0:10:11] I went on Folly Beach with my cousin. Because when I left here at six, I didn’t know anything about color. I was color blind. And when I came back, then I got the rude awakening about color and the different races. Because you have to stay in your place when I came back. In New York, the main street was 25th Street in New York. And that’s my aunt, you know, I need to go shopping on 25th Street.
Now, when I came back to Charleston, the main shopping place was King Street, which is pretty much commercialized, King Street. Well, it used to be we used to come to town on Saturday with our little piece of money and spend our little money getting our little shoes, shirt or whatever we need to get. And that would last until the next weekend or to the next month or whatever.
And so, there was not a whole lot of money in the community. And we improvised by just getting by with what we [indistinct 0:11:25]. One thing I did like, and I think about it now, why I think I’m so healthy and why my mother lived to be 94 is because we ate up the field. And we grew our own—I mean own—We ate out of the field and we ate a lot of fish. Lot of fish and a lot of—very seldomly too much pork and very little beef. Yeah, so—
MBR: That’s a neat insight.
WW: Yeah, pardon?
MBR: Yeah, that’s a neat insight.
WW: Yeah.
MBR: Well so, W. Gresham Meggett, you came back to a segregated—
WW: Yes, I came back down here, and they had W. Gresham Meggett. And then, I was wondering why they had J. Balinor [phonetic] High School. The named W. Gresham Meggett after a superintendent, the white superintendent of the district at the time, William W. Gresham Meggett. And then, came down with the white kids they knew. And most all of them was [indistinct 0:12:23] most all the schools that were white owned had the name of their vicinity, just like downtown Charleston there, Charleston High School.
And then, Burke was the black school, but Burke was the only high school in the city, when we came back. [Indistinct 0:12:42] built our school. Then, as you know, they all [indistinct 0:12:46] a school called [indistinct 0:12:46]. So, and then they had the school over there named St. John. That was the high school, but black was not allowed to go to St. John. They went to [indistinct 0:12:58]. So, Burke, anybody who wanted to go to school on the sea island had to go to Burke High School. It probably was Burke, Avery, Avery Institution, and there was another school, a catholic school called—what is the catholic school called?
MBR: It was in Charleston, wasn’t it?
WW: Yeah.
MBR: I don’t remember the name of it either, but it—
WW: What was the name of that school? ICS [Immaculate Conception]. ICS, that was not the black school, but it was catholic, but it was not integrated. And guess what? All of the Mexican and black, the family—Well, you can see mulatto [phonetic] or the kids that were parents that—there wasn’t a lot of them. They white—they were mostly mixed kids, but they mostly went to ICS. You would hardly never see a dark skinned kid at ICS. And believe it or not, the races discriminated against the other—blacks discriminated. Light skin went to ICS. And then, it was like class. Yeah. The dark skinned blacks didn’t socialize too much with the light skinned—
MBR: The light skinned—
MBR: …with the slight skinned, because light skinned blacks—because they went to ICS. Now, there was some—Don’t get me wrong. There was some blacks that went to Burke, but my mama couldn’t go to Burke, because she [indistinct 0:14:32]. Another reason she didn’t go to high school, because some of the blacks were fortunate enough to go to Burke. I think it kept the ferry or the bus. So, when the bus came after they built the bridges, a lot of the kids started going. And before they built W. Gresham Meggett, a lot of the high schools when they finished—because almost all these children had in sections had their own neighborhood school. Like, on Seller Creek with the school is still standing.
The Seller Creek School went from K to ninth grade. When you get in ninth grade, then you go to Burke, if you can get there. And then, down Cutbridge [phonetic], they had Cutbridge Elementary School [phonetic]. They were K to ninth. And then, they would have to go to Burke. And then, they had one called Society [phonetic] Corner School. That would be this area right here. That went from K to ninth grade. So, those kids, they called it the—it was right down the street from this church, Society Corner School. And then, they had Three Tree [phonetic], that was—we called that neighborhood Honey Hill.
MBR: Three trees.
WW: Three Tree.
MBR: Okay. Three Tree.
WW: Tree Tree. [phonetic] Yeah. Was it Tree Tree or—Tree Tree or something like that. But anyway, that school down there by Honey Hill. So, those kids went there from K to nine, and they all would merge together and go to Burke, if they can get there. And then, when the bus came through, then the bus got picking up. The black kids were taken, then, and the white kids would go to [indistinct 0:16:09] High School. Burke school had a lot to offer. They had a technical school. Brick mason, this, that, auto mechanic. Our school didn’t have that when we went there. We just had New Farmers of America, agriculture, at Gresham Meggett. That’s what we had. We didn’t have—that’s the highest technology we had. I mean, [indistinct 0:16:34] now—alternative education. Alternative education.
Well, anyway, I left New York City and started W. Gresham Meggett when I was about 13 years old. And I started the school and when I got started in the school, the first—there was seventh, eighth, and ninth grade. And the elementary school was there. W. Gresham Meggett, the elementary school was there. Some kids was in sixth grade already. That school before the high school, then. Because, see, at the time, the high school was seventh, eighth, and going up on up before you start junior high school. So, when I started school, it was seventh, eighth, and ninth grade. My brother was the first to graduate, one of the first to graduate from W. Gresham Meggett in 1957. The school opened in 1953.
MBR: Oh. What was his name?
WW: Harrison Wilder.
MBR: Oh, that’s Harrison Wilder. Yes. That’s your other brother, right?
WW: Harrison Wilder. Harrison Wilder, Jr. So, we started school, and we were bussed to school. And at the time, my—a lot of the older generation from, like, my uncle and some other people used to be school bus drivers. And then, by tenth grade, they started looking for students to drive school bus. So, my brother became a school bus driver at 16.
MBR: At 16.
WW: Yeah.
MBR: A different world.
WW: Yeah, it’s different [laughter] Yeah. Yeah, he started—no, no, let me see now. He started driving, he drive for two years, so he was a soph—yeah, he was 16.
MBR: Sixteen. Sophomore, yeah.
WW: And he started driving and some other kids start—in his class started driving the school busses. And they turned the [indistinct 0:18:31] the older generation out. And so, I used to be patrolling his bus. He made me patrol his bus after [laughter]—
MBR: How did that work?
WW: I tell you, you got to go after—It worked pretty good. I had to make sure the kids would sit down and stuff like that, if they would listen to me. And most of the time [indistinct 0:18:50] then. And pretty much they didn’t listen. They got [indistinct 0:18:56] the bus, then they had to [indistinct 0:18:57] have to get parents. And your parents, you didn’t want your parents to know nothing about you being bad or nothing like that in school or on the school bus, so you didn’t have too much problem. But anyway, seventh, eighth, and then finally, I think, in the tenth grade, they decided to get a football team, start football. My brother plays. And after they started the football team, I was kind of a little scrawny little fellow then. Anyway, [laughs], but anyway, I wanted to play football, and my mom didn’t want none of us to play football. But anyway, my brother played—let’s see, he played for two years. That means junior, senior.
MBR: Golden eagles? Was that the name?
WW: Yeah. Oh, yeah. And then, in the process, we started—the teachers started getting us to think of a name. We had to come up with a name of our own, our mascot, which everybody wanted to know the eagles and the color. Yeah, we wanted to know all that stuff. Back in seventh, eighth grade, and ninth grade, we had to [indistinct 0:20:06] the color of our alma mater is based after Auld Lang Sine. [sings] “Oh love, oh Gresham Meggett, we love thee so, we’ll never from thee part. We [indistinct 0:20:19] thy faithfully, and memories of old…” I’ve got it written down right there.
MBR: Perfect.
WW: Yeah. Yeah. So anyway—oh yeah. All those things was decided, then we decided for the newspaper and the student council and all that stuff. And we got all that stuff going. [Indistinct 0:20:37] And then, the New Farmers of America agriculture. We had a very good agriculture teacher. [Indistinct 0:20:44] Mr. Richardson [phonetic].
MBR: Mister—
WW: Mr. Richardson. He was—he and Mr. Mack [phonetic] was our biology major and our science major and coach was Mr. Mack and Mr. Green [phonetic]. Mr. Green taught health and a little science. Mr. Mack taught biology and chemistry. And he was our coach, Mr. Green and Mr. Mack. And from then, we started winning championships. We started winning championships. Yes, from the tenth grade, my brother [indistinct 0:21:22] they won the championship, then the next year they won the championship. When they graduated and I came along and we won the championship.
MBR: Who’d you play? Who were the other schools? Do you remember?
WW: There was a school. [Indistinct 0:21:33] there was other schools like Hotcat [phonetic], Wallace. Wallace was in West Ashley. And then, we played some schools up country. And I just always wonder why the schools always had the same shape as W. Gresham Meggett. And I never figured that out until I started reading on the history that they built 150 of these schools all over South Carolina for integration to keep the black kids and white kids from coming together. And they were calling them segregated schools. It was [indistinct 0:22:10] school. And then, there were the Rosenwald [phonetic]—not Rosenwald
MBR: Rosenwald [phonetic]—
WW: Rosenwald. Yeah, Rosenwald School. I think the school on Sol Legare [phonetic], which is still standing, was the Rosenwadl School, the elementary. It’s still standing. That school is historical. So anyway, we went on with the football team, and I started the honor roll from the time I was seventh to the time I graduated. I was on the honor roll. Yeah, from seventh grade on up to twelfth grade, I was on the honor roll.
MBR: Were you headed toward a technical degree or to a college prep? What were you thinking at that time?
WW: Well, I took the college prep, the colored prep. And then, the teachers all encouraged me to take that. And although I was good in those other subjects like the agriculture field, I know Mr. Richardson was trying to get me to go into agriculture, but to me at the time, I thought it was so boring, you know? Because kids don’t realize too, like my dad was trying to get me to make the net and make boats. “I ain’t got no time for that, dad. I’m not going to be no fisherman.” [laughter] And so, so it went on. And then, after my brother graduated the first graduating class, I was—what was I, a junior? Because he was two years ahead of me. And I got my bus license, and I started driving school bus, yeah, and played football, basketball. Those were the two sports that we had to offer at the time.
MBR: Did your coaches make a big difference in your life?
WW: Oh, yes. Yeah, our coaches were our heroes, Mr. Green and Mr. Mack. We had them in very high esteem—and Mr. Richardson. You know, kids like me, the teachers, we give them nicknames. Mr. Richardson, we used to call—started calling him Topper, because he reminded me of Topper, the movie. There was a movie called Topper, so we used to call Mr. Richardson Topper. [laughter] And Mr. Green, we used to call Mr. Green “Lover Boy”, because he used to be clean and sharp. Was good looking man. He was [indistinct 0:24:29] call him Bulldog? [laughter] Yeah. But we—we [indistinct 0:24:37] winning championships. And we won two state championship. I think my brother and they won a state championship. They won a state championship. And the next class, ’58, they won the state championship, and we won a lot of state championships.
MBR: Did you mother ever get to see you play?
WW: My mother came, but she couldn’t stand—my mother came up there to see my brother play. And somebody tackled him, and she would run on the field. “You hit my son.” [laughs] But anyway, she stopped coming to the game, because she couldn’t stand the—she thought it was too rough. Yeah. Anyway, my dad, he used to come to the came. High praise and stuff like that for his boys, yeah. So, Gresham Meggett, I enrolled in the high esteem [phonetic] class. Very fond memory of school. I didn’t realize the education that we were receiving was adequate. But when I went to college, I left Gresham Meggett and graduated.
I went to a small college called Vorhees. That’s up in Denmark. And I was there on a scholarship, academic football scholarship, but where they could afford me. But I didn’t the big scholarship, like on the big four-year scholarship, because it’s pretty small. And I was in a big world championship, but the kids were much bigger, when you go to them big—Burke was considered a triple [indistinct 0:26:18] school. We was a single [indistinct 0:26:18] school. So, those kids were pretty near a lot of diversity, and they could pick from a lot of students, so the kids were pretty big. Although we used to play a team that were much larger than us, we had guts. And that’s what you take to win, guts and heart. So, we had guts and heart, because almost all the team that we met were much larger than us. The kids were big, big old boys. [laughter] But anyway, yeah, we did play Burke.
MBR: Oh, you did?
WW: Yeah, but Burke coach didn’t want to play us, because he said they had much more players than us. Because a [indistinct 0:26:57], that’s why the population was so vast. You know, they had, like, 3,000 kids and we only had about six or 700 kids. But anyway, they [indistinct 0:27:06] school beat a—a single [indistinct 0:27:11] beat a triple [indistinct 0:27:12] school, so he wouldn’t play a regular game. He would scrimmage us, but he wouldn’t play us a regular game.
MBR: How did it ever—I mean you came back. This is—So, for you, Gresham Meggett, you got a good education there. It seems like you were well supported by the teachers. Oh, I didn’t ask you. Who was the principal? Do you remember?
WW: At the time, Mr. Anderson [phonetic].
MBR: It was Mr. Anderson.
WW: Mr. Anderson was our principal up until I left. We used to call him Lash LaRue, because he used to walk [laughs] with a [indistinct 0:27:41] with a little rawhide hook about that long. And if he’d catch you in the hallway, “Hey! Everybody get out of Mr. Anderson’s way,” you know, so we used to call him Lash LaRue, because if he catch you, he isn’t playing with you. And Mr. Anderson was from the time I got there to the time I left and Mr. Green and Mr. Mack and Mr. Richardson. My math teacher was Miss Banks and Miss Manacle [phonetic], and they were good. They were good. They were really nice. And then, we took home economics and family resource, something like that. But, you know, where they teach you etiquette, how to set up a table, and how to treat girls, and not go around [indistinct 0:28:33] for girls and all that. We were gentlemen, I guess. [laughs] Yeah.
MBR: Did you dress up for school?
WW: Oh, yeah. The thing was, like, we didn’t have a uniform back then [indistinct 0:28:47]. But everybody, when they get there, they work hard. Like, the second [indistinct 0:28:52] was like this. We on Sol Legare [phonetic] was farmer’s and fishermen. And so, we used to get fish and oysters, sell the oysters and fish and stuff like that. And then, the guys from the upper part of the island, they used to go on the golf course and caddy. So, they made pretty good money, and we made good money, because we used to work on Folly Beach too, domestic work, cleaning yards, and stuff like that. So, you buy all those good old shoes on sale and buy those shirts, so we can good look good for the girls. And the girls go buy their little homemade dress that their mom used to make for them. [laughs] And so, yeah. It was a thing that you go to school looking good, and you want to look good for the girls, for them. Yeah, so…
MBR: So, there was a social life?
WW: Oh, yeah. You’d dance after the football game.
MBR: Did you have dances and…
WW: Yeah, we had dances in our gym. We didn’t [indistinct 0:29:48] gym, so all our functions mostly was in our cafeteria auditorium. They convert the auditorium into a—I Mean the kitchen into an auditorium. We’d have our dances. We’d have a dance after all the football games. And the football players, big-time football players like me, because they get all the girls. [laughter]
MBR: It had its advantages. [laughs]
WW: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean and then when they came up with the maroon and gold sweaters with the big M. And then, if you get a little letter, you get your letter, if you’re a start player. And you get your little emblem, if you’re—your little—if you’ve been there more than one year or something like that. And so, when you go in the gym with your sweater on—I mean, when you go in dance with your sweater on, and walk around the gym, walk around the dance floor with your sweater on, profiling for the ladies and stuff like that—you don’t have to worry about that. [laughter] Yes, it was a good dance. The same with prom. We had junior, senior prom. I went to the prom and it was the teachers with the chaperones at the dance and some parents. And, you know, boys will be boys trying to get the girls up and dance, you know.
MBR: Hm-hmm [affirmative]. That would go with the [indistinct 0:31:24]. So, you—do you remember your parents being involved with PTA or, like—
WW: Oh, yeah.
MBR: …as part of the education?
WW: The PTA, let me tell this to you. When we went to school, the PTA wasn’t existent, but the kids never got in trouble. And they would come to me later, and then they get a progress report. And the first thing with your progress report, the first thing that your parents want to do is see what kind of grades you’re making. And they was heavy [indistinct 0:31:58]. They was heavy involved. “Why you got this? Why you got that? How come you got a D” or whatever. At the time I was in school, D was like failing. Of course, D’s not failing now, you understand? F was failing. D is passing, but, you know, you could go on. But anyway, my parents went to school a few times and talked to Mr. Anderson and stuff like that. And they always give him a good report. They loved my brother Harry, because he never got in trouble. And but parents had to come to school, because sometimes the kids—but the discipline was so good.
So, they had PTA, but the PTA was not all that well attended, because of the people had to work so hard. [Indistinct 0:32:56] had to really work. But if you got sent home, you try not to get sent home again. I never got sent home. [laughs] I never got sent home, and neither did my brother or any of my sisters. Because you didn’t want to get sent home by one of them teachers or get a—there wasn’t no such thing as [indistinct 0:33:16], because the teacher would come to you house. They would come to your house.
MBR: They would come to your house.
WW: And you don’t—You didn’t want a teacher to come to your house and stuff when you was bad, because you would get the switch right there. And I think—you know, I’m retired. You don’t know this, but I retired as a teacher. And I see that—special ed teacher. I see that what is missing in the school now is the discipline and parents not attending. Even if they attend PTA—and some parents, the kids still act up, you know, because—But all kids not bad, it’s just there’s a few bad apples that mess things up for others.
MBR: Right. Well, I—coming back, going to W. Gresham Meggett, and going to an all black school as opposed you went to an integrated elementary school that was more the norm for you, did—when you came back down, did that seem weird to you. I mean how—you go from white schools, black schools, and—
WW: Yeah, it seemed weird to me, because I was wondering why the white school—when I left PS 68 and came down here, and not to see any white kids—this is where the white kids go to school at the [indistinct 0:34:50] high school. Why? And they say, “Because white and blacks don’t go to school together.” And when I go to Folly Beach, my mom, she was a domestic worker. She couldn’t—she had to take the little white kids and stuff like that. And my mom would take them walking on the beach, but she was not allowed to go into the water.
And that’s why places like Mosquito Beach popped up. Mosquito Beach is not truly a beach. It’s just that it was a place that blacks had place to get [indistinct 0:35:29]. And it was near—it was an inlet water cycle. Unless you would go up here on the other side of Myrtle Beach, they called it North Myrtle Beach, they had a place called Lannick [phonetic] Beach, you could be on the real ocean. So, long as it wasn’t me coming from—because I used to go to—I went to Coney Island in New York City, and everything was all mixed up there.
And I said, “Why is it like that?” It’s because the whites don’t want to mix with the blacks. And there was no such thing as—I guess you did sneak around. You dated, but you would never know about it, because that was, like, hush hush. Because, you know, there was a lot of—you wonder why some blacks were light skinned and some were dark skinned. And then, it was, like, a disgrace to see a real light skinned child in the black community.
And you know that they, the parents must have fooled around with either a white guy or a white man. But there were not too—most white women, you never see no white woman too much with no black guy. But it was just the opposite [indistinct 0:36:48]. But anyway, yeah, I went there. And then, we wanted to play at James Island High School and football, W. Gresham Meggett. But they said, “No, we’re not going to play. It wouldn’t mix.” They wouldn’t play, but they kept us apart. James Island wasn’t beating nobody.
MBR: I was going to ask you that.
WW: We were beating everybody. Yeah.
MBR: Did anybody—did your mom prepare you and say, “Okay, now, this is going to be an all black school?” I mean, come back [indistinct 0:37:15] from New York.
WW: No, no, no. It wasn’t—It was understood. Like, we would see there was white students guys driving their school bus. We would wave at each other, and they would go with the white kids and it was a black bus and we would go. We would wave at the bus drivers, because, you know, they were young guys like us. And we know we got our license. You had to go to special school to get your bus license and all that stuff. And we was always curious. I don’t know how the white kids felt about integration. I think they felt like they were more—because [indistinct 0:37:50] on Folly Beach, it was all the white kids that has the good jobs like serving the ice cream. They’re doing this and that.
And most black people, guys like me had to go to Folly Beach, I’m cutting yards, slinging yard, and [indistinct 0:38:08]. And I’d be there working and they’d be having fun and going on the beach and stuff like that. So, we always worked in the sense of responsibility. If I think about it, at age 16, I was driving a school bus and so was my brother. And nowadays you can’t even put a 16 year old behind the wheel now. So, that’s the kind of discipline and fortitude that I think the integration kind of thrust on the black person. You had a separate responsibility. And your parents were accountable. You were accountable, accept responsibility.
And they really said then, “You’ve got to get your education. You’ve got to finish school. You’re not going to quit in this house here. If you do quit, move on. You’re not staying here.” And I think most all the parents stressed that in the community. Because most all the kids that—most all my classmates, some of them dropped out now. Because back then, if a girl got pregnant, she had to drop out. It was no such thing as she staying in school and walking around pregnant. And then, she was more or less kind of like a disgrace from the community. But it turned out to be, you treated back in my day, if you got pregnant.
And the girls, they had a hard time, because, you know, it’s just that I realized as I got older that girls got the same emotion that guys got. But we didn’t look at that. And the girls, they prosecute the girls. She could have sex just one time and she’s called “She’s no good,” because she got pregnant. And that was not the case, you know. But we—you know, you didn’t know that, you know. And the community kind of prosecuted her. She had to drop out of church. And she birthed that child. And then, most of the time—but [indistinct 0:40:18] if there’s—with my generation is that when the girl had the baby, the baby would stay with the grandmother—
MBR: Grandmother.
WW: …grandparents, then she would, in turn, tell nobody nothing about it. She would go to Burke. She would go to Burke and finish. A lot of W. Gresham Meggett kids went to Burke to finish, and some just dropped out and went and got a job. And a lot of the guys, they took up brick mason. You see all these cinder blocks, anything with these cinder blocks. Most all the black guys used to lay the cinder block, do the welding. We [indistinct 0:40:56], stuff like that.
MBR: So, if you good get to Burke and something happened that interrupted your education, whatever, Burke was always a possibility.
WW: Yeah, Burke was an alternative, because Burke had the veterans there, because—
MBR: What do you mean? The veterans?
WW: Yeah. After the Korean war—
MBR: Oh, oh.
WW: …they would send the veterans there to do the—come be at the technical school there. And a lot of the veterans went and took the brick mason, the auto mechanic, because they didn’t have the—in the [indistinct 0:41:26], they didn’t have no other technical school unless you went up to there. They had a school called Area Trade up in Denmark, where you do brick mason and stuff like that. And going to college [indistinct 0:41:39] did offer some of the technical school. But you also had to be at a college to get that training, so they sent most of the veteran after the Korean war over in ’53 or whatever. A lot of the vets got a lot of the girls pregnant, the veterans. All the guys [indistinct 0:41:56] money. Yeah, but—no, you know, the girls want guys, who had the money. And the older girls like older guys, you know. You going to be [indistinct 0:42:09]. I’m not saying you, but—
MBR: No. No. [laughs] No, I understand. And it’s trying to figure out who you are and what you’re doing at that time.
WW: Even me, when I was at school, the girls in my class didn’t really like me. The sophomore—
MBR: Younger.
WW: Yes. The sophomore and the juniors, they liked me. But them girls, who was seniors—
MBR: They’re looking beyond.
WW: Either a guy is in the military and college, you know. So, that’s the way it used to be, you know. But Gresham Meggett, I’ve been trying to think as I got older. And then, you can [indistinct 0:42:49] as you get older that why—not understanding why, but what caused [indistinct 0:43:20] to be. And it was that not such much that—one thing my parents never did, they did tell me to hate no white person. But they—especially with an all black community and an all black school, we were in a different space. And I never got the time—I’ll share with this you real quick—that I was—we used to go on the creek in the mud. And, oh, we caught boats of crabs. See, when the tide go out, you can go in the stream and look for crabs, clam, or all that kind of stuff.
We used to go get the crabs, we’d get the soft shell crabs and the crab that’s almost a soft shell crab and the crabs that almost [indistinct 0:43:55]. And we could get a five gallon bucket and take it to the—there was a lot of shops on Folly—not a lot, but there was a few shops, where they would sell crabs and all that stuff. So, we’d take it to the white guy. Mr. Bowen [phonetic] was one of them that [indistinct 0:44:16] Mr. Bowen buy them. And we would take it there, and they would tell you, for the green crab that’s almost a soft shell crab, they would give you one cent. And for the other crab that were almost a soft shell, very close to soft shell crab, three cents. And then, soft shell crab, they’d give you five cents. So [indistinct 0:44:39] that low. And you get your little money.
And then, we had to walk back on Folly Road. And whenever we were walking back on Folly Road, we had to walk from [indistinct 0:44:53] and then come across in them islands over there. And then, we’d sell our little product and make our 50 cents or a dollar. We would walk down Folly Road with our little soda and that. And those guys would come down there and they would throw bottles and cans. They would throw bottles and cans at you.
MBR: While you were walking.
WW: Yeah. And they’d have a little thing, we used to call them sticky bombs. Them little bottles that kept them little sharp stones in them. They would throw all them at you. It was terrible. So we always said, “Why those guys—” Then, when you’d see them coming, you’d have to hide. They had a lot of—at the time, they had a lot of palm trees on the side of the road there going to Folly Beach. And some of them, you had to step behind the trees, so you don’t get hit. And so, we said, “Why are these people—why are they cruel?” And, you know, you heard the word, “Nigger. Nigger, nigger.” So—or even about that, there still wasn’t not hatred toward—there still wasn’t no hatred to the opposite race, but just that you try and think of where all of it was coming from, you know.
And it was not until I went in the military—I’m retired Air Force. I went in the Air Force—I couldn’t finish Voorhees College. My parents didn’t have the money, so I went and joined the service. And my brother, he went on and finished college. He went to Voorhees like me, then he went to Delaware State and got a degree in math. And he came back here with a math degree and started teaching math. So, he was teaching over at these schools over here. He worked at—they had a school called Frampton, Frampton Elementary School. He was teaching them math there. Then he went to Harbor View to [indistinct 0:46:57]. Then he went to Fort Johnson after he—
MBR: So, he actually taught—
WW: …at a lot of schools. Yeah. He was 30-something years, something like that.
MBR: Oh, my goodness.
WW: Yeah. And—
MBR: You went into the Air Force.
WW Huh?
MBR: You went into the Air Force.
WW: I went in the Air Force, and I got my degree from Southern Illinois University in the Air Force in Special Ed. So, what happened was when I started meeting people—and since you have to be, my first roommate was a white guy from Georgia. Boy, we used to talk up and down. [laughter] And we’d be up and down talking about our experience, all that. And I wonder what happened to that guy. I can’t think of his name right now, but he and I was roommates, and we used to talk about the different—He was from Brunswick, Georgia. Have you ever heard of that, Brunswick?
MBR: Yeah.
WW: Yeah. So, we used to talk and we became good friends. And, by the way, in technical school—I went to Amarillo, Texas for technical school, and I met a little white guy name Reynolds [phonetic]. And Reynolds, he was an Alabaman. And boy, he and I became the best of friends. And Reynolds, when we graduated from technical school, Amarillo, Texas, we were taking the ground bus back, and I’ll never forget this. We was all right until we got in Mississippi.
And when we got in Mississippi, Reynolds—we went in—we got off the Greyhound bus and we were in this little delicat-, I mean this little luncheonette or whatever it was, luncheon. And I had my little uniform, my little one mosquito. We used to call them mosquito weight. And I remember, we went in there, and we stood up to the bar to order some food. And the lady said, looked at me and looked at Reynolds, she said, “Well, you can stay in here, but he can’t eat here. He got to go to the back, round back.” And so, he said, “Why?” She said, “I’m not getting into that. You got to go around the back. You know the rules.”
That was what the lady said to me. I had my uniform on, now ready to die for my country. So Reynold’s said, “He’s not going to the back!” “Reynolds!” And Reynolds got really mad. I said, “Reynolds, come on, man.” So, I got Reynolds out of there, because we was just like that. And we went to the delicatessen across the street to get some lunch meat and bread, then went back on the bus. He [indistinct 0:49:37]. Reynolds got himself turned red. He was madder than hell. He was—Reynolds was a hell raiser now. He did not like that. Yeah. Even when we was in Amarillo, you know, believe it or not, when we was in Amarillo, Texas. Me and Reynolds went downtown. We was going to go rent a room, you know, after we went out, we wanted to iron our outfits with the technical—I mean—[indistinct 0:50:09] the rest of our—
MBR: You mean a training course?
WW: Training course. The physical part. Whenever we got through that, we went to technical school. And we would go downtown for R&R. And when we got downtown, we was going to get a room and share the room and just two. And then, when we went in the hotel, the hotel said, “No. No blacks in here.” And we had our little khaki uniform on. And we had the blue stuff on. So, Reynolds said, “Why?” “We don’t allow blacks in here.” So, the black one across the track. You have to go across the train track. And I found it that in almost every city I went to, all the black was across the train track, you know. And [indistinct 0:50:54] of all of that, the black [indistinct 0:51:00], you know. So, not until ’62. I went in ’62, ’64-65, that’s when they passed the civil rights bill, and those things [indistinct 0:51:12]. And you could see things.
And I had a guy, went up in—stationed in Louisiana, Shreveport, Louisiana. I had five stripes then. I was technical sergeant. And this white guy was working under me. Well, the colonel put him under me. And he had four stripes. He was a staff sergeant. He told me, he said, “I can’t work for you, man. You a black guy. I ain’t working for you.” He was from Louisiana too. He got sent right back. He went to technical school and all that. Came right back. He said, “I can’t work with you?” “Why?” “Because you black and I ain’t working with no black man.” So, I [indistinct 0:51:59] to the colonel. And I said, “Colonel, get him out of my section.” Because I had one new black guy working with white, white and black. I said, “Get him out. He’s a racist.” So, the colonel got rid of him.
I don’t know what happened to Springer. Sergeant Springer. Springer was his name. Staff Sargent Springer. I was Technical Sergeant Wilder. I outrank him, but he said he couldn’t work for me. He was lazy too. [Indistinct 0:52:27]. He was in charge of a section, and he’d say, “All you do is put your foot up on the desk and point fingers. You do this. You do that.” I come in there, they’re throwing boxes around [indistinct 0:52:35] didn’t move. All right, you know. I’m here to work to see the job get done. But I had a couple ugly experiences like that, but that’s just one. Those two like Reynolds and Springer, they kind of stick out.
MBR: Do you think, like, going to do a segregated school, did that prepare you for what was ahead or was that a negative? Would you—
WW: I think—
MBR: …looking back.
WW: By going to a segregated school, it prepared me to fit the challenge that were out there. Because I met one when I was in the dormitory in—My first assignment in the military was at Davis-Monthan in Tucson, Arizona. And I was stationed in Tucson, Arizona for four years. And there was a little [indistinct 0:53:21] there. He was white as a—he was just as white as a sheet. And he was always kind of timid. And went over and asked him, “What’s wrong with you?” He said, “Look. I’ll tell you the truth. I ain’t never been around black people. I only see black people in T.V.” [laughter] And it—and I forgot to say—But anyway, this guy never been around black people. But he said, “You know what? You’re not like what they say you all are.” That’s what he told us. You know, he was kind of a little slender little fellow and a small frame. But hey, I think he was kind of afraid of black guys. But he said, “I never been around black people before.” Because he was from Montana and he was just as white as a sheet. [laughs] But anyway—
MBR: That’s why school was a good thing.
WW: …he said, “But it’s not like—” He said he—I don’t know what he meant, but he said, “It’s not like what I heard about you blacks and what I see on t.v.,” stuff like that. People are just going to love this [indistinct 0:54:20]. But I think my experience with me being—going to an all black school and shared experience with going to the integrated school in New York—because in New York, I didn’t tell you, but I had a little white guy then. Delbert. Delbert was my little white buddy. And me and him used to go to each other’s houses and things like that. And I—in New York, I didn’t see no color like that.
But coming down here, and if you’re here, you have to know your place. Because I know one time I was on Folly Beach, a little young fellow. And I wanted to go between some trees to do my business and just, you know. And my cousin almost knocked my head off. “Come back here. You can’t do that. You want to go to jail? You can’t pee—you can’t urinate on here.” All right, then. You can’t do that on Folly Beach. I didn’t know nothing about that, because in New York, I could do that. But it was, you know, not that I’m [indistinct 0:55:27].
It is critical to look for credentials and proper accreditation overnight cheap viagra before submitting the order. It also improves strength, energy levels, endurance and muscle mass. sildenafil tabs All sexually dissatisfied people should sleep deeprootsmag.org cheap cialis well at night, at least in theory. According to world research process, ED / Erectile Dysfunction affect around 30 percent of the men have premature ejaculation from their first sexual experience and this leads to a much better lovemaking experience for both partners. cialis generic pharmacySo, I think my experience with between the New York City and my education that I got at Gresham Meggett and not knowing that when I got in and started taking these courses that my education, I had to do twice the work to get caught up, when I started taking these classes, college classes, that [indistinct 0:56:00] whereas I went to school pretty—fairly easily. Not really easy, but I made the requirements and do a little extra, you get good grades. But when you get in college and things like that, [laughs] you got to buckle down and hit them books, you know? Yes. So, and so, my experience is dealing with the white folk, I get along pretty easily with them.
Now, I don’t know whether it was because my—I won’t say my experience, but going to an all black school and the white kids were right there, I didn’t—when I got in the military, I just didn’t notice no difference, because even technical school, I lack in one point from graduating first in my class, you know. And everybody said, “You can’t talk.” I had that—I got this colored [indistinct 0:57:03] accent. “You can’t even talk, but you make good grades.” [laughs] They couldn’t understand that, because my diction and everything was not all that good then at the time, because I came from—over here, we speak Gullah, and it’s kind of unique.
And when I was in college, I got teased so bad. At Voorhees College, the kids teased me and Voorhees was all [indistinct 0:57:29] not knowing nothing. But being I was in the Charleston area and these guys were from up North, their diction—pronunciation was a little different, you know. And certain words, like street, I couldn’t say street. I’d say “street.” [laughs] And I had to learn how to pronounce street the proper way and all that kind of stuff. But they teased me so bad. They called me Geechee. And I didn’t know what—
MBR: Geechee.
WW: …and I thought that was negative. Then one day, my rhetoric teacher, English rhetoric teacher told us, said “Let me give you a little history. You all laugh and tease Mr. Wilder. But let me tell you, his heritage is rich. He’s got that accent that’s from the Caribbean and West African culture, and you all are not aware of it—of his dialect and all that.” And she laid out on them. She tell them, “You all should not be teasing. You’re all teasing him, calling him Geechee. [Indistinct 0:58:32] like you all want to kid him, but he has a rich history and none of your all parents came from that, because none of your all parents came in to the Port of Charleston and the Port of Beaufort [phonetic].” I’d say at the time, I didn’t know all that history about the Gullah Geechee.
MBR: Did you—when you were at Meggett, did you speak Gullah Geechee during the classroom?
WW: I speak the same way I speak now.
MBR: Hmm?
WW: I speak the same way I’m speaking now. Yeah.
MBR: Did the teachers speak to you in standard English or…?
WW: Oh, yes. The teachers, they spoke proper English, everything like that. It’s just that most of the people from this area—Because when I was in New York in Harlem, I got me some I was from the West Indies. They say, “You from the West Indies.” I said, “No, I’m from Charleston.” But you find that most of the folks in the sea islands, Charleston Island, James Island, Port [Indistinct 0:59:30] got that same dialect, you know. And so, but I speak the same way I was—I’m speaking now to you in high school.
MBR: Well, let’s—you’ve told me a lot and I know we want to talk about the association as well. But can you tell me if you look back, what you got out of Gresham, what you think made that a unique school. What do you think?
WW: Well, I think that what made Gresham Meggett so unique is that since there was a grass roots school just put in the heart of the black community. And at one time, like I told you, being that we had community schools for the island, it brought everybody together on the island. Because we could see the different folks from the different part of the section of the island, like Cutbridge [phonetic] down the island, Sol Legare, Grimbull [phonetic], and they got a thousand little names like Big Field [phonetic]—
MBR: Did you ever hear of Cherry Beam [phonetic]?
WW: Cherry Beam?
MBR: Am I close? I might be saying it wrong. Cherry—
WW: Cherry, ain’t it Cherry Hill?
MBR: I don’t know. We just heard someone say something about it yesterday. We were wondering about it.
WW: Yeah, and Honey Hill.
MBR: Where’s Honey Hill?
WW: And then, you had Barn Hill [phonetic]. And you had, like I said, Cutbridge down—you cut cross [indistinct 1:01:23]. And all these people, yeah. There’s a bridge right by County Park or this little creek that’s separate, Ellis Creek [phonetic]. It’s a little down [indistinct 1:01:39] when you go across that bridge. That’s Crosscut.
MBR: Crosscut. Okay. Thank you.
WW: Yeah.
MBR: I know, because I’m trying to learn the geography and it’s—Thank you very much.
WW: Yeah, that’s on Riverland Drive and you got the county park right here. So, you have all these different area and all of us came together. We’re the same dialect, because if they leave here and go somewhere, [indistinct 1:01:57], they say, “Where you from, man? Are you from the Bahamas or the Virgin Islands or something like that?” And I got teased quite a bit when I was in New York City, you know. And I went to speech therapy class to learn to do that street. Then I said street. [laughs] Yeah. So, the uniqueness of Gresham Meggett is that we were a family.
MBR: It brought people down—
WW: And the parents and the teachers treated you like you were one of their, like you were one of their children. And the other unique thing with Gresham Meggett is that the parents stood by the teachers 100 percent. You couldn’t act up in school and think you were going to get away with it. If you act up in school at the time, the teacher was allowed to carry this little switch and you had to hold your and out and you’d get you a little whooping or you’d get a little chocolate. Or if Mr. Anderson catch you in the hallway, you’re going to—because you had no business in the hallway or ain’t no business cutting class. So, the uniqueness about Gresham Meggett is at the time the school was so brand new. There was no trees or nothing like that, so you couldn’t go with the class and go hide somewhere or cut class, because everybody looking for you.
So, that’s the uniqueness with the togetherness. Everybody was one. And everybody looking to see, if you were getting away with something. And you weren’t going to get away with nothing, because the teachers looking, the kids looking, the students looking. And so, and the teachers had patience and they always tell you that you are somebody. You are somebody. And that uniqueness with the teachers and the parents and the discipline, it led to a learning atmosphere. I [indistinct 1:03:54] that we—that the students there, but I see that almost all on the kids when they graduated from Gresham Meggett that they done really good and became [indistinct 01:04:05].
And ain’t none of them [indistinct 1:04:08] the death of education, but they learned value and they learned to respect the elderly, which to me today, everybody don’t respect the elderly too well. They thought we had to. So, that’s one of the things. And we were not taught to be prejudiced. We hear the older people talk about stay in your lane. And that means don’t get out your lane, because when I was—
MBR: Do you want to get that? Are they going to keep your phone? Is that your phone?
WW: Yeah, that’s my phone, but don’t worry about that. I’ll get that. The—
MBR: Stay in your lane.
WW: Stay in your lane, because I didn’t share this with you, but when we were little kids, you know, Saturday, my dad would tell me, “Son, do not look a white lady in her eyes. When you see a white lady coming towards you, throw your head down. And maybe you might have to step off the sidewalk.” He didn’t say that for the man, though. He said that for the white lady. And I didn’t understand. And then I told—when I told him the thing with Emmett Till how you had that in Mississippi and he got out of his lane, and they killed him, you know.
And I don’t know how many that—my experience, because they had a tree on the island called the hangman tree on [indistinct 1:05:36] Island called the hangman tree, because a lot of guys got hanged on that tree. So, every day they was telling you something about staying in your lane is don’t get out of your lane or [indistinct 1:05:51]. You see some, a lot of blacks, and they won’t look at you. They can’t look at you. They throw their eye—their head down, because they were taught that.
And I used to wonder why certain things was happening. But they never taught us to hate, to hate the white person. We were taught to love, you know. Love you brother. Love your sister. And they all said that, you know, if you get you a cut, if you get cut and they get cut, you got the same red blood. So, I think that a lot of the black folks that graduated from W. Gresham Meggett and the uniqueness of the school was we were not taught to hate. Get your education. You’ll have to stay in this environment or this situation. You’re going to move up out of it. Get your education, and then you will see that you all can come together and be the same, you know. Education is the key. And that’s why that’s what we were taught.
Now, we can get a conversation about how does a child learn prejudice? When a child is born, a child don’t see color. You put a black child and a white child together, they don’t—they’ll play together. It’s just when they get there to a certain age, they notice some color, but a different color. But we’re all just been coming from that—come from that “I’m better than you or you’re better than me.” And that’s where that—that’s the thing that I learned that we were not taught prejudice. We want to know how the white kids, because they have so much hatred toward the black race or think they’re better.
And so, I had in my time, you know, I shared already, but I enrolled in the military, but I retired as a Senior Master Sargent Superintendent, so I had a lot of people under me. I went on got my degree. And I think I was the only two black ones when I graduated and got my degree. But, you know, there’s a lot of stuff come out in our classes about race, you know, professor would shift and the class, we was talking about race and stuff like that, you know.
So, and then, when I got out of the military, I went into politics running on James Island. I was a councilman for the town of James Island. I left the James Island PSD commissioner. I was elected to that position for the James Island Public Service District. So, I was a two-term—three-term council member for the town of James Island and a one-year term for the commissioner. In a lot of cases, I was the only black, many cases. So, doesn’t matter. You got to excel and push yourself, you know. But Gresham Meggett was a unique experience for me and it taught me value, how to get along with people, and this church here, I raised up in the church. I’m a elder in the church, you know, so—inactive.
MBR: It’s a very important—
WW: Inactive elder. I’ve been inactive. I carry the title, Elder, but I’m not active Elder, because I don’t go to the sessions. The session is active Elder. But you know, I guess. I’m retired. [laughter]
MBR: Well, you’ve done a great job explaining to me so much about Meggett and when you were there. Now, you graduated in what year?
WW: 1959.
MBR: ’59. All right. So, ten years later, it closes.
WW: It closed.
MBR: What was the impact of the closure on the community?
WW: From my understanding, in ’69, I was in Germany. I was at Rhein-Main, Germany in Frankfurt. And I just heard about it, but I’m—I heard about the closure and the merger of them going over to James Island High School. And I said, “Well, why they closed Gresham Meggett and have to merge with James Island High?” They said, “Because James Island High School had more technology advancement than Gresham Meggett,” you know. I did take chemistry at Gresham Meggett and I did take biology. And we—I didn’t dissect a frog until I got to college. And I understand the kids were dissecting frogs, when they was in high school.
` So, naturally, you was a little behind, because although I took biology and learned all that scientific stuff, we were not technically advanced. So, they closed down Gresham Meggett and move the black kids over there, because that school was more advanced. Now, from my understanding, I heard that they got a lot of name calling was done. And I heard that they wanted to—I heard this, but I was not here, but I heard that all our football trophies or all the trophies that we won, because were [indistinct 1:12:06] for football, we are [indistinct 1:12:12] and home economics, agriculture and stuff like that, that they didn’t want our trophies in their trophy case, so they wanted to throw out trophies out. I heard the kids wanted to fight over that stuff. I heard that, now. That was somebody told me. So in 1969—I came home in ’84. I retired in ’86 from the Air Force.
MBR: Then you start a political career. When do you get interest in W. Gresham—Well, first of all, your outfit’s great [laughs] with your hat and your T-shirt. When did you get involved with developing an association?
WW: Well, the class of 1959 started a dance. And when they started the dance, they used to meet at the old armory in downtown Charleston on the Citadel campus. And the dance was so successful, you’d see people that you ain’t seen for years congregate at the dance. And so, a few years later, maybe four or five years, later, we said, “Why is it that we have the dance and we see all the people in all the different classes—12 classes that graduated and we see all those people together, why don’t we try and bring them together?” And then, so the president of the class of 1969, she said, “Well, let’s do that, Cubby.” I was ’59 and she was ’69. So, we got together trying to meet at Gresham W. Meggett and start an alumni. And finally, we started it. After two or three tries, we finally got it going. And we started the W. Gresham Meggett Alumni Association—
MBR: Oh, that’s fantastic.
WW: …and got a charter for it.
MBR: And got a charter.
WW: Yeah, a charter is an essential in the armory, Secretary of State, yeah. So, our first alumni president was the class of—the first president was Herman Wallace [phonetic]. He was the president. He was the first class that graduated in ’57. Yeah, he was the class. He became our alumni president. And after that was Abe Brown [phonetic] and then Arthur Wild [phonetic], and now I’m the chairman.
MBR: I thought you were the chair, right.
WW: Now I’m the chairman.
MBR: So, what are you responsibilities as chairman? Do you have to—
WW: Well, we have a fundraiser we was donating back to charity. As a matter of fact, this building right over here is the senior citizens that our church—this building use to be a old men’s for our pastor. So, we can break that into the senior citizen building. So, we donate products, stuff over to the senior citizen building, and we give back a scholarship. We haven’t done that in a while, because the office is getting kind of old right now.
MBR: Oh, well, that’s how that works.
WW: Yeah. But we used to give scholarships to the—we’d give about five or six scholarships to the churches and they administer, because most churches got a scholarship fund, and we give a donation to the scholarship fund.
MBR: Is there still a dance or do your do it every other year?
WW: Yeah, we had a dance last year, but we had a dance before that. We have the dance. That was the big fundraiser. And then, we had a picnic at W. Gresham on the campus, and then Sunday we have a tea fundraiser. So, we haven’t had a tea in a while, but four or five years ago. But that brings all the classes together, all 12 classes, supposedly. There’s a couple classes that don’t participate, but—
MBR: Most.
WW: Yeah, but most do.
MBR: That kind of reflects what you were saying before that it unified everybody.
WW: Exactly. But this year, I think the class of ’69, the students now are about 65, either 64 or 65, something like that. And everybody—all of the older people got ailments, yeah. So, me, I’m 78 and I feel great. [laughter] I’m getting around better than some of the younger crowd, but I feel good. I feel really good, you know. And I go to, I have my physical, everything looked good, so…
MBR: Oh, that’s good for you. Well, this has been a honor talking to you today. It really has been. I’ve learned a lot. And if we can, I guess there’s two things. If we have follow up questions, is it okay to either text or call you?
WW: Oh, sure. I’m always available.
MBR: All right. Because, you know, you have this really good grasp of the geography of the schools and the area, and we’d like to maybe tap in and—
WW: Yeah, I got—If you want to, I’ve got pictures of the old community school.
MBR: Oh, yeah.
WW: I got the old Sol Legare School.
MBR: Oh, yeah.
WW: And that old Sol Legare School, that’s the second one. Now, they had the first school. That was in the water. It’d be high tide, you’d be floating around on Soligree. And then, the second school is still standing, so if you want a picture of that, you can get it. But I got a picture of that school. I got a picture of Three Tree [phonetic]. I got a picture of old Cutbridge School.
MBR: Oh, yes.
WW: If the Charleston County Park is right there, and our school should be right there. And then, the Society Corner School was right here. I got pictures of all of them.
MBR: So, Society Corner was right—
WW: Yeah, right down the street from here.
MBR: …down the street from here?
WW: Yeah. [Indistinct 1:17:46]
MBR: Huh?
WW: [Indistinct 1:17:48] the exact location.
MBR: Well, we’re hoping you’ll take us on a tour.
MBR: We’ll be good. Well, is there anything I didn’t ask you that I should have asked you that you’d like to end with? Is there something I should have or something I didn’t touch on?
WW: Well, if I can think of—I wanted to really emphasize about the students driving the school bus and at 16. I was driving the school bus at 16, and I started my junior year. Bus load of kids. And I sit there and think about it, a 16 year old now with a school bus. And I think that was unique. And Mr. Mack, I talked to him just the other day. He was my football coach.
MBR: Is he still alive?
WW: Yeah, he was superintendent of—yeah, he’s still alive.
MBR: Is he the son that’s a politician? No.
WW: Yeah, he’s the son. He’s David Mack.
MBR: David Mack.
WW: David Mack is his son, his third.
MBR: Okay, that—they came to the very first when we did a public meeting. So, Mr. Mack’s elderly, isn’t he? Yes.
WW: Yeah. Yeah, he—I was—I came to the first meeting and I talked to Mr. Mack. And I called him just the other day. But he is still and me being—I was the quarterback of that team, when we won the championship. And Mr. Mack used to personally take me with him. We’d ride to the came together. He said, “Cubby, here’s what I want you to do now. Now, you stay calm and you make sure that you execute.” And he instilled that discipline in me and I cherish it to this day. Good man.
MBR: Well, that’s a great way of ending. Again, thank you very much. We really appreciate you doing this.
WW: Yeah, sure. Like I brought—
MBR: What did you bring?
WW: Hmm?
MBR: What did you bring?
WW: I just bring that—
MBR: Oh, wow.
WW: But you got this. You already got this. You all got this.
MBR: Is this just a small one?
WW: Yeah.
MBR: We have ’59, right? Don’t we have them all?
WW: Yeah, but anyway, you can get that better.
MBR: Yeah.
WW: I got all the stuff—
Jenna Tran: Let’s cut the video.
WW: I got all of the stuff here—
MBR: There you are.
WW: Huh?
MBR: There you are.
WW: Yeah, I got all the stuff here. This one is when you all got the grant [indistinct 1:20:27] you guy. Yeah.
MBR: Was Veronica Roper [phonetic] in your class?
WW: Yeah, you already got her?
MBR: No, we talked to Charlotte Roper-Dunn [phonetic] yesterday.
WW: She’s younger. She’s younger, then. She’s younger.
MBR: That’s what I’m wondering. And Blanche Foster [phonetic].
JT: I’m going to get the iPad.
MBR: I love that they did these pictures. I think it’s great. I went to a really big high school, so I didn’t have this. You called him Larue the Lash?
WW: [Indistinct 1:21:09] somewhere.
MBR: Where am I from?
WW: Atlanta, right?
MBR: Well, I live there now, but I’m from the Philadelphia area.
WW: Okay. All right. There was a lady [indistinct 1:21:19]. She was a politician.
MBR: Wait a minute. Who’s Harold Wilder?
WW: Harold Wilder? That’s my cousin.
MBR: Aw.
WW: He’s living. He very seldom participate. He very seldom participate in anything, but with the W. Gresham Meggett, you got a lot of the people—a lot of the students don’t participate. To me, they don’t have enough of nostalgia. You can’t make people have—
MBR: No. No, no.
WW: But you’ll see, I’ve got a lot of nostalgia about my school.
MBR: Now, Mr. Anderson, Lash LaRue. That’s what you called him. Lash LaRue.
WW: Lash LaRue. Yeah. He was—
MBR: He didn’t really have like a—
WW: Did everybody tell you about Lash LaRue? [laughter]
MBR: Didn’t they tell you.
WW: I love that. Then you had Mr. Mack. Was he the bulldog?
MBR: Yeah, we called him bulldog.
WW: Yeah. No, but the photographs of the old schools—
MBR: Yeah.
WW: …that would be great, because we’re trying to pull that information together.
MBR: Of the old school? Yeah, I kept those photos. I got those photos.
WW: Oh, no. I’m trying to think. No. And David’s going to take us on a tour tomorrow.
MBR: He is?
WW: We were going to ask him, where’s Cutbridge? Where’s—you know what I mean?
MBR: You all want them—you want that before—
WW: Well, he’s the—
JT: And Fort Johnson was James Island High, is that correct?
WW: Yeah.
JT: Okay, because it must have been renamed recently, because that 2005 doesn’t mention the name change or it’s just a oversight.
MBR: We keep them as two separate schools, but it’s one.
JT: It’s the same, yeah. That’s the other thing keeping the historical name and the modern name—
MBR: …together.
JT: …and matching up things and knowing.
MBR: But you brought up that, you know, a lot of schools had the place names in their geography name. Johns Island, James Island. This is great. We just—we go through—it’s the technical college in Denmark. It feel like we drive by it on the way down here.
WW: You talk what?
MBR: Drive by it, part of it on the way down here.
WW: Yeah—
MBR: It’s a technical college?
WW: Yeah, they call it—that’s what they call it now. It was Area Trade when I was there.
JT: Do you mind, if I take this out of the frame and scan it? I’m thinking that we don’t—because this is one of the earlier years. I know that we’re missing kind of the ends.
MBR: Right. It’ll only take a minute and we’ll put it right back in.
WW: Yeah. Yeah, take the picture.
MBR: Okay. All right. Oh, my goodness. Okay. We have to photograph these. Did you marry a woman from this area or—
WW: No, my wife—my ex-wife, she’s—
MBR: Because you travel a lot, so I’m thinking—
WW: She’s from Arizona, Tucson.
MBR: I went to school at the University of Arizona.
WW: You did?
MBR: Love Tucson.
WW: You’re a Wildcat.
MBR: Yes. I love Tucson, yeah. Did you like it there?
WW: Yeah. Yeah, I love that place.
MBR: Oh, this is great. This is great.
