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AI: Well, and just to clarify for people who don't, might not understand, when you say they were "having trouble finding a placement for Ralph," can you say exactly what that means?

EH: Teachers, schools didn't want a black -- you know, there were a few primary teachers being hired by late '50s, but this was mid-'50s, and second, on the secondary level, they were reluctant still. And I, and actually, he was the second black on the secondary level to be hired, and that was '55, (yes), he started teaching in '56 at West Seattle. And again, it certainly depends on, on the principal, or the staff that's there, and usually it's the principal that says, "I'll be glad to have 'em," and Pop Hanaford turned out to be just a wonderful guy in West Seattle. And I think we didn't have a car in that time, but there were a couple of West Seattle teachers on Capitol Hill, and they would pick him up. I think he didn't want to leave West Seattle because of Pop Hanaford. Sealth was just being built and opened up, and the new teachers had to take the Sealth assignments, so Ralph was psychologically prepared to go to Sealth.

And what happened was... the story goes, we had a, we had a Bill Hewlett who was living with us at one time. He was one of the first black, probably the first black male teacher to be hired on the elementary school level. And because his assignment was at Madrona, Urban League or somebody called to ask if we could house him, and we said, "Yes." And so, and then later, let's see, that was '5-, (yes), about '55. Later, Bill, Bill and Ralph may have been working for their, their teaching credential had required Washington State history, and Bill Hewlett met Ralph on campus and congratulated him, and Ralph said, "What for?" And Bill said, "Well, I hear you're going to Garfield." Well, that's the first time Ralph ever heard that. He'd been in West Seattle, and he was beholden to Hanaford practically. 'Cause there, there's always (going to) be opposition when a black teacher comes in. But if the principal stands up behind you, that's half of the battle. And when Bill Hewlett told him that he was going to Garfield, and somehow Bill knew about it, and it turned out that Urban League had sat on the school board steps and demanding that Ralph Hayes get sent to Garfield. And that made Ralph furious. Nobody tinkers with his job assignments, but that's what happened. He got a call after his second year at West Seattle saying, introduce, principal says, "I'm So-and-so, I hear you're coming to Garfield. What would you like to teach?" And Ralph was furious, but he couldn't do anything about it, he went to Garfield.

AI: And again, just to clarify here, why, why would it have been, why would the Urban League have pressed for him to be transferred to Garfield?

EH: Because Garfield was the school where -- not the majority, probably a third of the students at Garfield in those days were black, not more than a third. And they wanted, they, even back then, you're aware that a black or an image of a person among students of color would make a difference. There's, I think, always the feeling of black kids that white teachers don't understand. And there is a lot, lot to that. But he, Ralph went to Garfield, and I think once he got there, he really felt that that was the prime place, that he would have liked to be.

AI: I'm sorry --

EH: Actually, what happened was -- well, and then after that, the Urban League director, who was a friend of ours, met Ralph at the Garfield steps and said, "We got you where we want you now, but we expect a monthly report to find out how things are going." And Ralph just shot back and grabbed him by the collar and said, "Don't you ever tell me what I'm (going to) do on my job. You don't pay my salary, I don't, I haven't signed a contract with you, I am not doing anything that the school system doesn't ask for." And so that was let go, but oh, how many years? Ten years after that... ten or thirteen years after that, the director's wife and I worked very closely at the Family Life department of the preschool. She was one of the best; people just loved her. But Louis Watts had gone on to get his Ph.D. and was teaching at Sacramento State when I just inadvertently ran into her, because Ralph was on sabbatical at Berkeley and he had a brother at, just outside of Sacramento in the air force base. And ultimately, we, I ran into, what I ran into, who I ran into was a Madrona, a fellow parent, and, at a supermarket. And she, she said, "Oh, I gotta call Alvie, we gotta have dinner together." And so when Alvie called me to invite us to dinner, I said, "I'm not sure Ralph is (going to) want to... Ralph may not show up." And she asked why, and I told her about this incident at Garfield. And I told her that before I even talked to Ralph about it, but anyway, we went to dinner and Louis greeted us and said to Ralph, "I hear you have a bone to pick with me." And Ralph helped him recollect, and Louis denied it up and down, so we just dropped the subject.

But it was that meeting, and this was in '65, that we were at the supermarket, and I, it was at the edge of, edge of town, and I think maybe it was at the edge of a suburb called Del Paso or something. I looked out over the horizon, and I saw this landscape, and here was this huge oak tree. And I just recognized it, because that's where Camp Walerga was, the assembly center that we were in. And I just, I thought, you know, in all the world, how could that turn up? And you couldn't miss it. It was such a familiar landscape, bare yellow hills and just this one big oak tree. That's what I remembered. It turned out that there were oak scrubs on the other side of camp, but that was a very emotional moment. Then as I walked across the street towards the, coming out of the parking lot, then I saw this street sign, "Walerga Avenue," and I thought, "They really did it." So they were remembering, by mid-'60s, they were commemorating.

AI: That is so interesting and amazing.

EH: (Yes), amazing. I don't know what they, I wonder what else they would have done. We were there for... well, I always say that we moved, we were put on trains on, like, August 6th and moved to Tule Lake, and it took like two nights. I mean, Sacramento to Tule Lake is maybe four or five hundred miles, and it shouldn't have taken two nights. But I just, maybe it was just one night, but it certainly was a whole twenty-four hours, and it shouldn't have taken twenty-four hours to get to Klamath Falls, or south of Klamath Falls.

But back to Madrona, I think it will always be kind of a model community. I don't know what it's like now, because what with mandatory bussing and all that kind of thing, it might have changed. But in those days, it was -- and we're still very good, close friends.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.