Voices of Baltimore: Life Under Segregation
Transcripts from Film Interviewees
April 17, 2016
Interviewee: Dean Patricia Welch
Interviewer: Dr. Franklin CampbellJones
Dr. CampbellJones: Alright, so we’re just going to – what I want you to do is just talk. And we’re having – you know, we’re just having a conversation in the frame. And just start by, you know, you heard about this project either someone recruited you, talked with you, sent you some information, but there’s something about it that- that you said it caused you to say, “Yeah I’ll do this.”
Dr. Welch: I heard about it through someone I admire greatly, and that is Dr. Evelyn Chatmon. And I’ve been a teacher for a long, long time, so I’m almost always sort of taken aback by people who soar in education and who are passionate about education. And I think that way about Evelyn, and she is the one who first approached me with the idea of joining this project. So, it was because of her and her reputation and her passion that made me say, “Yeah.” If she thought there was something that could be said or of value, of course I would want to that do that.
Dr. CampbellJones: So the idea of the project was to try to capture those experiences, you know, people who had the – people who had the experience, particularly Americans that are African American, pre-segregation, and then sort of segregation in Baltimore specifically. Not to say you can’t talk about other things, but there are some interests here about Baltimore. So, when you think about pre-segregation Baltimore – I mean pre-desegregation Baltimore – Jim Crow law Baltimore.
Dr. Welch: Not integration.
Dr. CampbellJones: Not integration.
Dr. Welch: Because it hasn’t yet been integrated, but –
Dr. CampbellJones: Well, we’ll talk about that too. (Laughter)
Dr. Welch: That’s a – that’s another story.
Dr. CampbellJones: That’s another story. Well, we’ll get to that one for sure. But just- maybe if we could focus a bit on strictly gender. What was it like living in this area?
Dr. Welch: I was probably one of the happiest little girls you would ever want to meet. I was – my mother and father had taught me that I was smart and that I could do anything. So, I didn’t – I didn’t really fully understand what was really going on around me. All I knew was that we lived in the 33 hundred block of Brentwood Avenue, which is in Waverley. And there were only like three blocks of blacks in Waverley. 31 hundred block, 32 hundred block, and then the 33 or 34 hundred block. And there were no other blacks in that immediate area. We were just off of Greenmount Ave, off of 33rd Street, and we – our front door faced the back door of the Boulevard Theater and there were no other neighbors. My house was the only little two-story wooden house in the block, and I went to elementary school number 115, that’s what it was. It was not – it did not have a name. It was – that was the school you went to and, there were several wooden buildings versus second grade was in one building, third and fourth grade was in another building, fifth and sixth grade was in another building. And Mr. Davis – I remember him – Mr. Davis who was the engineer, he was called a janitor, but he was an engineer, and he came in every morning and shook the furnace or the heat – the stove that was in our room, first and second grade, to make the room warm. And then he would move over to the third and fourth grade little room, and then there was a little bathroom building all by itself. But my teacher, Ms. Cassell, was strict and hard, but I learned so much from her. So we – I learned how to read. No kindergarten, no overhead projectors, no – nothing. Nothing in the area of technology, just Ms. Cassell and the chalkboard and chalk. And we had scissors and pencils and paper, and that’s where I learned how to read in that little school. And then moved from the first grade, second grade, third grade when I was in the same building with the fourth-graders. And I used to listen to the teacher when she went from the third side to the fourth side, and I learned all of their information. While I was in the third grade, I learned fourth grade stuff. I skipped the fourth grade and went from the third grade to the fifth grade, and never had all of that information I was supposed to learn in the fourth grade, but I continued on. And I loved school. Loved the library on St. Paul Street near 25th, and you couldn’t – you we’re really supposedly be in there I guess. But I used – my mother used to let me travel down 27th Street and Lorraine Avenue, and when you got to Lorraine near 26th Street, you would run down to the library and get in there. And then I would go to my corner and read day in and day out, every day. I knew it by heart, but that was – that was my world that was my little corner that was in that library on St. Paul Street. And it’s still there, I think they called it The Learning Place now, but it’s the same building, and it was – it had all of these books, and I thought I was going to learn how to read all of them. And then we moved to West Baltimore, and I went to an elementary school, Robert Coleman Elementary School, in West Baltimore. And then 137, which was the junior high school there and still did well in school, because I loved it. Loved school. Loved learning. Loved the teachers, loved them. And always knew that’s what I wanted to become- was a teacher.
Dr. CampbellJones: You would be a young African American girl who loved learning. Now how did those two things go together in the minds of a lot of people?
Dr. Welch: Well, in my neighborhood in Waverly there was an African-American church, and that’s where everybody went, to that church. And you always – I was always in Sunday school, and you had to read those little cards that had a picture of Jesus and different settings on the front and then there was a story on the back. And I always read the stories real quickly, so when the teacher would ask you read “Patricia would you read that sentence? Now tell me what you read.” And that that was all the teaching that you got, but I knew it was important because it was about Jesus and he was – he was the always take care of me and then when Easter programs came, I always had a piece that was little recitation that you had to memorize. And I remember standing up in front of that church, saying my little piece, and taking a bow, and just being happy. Just being happy. But I also knew that on Greenmount Avenue, which was a block from my house, we couldn’t go in the stores. Because we were black children, but we weren’t black children then, we were “colored children.” And our house was a rented house, so my mother would send me up the store that was on Greenmount Avenue to the second floor because the owner of the store owned those houses in the neighborhood. I used to take money and go pay the rent for our house on the second floor of that building, but I would look all around because I couldn’t go in the store to buy anything. We could go into the bakery, and you could get leftover on the buns, and because I was this – as they used to say, this “cute little colored girl” I’d always get extra buns. I think that’s why I gained weight and why I still have a problem with weight because I used to eat all those buns all the time. But that was – that was in Waverly. But I knew not far from where we lived, around the corner – which is now Guilford, we used to walk through there, but you weren’t welcome. You would move quickly because you really want supposed to be there.
Dr. CampbellJones: For being conspicuous.
Dr. Welch: But I didn’t understand that there was something wrong with that. I just knew it was – that’s just the way that it was, and I had my space in my world and it was – it was good to me. But then I learned later that there was another whole world that I knew not of.
Dr. CampbellJones: So before we go there, you mentioned something earlier when you were describing the school. You said you had this one teacher, and she was hard. And you said it just like that as if though – and sometimes when I hear mhm like that, I don’t know if that’s a good mhm or I wish I never had that mhm or a combination of both. And my question is, can you describe by “hard”, what that – what that means.
Dr. Welch: There was no disruption in classrooms. You didn’t act up in classrooms. You didn’t – you didn’t embarrass yourself, and you didn’t embarrass your family by being bad in school. So, there were – there was no talking back. I mean, you wouldn’t dare say anything to Ms. Cassell because – and she didn’t move around the room either. I remember when I was in the teacher preparation program, you had to move around to interact with the students. She did very little of that. She sat there in the front of the room, and the chairs were – the desks were in rows. You didn’t have individual groups and things like that, but she showed you what to do and did it. Because you knew you were in school, and you had to learn. So there were no distractions, because that would keep you from learning, and you didn’t want to not learn.
Dr. CampbellJones: I understand that it sounds like that there was some expectations coming from somewhere else, too. That when you go there, you needed to be that way.
Dr. Welch: From home, from the Sunday school teachers, from the neighbors on Berkeley Street, who would say, “Patricia let me see your report card.”
Dr. CampbellJones: Those are the neighbors?
Dr. Welch: Oh yeah, and –
Dr. CampbellJones: And the neighbors wanted to see your report card.
Dr. Welch: Right, and when I moved to West Baltimore, Ms. Vic, elderly lady in the block, used to have me write letters for her to her relatives in Virginia. And she used to ask me, “Where’s your report card? Did you make the honor roll?” Do you know she couldn’t read and write, and I didn’t know that? I did not know that Ms. Vic could not read. She would hold my report card, and say, “Now that’s good, you keep on, you keep on.” And she could not read nor write, but she had convinced me that I had to learn as much as I could and I had to stay smart, as they used to say, and do what your mother and father tell you to do, and don’t be bad and – So that was what I grew up in. A neighborhood of people expecting that I would do the right thing, that I would go to school, and I would be smart, and I was going to be somebody. And, I didn’t really know what that meant, but I knew it was something that I ought to do. And to learn to want to do it, because I wanted to please them. Oh, it was the whole black Waverly. It was the whole – I knew all the neighbors. All the neighbors knew all the children, so we – it was an expectation that you would grow up and that you wouldn’t get pregnant and have a baby.
Dr. CampbellJones: You’d mentioned something about the church already, but what was it like – and you mentioned a little bit about businesses, but can you talk about that a little bit? Like the social life at that time, what that was life?
Dr. Welch: There was no social life. You played in the backyard and you played in the street with chalk and getting rubber heels from the shoe shop, and that’s how you play hopscotch. You drew the hopscotch on the ground and you got the rubber heels and that’s – that was the way you played. There were no recreation centers or there were no places to go and play and learn games and things like that. You did it in the 32 hundred block on Barclay Street, and in the backyard and we used to sweep the backyard, not cut or mow the grass cause there was no grass. But you took pride in keeping that yard clean, because that’s the way it was supposed to be.
Dr. CampbellJones: Right, right. I had this – I – now you grew from Baltimore, I grew up in Arkansas.
Dr. Welch: Oh my goodness.
Dr. CampbellJones: Same thing, so you’re described my life. When I hear you talk about this, that’s one of the reasons I’m asking you these questions, I mean, we had to sweep the backyard, there was a lawn. But you had to make sure the lines were in the yard when you raked the yards when my dad came home.
Dr. Welch: And you sat at the table for dinner, and everybody sat at the table. I had one brother and my mother, not my father, and we sat at the table for every meal. There was no such thing as I’m going to eat in my bedroom, or “I’m going to get pizza.” I don’t even think pizza was out there in mid-Baltimore. But you sat at the table. And my father didn’t talk much. I used to think he was so mean because he didn’t talk much, but I knew I had to please him. I knew that he had expectations for me. Now my mother was different. When my father would go out of the room or go upstairs or something, that’s when she and my brother and I would talk. And we would get our little penny candy and divide it up, “This is for you, this is for you, and this is mine, this is for you.” So, we had that strict father who ran the house. He was the head of my house, and there was no question about it. But my mother knew us more gingerly. She knew my likes and she knew my brother’s likes. This is so insignificant, but it was significant to me. When we were little my brother didn’t like onions, so when my mother prepared hamburgers for dinner, she made his hamburgers first, but then she cut up the onions and put it in the rest of the meat for my father, my mother, and for me. But he was special because he didn’t like onions, and I thought that that was so nice then, and I still look back on that and say how special that must’ve made my brother feel, that my mother thought enough of him and his likes and his dislike to make him happy.
Dr. CampbellJones: Right, right, right. That’s wonderful. OK, so you have this world, which you’re describing as a Jim Crow – how you experienced Jim Crow your neighborhood, your community, your school, even just the whole idea of how you might even shop for groceries, in terms of it being a segregated world. And you also said, those were the happiest years of your life.
Dr. Welch: Because I had nothing to compare it to. My world was that world. I didn’t know what those other people did. I really didn’t even care what they did, because my world was OK with me. I was fine in my world.
Dr. CampbellJones: Would you say you were probably – in that way, you had a bubble, but you could be a complete person?
Dr. Welch: Oh yeah. I was accepted, I was OK. But then …
Dr. CampbellJones: Yes.
Dr. Welch: Around 1953 and 54 and all of this things started happening with schools, and I was in a totally Black junior high school in West Baltimore. And the classes were grouped according to abilities, so somehow I was always in the highest performing class. But I – and I – but I knew there were other classes where students didn’t learn as quickly. But it was OK, you know, there was no discrimination. They weren’t put down or anything like that. And then one day in junior high school, the principal, Mr. Sorel, who also didn’t speak much, he just sort of looked, Frank Sorel, and several of us were called to the office of the guidance counselor because they want to talk to us. And it was then that there were about seven or eight, or maybe nine, children who were told we weren’t going to go to Douglas High School, which was the high school in the area. We were going to desegregate schools. We were going –
Dr. CampbellJones: You were told that this was going to happen.
Dr. Welch: We were going to the white schools. So our parents were not called and asked, “Would you agree to this? Would this be OK for your child?” But we were selected to go to the white school. So, the girls went to Eastern and the boys went to City or Poly. And that’s when I was first introduced to there is another world, and it’s different from my own comfortable world. And it there that I met teachers who didn’t think I should – would – should be smart and do well. I learned it was just the opposite. “You’re not as smart as the rest of these children in this school.” The foresight of the teachers and administrators at that time, when I look back on it, was really, really intriguing because they placed two girls of African – two Black girls in classrooms. So you always had your partner. Mine was Gloria Bias, and we had all of our classes together. And then other classes there were two. You were never alone, you were never by yourself, you always had your partner. And my 10th grade teacher – English teacher, Ms. Cole, I still remember her. That’s when she would ask a question and if you raised your hand, she’d say, “Does anybody else know?” And I was like “Wow”, you know? “She won’t call on me.” But I didn’t have anything to trace it to. I just knew I was different. That’s why she didn’t call on me. But then in the gym class when you were selecting teams for different things, you weren’t selected right away. Even though you could perform the sport, you weren’t selected. So, then I began to see that there were real, real differences. And at Eastern, there was information that those girls had that I had never been taught. Not that I probably couldn’t have learned it and when I say I, I’m am talking about all the girls who were Black girls. How could we know something if we were never taught it? Then my grades did not reflect the work that I could do, but it was – I wasn’t keeping up with the rest of them. Then it became even more critical that you do the best that you can and that you go to school each and every day, and no matter what’s said to you, no matter how it’s said to you, you stay there. And, you know, what we used to – the girls used to get together and the boys used to get together on the steps of the church on North Avenue and St. Paul Street, and that church is still there. That’s where we would come and talk about how they did us, and that it wasn’t the same and – did somebody say something to you today? Yeah. They didn’t call on me or they – I didn’t get a good mark on a test or something like that, but that was our meeting place. The Black boys from City and Polly and that Black girls from –
Dr. CampbellJones: You were from the other school
Dr. Welch: Yeah. That was where you met and then you caught the bus and you went – you went home. But there was some days – and I don’t even know how it happened, because there were no designated leaders or identified leaders, but we knew to go back to our junior high school and talk to our teachers. And they popped us up, it was like you’ve got to stay there. No, you’re not going to transfer and go to Douglas. You are going to stay at that school, do your work, and you’re going to be fine. You’re going to be smart. You’re going to be good in all of that. So that, and I don’t even know what you label that, but I guess just support and mentoring, even though there was no time mentoring to my knowledge, but they would sit with us and get us all assured again that you can do this. And we were always reminded we were doing this not just for you and your family, but for whole race of people. Now, imagine that weight on girls who were 13,14,15,16, but you learned that you had to do well, and stay in school, and don’t get pregnant- so you would help your race. And I still feel that way.
Dr. CampbellJones: Right, the weight’s still there. I mean, you still – the it’s sort of like the inertia that’s still there, we need -well, when you -maybe you can explain it to me. When you say “I still feel that way”, what do you mean by that?
Dr. Welch: Because there’s still far too many children who were as smart as I was when I was little, but they didn’t get the chances that I got. Because somehow they didn’t get that foundation of support and the encouragement and the determination to do well. They didn’t get that, and it wasn’t their fault. It wasn’t that they were doing anything wrong, it just – it was just that they didn’t have the benefit, and that is so wrong.
Dr. CampbellJones: Well, earlier you talked about your love for learning.And how – in your early life. I mean, that was just a natural curiosity that any young child will have. That was – there’s – that is not a racialized label, that’s just kid loving to learn. And then all of a sudden, you popped out of this space where that love of learning is now turned on its ear.
Dr. Welch: But listen. When you say it like that … here’s the paradox. I went to Coppin, graduated from Coppin, did my student teaching in African-American schools – Black’s – Black schools, and we had to take the National Teachers Examination in the morning, and then you were interviewed. And dumb me during my interview, there – you walked into the room and there was a panel of people sitting there, and they could ask you anything. And I remember someone asking what did you want to teach? And I’m still this lover of learning. I said “I want to teach in a place that I don’t know anything about. I don’t want to teach in my neighborhood, I want to teach in another neighborhood.” And that’s just what they gave me, an assignment in South Baltimore, Light Street near Riverside Park. That’s where my first teaching assignment was, and I didn’t have a car, of course, so I caught the bus and when I got out off of the bus on Light street and Randall Street, there was a corner store and there was this aunt Jemima doll in the window. And I was alone, I was a woman – I was a young woman, but that was it. And then I went to this school and it was this all-white school, and it was – I became the third African-American teacher in that building, where there were no African-American children, not at all. The principal was white, the vice principal was white, everybody was white, and I became the third teacher. So it was like, they got another one. (Laughter). But the love that I had for learning was picked up by those children who saw me only as they teacher. Not that I was a Black teacher, I was their teacher. And somebody had the foresight to start talking about mixing school. So here I was at 84 South Baltimore, with all White children, mostly White staff, and there was an activity with an elementary school in Cherry Hill. And they brought the children from Cherry Hill up to my school, and a little girl said – my name was Miss Morris at the time – “Ms. Morris, who sneaked them in?” They had no idea that I was Black. I don’t know what you call that. I don’t know what a psychologist would name that, but I was their teacher and that’s all. They knew I cared about them, that I wanted them to learn, and their parents were the same way. Now Ms. Morris was that kindergarten teacher at 84, and they would bring me soup, they would bring the sandwiches. I remember getting a cold and coughing and somebody came home from – came back from lunch with their bottle of syrup and a spoon. “My mother told me to tell you to take this.” Now I was that that teacher in the school, but down on Light Street, right across street market where all of that that gentrification is going on now, they were still mistreating Blacks. But I was the teacher, so I was viewed as different. But I stayed there for 11 years, and they came home with me – I lived on Lafayette Avenue, I still do. And their parents were so secure with me being the teacher, they let their children come to my house. I would drive them to my house, and then take them back home, and they wanted to know when they were going again and – but that’s the way it was because I was this lover of learning, and had to give it. So why did I end up not teaching my own children as a beginning? Why did I go – why was I assigned there? And I like to look back on it and think it was providence. That they needed to see a Black face like mine, and not be afraid of it.
Dr. CampbellJones: Right.
Dr. Welch: Welcome it.
Dr. CampbellJones: I would probably say that it was providence also, in the sense of you continuing to answer a question for yourself about being put in that situation earlier in your life, and going back to those Junior High School teachers when you’re saying, you can do it, you can do it, this is just all maybe further evidence that you can go beyond and fulfill that initial push you got when you were in that – you know, those early years. You can do anything you want to do. You know, it’s probably the same stepping stone – the same pathway.
Dr. Welch: And reflecting on all of it because I’m a member of AARP now so it’s been a long time. But there are different stations at different points along the way that sort of seal or cement that notion of being called to do what you do. Because in spite of the challenges, in spite of the discrimination, it was balanced for me with the community that was in – happened to be in – and in my church, and it’s still in the community and still being surrounded with people who cared. And I have to be that for them now.
Dr. CampbellJones: Now it’s time to pay it forward, right? It’s interesting that when you and your classmates needed the support, you knew where to go get it. And you got it.
Dr. Welch: From those who looked like, who knew me from being in the class and knew that I was going to be OK. But right then, I needed them. I needed this – the reinforcement and the juice and the confidence that they gave us. You can do this, but always not just for you and your family. So I learned it wasn’t about me. It wasn’t about Patricia. I was just supposed to be here doing this now, never even thinking that I would end up serving as a Dean of a college to prepare teachers to do what I had been prepared to do.
Dr. CampbellJones: Well that really leads into the next question – the last question – I want to ask you. If you were to talk to colleges, universities, Towson, of course you had Morgan, and then you’ve got, you know, all of the other colleges around who have young people in them – how should they be preparing, you know, the students to help advance this – I call it – advance the quality of life for Americans who are identified as African Americans.
Dr. Welch: I still feel compelled and I am so serious. I still feel I have to make sure that students in schools learn from people who understand who they are. Yes, if I’m a biology teacher I need to know biology and yes, I need to know grammar and yes, I need to know physics and chemistry and yes, I need to know history and yes, I would love to be in a clean environment in a wonderful school where the roof doesn’t leak and it’s cool and it’s clean and orderly, but I need to make sure that students are known to their teachers. Their culture’s known. Why they can pick up on things that their culture teaches them like, yeah, they might come in the classroom with their hat cap turned backwards when it ought to be turned forward, but if I don’t turn my cap backwards, you won’t see me, you won’t say anything to me, I won’t be affirmed that I’m important. And they – teachers need to understand that culture makes a difference and it’s nothing wrong with them. They’re not broken children. They are not pitiful, little things who happen to be living in schools now, but what is it that I can do to make sure that they learn all they can, but they also know who they are. With all that I got, I still – I’m a good teacher, I’m an effective Dean, but I’m African American. And I’m OK. And then, if they’re okay, they’ll learn all kinds of things. They’ll be inquisitive. They’ll be comfortable enough to step out in unknown territories – uncomfortable places – but they will have been guarded up and built up and prepared to take the risk. And they might fail. I didn’t get in Coppin when I first got out of school. I wanted to, but I knew that that shouldn’t stop me, that I was going to go to Coppin and I’m did. And I graduated from Coppin. But understanding, in life, everything won’t go just like you want it to go. There will be stops and starts and bumps, but you don’t let those bumps stop who you.
Dr. CampbellJones: I was just – yesterday – I mean Friday I was on campus at Towson and there was a rally that was going on. And it was called by, you know, by the university to – there’s been some hate speech on campus toward African American students. And we got an Email saying, we’re going to have this rally. So I decided that I’m going to walk over to it and I went over there. And there was a collection of African American students up towards the front and then, a sea of everyone else standing around and they were hammering the speech. And then I heard – I started listening very carefully to what everyone was saying. And for about two or three minutes, I felt I was 45 years in the past and I could’ve been up there giving that speech. I mean, that was me 45 years ago when I was in college and I said to myself, this is bizarre. This is interesting because the young man who had given those speeches, I mean, I could just put myself in there…
Dr. Welch: Right in there.
Dr. CampbellJones: You know, four or five decades ago, and I’d be right in that spot. And so there was a part of me that was a bit sad that this was still going on. But there was a separate part of me that was joyous that it was because at least somebody was – I mean, there was a certain level of outward expression of disappointment because what I’ve witnessed is that, even though the disappointments I have named, it’s like it’s underground. It goes without saying. And so at least that is happening. What bothers me a lot – and maybe you can speak to this – it seems like there’s this gap in between – of what certain amount of activism in which you were thrust into – many of us were. I was, too, you know, the same time I went through we were all thrust in this activism. We didn’t call it activism. We called it doing what our folks told us to do, right? But now, it seems to be – what are your thoughts on the current state of…
Dr. Welch: I think that we have all the evidence we need in this current election time that we’re going through. And it is apparent to me that the same feelings that people had about African Americans still exist. Excuse me. I need some water. The same feelings of superiority and inferiority and…
Dr. CampbellJones: Just go ahead. Take your time and get some water first.
Dr. Welch: It’s like those feelings haven’t gone away. And I think that some of the candidates – Mr. Trump, for example – he is speaking out, but he’s saying what a lot won’t say for fears of riots and all of that.
Dr. CampbellJones: Clear your throat first. Go ahead and clear your throat. And I want to get this on camera, so let’s start that over again (laughter).
Dr. Welch: There is no way that a person can stand up in front of the cameras that are being broadcast all over the world and say things like those things that are being said now about females, about a whole group of people who believe a different God, and all of the horrible things and watch this person get validated every day. So it says to me that all of these people – all of these who are supporting, are supporting that old way of thinking – that somebody should be up here and that there are some down here. And those up here shouldn’t have to worry about those down there. But there are some Patricias down there and there are some Evans down there and there are some Judge Bells down there, who are not going to get in. They’re going to be strong, they’re going to stay smart, they’re going to be good and they’re going to not only think about themselves, but think about a whole race of people. We’re not going back in the cotton – we’re not. Too many of us work in boardrooms. Too many of us make policy decisions. Too many of us add and contribute to this world to make it what it is, and we’re not going back. These are tumultuous times, but you know what, this too is going to pass. And as Maya Angelou says, and still I rise, in spite of that. In spite of that, and still I rise. I’m not going anywhere. And I’m teaching my students at Towson – at Towson – did you hear what I said?
Dr. CampbellJones: I heard it.
Dr. Welch: What is that? Is that a Freudian slip? I’m teaching my students at Morgan.
Dr. CampbellJones: There you go.
Dr. Welch: You’re going to go through this teacher ed program and you’re going to go out there and whatever school you’re in, you’re going to do the best you can because they deserve it. I don’t care how – what you’re going through, what problems you have – those kids come to school every day and you can make a difference in their lives. You can determine how far they go or how far they drop but you can make a difference because you know what they bring with them and you can control what they take away.
Dr. CampbellJones: OK that’s it. That was very nice. Thank you. He’s clapping (Laughter). You just told my whole story. I’m getting chills listening to you. My wife is a seventh-grade math teacher at MacArthur Middle on the Ft. Meade base, and I just imagined a lot of what she tells me almost on a daily basis. These younger kids just don’t even – they just don’t even know. It’s sad.
Dr. Welch: They don’t know that they don’t know. That’s what’s sad.
Dr. CampbellJones: I’m sitting here and she’s telling my story.
Dr. Welch: I’ve had a chance to listen to all the voices coming in here,
Dr. CampbellJones: And it’s always the same story.
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