VERONICA MARTIN: Can you please state your full name.
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Hester Nelson Suggs.
VERONICA MARTIN: Where were you born?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Champaign.
VERONICA MARTIN: What hospital?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Burnham City.
VERONICA MARTIN: What year were you born in?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: 1928.
VERONICA MARTIN: What kind of degree did you get?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: I got a bachelor's in supervisory and
administrative certification, which is a master's.
VERONICA MARTIN: Where did you get your degree?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: From the University of Illinois.
VERONICA MARTIN: What kind of career or job did you want to do?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Well, when I first-I started to go to
school in '48, and I was gonna go into social work 'cause I was
gonna save the world. And then, I got married. I started in '46,
because in '48 I got married and raised three kids. And then, I
went back to school in the late '50's and finished and went into
education, and finished in '63. The reason I went into education
is because back when I first started, you could have a 2-year
provisional degree. And so, I taught kindergarten. So then, when
I went back, we were gonna move from Champaign, and so I went
back to finish a degree in education so I would be prepared when
we went some place else. And started over in Urbana in '63 and
then came to Champaign because E. H. Millen, who was the
superintendent of schools would give me 3 years on the pay scale
more than Urbana would when I started back. So I went lucrative
and went for the money.
VERONICA MARTIN: Is that what you wanted to do when you were
little?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: I didn't really know what I wanted to be
when I was little, you know, 'cause I guess maybe of the six
kids, I was the fifth one and I was happy-go-lucky. I didn't
really worry about school and education even though-because I
had to follow my brothers and sisters. And they said, "Here
comes that Nelson girl, another one of those Nelsons." And so, I
didn't wanna be like them, and my brother was very smart, and my
sisters were very smart, and I was gonna be an individual and be
myself.
VERONICA MARTIN: How many kids did you have?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Three-one boy and two girls.
VERONICA MARTIN: How did you meet your husband?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: I went with my husband in high school, and
I just-by first inviting him to a vice versa Sadie Hawkins Day
junior high school dance. And we just dated and he outlasted all
the other fellows. And so, [chuckle] he went away to school-he
went to Illinois State-and I went here, but we always kept in
contact. In fact, our families knew each other. And so, we just
sort of grew up together and married and that's been 56 years
ago.
VERONICA MARTIN: What is your husband?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: What is my husband or what does he do?
VERONICA MARTIN: What does he do?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Well, he does a lot of things. Right now we
have some apartments. He was a photographer for The Courier. He
used to also take wedding pictures and things like that. Sort of
semi-retired. He also sold real estate. So we did a lot of-he
did a lot of different things. But we've always been supportive
of one another, and he was always available for the kids. When I
couldn't go, he could go. So we sort of - He had one time when
he was able to go-he could've gone with National Geographic, but
he decided-His father died when he was young, and he wanted to
raise his own kids, and so he decided he'd stay here rather than
take off for points unknown.
VERONICA MARTIN: What years did you teach class?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Oh, let's see. I taught school for 5 years
before [inaudible] for 5 years, taught a year in Urbana, came
back to Champaign, taught 8 years, and then I was a principal
for 22.
VERONICA MARTIN: At Urbana High School?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Leal School, Urbana Elementary School.
VERONICA MARTIN: What was your encounter in 1968 about the
busing for school?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Gee, in '68-I guess maybe I started out
before '68, because when I was hired in Urbana, of course, we
didn't bus kids then. You know, the kids were all in the
neighborhood schools. So busing didn't start until late, and of
course, I was at Dr. Howard in Champaign as a 5th grade teacher
when busing started. I guess I had mixed emotions about busing,
because the kids in Washington School, you know, things that we
don't really talk about, my dad was a custodian at Washington
School. We don't talk about the presidential scholars and the
doctors and the lawyers that came out of Washington School when
it was an all-black school and we didn't have the busing. And I
guess when - first, Washington School was a mixed school. And I
grew up in the Washington School area. As I said, my dad was the
custodian at Washington School. When the school board changed,
they wanted to move the white kids down to Marquette, and my
mother was working with the Girl Scouts at that particular time.
And so, they called all of the white parents and told them they
were gonna shift their kids, but they didn't tell the black
parents that they were gonna shift their kids. Now this is way
before we did the busing, and most of the things I try to
authenticate because my family, as I said, I've been in
Champaign for quite some time. In fact, my dad went to Robeson
School in Urbana back in the early 1900's. So that's where he
and his family lived at that particular time. My mother and her
family came from Homer up here because they didn't-They came
here so her brother could go to college, go to the U of I. And
so, I guess my family has been in the Champaign County-they
lived in Urbana-since 1870 something like that, '68 or '70,
which we can authenticate because I have a niece who's followed
all of that. But to get back to the integration part, my mother
said when they were gonna move the kids down to Marquette School
because an incident had happened at Washington School, and they
were gonna have to change the custodian. It was something to do
with molestation of one of the students. And that's how they
moved the white kids down to Marquette and left Washington
School sort of in the heart of the black community. And they
left Washington School, you know, that way. I guess maybe all
during high school we experienced some of the complications of I
guess the racial divide, you know, at that particular time. But
my dad, who was a custodian always had access to the blue book,
which was the State code, and he would read the State code. I
remember getting put out of high school for one of the
other-well, Negroes at that time-one of the other guys that we
were dancing at a hop, and so, they said we were making a
spectacle of ourselves because we were at a sock hop [inaudible]
things. And so, they put us out of school. My dad took me back
to school and said no, according to the State blue book, you
can't do this. So Champaign has had the same kind of history
that all places had, such as the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross on
our lawn three times-two times that I can remember and one time
when I was a little child, and my dad, who had fought in World
War I said, "You can do that out there as much as you want to on
the street, but when you come across the lawn, I've got my sharp
shooters and somebody has got to go because I'm protecting my
family." And so, I guess maybe I was raised up with that kind of
pride, and so I always felt like my family always said you could
do whatever you wanna do. And they would be there to back us,
and I think that's one of the things that's gonna help our
integration. It's gonna help out also when you talk about the
busing in schools, 'cause I think every school should be a
quality school, you know. We shouldn't have to worry about where
we send our kids. Wherever we send 'em should be a good school.
If they're not a good school, you know, we should do something
about it. And I know I've gotten off of the question that you
asked, but I just have so many different kinds of things and
involvements of-I guess that I can authenticate historically,
you know, from the movement of the neighborhood, the buying of
houses, because I guess maybe when you say busing, that's just a
small part of it. We've been through the range of it all, and I
think it makes us bigger people for being through the range of
it all, depending upon how we go about looking and confronting.
For every stumbling block that's there, and maybe that's what I
look at it as, a stumbling block, not obstacles that can't be
overcome. And I probably forgot what you asked, the main
question, because I get off on these tangents.
VERONICA MARTIN: Okay. What was it like growing up in Champaign?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: I thought it was absolutely wonderful,
because at that particular time, everybody was treated the same
way, and so, we went to the WPA Days and some other kind of
things. I think it made us stronger citizens and I guess maybe I
always felt like I knew who I was. I didn't have to be somebody
else, you know, and I didn't have to-I'm unique, and I guess my
parents always sort of taught us that way, you know, the black
history kind of things. Well, I've got a book there that was
written in Naperville in 1917, and my parents always sort of
prepared us for those particular kinds of things, and as I said,
there were obstacles, stepping stones; they weren't anything
that was gonna keep you from doing and being what you wanted to
be, even though we knew that those obstacles were out there. I
enjoyed the neighborhood. I enjoyed the school. I didn't realize
that I was culturally deprived until I got to the university. At
that particular time, the university didn't necessarily say it
was black; it was what your parents did for their-what kind of
job they had. So my dad was a custodian at the school, and so, I
remember them telling my brother and I -we both had a
[inaudible] class together, and they said, "Now you shouldn't be
here because your dad is a custodian. He does menial kind of
work." But dad joined the Army when he was very young, but he
knew how to read and he could figure with anybody that was
there. He was sort of self-taught because I guess he didn't
really like his stepmother, was the reason why he joined the
Army. But he still had this kind of pride, and his thing was you
stand up for yourself and you do what needs to be done to help
everybody. And I guess maybe that's the way that we sort of grew
up. So I thought Champaign was a wonderful place. We grew up
with such guys like Jack McDuffy who [inaudible]. We would play
cards underneath the street lights and, you know, just everybody
knew everybody else. And so, it takes a village to raise a kid.
That was just what was expected. If you acted up at school and
somebody told, the neighbor might give you a spanking before
your mama gave you a spanking, because you know, there was no
stigma against working 'cause everybody had to work then. There
was no stigma against taking the wagon and going down the
railroad tracks and picking up coal for the coal stove. But
everybody was doing it at that particular time, and so we didn't
have those kind of stigmas. So I thought Champaign was a
wonderful place to grow up in.
VERONICA MARTIN: And you said that your neighbors would
sometimes whip you before your parents did. Were your neighbors
mixed or were they-
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Mixed, not mixed and then, you know, there
were mixed neighborhoods, there were isolated neighborhoods, and
I guess maybe that's the thing when I say that you could hang
with anyone, you know, that that really didn't enter into it.
Even though when I was very young, we lived on Market Street,
and I think there might've been two black families that went to
Columbia at that particular time. See, the neighborhood has
changed. Now Columbia is just about all blacks that are going to
Columbia at this particular time. But, you know, at the time, I
think maybe there might've been two kids. And then, Champaign
has sort of evolved even as far as neighborhoods were concerned.
You know, all of the neighborhood up in - In fact, when we first
moved up on North 5th Street, all of that neighborhood was a
mixed neighborhood. And I guess circumstances and the things
with the integration of schools and this, that, and the other,
caused it to be a more isolated neighborhood than a mixed
neighborhood. I don't know if you heard of the Gagliano Grocery
Store, the grocery stories, the Palimasanos and the Gaglianos
and all of them owned the grocery stores that were there. And we
just-I mean, everybody sort of went to school together.
VERONICA MARTIN: You said that when you first moved down here,
it was a mixed neighborhood. When you went to school, was it
mixed or was it segregated, desegregated?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: When I went to school, it was mixed,
because I went to Gregory School, which is now an apartment
complex. And, of course, I guess just about all the schools were
mixed, and after we started having the migration from the South,
somehow or other the schools became more segregated. Because
Washington School was mixed at that particular time, but that
was the old Lawhead School. And as I said, you know, when they
moved the whites down to Marquette, then it finally got to the
place where it is at this particular time.
VERONICA MARTIN: You said that the schools were mixed. Were
there more African-American teachers or were there more
Caucasian?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Well, at first they were all Caucasian
teachers. And then, when they moved the white kids out, they
brought in Afro-American teachers. The first one as far as the
principal was, oh gee-it was before Johnson-that's okay, you'll
get to that stage in age. [chuckle] Anyway, when they mixed the
school, it had to be in the late '40's, 'cause of course, it was
all Caucasian, including the custodian. And then, after there
was this incident with one of the [inaudible] at that particular
school, that's when my dad got a job there. And the other name
will come to me.
VERONICA MARTIN: Okay. Do you think it made a difference in
having all Caucasian teachers and mixed teachers-Caucasian and
African-American teachers.
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Well, yes and no, because when I went to
school at Gregory, there were all Caucasian teachers, and there
were a pretty good number of black students who were there. But
I guess the difference was parental expectations, for one thing,
and also teachers' expectations.
VERONICA MARTIN: Okay. You were talking about how you guys were
at a sock hop when you were little, and you guys got put out
because your father knew that-
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: We got put out because they said we were
making a spectacle of ourselves at that sock hop. And, of
course, what we were doing, we were dancing what they called the
jitterbug back at that particular time, and all the students
came and gathered around. And I guess they said we were making a
spectacle of ourselves because everybody was gathering around.
And so, they called us to the office and we got put out of
school. And my dad brought us back and said, "Nope, you can't do
that." And so, he was always one that sort of stood behind his
kids.
VERONICA MARTIN: And you were saying that at first there were
Caucasian janitors helping around school, and then your father
came because something happened with a girl. Do you know what
happened?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Well, they said it was a case of a rape at
this school. You know, so it was child molestation kind of
thing, you know, that they called it at this particular time.
But that was before, way before the busing. That's the reason I
said there were so many things that led up before the busing and
the integration of schools in that particular way.
VERONICA MARTIN: When you were at the university, were you
really involved in church?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Yes.
VERONICA MARTIN: What church did you attend?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: The same church I've been to all my life:
It's Bethel AME there at the corner of 4th and Park. And we
still go.
VERONICA MARTIN: Do you know that your church is very active in
--
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Our church had what they call a beraculant
trethaea (sp?)room. In fact, back in the early 1900's, 'cause
the church is over 100 years old. They had a room for the
students, because the students couldn't go any place else They
had to live in that town with us and this, that, and the other.
And so, they had a room with all of the resource materials for
the black students. And the black students would congregate
there. They had a liseum (sp?) kind of a class where they had
all the black books and black history and all of that was kept
up in that particular upper room, and they had sort of a
balcony-not a balcony, but they had an upper room and that's
where the students came to study. They'd feed them on Sunday
evening. And that was their social outlet. In fact, I have a
book there that's on the Tuskegee airmen and he talks about how
he met his wife there in going to those particular classes, the
woman that came to be his wife. And so, that was in the old
Bethel AME Church. And so, it was sort of students' gathering
place.
VERONICA MARTIN: Were you very active in the activities?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Well, yes, but now by the time that I got
to be to the age-you know, we looked up to the university kids
who could go there. By the time I got to the age that I could go
there, I guess maybe things were a little bit more integrated
than what they had been prior to that particular time.
VERONICA MARTIN: Were they doing any boycotts?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Well, gee, how many boycotts had we been
to? From the things that you don't read about in the history
books, from the time when-And I remember I had an uncle, Uncle
Leonard broke out all the windows of the old Orpheum Theater
because they had stood in line, and when they got there--They
only had three rows that we could sit in when we went to the
theater. And they were up in what they called the crow section,
up in the top three rows. And he and his girl had stood in line
to go to the show, and when they got there, they told him they
didn't have any tickets. And Leonard-There are a lot of things
that you won't find in the history books and you won't find in
other places, that we know did happen because they were
involved. And I remember he just-I guess maybe we'd say cut the
fool at that particular time. And his dad, of course, had the
grocery store on North Hickory Street where the Champaign-the
old Neil Street Post Office. And then, from Neil to
Hickory--And, of course, his dad also had a lot of different
kinds of interests at that particular time. That's the reason
why I said it's a confusing time and a complicated story. Old
Joe Nelson had stock in the Virginia Theater when it was first
built. And he had stocks and bonds. And we had some of the old
bonds even though we don't know what happened to them, to the
places that they had invested in-still there. And, of course, he
also had legal connections because I guess he had attorneys. He
had a telephone back in the time when people didn't have
telephones. He was able to get Leonard off of whatever he had
done at the Orpheum Theater. And it was sort of kept quiet
because that's the way things were done at that particular time.
So then, there was the boycott of the riding of the trains,
going down to Effingham because when you got to Effingham, you
know, you had to go back to the back cars of the train. There
was the barber shop boycott. You know, there was the boycott of
the barber shops that was there. There was a housing boycott.
When we first-the first house that we bought, they would tell
you in a minute-there was a gentleman's agreement that they
wouldn't sell you a house anyplace else but in certain areas. At
that particular time, they were bold enough to come out and tell
you that that was the way it was. And so, you had to either go
into certain neighborhoods or you had to find a private
homeowner who would sell you a house individually without having
to go through a real estate agent. I mean, that's the way that
things were at that particular time. So you went through the
real estate boycott. You went through the housing boycott. My
brother was an artist, and he could work for Gruggs who had an
engraving place and an artistic place downtown. Cecil had to
bring the things home, he had to bring the art things home in
order to work on them, because they didn't want him to work
downtown where the rest of the artists were working. And, you
know, that's the way that things were. My sister finished up
here at the university, but she couldn't be hired in Champaign.
They hired her down in Morris Brown College because the
university had an arrangement that they would send them down to
Morris Brown College. But even earlier than that, I had an uncle
who finished in engineering the same way that this uncle that I
told you, Leonard, finished in engineering, but he had to teach
math down in the St. Louis area. But you had to go to an all
black school or an all black college to teach at that particular
time.
VERONICA MARTIN: So they had an agreement at the University of
Illinois that African-Americans could not teach there or would
have to go somewhere else?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Well, I think they had an agreement with
some schools, because I know that they had Morris Brown and -
'cause I know that three or four of the girls that were in there
when Eleanor was in there, they had a reciprocal. They would let
the students come up here during the summer and go to summer
school, you know, but they didn't hire them at that particular
time. There's just so much history and so much to tell that it's
sort of hard to capsulate it. Because it's been remarkable
having to live through as much as we've had to live through
during the time of my lifetime, much less my mother's lifetime
and my dad's lifetime. But, you know, just the kinds of things,
to see the evolution of how things have changed during the 75
years that I've been around.
VERONICA MARTIN: You say that things have changed. When you were
younger, I know that African-Americans were happy to graduate in
that stage. Do you think that the population has lowered or has
increased?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Gee, for some it's increased; for others
it's lowered. You know? In my whole kind of--I think maybe we've
lost the importance of education for some. You know? Because
even here in Champaign, we have students who have finished here
in Champaign that have gone to other schools, you know, who have
gone to maybe colleges, and other students who have done just
beautifully, you know? I think we spend too much on the negative
rather than the positive. You know, instead of saying look what
our kids have done, we say look what our kids haven't done. And
I'm not sure that that is-- Even when I look at my kids'
graduating classes, that my own children came through, I see so
many successes that we don't hear about it. We don't bring them
back here. Most of our successes here in Champaign are people
who have done, like my children have gone to some place else to
be successful, you know, rather than being successful-as I've
said, born and bred in a briar patch. Well, they generally leave
the briar patch and go some place else to be successful.
VERONICA MARTIN: When you were a principal or a teacher, did you
notice a different attitude or the way the younger
African-Americans felt-the difference between Caucasian and
blacks?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Well, when I was principal, I don't think
so. And the reason why I don't think so is because I go back and
look at the successes. And I think it's the expectations that we
have of kids and that we have of teachers. I think one of the
things I liked about being a principal was the accountability
that we had. To me, there's no teaching going on if there's no
learning going on, and if you don't know how to teach a kid,
then somebody needs to give you some pointers on how to do so.
You know, okay but they smell like kerosene when they come into
my room. Well, my thing to say, I'll give you a clothespin, you
know, because you're not there to smell 'em; you're there to
teach 'em. You know? This is really what it takes. And I don't
think there's a kid who doesn't want to learn. You know,
sometimes we kill that learning spirit of our kids. Sometimes we
can't recognize the learning spirit of kids. I've had some kids
that have come to school, and the teacher says he can't learn
math; he can't learn reading. He could write me three or four
pages of the difference between a nickel bag and a dime bag. You
know? But if he can do that, and if he can-I can show her how
this is a learning situation. And how do you take that situation
and capitalize on it and turn it around and make a kid really
want to learn? You know, 'cause they're gonna learn something.
Some of them are gonna learn because of us, and some of them are
gonna learn in spite of us. And I think it's the because that
makes a teacher a teacher, and if you can teach kids, you can
teach all kids. And if you can't teach all kids, then you need
to go back and refine your learning process, because if you
can't get it, then how can you expect a kid to get it as a kid?
Q: I just remembered you had started to you say-Veronica, you
had asked her about the white teachers at the school. When you
had a white teacher [inaudible] talk about different
expectations?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Oh, okay.
Q: Take up there. You said there were different expectations.
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Well, yeah, you know, and I'll go back to
the time when I was there. And I can remember my sisters, I told
you there were five of us at one time. I was the late child. But
when we were in school, my sister and I, we decided-we had been
put in the cloak room. At that time you had cloak rooms, and
they could isolate you. We'd been put in the cloak room and my
sister told me, she said, "What are we in this cloak room for?
We're not learning anything. Let's get our coats and go home,"
which we did. But my mother just proceeded to turn around and
walk us right back to school, and at that particular time, it
wasn't called child abuse, and I still don't think it's child
abuse. She put a little switch on our legs for acting up and
told us we were there to learn, you know, that the teachers had
something that we could gain from them. You know, they had their
education; it was up to us to get ours at that particular time.
And I think the teachers thought they were being supported. You
know, and I can think of-when I think of white teachers, I can
think of Ms. Holland, Ms. Rose, the teachers who were my
teachers, coming up that I thought they really cared. They
really felt good about what it was that we were doing. And as I
look at the whole group that came through there, how everybody
was able to succeed. You know, you really felt like an
individual. I think what we've done now is we've tried to
say-and I think academics are important. More or less training
people to be good people rather than the academics. Because if
we can inspire them and we can make sure that they have
intrinsic kind of learning or learning from the inside or
wanting to learn from the inside, then we've instilled the
desire to learn. We wanna think that everybody is gonna learn at
the same pace, at the same time. And I think this is where no
child left behind, I think it's a good thing, but then we put
false standards on it, you know, 'cause we want everybody to be
able to write the same way, to do everything the same way, to
put 'em in little cubes and little boxes and run 'em through an
assembly line, and they all come out the same. Well, we're just
not meant to all be the same. And I think it's the teachers that
care and I think that sometimes you have to build caring within
your teachers, and sometimes it has to start from the top. I say
that knowing that I've sat in some staffings on some kids that
if I was a parent, I would be thoroughly upset because nobody
says anything positive about my kid. I think you get more
positives out than you get negatives. And you inspire a kid to
do more. And if he's not in this particular area, maybe he's in
another area. My dad always said if you're gonna be a ditch
digger, be a good ditch digger. If you're gonna be a scientist,
be a good scientist. But all of us have a place and work in
society. And I think sometimes we sort of lose sight of that. So
I think the good teachers inspire kids to do things. You know,
they have a--There's a caring part that go above and beyond the
façade of "My kids all scored well." It's little Johnny here
that may not score well on the test at that particular time, but
can, through the relationship that you've built with that
particular individual, you know, still come out ahead and be
profitable to society and be able to give something back to the
community. And you don't know; you might-he might be the one
that's gonna save you on--as we get a little bit further along.
I guess that you can see that I'm sort of passionate in the way
that I feel teachers should teach kids. It's kids first, you
know. That's what education is for. Those teachers have
supposedly had theirs already, but it's what they can instill in
a child to want to learn.
VERONICA MARTIN: You said that there were a lot of Caucasian
teachers that were being supportive to African-American mothers
and parents. Do you think that there is any allies that support
Civil Rights?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Would you run that by me again?
VERONICA MARTIN: You said that the Caucasian teachers were kind
of supported by the parents. Do you think that there were any
Caucasian teachers that actually supported the Civil Rights
Movement?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, I think that
they-there was a joint effort there. You know, I know personally
many people who supported the Civil Rights Movement. You know,
but to say everybody supported it or everybody didn't support
it, you know, I think is sort of a fallacy that's sort of
hanging out there. But even if you look at the marches, I mean,
it's visual. You can see people who are out there supporting
that particular movement.
VERONICA MARTIN: How did you get your principal position at
Washington School?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Gee, I was working at Dr. Howard School. I
had taken a course in teaching of the gifted. I also did
remedial kinds of things. And I was really encouraged to apply,
and my name was put in by some of my parents and my students.
You know, and at first I didn't know whether or not I wanted to
be a principal because I thought I could make an impact with the
kids. But then, after I thought about it, I thought I could make
an impact with teachers, because there's such a thing called an
evaluation process that principals do for teachers that says,
you know, there's certain kinds of goals that you need to set
for yourself. And to me, the main goal would be putting kids
first and being able to work with students. And I guess maybe
you set an expectation. I did have the advantage of having been
a teacher and having been successful with all different types of
kids. I felt like I could go into a teacher's classroom and
really take over the classroom and show by example. And I
thought that that would--Sometimes you might have to ask a
teacher to look at another approach. I remember one teacher
specifically that maybe I had her write a letter home to parents
about four or five times. And I would come back and I'd say,
"Now if this was your child and someone was writing this letter
to you, how receptive would you have been, you know, to the
comments that you made about the child?" And maybe having to
have that teacher-as a principal, having to write the letter
three or four times before she could send it home, just to see
what response she could get from the letter. In fact, I have
notes from teachers that said, "Thanks for helping me be a
better teacher," because it's being open to the teacher, to show
her how she can improve her strategy. I don't think anybody
wants to be a bad teacher or-but sometimes they don't recognize.
You know, it's been inbred; they don't recognize that it's
there.
VERONICA MARTIN: Were there any obstacles to the position of
being a principal?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Yeah, I think there are obstacles in
everything, but that's what makes it a challenge. You don't row
with the current, you know, you row against the current. You
have to be strong, have to not be-when I say wishy washy-you
have to have some kind of goals and some kind of convictions and
be able to stand by them. There's a fellow that I told
you--There was policeman over in Urbana. I was just horrified
when I heard him get up on WBCP and say, "Well, one of the
things, Mrs. Suggs really stayed on us." Which I did, you know,
because I think that sometimes maybe it's tough love, but it has
to be there. You know, it has to be there and you have to stand
up for your convictions. Maybe one of my biggest obstacles would
be my superintendent and the school board members. You know? I
had a superintendent that said, "You're late to my meeting. You
didn't get here on time." So I said, "Well, you know, I thought
the kids needed me at the building." You know, one of the good
things about Washington School, we talk about the busing, was
that we were in the neighborhood, and if a kid missed the bus to
go to school, I could make sure that that kid got to school. You
can't teach him anything at home. And so, my thing with the
neighborhood was, "Come in and let me know that your child
missed the bus, and we'll make sure that he gets to school." And
then, sometimes, you know, that was an obstacle because someone
would say, "Well, now that's not your position." But I think if
you're for kids, you're for kids and for kids getting there and
learning, and sometimes it might be having to go to another
school and saying, "What are you doing for this kid?" I think we
need those kind of advocates there for children, or just to give
the parents-to reassure the parents that you would take them to
the other building so that they could go in, because a lot of
times a parent would feel like if you were there, they would
feel much more comfortable in a situation than not. You know,
sometimes that's the same way it would be with the teachers.
Sometimes the parent would feel much better if someone else
could be there to sort of help them in two ways: to help them,
maybe we'd role play how you're gonna react to the parents,
because you get some parents that'll come in here. How are you
gonna react to the teacher? They're ready to whip that teacher
when they go in there, you know? And sometimes you have to say,
"Well, now wait a minute. Let's calm down. Let's talk this thing
through before you get there. You know, try this method first,
and see how that works." And then, sometimes you call the
teacher in and you say, "Try this method and see if that works."
And by the time you get the two of them together, then they
really are able to work with one another.
VERONICA MARTIN: You said that you were at Washington. Was there
like a difference in population?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Yeah, we had-Washington was a magnet school
at that particular time. But we had all kinds of students. We
had a lot of the bilingual students. And sometimes we think the
way the black students were treated and sometimes the way some
of the bilingual students are treated was also, you know, we
sort of check it off as if, you know, well, they're not gonna be
able to learn anyway. And at that particular time, we were
having the [inaudible] and the Thai and all of them coming in,
besides the black students. And so, we had a diverse kind of
population. We also, because it sat up in the [inaudible] black
neighborhood, you know, we used to have to save up spaces
because the parents didn't really know to come to apply to start
out with, you know, to-so we would save some spaces. And so, you
might have to go to the [inaudible] in the summertime. So
[inaudible] black parents. You know, and so, you had a quite
diverse-also we got students, because one of the things about
the choice plan and this, that, and the other, sometimes other
schools don't want them. And so, those students that they don't
want, they sort of want to push them back in there and say, "Go
to your neighborhood school," because-especially if they have a
difficult parent. And so, we took students in really because the
other schools really felt like that they were difficult. And my
thing was if I was a parent and I had to sit up there and listen
to all you said about my kid, no way in the world would I give
you my kid to be the caretaker of that kid. Because after you
said all of those negative things about her, how can you then
honestly really go in there and work to help my kid if you've
said all of these negative things about them? And so, we would
take some children in for that particular reason. And my first
thing was, what shouldn't I do to make you uncomfortable here?
And so, you really had to here again, work with the students and
work with the parents and work with the other schools. It was a
magnet school; you could apply to come. But all the children
that came to Washington School didn't come because they were
super smart. You asked me about having some complications with
obstacles. One of the obstacles that I had was because we had a
gifted program, and the black students in Washington School did
not wanna go out for the gifted program, because those should be
so exciting that you're interested and you wanna come. You don't
wanna leave school to go someplace else. That's the reason I
said the neighborhood is the same kind of way. And so, that was
one of the things that superintendent [inaudible] "You didn't
let your students come, your gifted students come." Well, I
don't apologize for liking a school, you know? Because if you
didn't make them welcome, then they wouldn't wanna come.
VERONICA MARTIN: You said something about a gifted school class.
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Well, so they had that reputation because
the whole idea of the building was to get different kinds of
procedures for learning. You teach a kid, you know, you teach
the material, but you teach a kid in different-and none of the
kids has the same style of learning. And so, that's what makes
the teacher a professional, is by figuring out what the modality
of learning that a child has and then using that to your
advantage, you know? Some of them may not learn by the phonetic
method of reading. You know, maybe you have to try several
different kinds of things. Maybe you have to go for the
interests. I talked about the nickel bag and the dime bag, and
you know that those were drugs that were going on, you know, in
the neighborhood. I was wise enough in the neighborhood to know
what was going on. But after we found out this little boy could
write, then it really changed the teacher's opinion. First, I
had to get out of her mindset because he could write about this
particular kind of thing. But then, I had to get 'em out of the
mindset of showing the positives of what the child had written.
For one thing, he didn't have a short attention span 'cause he
could give me a book on that and could answer all the questions
and could do weights and measures. The other good one was
putting math into money. Most of the kids knew how to-could take
that money kind of angle where they might have had math
problems, but you know, it's putting it in a context that a
child could understand.
VERONICA MARTIN: When you said honors, were there more
African-Americans or Caucasians?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Well, let's see. We were about, oh, we were
about 50%, but then we had the bilingual students. But the
bilingual students, of course, they-The smart bilingual
students, and I think they're still doing that now, they're sort
of listed with the Caucasians. The ones like the Hispanics and
some of the others that didn't score quite as well, then they
might've been for bilingual. But, of course, realizing that when
you have the Hispanic kids, you're gonna have blacks and white
Hispanic kids, you know, even though we do code them as
Hispanic. It all depends on how the State coded them at that
particular time and what the district was coding them for.
VERONICA MARTIN: You said that they weren't willing to
participate.
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Everybody in Washington School
participated, and that was a good thing. And we used different
kind of areas for them to participate in. You could go through
drama, or you could go through art, or you could-we had foreign
language or you could, you know-I guess maybe the main thing was
giving you kind of a program that you could interest kids in.
VERONICA MARTIN: At our school, it's 56% African-Americans, but
we have no African-American teachers. Do you think that there's
something wrong with that at Franklin Magnet Middle School?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Yeah, I think there's something wrong with
it, and the things that I think is wrong with it is because they
allow the foxes to run the chicken house. You know? Okay, and
what I mean by that is that they generally involve the staff in
the hiring kind of processes. And I say that because I still
work with kids at the university, and I know perfectly good
African-American candidates who have gone in, but when they get
the staff to vote on who gets a job and who doesn't get a job,
and they have decentralized hiring, then the building, and this
might have changed since Culver is there, but then the building
gets to choose who they're gonna hire. And they try to hire
people who are like them. And so, you get all of the like people
teaching in a building. And one of the things that I did
encounter as a principal, that a teacher who would break out
from the mainstream, and we had to fight this particular battle,
who would spend extra time with the kids, she might say, "Well,
they can come in and eat lunch with me," and this, that, and the
other, other teachers sort of resented that, because they
resented the rapport that they had with their students. So, you
know, they resented the rapport that they had with their
students, and so, they would sort of ostracize them a little
bit. But to me, that was a good teacher because she got to know
her students and she got to know which button to punch to get
them to learn.
VERONICA MARTIN: At Franklin, you know it's a mixed school. The
classes are segregated by race; most of the honor students are
white, with few exceptions, and then, there are non-honors
classes with all black students and a couple of white students.
As a former educator, what is your opinion of this?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: I think that they could be using those
so-called honor students to teach them empathy for the learning
procedures of other students. You know, I believe in peers
helping peers as well as otherwise. I have a daughter who's an
educator. She's a principal in [inaudible], and I think we can
find people, you know. As I said, I have sent to the district
people that I know, you know, are-I work with them in college.
And so, they very good, very high rankings, but somehow or other
they don't get hired. I think it's a fallacy for you to think
that just because a teacher, whether she's black or white, that
you need to have either a black or white teacher in order to
learn. Because what you're there for is to get the knowledge of
whatever that person has. It doesn't make any difference if
they're blue or if they're green, if they have a certain kind of
a knowledge. But now, if you feel like you're being unjustly
discriminated against, then I think it's up to students and
parents to get up there and say, you know, we feel this
particular way, as if there's something being perpetrated
against us that's not quite fair. As I said, I don't think that
you have to have a black teacher or a white teacher to learn,
you know. I don't think that that's the whole crux of the
situation. I don't think that just because I'm black, that you
should be able to come in and say, "Well, she's better than she
is," because you're doing the same thing in your way that
somebody else is doing, that you're talking about people doing,
because you're saying, "She's black. Well, I can learn from her;
I can't learn from--" Hey, I'm thinking my kids are smart enough
to learn from anybody. And I think that that's one of the
attitudes that we should take. But I also think that parents
should be smart enough if they feel that they're being
discriminated against, they should be smart enough to say
something about it. I'm against the school of choice for that
same kind of reason. 'Cause I think that no matter where you go,
you should be afforded a good education, and I don't think it
should be because you can up and run from the school that you
have; I think that you have to stay there to make it better.
Otherwise, your kid gets an advantage, but perhaps the kid whose
parents don't stand behind him-I'm probably taking up too much
of you guys' time.
VERONICA MARTIN: That's okay. And I have one last question: What
advice to you give to students, and particularly
African-American students?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Same thing I guess maybe I just got through
saying, that you need to - You're there to get the knowledge,
you know. And there are gonna be some obstacles, but don't let
it scapegoat you to saying because she's white or because she's
green or because she's yellow, I can't get it. I mean, if you go
there and you feel self-assured within yourself that I can get
it, if not because of you, I can get it in spite of you. You
know? You've got to feel self-assured. Another thing, hey, my
kids had to go through this. Sometimes the peer groups try to
keep you down, but you know what you can do in spite of the peer
group. You've gotta be strong enough to let the peer group go
their way, and you go yours. Or, it could be that you placate
the peer group a little bit, but you still know that you've got
to get what you need to have, because it makes a big difference.
You know, the further along you get in life, and you're gonna
have to learn how to-whether it's in a job or anything else,
you're gonna have the same kind of problems because they are
human problems. They're racial to some extent, but they're human
to another extent. And one of the kind of things is you get into
a lot of groups-The group dynamics are just about the same. But
it's the reasons that the group dynamics are there, 'cause
people are people. And we don't have tails, you know? Sometimes
we've gotta let people know that we don't have tails, you know.
We've got to rise about that. You know, it's like the old goat
and the whale. You can either chop it under your feet and move
on up a little higher, or you can mired down into the situation
and perish or smother in it. So you just let it come in there
and chop it under your feet and move on up a little bit higher.
VERONICA MARTIN: Okay. Thank you. And now, if my partner or
anybody has any follow-up questions.
Q: You were talking earlier, Mrs. Suggs, about - I was curious
about your own growing up in the schools, the expectations you
had for yourself, where you got what those were and where you
got them, and if they differed depending on who your teacher
was.
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Well, I don't think that they really
differed. I think you learn how to-One of the parts of growing
up is learning how to read people. And, I mean, there are
certain teachers that you knew what you could get away with, and
other teachers that you didn't know what you could get away
with. And I think you learn that particular kind of thing. I
guess it's the art of living, you know. Sometimes some of the
tougher teachers were good for you, you know? I guess maybe I
could recognize maybe that there was some discrimination, but I
had to decide if I would have that to work for me or to work
against me. And I guess when you inculcate it and you use it as
a shield that I can't do that because it's discrimination, I
think that that's wrong. You have to do it whether it's
discrimination or not.
Q: Do you have an example of when you felt that there was
discrimination and you kind of turned it around or got stronger
as a result? Can you think of any stories?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: Oh, gee, probably a lot of them. I told you
I taught at Leal School, and I guess maybe I was the first black
elementary person to come out of-to be in Urbana in Leal School.
Well, there was one incident among the many that I can think of.
There was one incident where on the board there was a note that
said-we had been studying how to do letters, and there was a
thing that said, "Get out of town or else." Well, I got a letter
and the letter said, "Get out of town or else." It wasn't--I put
it up on the bulletin board. I didn't think too much about it. I
put it up on the bulletin board and said, "Here is somebody who
doesn't know how to address a letter and doesn't know how to
write a letter." And I put it up on the bulletin board. Then I
got all of these calls started coming in. Of course, somebody
told the principal. And this was at Leal School, 'cause I was
the only black teacher at Leal School at that particular time.
They went to the FBI. I didn't know they had an FBI in Urbana.
They had to take letter writing samples from all of the kids.
They came and they did this investigating because they were
afraid because they were desegregating the school--The parents'
handwriting and other kinds of things. But I used it for letter
writing, and of course, everybody was more upset, I guess, maybe
than I was. My thing was there's some kid in here that I haven't
taught how to address an envelope. The FBI came; they took all
of these-now if they found out something, they didn't tell me.
But it had to be at least 10 or 12 years later, and I got this
note. I was the principal, and I was a teacher when I did this-I
was the principal-of one of the students that was writing to
apologize to me for writing this letter. She had been born
again, and she had written this particular letter. And she said,
"I really liked you, but you had--" somehow or other I had
reprimanded her for something that particular day. And we had
studied Nancy Drew stories, and this is what Nancy Drew had
written and put on the tree. It took her 10 years before she
realized, you know, the shortcoming of her ways. I had another
one where I had the FBI come again the second time. The second
time was there was a grandparent that had decided-he had told
the principal he was not having any niggers teaching his kids,
and they weren't coming into that particular school. And, oh,
he'd raised said. Well, Cecil Shafer, who was the principal, had
said, "Well, yes, she will be teaching your study, and this is
where she's gonna be assigned." Well, that went on, I guess,
that particular semester. But when the grandmother came up from
some place, Alabama, or some place in the South, she came in and
the first thing she said when she opened the door, said, "Oh,
my! My grandson, oh, he just loves you." She said, "But oh, my
God, I never knew you were a--" you know, she stopped short of
saying nigger in that particular kind of way. And so, I had
those particular kinds of experiences. I had another one where
the kids-and that's the reason why I said you've gotta be a
kid-prone kind of a teacher. I remember that one little boy in
that particular class-and there were professors' kids; it was
Leal School. So there was cross-country [sic]. He was kicking
everybody as they'd walk down the aisle. So when I walked by the
aisle, this little kid kicked me. Well, of course, you know,
there were no black kids in the school at that particular time.
So I put that little kid up, and I turned him across my knee.
You know? And that was about the time you could do that. Well,
the principal came up and he said-you know, he called me to the
office. I went to the office, and he said, "I hear you spanked
little so-and-so, the chairman of the English Department at the
University of Illinois's kid," and my answer was, "Yeah, if you
mean little kicking Michael, yes, I certainly did." So he went
to the closet, and pulled out a paddle and said, "Here at Leal
School we wanna do things the best we can." He said, "I'm glad
you put it on the right spot. Use it wisely." And so, we have a
lot of those kind of stories. I used to get the kids-I don't
know if you know what Adler Zone was out on the campus. Adler
Zone was where they would have the incorrigible kids, 'cause I
had a little kid who shot up the building. He was shooting at
the teacher. [chuckle] You know, you could write a whole book on
the different kind of stories. He was assigned to - for Adler
Zone, they'd keep 'em out. They'd keep 'em in this
rehabilitation place, and then they'd take 'em back in the
school. Well, they placed him back into my classroom. And my
thing was the first thing I did, I put up a piece of clay. I
said you can hit anything you want to so long as you go up there
and hit that clay. Hitting the kids is off limits. 'Cause I
think you gotta set limits for kids. So, oh, he was really
something. So he would get angry. And he walked up to me one day
and he said, "Mrs. Suggs, what would you do if I hauled off and
I just-you'd make me so mad that I just hauled off and hit you?"
I said, "Well, you know, I'd go to my drawer and I'd get you an
envelope." He said why. I said, "'Cause you'd have to pick up
every one of your teeth to put back in that envelope." [chuckle]
You know, little tiny things. And I really that there's an art,
but I think, you know, you have to go with what kids learn. And
so, he broke out into a grin. Well, he was a good student after
that. You know, he was a good student after that. Well, I guess
when they first put him-'Cause I knew he had shot up this other
building. So I sent all the kids out to the playground one day,
and I said, "I sent all the kids out because I wanted to set
down the rules. I figure if we had to fight, let's go ahead and
get our fight out of the way. You know, I want you to know
before we get started, I don't fight fair." You know, and all
those kind of things. And so, you know, it just sort of amused
him, but I realized that those kind of things at this particular
time would not be kosher, so to speak, for teachers to do. But I
think you've gotta realize what you're dealing with. And some of
the kind of things-you win kids over; you win their trust.
Q: I wanna make a connection. Mrs. Suggs was just saying she was
the first black teacher at Leal and all the students were white,
right? And you were telling me earlier today that in your honors
class, you're one of a few African American students? And we
were asking, did you feel pressure to perform a certain way? I
wonder if you can make a parallel and ask Mrs. Suggs about that.
VERONICA MARTIN: Oh, yes, did you feel like you had to be
outstanding in your job?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: No, my daughter was one in high school, you
know. My daughter was in honors classes. And she'd come from
Marquette School. At Marquette, they didn't finish their math
book, you know, they never did get through math, and she was
having a terrible time with math. And this is the girl that's
the principal now. And she did fine with everything but math.
And we were having such a time with math, that here I was
working with her in math, and I took her out of the honors math
class. You know, and of course, she liked to died at that
particular time, "Mom, why are you taking me out of the honors
class?" I said, "Because at this particular time they were
moving so fast," you know, that she needed to get some of that
pressure off of her. I guess she went through-there might've
been two kids that were in the honors classes that she went
through at that particular time. When we talk about
discrimination kind of things, I still-some of the women-she
also was in a Girl Scout troupe. They were supposed to be doing
a play, and this particular mother, we were living in this
particular house. The mother did not want her to-she couldn't
let the girls come over to her house because there was a black
girl in the group, and she didn't want her to come to her house.
Well, of course, as the kids got to talking, you know, that's
what they told her. And it was very interesting because this
woman who's a very prominent citizen kind of thing, and we've
got a chance to get back. She was getting ready to do a business
transaction and she was talking, and I said, "Oh, yes, I
remember you. You're the one that didn't want my daughter to
come to your house." And, of course, she liked to died, you
know. But my thing was-So she didn't want her there, well, that
was her loss. You know, if you didn't wanna associate with me,
that was your loss. I don't think you hide your thing of being
under a barrel. You know, and I think going to teachers and
asking for help, you know, if you're getting behind, go there
and ask before you get too far behind. You know? Yeah, we felt
that all during high school years.
Q: One thing Veronica was saying, she feels pressure to do well
'cause you're one of the few African-Americans. And I was
wondering if, when you were the only African-American teacher,
did you feel the pressure to teach really-
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: No, I still felt like I was an individual.
You know, I think you have to teach to your strengths, and I
think that's the one thing that I was able to impart to the
teachers that came into my building: You teach to your
strengths, and your weaknesses will come up. You know? You feel
like you wanna do well, but don't pressure yourself so much that
it takes away from you, that it puts you under undue kind of
pressure. Just feel rest assured at being yourself, that I will
survive this. You know, this too will pass away. You know,
'cause-don't ever feel that there's anyone better. They might be
a little bit smarter, but not better than you. Okay? They
might've had many more advantages. You know, one of the kind of
things that bothers me, like you guys, and one of the good
advantages, you're learning how to use the lap top and some of
the other kind of things. Some of the children, they started out
up here, but that doesn't make them any better person than you.
You know? And I belong to a bunch of groups, so maybe I'm the
only black person that's in that particular group. But do you
think that makes me feel any less? No. You know, you gotta feel
self-assured, that self-assurance and self-confidence. And
sometimes they will try to make you feel that's a little bit
like cockiness. But, hey, that's okay. You know? That's you and
that's what you're gonna be doing. So you've gotta let it sort
of roll off your shoulders. It does pay off in the end. You
know, it does pay off in the end. And all three of my children
were different. My son, and I guess maybe because-my oldest
daughter, she just-even now she's working on a doctorate out
there, and she's-If she got a D, when she came home, we didn't
inspect the report cards at the dinner table because my son was
happy-go-lucky. He said a C student was a good, average student.
"Mom, don't you just want a good ol' average kid?" Whereas the
other one-so he thought that was perfectly normal for him to-we
had to tell him not to take tomato-growing classes, because at
that particular time, his friends could go out and get a job
after school and make money when they were in the work/study
program. And we were saying to Danny, "You can't be in the
work/study program." But he thought that was a good, average
kid. He came home when he was a senior, a first year senior in
high school, he came home-I took this report card back to school
'cause I thought they sent me somebody else's report card home.
I said, "There must be some mistake." He said, "No, it's time to
get down to business, time to go to college." You know? But
those are values that were instilled in him later, you know, in
life, not necessarily-Sorry to take up all you guys' time.
Q: I have a quick question about Brown. It's 50 years since
Brown vs. Board of Education decision. Do you think that the
dream or the promise of Brown has been realized?
HESTER NELSON SUGGS: I think it has and it hasn't. When I said
has and it hasn't, here again, and I'll go back to Champaign
Unit 4. At one time, when we did the desegregation study, and I
worked on that little committee that did the desegregation
study. We had some guidelines and some things that each school
was held to. You know, and I think sometimes we forgot some of
those. Like we had to have a PTA that had a cross section of
people. We had to make sure our classes had a cross section of
people. Then we went away from that after we got comfortable
with it. I don't think the school of choice does that. I think
what the school of choice does, it allows us to scapegoat
into-even we blacks that have the education and all this,
because we know the importance of that, that we can move our
kids out where they're not doing a good job and put 'em over
there, whereas John Lee Johnson would say, "What are they doing
to them at that particular--" I don't think that rubbing elbows
with Caucasian kids or gifted kids necessarily makes you gifted.
You know? I think the access-before, you didn't have the
access-I think you have the access now. I think it's up to us
now because we have the access, to make sure that we have a
level playing field. What I mean, if my kid wants to go into
algebra or trigonometry or other kinds of things, that the
availability is there, whereas before, the availability wasn't
there. Before, segregated schools in the black neighborhoods and
things, you might get books that other buildings didn't want.
You know? And now everybody has to have at least the same new
textbooks and the same new kinds of entrée to education. I think
that we've sort of gone backwards because we've gotten
complacent. I think if you see the whole spectrum of - I think
desegregation is good, but I don't think that's the panacea to
everything, you know, 'cause educational opportunities are
there. We should be availing ourselves to them, but we should
also make sure that they're there, and those who are
teaching-that's the reason I said that all good teachers-I think
every school should be a good school. You know, and I shouldn't
have to move out because they aren't giving this particular
group of children the educational access that they need. Because
once I move out, I leave a void there. I leave all of the bad
students and all of the non-learning students all in one
particular place, and I don't think that that works. For one
thing, it doesn't teach them how to live together, and I think
that's the main purpose of education, is how to live fruitfully
together so that everybody profits from education. And I don't
this moving out, allowing those people who are a little bit
smarter or a little bit more astute to move to a different kind
of thing where they can all be together, so we have homogeneous
groupings of individuals. But neither do I think that putting
kids on a bus for 45 minutes to a half an hour, you know, that
could be in the learning process, not necessarily in the bus
ride. So I think it has its plusses and it has its minuses. But
when I look at Brown vs. Board of Education, it says that we
have equal access, and I'm not sure that we have as much equal
access as it says. Some of us do and some of us don't.
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