Darnell Haney Interview |
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| Title | Darnel L. Haney Interview |
| Summary | USU alumnus and former basketball player Darnel Haney was interviewed at his home in Ogden on July 31, 2006. He talked about his parents and his childhood in Phoenix, Arizona where he was the first black athlete to play high school basketball. He describes the difficult financial times his family faced after his father was killed, when Darnel was seven years old. Periods & events in his life after that included attending an all-black elementary school, working odd jobs to boost the family income, playing high school sports in Phoenix, joining the Coast Guard, trying out for the 1956 Olympics, playing basketball for Phoenix Junior College, being recruited for Utah State University, coming to Logan in 1959 to attend USU and play basketball, meeting his wife-to-be (Marie Packer) there, and his later career as a teacher at Weber State, then as Director of STudent Activities at Lorraine County Community College in Elyria, Ohio. Throughout he talks about racial attitudes he has encountered during his life. Interviewed by: Brad Cole and Bob Parson (Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections and Archives) |
| Subject |
Haney, Darnel L. -- Interviews Race discrimination -- Utah -- History School integration -- Arizona -- Phoenix Race discrimination -- United States African American athletes -- Interviews African American teachers -- Interviews |
| Date Original | 2006-07 |
| Material type | Interviews |
| Digital Publisher | Digitized by: Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library |
| Date Digital | 2006-08 |
| Language | eng |
| Type | sound; text |
| Format | audio/mp3; text/pdf |
| Rights | Reproduction for publication, exhibition, web display or commercial use is only permissible with the consent of the Utah State University Archivist, phone (435) 797-0894 |
| Transcript | Note: Written transcription has been edited for clarity by Darnel Haney. This is Brad Cole from Special Collections and Archives at Utah State University we're visiting with DARNEL HANEY today in Ogden, Utah at his home. Also present in the room is Bob Parson, University Archivist from Utah State University. And it�s July 31, 2006. Cole: So I would like to start out, Darnel, with maybe you would tell us when and where you were born? HANEY: I was born February 6, 1937 in Phoenix, Arizona. One of 11 children, I am the seventh child; I grew up in Phoenix from K through Junior College. And then I went into the service. Cole: Maybe tell us a little bit about your parents. Who they were and how they ended up in Phoenix? HANEY: Well my mom and dad were both raised in Louisiana. In a place called Ringgold outside of Shreveport, about 50 miles west of Shreveport. And my dad was a general laborer; my mom was a housewife until he died. My dad was murdered when I was about seven. And my mom became the sole support of the family. She was a domestic worker. And as a domestic worker on welfare, she raised us children. Luckily we had our own home and most of us did all kinds of odd jobs. From picking cotton, shining shoes on the streets, any odd jobs we could get. My mom was a very, very spiritual woman. She raised us within the Baptist church and we did what we could. When we were young she encouraged us to stay in school, education was very important. She said you can�t get a job without a high school diploma. I was the first in my family to graduate from high school. I played sports in high school. I was the first black athlete to play high school basketball in my city. It was at the time integration was really high. The Little Rock situation was in bloom and I was one of 25 black students to attend Phoenix Union High School which is one of the largest high schools in the nation. It was actually the 3rd largest high school in the nation with 6,500 students; I had the opportunity after graduating from elementary school. We had what was called the platoon system, eighth grade and then you moved to ninth grade through twelfth grade. Well, when I graduated from the eighth grade I had the opportunity to live with an aunt in California. That was the first year I went to school with white kids. I went to Westlake Junior High school in Oakland, California and there I was introduced to sports for the first time. I stayed there for one year then I returned to Phoenix. That was the first year of integration at the high school. So I was one of 25 black students to enter Phoenix Union High School. Cole: Do you remember what year that was? HANEY: That was 1953, and I was the first black student to play football and basketball. I was introduced to a man that became sort of a mentor of mine, my basketball coach, Ed Long. [4 minutes] He�s still a very good friend of mine today. I played basketball and football and ran track and during those times it was quite segregated. Black kids were in their own society. There were quite a few problems and the coaches took a great deal of pressure, I�m sure. Of course at 15/16 years old you don�t really notice a lot of the things they had to suffer and maintain in keeping black kids on the team. Fortunately, we were great. We had championship teams. You know in my high school career I only lost one basketball and one football game. We were state champs in everything we participated in. The first year I went to high school there were 25 of us and there was still an all black high school open. [5 minutes] They closed that the next year and then those students joined us at the all white high school. And of course we were state champs in football and basketball. I became all-state. We�re in the hall of fame today, our high school is, back in, I guess they have the archives back in Wisconsin I think it is, for basketball. Anyway, our team is there. At that time people were wearing very up to date clothes. I had hand-me-downs. I used to take the gym trunks from gym and wear them as underwear because I didn�t have any and the sneakers, what ever was left over I could use those. As I said I chopped cotton, I picked cotton, I tied onions, I picked potatoes, I threw garbage, I did everything I could to help my family as much as I could. Upon graduating I had some scholarship offers [6 minutes] but you know clothing was very important. You go to college and people were wearing Jansen sweaters, that�s what was really popular at the time. I had levis, I mean I was 6�4� in the ninth grade, so I dwarfed everybody around me. I couldn�t really wear hand-me-downs so we�d go to the rummage sale and my mom would buy a pair of pants and we�d cut the legs off some old pants and make them longer. Put a big cuff in them, you know stuff like that. And we used to do a lot of things with our shirts, we�d take the worn collar, turn them up, the Fonzi look you saw, we used that look because you turn those collars up, you couldn�t see the worn collar. Just getting lunch money was a chore. My high school coach knew that many times I wasn�t eating lunch and he would come and get me and say �I need to talk to you about basketball� and he�d buy me lunch. That kind of thing. [7 minutes] We had practice that afternoon so I had to be up so he would buy me lunch. He did that many, many times. And of course he came into our community, the black community. He talked to my mom. When I had a toothache or something he�d set it up so I could go to a dentist, get some things done for me. Little things like that, he was always there for me. I decided I wanted to join the Coast Guard. I wanted to join the service. I threatened to go in high school when I was 16. At 16 you could go into the service but my coach talked me out of it. He said you have an opportunity for a future so I stayed with it and did graduate then and I went into the Coast Guard. I was stationed at Alameda, California. [8 minutes] I became an instructor at a boot camp because I could swim and I was athletic. For 2 years I played basketball for the U.S. Coast Guard then I was transferred to the Navy and played all over, all over the country. I even tried out with the 1956 Olympics, when I was in the service. I spent 2 years in the Coast Guard, for the first time in my own bed, and I had a little money to go to a restaurant and have something to eat. And those uniforms were, you know, I was in style because I had everything there. Then I returned home and my high school coach was now the Junior College coach, at Phoenix Junior College. I had signed up for 4 years, Coast Guard, [9 minutes] but I got out on a hardship discharge, he helped me get out. I came back and I played basketball at Phoenix Junior College.We won the regional championship. That�s when I first came to Utah. We came in to play Weber Junior College here in Ogden at the old Weber High School gymnasium. I remember that�s the first time I saw snow in my life. Now this was in March and there was some snow here and I was out at the old Weber High, this Ogden Inn, right here where the sign goes across Ogden. We stayed there and I was out in the parking lot making snow angels. Anyway, we beat Weber Junior College, they had been the national junior college champions the year before, and that�s when Utah State saw me. They started to talk with me. Parson: Who was the coach at Utah State that year? Baker? HANEY: Cec Baker, yes. And they talked to me about coming [10 minutes] but I looked at a number of places and I really had no idea. I had a good friend who played at the University of Utah, Alan Holmes, he had been at the University of Utah and that�s all I knew about Utah. So I came up for a visit in the spring and it was so green here. I come from Arizona. Anything green was beautiful, just absolutely beautiful.The people were really warm so I decided to come to Utah State. That summer I came up and I was the only black person in Logan. I remember I was staying in the old Romney stadium dormitories. There I met another good friend, who had played for Utah State years before, a guy by the name of Sam Haggerty. [11 minutes] He had come back from the military and was coming to complete his degree. Parson: Can I ask you a question? Of course Phoenix is a lot larger place than Logan, probably at that time a lot larger than Salt Lake I�m sure. Pretty substantial black community there and segregated. Most of the black population in Phoenix came from outside of the region initially like your family came from Louisiana. Did you have a sense of � HANEY: The demographics of where the people came from? I have no idea because we had been there for so many years. My Dad, they were in Louisiana, some white man grabbed my mother�s backside and he decked him. And so they had to hide my Dad to keep him from being killed. [12 minutes] He and his brother left Louisiana. This is in the 30s and came to Phoenix. They went to Texas first and then migrated to Phoenix and then my mother and her two children came later. The guys in Louisiana walked the street with a shotgun waiting, looking to kill my dad. So that�s how we wound up in the west. Then my dad became, he was a garbage man, worked for the city of Phoenix pulling garbage.He was killed when I was 7 years old. He was visiting his cousins and some guys attacked him and he was stabbed to death on the streets of Phoenix. I never had the opportunity to go south until I was in the military. I was stationed in Alameda, California and I was on the All Navy [basketball] team that beat the Coast Guard. Parson: A lot of time we think of ���and for a long time it was such a small minority, still is, I�ve always been curious how Phoenix���. HANEY: Well I went to an all black elementary school. There were two in my city, one on the east side of Phoenix and one on the west side. I lived on the west side so I went to a place called Dunbar Elementary school and then to Mary McCloud Bethune Elementary school. [14 minutes] There were Hispanics in our community but Hispanics were considered white so they were integrated into the system even though they were discriminated against as we were but there was a large population in my community. We had some neighbors who were Mexicans and many who could not speak English. The children could and we used to communicate with them. Often times at Christmas they would make a lot of tamales and my mom would make a lot of pies to exchange. Parson: At least I always think of segregation as initially being an issue in the south not so much an issue in the west. HANEY: Oh no, it was very definitely. There were theaters we couldn�t go to and when we went to theaters we had to sit in the balcony. I was a shoe shine boy on the streets of Phoenix. Just like the south, it was no different. My mom was a domestic worker, the women had their maids just like my mom was a maid, she cleaned houses and cooked food and she brought food to our home, the leftovers from the tables [15 minutes] where she worked. Welfare was really cruel to us because they had commodities that they gave but we could only get powdered milk, or powdered eggs, and sometimes butter, sometimes flour, yet we knew that whites could get other things that we couldn�t get. Parson: Whites on welfare? HANEY: Yes. They could get clothing, shoes, and they had first choice of all of those things. I remember my mom often times as a domestic worker walked to work a lot to save the pennies that we had to get things. And of course we picked cotton to get our school clothes and tied onions, cut onions, and tied carrots and things like that, everybody had to chip in. I used to do what we called running alleys. We used to go through before the garbage men got there and look in the garbage for things we could find in there that we could sell like clothing, or if we could find copper [16 minutes] or pop bottles. We used to take little wagons that we made from scraps. As I said we made our own shoe shine boxes where we would walk the streets and shine shoes for 15 cents a shine. So you�d learn very quickly how people didn�t want you around because there were very rude people. In our own community we had our churches that we attended which were totally segregated and we often dealt with, �Make a joyful noise in the church, the hallelujah, the amen and the praise the lord.� The only place we could be free was in that church within our own congregation so that�s where basically our parents tried to protect us and keep us safe in those areas. [17 minutes] Parson: I�m assuming your basketball coach was a white guy? HANEY: Oh yes. Ed Long was one of the few men who would just come into our community and talk to my mom and treat her as a person not just as a gal. Just recently we celebrated our 50-year championship in Phoenix and I went back. Our whole team was there, [18 minutes] except for one kid who passed away, and our coaches were there. I said I didn�t realize the pressure you must have been under in the 50�s when you invited us to your home. And it was just a matter of fact for him it wasn�t anything. He was a graduate of Arizona State University. He was a basketball player there, he had all daughters so we were his sons. Cole: I assume the high school was integrated because of Brown vs. The Board of Education? How did the community react to that? HANEY: Oh there were some hostilities because at dances they scrutinized and made sure people didn�t dance with one another: whites or blacks. Most people weren�t interested in doing that anyway because we knew the line. Yes, there was a lot of animosity. [19 minutes] They didn�t want that to happen but it did happen. If we were losers it would have been worse but since we were state champs they accepted you more. That brought some status to it but my sisters, and my cousins sometimes had it rough. I was afraid to come to Utah a little. What would it be like for me? Would it be safe for me? [20 minutes] Parson: Did you find any community in say Ogden or Salt Lake that you could turn to? HANEY: I didn�t have any money to go to these places, you see you have to have transportation and you have to have a little money to move around. No I really never came to Ogden. I came to Ogden one time I think the whole time I was in Logan. People had never cut black hair before in Logan. Where do you get a hair cut? My mom didn�t have any resources to send money to me when I came to Logan, the scholarship I had didn�t cover most of the things I needed so I took odd jobs doing anything I could [21 minutes] to survive. My shoes had cardboard in the bottom of them because of the holes in them. And people talk about dating. How can you date when you don�t have any money? Who do you go with? You know you go to places where everybody goes to as a group, that�s the kind of thing you did. Parson: What year did you come to Utah State? HANEY: 1960. [22 minutes] Parson: Was that before Utah State had a full ride scholarship? HANEY: No, we had full ride. But that didn�t include spending money. So usually I took a summer job. Cole: What was Logan like for you, then when you were living there those couple of years? HANEY: Well it was fearful at first. Of course I�m adventurous and I think I was strong enough to stand up and I didn�t go places because I knew there were restrictions even in Logan. They had their motels that would not allow me to stay there. The Mitchell Motel [23 minutes] which was right there on campus, we couldn�t live there. There were restaurants we couldn�t go to. And I was skeptical about going to the theaters. Sometimes I would just walk around by the streams. Go up the canyon and walk around, stuff like that. And of course people thought �We�re gonna� have a great team.� etcetera. That was short lived. That was Cec Baker�s last year my first year there. USU was rated 4th in the nation when I got there. Cornel Green was there, Tyler Wilbaum, Max Perry and all those guys. They had won the NIT I guess the year before. That first year was a disaster for me, because, we didn�t have a good season. Unfortunately, you know I have always been a person who respected people for who they are but that year I started to date a local girl and of course that wasn�t accepted at all. And since we were a losing team, I was a big problem for Utah State. They wanted me out of there. [25 minutes] They watched me every place I went. I met another guy who was a very good friend of mine; he was an art instructor, guy by the name of Larry Elsner. He taught art there for many years. His wife was from Japan. He taught ceramics and he became a very good friend of mine. He warned me of a lot of things that might happen. Of course I was naive to a degree too about what was going on and it just became a disastrous year. It was a very painful, lonely year for me; even many of my black friends would not talk to me. They were afraid because I was causing trouble for them by inter-racial dating. See all those guys were dating inter-racially too but they weren�t doing it openly. Cole: What was her name? [26 minutes] HANEY: Marie Packer. Cole: How did the two of you meet? HANEY: In the Art Barn. I was also in a play up there: Paint Your Wagon in the amphitheatre. Bosco Call was the director. USU had a lot of kids from New York who came in for the theater programs. So I had a lot of friends in that area and I did a lot of work in dance programs. So I had a lot of friends from out of state who were dealing with the community and being kind of ousted too. If you weren�t LDS, you were not basically accepted. [27 minutes] But anyway, inter-racial dating created quite a stir and a losing basketball season and of course then Cec Baker lost his job. And then LaDell Anderson came in and they told him point blank to get rid of me. And he said, �If he goes, I go.� He stood up for me and he fought for me. These are things I learned later. Larry Elsner was telling me a lot of things that were going on. Friends were afraid for my safety. They thought maybe somebody would try to do something to me. [28 minutes] I had no idea about those things. We got into the new season and won the first 7 games. How things changed. Cornel Green and I were the only two blacks on the team. We won the All Conference that year. From then on, people looked at us differently. [29 minutes] Cole: Did they have an anti inter-racial marriage law in Utah? HANEY: I don�t know about the laws but I remember Larry saying something about his marriage was not recognized by the state of Utah. I remember him saying that to me. One day all the black students on campus were called into the vice president�s office for a lecture on inter-racial dating. We were told the community did not approve of inter-racial dating and it was suggested to us that we not do it. There were two black female students on campus and seventeen black males. Parson: Did you have any church affiliation here? HANEY: Yes, I went to first Presbyterian Church there, Dr. Minor. But I never talked about racial problems with him. [31 minutes] Bobby Anderson wrote his Master�s Thesis on LaDell and me. Have you seen it? Parson: I have not. Was it at Utah State? HANEY: Yes, Utah State. Bobby Anderson. I think I have a copy of it someplace here. But it should be at USU. [32 minutes] I had roommates who would tell me, �Boy you better watch yourself. They�re out to get you.� and things like that. I didn�t realize the danger. Cole: I am sort of curious, I think at that time Utah State had quite a few foreign students too. HANEY: A lot of Iranians. Cole: How were they treated? HANEY: They had there own problems. But I remember the year before [33 minutes] I got there, a black student, Chuck Belcher, was voted vice president. The foreign students were the ones who really got him in. But they had their own world to deal with. Cole: So they weren�t brought in when the president talked to you? HANEY: Oh no, it was only the blacks, not anything with the foreign students at all. And as I recall the, in classes a lot of insulting things took place. In Biology I remember, the biology teacher saying �There must be a nigger in the wood pile� in his lecture. Things like that. You�re sitting there looking around �What�s going on here?� and other people making remarks behind your back to other students about you. You know, �That�s why these people are so far behind� and �That�s why these people are a problem in this world.� I had some pretty decent white friends [34 minutes] that would come back and tell me these things so yes, there was discrimination, very strongly and that�s why you find the clusters of blacks. Parson: There was a memo I found in the presidential papers. Remember Milton Merrill? The vice-president. HANEY: That�s who called us in. Parson: Anyway he wrote this short little memo to the president saying that he was surprised to learn that the colored community do not prefer the word �colored�, I mean the, just the cultural ignorance of having to deal with� [35 minutes] How did they refer to you other than the �n� word behind your back? HANEY: Negro at the time you know was a comfortable word for them to use. Parson: What was the �. HANEY: Black. Many people just didn�t know. How many people had ever been around black people before? They would ask �Well, what do you people want to be called?� I would say �I want to be called Darnel, number one.� And ethnically you have to take a look at the cultural relationship and say there�s a progression. At one time we were colored, Negro, black, Afro-American, now it�s African American. We have to be very patient in many areas. When people would say something [36 minutes] like �I have a nice colored friend.� and I would say �What color was he?�, and this kind of thing. Because we are all colored in a sense and I would try to teach that. You are looking for people who would receive you as just a person. I remember walking downtown Logan and seeing black families drive through and I would wave. Just because I saw a black face, something that was maybe positive for me. I knew they were just passing through because there were none living there. [38 minutes] Cole: What was your degree when you graduated? HANEY: Sociology. Cole: And did you go to graduate school? HANEY: Yes, I got my masters in sociology at Utah State. Cole: Where did you go from there? HANEY: I worked at Weber state for 16 years. Then I went to Ohio and worked for 10 years at a community college. I worked as Director of Student Activities at Loraine County Community College in Leary, Ohio outside of Cleveland. Cole: Wow, that was where my wife was born. HANEY: Leary? I never heard of that place until I got there. It�s a beautiful little town. Right on Lake Erie. Cole: And how were the conditions there compared to Utah? HANEY: Leary is a very broad but very ethnic community. They are very polarized. You have your Slavics, your Germans they�re really pocketed all over in Ohio, and so you find differences in everybody. I would travel around and go to different churches every Sunday. I visited the Amish, the Mennonites, and it was kind of fun. It was quite a bit different than it is here. That was an excitement for me to see the differences and of course there are stronger democrats there than there are here. Cole: How about your involvement with the civil rights movement? HANEY: We were afraid because most of us were athletes up at Utah State and to get any type of movement what would it do to our careers? There weren�t any protests in Utah. I didn�t see any in Logan. Where would we go, what would we protest? Living conditions? We knew about everything that was going on in the world and we talked about it among ourselves and we had white friends who would talk about it too. Most were in support of us in the community. A university town is a lot different than other places were. And so it was discussed in classes. Cole: What would you say is the state of race relations today? HANEY: We have come a long way in many areas. You know you find people who do accept people much more because of exposure. They have to be imposure in order to have exposure, right? So when you force someone to look at something for the first time it broadens their peripheral vision and that is what has happened to a degree. Yes, things have changed but a lot of the things remain the same. Parson: Have you seen any changes you would characterize as a back lash over say the last 10 years? HANEY: Not particularly because of course I have been in education all my life and people there are a lot more risk taking in the universities and colleges than they are in other places. More tolerant because there�s a broader base today and movies have done wonders. You know we�ve had social things that have taken place. We still have discrimination in hiring in the state of Utah. How many non-white teachers do you think a white kid has had in the state? When you find, and I have a young doctor friend here, he knows the culture but he has not been hired as a professor, but as an adjunct. He�s black. Yet they�ll hire someone from out of state who will come in and is only going to be here a couple of years then leave because they aren�t part of the culture, they don�t know the culture. I remember at Weber State we were interviewing people and they didn�t want to hire the local black. Dr. Crawford who�s at Weber State now, he was a graduate of Weber State. He had his doctorate from BYU and we had to fight to get him on campus. How many black professors are at Utah State? How many has there been in the last 10 years? Parson: In order for them to go outside, I mean there�s just not that many in the African-American educational community that would be interested in coming to Utah State. HANEY: That�s not true. People say that, but I came here and I made my home here. I would go to Kalispell, Montana. People have gone to Alaska. There are a lot of blacks living in Alaska today. Parson: So what�s stopping Utah State University? HANEY: We�re not recruiting. Parson: They�re not actively going out and looking for them? HANEY: No. I mean its expensive isn�t it to go look other places? Yeah, I understand that but, when we have those who are qualified within the state are they given an opportunity? Right now Ogden City is going through some problems with principals. There are people here who have worked for years and years, can�t get a principal-ship because they are black. And I have talked to some of them because they were students of mine at Weber State. If you have people who are in your community already, and they can�t get jobs what kind of attitude is that going to be for others who come in? We have traveled all over the world and taken positions and have endured every kind of prejudices and we still stay there. Like the Asians. Give me an opportunity. Don�t make the decision for me. Let me make that decision. Parson: Do you think you would have come here if it hadn�t been for the athletics? You were recruited to come here? HANEY: I was recruited to come here. No I don�t think I would have come here without athletics. I wouldn�t have had the opportunity. Exposure was the big thing, what I found. If a black person comes to town and looking for a job he�s going to ask what it�s like to live here. Like I said, �Where does a black person get a haircut in Logan?� I went downtown. Used to be Low Cost, used to be a barbershop there. One summer, I went down and made the guy cut my hair. Because I couldn�t find any place else. I couldn�t go to Ogden. Cosmetologists at Weber State would recruit black women or black men to come in to cosmetology so they could learn how to do black hair. See if you are a barber you should know how to do anybody�s hair. There�s a guy named Willy Moore here, he�s been here for 50 years, he cuts everybody�s hair. His barbershop is also for the white people and he�s a black guy. He can cut hair. And that�s what we talk about in education. Black History is no longer the way to go. Every discipline should have some component that deals with ethnic diversity; every discipline. John Vanderford has all these work shops for teachers and I go in and I work with him and talk about diversity. Every summer he has science teachers from all over Utah, Idaho, Nevada, who come into Utah State. But he�s dedicated to trying to broaden the peripheral vision through NSASA. When you get out of the university you�re going to be working with everybody. And if you�re afraid of working with people who are different from yourself, you�re not going to be successful in America. I have been doing genealogy for the last 40 years; only gotten back to 1840. But I go to the church office and they help me greatly. They�re reaching out. Every February they have a big program in Salt Lake to go with genealogy for blacks and black history month. That is progress. [52 minutes] There�s a little poem I read some time ago by a man named Alfred Duckett and he says �I�m tired. Not because I have been working overtime. I�m tired of being black. Of being forced to be what black is supposed to be, and not being able to trust my fellow man, or to appreciate my white fellow man. [53 minutes] I must hold hands with a dying society where the love is draining out. I just have to tell you I am tired. I�m tired of the hate.� See my blond, blue eyed granddaughter over there on the piano, that�s my whole family over there, my daughter, my sons and their families. And those are my three kids here [54 minutes] and they have always treated people with respect. They know their ancestry and they are proud of it. That blond, blue eyed granddaughter who says �I�m black.� [55 minutes] For fifty years I have fought this battle. When do I just become Darnel Haney, the American? That�s what I want. I want to be able to live in this country which I love. I will die for this country, as any man would but I will also protect my family by any means necessary, as any man would. I�ll take you out to the barn and show you some of my art work I do, cultural art. I�m dealing with my heritage. Everything from Africa to black America. I�m the first person in my family to receive a university education. I have a niece who has a master�s degree, she teaches in California. I have nephews who have their degrees. [57 minutes] Parson: That�s an improvement over time. HANEY: Oh yes. Oh yes. Parson: Opportunities were not as abundant before your generation. HANEY: I worked in correction here for five years too. The majority of kids who came through were not black and many of them never come into contact with a black person. I see them on the streets today and they say �You changed by life. You changed this because of what you are, what you said.� Parson: That must make you feel good. HANEY: Oh yea, you know you don�t get that many rewards in. Parson: You have had a very interesting life. HANEY: Life is what you make it as I said before. Parson: I would like to talk a little bit about was the incident with BYU. HANEY: You know, I think that was a psychotic break that I had with the pressures that were on me. I�ve been called nigger ten thousand times on a basketball court, I would say. �You block this nigger�s shot�, and go on with it. But with all the pressures that build up inside of you, it wasn�t BYU, it wasn�t that at all, it had nothing to do with it, it was just my emotions that had been building for months and all the pressures of the community, [60 minutes] the hate that I received. How long do you maintain? So it was just the wrong time. It had nothing to do with BYU. It could have been Colorado State, it could have been Arizona State, it could have been anybody it was just my feelings torn apart and at the wrong time it released. You know I have felt bad about that for many years because that�s always a thing that comes up. Parson: Just from what little bit that I know about it; I didn�t ever assume you were in the wrong. HANEY: Well, I was wrong for doing it. [61 minutes] Parson: That�s real big of you to say that. HANEY: When you come off on somebody, when you strike out, you have let them take control of you. I�ve lost and then what have I taught my kids if somebody says something to you in hostility? Parson: So you didn�t think BYU was anymore bigoted than�.. HANEY: [62 minutes] They were because they practiced not recruiting blacks at the time. Eddy Tillman was an All State player, they didn�t want him. They didn�t want black players. Pete Newell from University of California didn�t want any blacks at his school either. Said they were too hard to keep on the team. It was not just BYU. There were bigoted places all over. If you went into a restaurant and someone said �We don�t serve those kind of people.� [63 minutes] What would you do? Parson: What would I do if I heard that? I�d probably get up and leave. HANEY: Most people wouldn�t. They don�t want to be involved. I had a friend who worked as a sociology professor at Weber State, he took his co-worker to a restaurant in Orem. Some people came in and said, �You serve salt and pepper in this place?� The proprietor said �You can leave, we serve everybody here.� I was in Brigham City with my family in the Red Baron. They wouldn�t serve us. [64 minutes] This was when my kids were about 9-10 years old. We went in the restaurant and they refused to serve us. We sat at the table for an hour and finally I spoke to the management who made the waitress serve us. When Sam Haggerty�s mother came to visit for his graduation Mitchell Motel would not let her stay, she could not find a hotel in Logan. She had to stay in the dormitory. We had a room in Bullen Hall that we put her up in. Cole: Was that the case when you were in graduate school too? HANEY: I was living here, I was commuting. Cole: Did you go directly into graduate school after graduating? HANEY: No, I taught in California [65 minutes] for a number of years and then I came back and I worked at Job Corps for 5 years. During that time I was getting my master�s degree at Utah State. Very few people will stand up and say that is wrong, because they are afraid of being shot. Not just in the south. [66 minutes] The Aryan Nation in Idaho? They have the clan here in Utah, they had leaflets all over this area for a period of time recruiting. You can get a job at [67 minutes] a fast food restaurant, make minimum wage, and take care of yourself. If my mom can do it, anyone can do it. There are many people like her. You sit and listen to some of these old folks talk and tell their stories and they�ll tell you some things, the kind of wisdom that does not come from books. Parson: Are there young people with the pluck your mother had? HANEY: [68 minutes] I hope so. I think my daughter is a very strong young lady. She�s the only black person in her community, she�s a very spiritual person, very strong. I think she has a lot of chutzpah as the Jewish people say. I�m not in the education world as I once was where I was out there dealing with all the young people, but I see strength. [69 minutes] Parson: You have been very candid now. We appreciate it. HANEY: If I can help someone on the way, so be it. My sons are fantastic men too. My oldest son works as a trainer for State Farm Insurance in Colorado. The other is an art graphic designer, in Salt Lake. All of them have their degrees. [70 minutes] My wife is the same way. She is very resilient in that manner. Parson: It�s been a pure pleasure to talk to you. When I was a little kid I used to watch you guys play���..up towards Nelson fieldhouse. My dad and mother had tickets. My mother actually worked in the athletics department. Her name is Kerry Parson. She worked for the athletic director. ���������but you know I had an aunt and uncle and they used to go to those games and they would ���.on the court. My parents �all they wanted to do���..but they never��.. HANEY: There are some black people who feel the same way, you know, they want nothing to do with whites. I was back in Ohio speaking on a campus and someone was talking about Muslims, black Muslims, and Farrakhan. I said any man who pontificates hate is not a person I can admire under any circumstance. And I ask many kids [72 minutes] �Do you have a black or white friend that you treat on an equal basis in your life today?� �Can you go to the home of another person that�s not of the same race as you and feel as comfortable with that person as you do with a person of your own race?� Ah, Charles Barkley just wrote a book �Who�s Afraid of Large Black Men?� Read it. It�s interesting. He says �How many people can talk about their personal friends of a different race today?� I know I have friends equally from all races. The guy who came here who did the article on me for Utah State Magazine, he�d never been to a black home before. [73 minutes] And he was afraid to come here at first. He mentioned that to me. He said when he was a kid he got beat up by some blacks. I said if we went by that, we wouldn�t any of us be talking, would we? Parson: I had absolutely no exposure to black people �.. I grew up in Cache Valley and the only black people that I ever saw were athletes playing for Utah State University. HANEY: [74 minutes] My wife had the same experience. The first person she saw in Logan was Lou Jones, remember him, he used to play football at Utah State years ago. I remember when I first went to school with white kids in junior high school and the girls would come in with pin curls and then rat their hair out in home room. I used to sit there and I�d look at their hair and I thought �That�s dead hair.� I�d never seen white hair close up before. It was different so I can understand people looking; you know there is nothing wrong with looking. Parson: You know people are supposed to look at someone and see they are no different from you but that�s not true. Whenever you see anybody you realize that they are different but that doesn�t necessarily mean anything other than that they are different. HANEY: And the beautiful thing of it is you share it. Someone says �Can I touch your hair?�, sure, �Go right ahead.� �How do you comb it?� �With a comb just like you.� Just little things like that. [75 minutes] How do we get past this? Well education is the number one means I know and universities and colleges must be diversified, they must have diversity to broaden the vision of those students who come to them for an education. I teach, I learn continuously, that�s what life is all about. You never get too old. There�s a little poem that is called �Youth.� �Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear and despair�these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust. Whatever your years, there is in every being�s heart the love of wonder, the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing child-like appetite for what is next. In the central place of every heart there is a recording chamber; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer and courage, so long are you young. When the wires are all down and your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and then only are you grown old.� Parson: You have some art work? HANEY: Yea, I�ll take you out and show you. |
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