MIC2
===

[00:00:00] Jean Greene: We want to welcome today to the program Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis. Dr. Shirley Davis is Dean Emeritus of Hinds Community College, Utica campus. She served at Utica for how many years, Dr. Davis?

[00:00:15] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: About 40.

[00:00:17] Jean Greene: 40 years of service to Hinds Community College and the Utica campus, but mainly to Utica Junior College and the Utica campus.

tHis session, we want to talk about chapter 10 in Holtzclaw's autobiography, Black Man's Burden. thAt book is Noteworthy for several, several different reasons, but I was really interested in discussing with you his chapter 10, which deals with the teacher's extension movement. And I was really interested in what your take would be on 

what he

was thinking when he did that.

And Sort of what implications that [00:01:00] can have for us today. So I'm gonna let you bring that in your own way. 

[00:01:04] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: Okay. Just to begin, first of all I want to congratulate you and Dan on the work that you have done and are doing as it relates to preserving the history and continuing the research on the Holtzclaw era.

[00:01:19] Jean Greene: Thank you. 

[00:01:20] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: Let me just start by saying a few weeks ago, I was at church, which is usually where I 

[00:01:26] Jean Greene: am, 

[00:01:27] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: and a young man came in and said, Dr. Davis, there is someone outside that wants to see you. And I said, who? He said, well, they say their name is Brown. said, oh, wow. I'm confused. Which end are they on? The longest end or the shortest end?

And he said, they're on this end. And so I went to the porch area of the church. And he went, they got out of the car. And as they approached, I recognized that it was Mrs. Mrs. Brown, who was an English teacher [00:02:00] here at Utica when I began in 1973. And I said, Oh, Mrs. Bessie 

Brown. 

Oh my, I haven't seen you since

last

year, I think, at the district luncheon, or were you there?

And she says, Well, my niece, this is my niece, and we were driving by the church. And I said, stop, this Dr. Hopkins Church. And she said, so we pulled in. She said, my niece has something she wants to say to you. And I said, oh, okay. She said, I was in your class. I said, you were? She said, do you remember me? I said, it's been 50 years. She said, but I wanted to tell you what? impact your teaching had on my life. And I said, Oh, really? What did I do? She said, I wanted you to know that you taught us to always ask the question, [00:03:00] Why? And that has carried me through life and I wanted you to know that. And I said, well, I'm sorry. I said, your eyes look familiar.

I always look in the eyes of people to see. I don't remember. It's been 50 

years. But I'm humbled by your coming to tell me that because that becomes the reward of teaching.

[00:03:21] Jean Greene: Right.

[00:03:22] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: Now, as we move into a discussion on Chapter 10. Chapter 10 is about Holtzclaw's continued desire to lift black people from the burden of oppression. And ignorance, not knowing, which is the reason that he came to this area to try to help his people. And of course, I think that what Holtzclaw was thinking at the time was, there has to be a way. That we can change the behavior of our people

[00:03:59] Jean Greene: Right.[00:04:00] 

[00:04:00] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: from a lack of, to an abundance a dependency on others for their livelihood, to working interdependently, in other words, working together as a community.

to develop the mind and to develop the physical

body,

and to develop the economic situation of the black people in the community and the sociological situation. And so his idea was, if we can't get the people, From the community to come to this school, which I am trying to develop, then what we will do is take the school to them through the people who are our teachers.

And I think at about that time there were about 20 some teachers at the school and and so the extension movement [00:05:00] was to have the teachers go out into the community. and help the people individually in their homes or wherever they would find

them.

One of the things that I think results from that is a removal of the fear of people coming to a school

[00:05:19] Jean Greene: Right.

[00:05:20] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: at later ages.

Now, how does that relate to today? Today we have adult education. 

You know, we have mobile educational units that go into the community. and help the people to learn those things that are important, those things that are of priority. The teachers extension movement broadened from their teaching them to their dealing more specifically with what their Work was their work ethic and where they lived therein lies the beginning of the farmer's conference.

Mm-Hmm. because this was what the people did. [00:06:00] They toiled in the soil. And of course in order for them to have plantations that would benefit them financially and. in the way of food production and ways of taking care of their families.

[00:06:16] Jean Greene: Mm hmm.

[00:06:17] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: They needed to understand farming techniques. So, once again, there's this movement of going into the community, building the community, building community, Holtzclaw was really about changing humanity's behavior from what was considered negative to what might be considered positive. For the people, it was a move away from being in debt.

[00:06:46] Jean Greene: Yes.

[00:06:46] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: Okay, the Bible says that, oh no man,

oh no man. So the idea that Holtzclaw had was, well, we gotta teach the people [00:07:00] how to manage, how to deal with their homes, you know, how to stop renting and start owning.

And so he was teaching them the value of money, the value of ownership, and how this can contribute to a more positive life for you and your family. So, it was about community building. had a passion for helping people remove themselves from the situations that were considered negative. 

hE was also

passionate about race relations, how to get along with the whites in the community, the blacks and whites working together for the improvement of humanity, not just the improvement of one race over another or the superiority of one race over another.

He was [00:08:00] about achieving equality between the two races that were at that time black and white. So Holtz was indeed a thinker. I would say a forward thinker. You know, he was a leader. A progressive leader, he had some setbacks, but one of the characteristics of a leader is that you don't allow setbacks to take you out of the plan.

It's persistence, that you have to be patient. You know, when you try to teach somebody to read that doesn't know how. It becomes a matter of patience and know how. Understanding what the situation is, understanding the reading process. If you're already a reader, you have probably forgotten what it's like to learn how to read.

To labor over letters and words and sight words and this type of thing and put [00:09:00] it together. and string words together to make sentences and then to make sense of that and comprehend information. So, Holtzclaw, and I, I suppose it was not only based upon his having gone to the institute, Booker T.

Washington's school, Tuskegee. It also had to do with his Having grown up in an environment where he had to learn things. So, he came from a practical standpoint, a practical way of living, and also from his having a formal education. And therein lies this, this idea of the Tuskegee Machine. That we will prepare these people to go out into, slices of community or geographic areas. and begin to transfer the knowledge that [00:10:00] they acquire here at Tuskegee to the people who really need to change their behavior so that they can thrive and survive in society. So the Teachers Extension Movement, the Farmers Conference, was a way of contributing to the knowledge of the people in this community.

And also a way that would lead toward lifting this burden of ignorance because it was a burden. It, it was indeed a burden. That's what he saw it as, a burden. It's like a heavy burden that needs to be removed from these people so that they can be the people that God intended for us to be thinkers and doers, you know.

So that was My thinking about chapter 10.

[00:10:52] Jean Greene: I had, thank you. I had when I read it and read some of the quotes from the people who [00:11:00] talked about what he was doing in the community and how we should be, or the people at the time should be paying attention to it. I was moved by how this one young man.

was able to positively influence not only the people he was teaching, but the people who worked with him, and the people he was trying to create coalitions with, the whites in the community, and the whites that he was going to try to get funding for the operation of his school. But when I looked at the teacher's extension move, but having the first I ever heard of that was when we did the Centennial video, where you wrote the script for that. And I was intrigued at the time, just by the phrase, Teachers Extension Movement. Because I was aware of extension workers with the USDA.

So I was trying to figure out how [00:12:00] that could work. With teachers and when I read the chapter and it said that he had divided the community into blocks. And the teachers would go out in addition to teaching. 

They didn't stop teaching. But they had to go out after they got off work into these blocks of the community and then influence or work with people and show them morally how to be.

And then economically how to be. That, that's quite, commitment to get from your teachers.

[00:12:36] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: Yes. The, the one thing that I want to say, about me as a person who the student that I spoke of came in 1973, which was one among my first group of 

students. So that had to be 50 years ago. But when I came to Utica in 1973, It was not because I knew the history of the school. I knew nothing about the [00:13:00] school except I'd had friends who had gone here.

My best friend went to school here and was from here. But I came to Utica because one of the administrators at Jackson State recommended that I go to Utica. to get my first teaching experience

[00:13:22] Jean Greene: Okay.

[00:13:23] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: and then move higher.

[00:13:25] Jean Greene: Mm hmm. 

[00:13:25] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: I was not an education major. I was a liberal arts major. Perhaps that is what you were,

in liberal arts.

I said that to say that I was never taught how to teach.

In education, they teach you how to teach, you know. It's much more advanced than it was when Holtzclaw had teachers, you

[00:13:50] Jean Greene: know.

[00:13:51] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: Now they send you out on the field. They tell you how to do course plans and goals and aims and stuff. I didn't [00:14:00] have any of that.

I'd had a couple of Education Foundation

courses, 

in research and what have you. But not courses where I had to go out on the field for eight weeks and go into a classroom and teach. And what I'm trying to say by saying that is I hate it. to figure out a way to teach what I had been hired to teach, which was developmental English. And in order to teach developmental English, there was some reading involved, you

know.

And so, the thing that the student said reminded me of how I started to try to teach them. And that was the questioning technique. And I've used the questioning technique all my life. That student brought that back.

the questioning technique? is every time you say something, or every time you write a sentence, you say why. Mary went to [00:15:00] the store, why? She bought so and so and so, why? Why? Everything, for everything there's a why. Right. And I did that with my students on how to do the four discourses of writing. How to expand an idea, you know. 

How 

to press your claim in an, in a theme, in an essay.

And and the idea was to question. You know, in journalism, the who, what, why, when. So, that all came together. That was not something that was taught in college, in the liberal arts program. That was something that came from within me.

The one who desired always to be a teacher.

And so I had to figure out, how can I help these students learn what I am supposed to be teaching them? And I suspect, When I think about it, [00:16:00] that this is where Holtzclaw came from, came from within. That, that comes from within and carries over to others. It's like a penetrative force helping people to learn.

And the thing about teaching is You don't know immediately whether you have done an effective 

job. 

it's a reward that you get like me, 50 years later, if you ever get it. If any of your students feel compelled to come back and say to you, You did a good job with me. I didn't ask that young lady what her profession was, what her career was, you know, how she had journeyed through life, whether she had, I didn't ask her anything because she told me that that one question had impacted her life. Now, Holtzclaw impacted lives of people, [00:17:00] old, young, you know, the students weren't all that young that he was talking to out there in the community, but they had children. Holtzclaw knew that if you could engage the community. And if, like you said, if you can develop partnerships with those persons who have money to put into the school, that you can carry forward on your program, and you can use, and this is what he did in essence was through the Teachers Extension Movement,

he begot students,

who could demonstrate that this works, 

this 

helps, this is helping us.

And he also had a way of bringing the community together to resolve conflicts, which is what we are seemingly in need of right now in our inner cities and in the rural areas, where conflicts are happening. [00:18:00] Young people and old people are killing one another because they don't know how to resolve conflict,

you know. 

[00:18:08] Jean Greene: That is exactly right.

[00:18:10] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: Yeah, so I think the extension part is important when you talk about teachers extension But the real word in there for me is movement. think one time you had a video where one person Got out and started dancing, just flinging the arms. I don't know if you had the video or if I got the video from somewhere, but then people were walking by.

[00:18:39] Jean Greene: I had

[00:18:40] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: You had that

video? 

and so another went out and they started

doing what

that person was doing and Then others started doing what that person and before long You had about 50 people doing and they nobody asked that person. Why are you doing 

[00:18:58] Jean Greene: this? Right. [00:19:00] 

[00:19:00] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: It was a movement

That was a movement and that is what Holtzclaw began when he started this teacher's extension movement.

He had gone from trying to build up the school, had a few buildings, he had a few teachers, but he was needing to grow the school. He was needing to engage the community, involve the community, and bring them into the school so that he could increase

the

funding for the school, continued the funding, although he was getting funding from outside.

Of the state, out east, he wanted the people to own the school.

[00:19:47] Jean Greene: That's exactly right.

[00:19:49] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: And that is, that is, that is key. You have to have stakeholders.

[00:19:54] Jean Greene: right.

[00:19:54] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: He was getting stakeholders. He didn't call them that. But that's what they're [00:20:00] called today. They're called stakeholders. And anytime you start working with something like the Community Development Corporation, and or Other agencies that try to change the communities in Jackson Community Development Corporations.

are needed more and more. We have a community development corporation at the church. It took us 10 years to get to where we are now about to do the ribbon cutting on the senior citizens facility where the old Holiday Inn used to 

[00:20:38] Jean Greene: be

On Highway

[00:20:39] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: on Highway 80. But the church and the leaders of the church had to Encourage the people and keep them moving by faith

that one day we're going to have this facility.

[00:20:56] Jean Greene: Right.

[00:20:56] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: You got to give us 400,000 dollars, [00:21:00] for us to start the process and then we've got to get a developer and we've got to do all these things.

[00:21:06] Jean Greene: Mm hmm.

[00:21:07] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: So Holtzclaw's thinking ability went far beyond that time. I mean, he was a product of the late 19th century, early 20th century. And whatever he started during those times in history.

continues to be key issues for our people, our people, even though we've come a long way, a mighty long way, we still have a long way to go. And I think education continues to be the key, not just in the Utica community, but in communities all around throughout the state of Mississippi.

[00:21:49] Jean Greene: That's right. That's right. When you, when you talked about the the movement video, I had forgotten it until you were describing it.

And it was [00:22:00] called How a Movement is Created. You have the one lone person out there doing whatever on their own. And then somebody joins them.

That. legitimizes that person 

so then when others see that that person is not alone but is legitimate then they are willing to little by little join in and we are seeing here, on this campus, in this institution, a need for a rebirth of the movement.

Of the as you said, when you first came to Utica, what your thoughts were about it, when I first came in 2000. I had no concept of who Holtzclaw was. I didn't know anything. I knew Utica was a part of the greater institution, but I had no idea what the historic history was. And I got here and I met folks like you.

And Dr. Mae [00:23:00] Catherine Jackson, and Gwen Strong, and Juanita Smith, and Bessie Brown, and

Ellistine Turner, yes Lord, and James Jordan, and Floyd Tate. All of these folks, Charles Bell, who told me their stories and how they were influenced by the story of Holtzclaw and what Utica, the Utica campus and Utica Institute and Utica Junior College meant to them. And I, began to see we were working, I had just been here two or three years when we started working on the Centennial.

[00:23:38] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: Right.

[00:23:39] Jean Greene: And, About three years. 

that's right. And then when we started working on that, I dived into the history of who Holtzclaw was. And, 

why doesn't everybody know this?

And you and, and Dr. Mae Cathryne Jackson were like, you know, just be patient. We're going to work through this. It's going to be all [00:24:00] right. But I will never forget that that experience of working on that video with you

[00:24:07] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: Yeah.

[00:24:07] Jean Greene: And reading that script about who Holtzclaw was, where he came from what he, what he hoped to gain by coming to Mississippi.

His, his ability to persevere, Doc, when, when everybody turned him down, and not nicely.

[00:24:31] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: Right.

[00:24:32] Jean Greene: And he, you know, had to go back and tuck his tail, but he came back. And the way he worked here, and I knew you'd be able to bring this out because that's who you are, but the way he worked here to me resonates because this is what we need to re establish. So I know one of the questions I sent you was, is he relevant?

[00:24:55] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: Mm hmm, yeah.

[00:24:57] Jean Greene: And, I'd like to hear your thoughts on the [00:25:00] relevancy of, of Holtzclaw to us today.

[00:25:03] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: Yeah, I, I I pondered that and I said, Oh my God, yes, he's relevant. I think of what happened to him on his way to finding this place. Mound Bayou, Mississippi. I'm doing work with a young man that's the pastor of a church in Mound Bayou.

And we've been looking at the property that the ancestors acquired, over a thousand acres of land. in that area belonged to the church at one time, and now there's less than a hundred.

[00:25:34] Jean Greene: Oh.

[00:25:35] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: And so the question that the bishop is asking is, How is it that our ancestors were able to do much with little, and we're doing little with 

much 

[00:25:48] Jean Greene: Huh. 

[00:25:50] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: Holtzclaw was able to do much with little

[00:25:55] Jean Greene: Mm hmm.

[00:25:56] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: because he had faith in the [00:26:00] people and he never backed down in spite of adversity in spite of situations like you said he was turned down he was turned down in Mount Bayou, the black town, Isaiah Montgomery. He was turned down there because they saw black people as a profit making machine. The people who would continue to help them to pick their cotton, to grow their products, and to keep them happy and dependent on them. I think about when I was a child growing up, my mother is 91.

this month. 

When I was growing up there were little grocery stores in the community. And she would say, go down to the store

And

take up some things. Salt, pepper, sugar. Take it up. And that meant Pick it up [00:27:00] and tell them to put it on the tab.

[00:27:03] Jean Greene: Huh.

[00:27:03] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: So they always owed the store. If they made 15, they would go to the store and give them 10 and they owed them 50. But that would allow them to continue to take up stuff, feed their families, and do whatever they needed to do.

Holtzclaw's idea was to Relieve them of that, help them to become debt free, help them to detach themselves from those persons who control their 

lives, and to take control of your life. Education frees us to think for ourselves, and so those persons were not thinking for themselves, they were thinking the way people told them to think.

Therefore, they didn't own anything. [00:28:00] They didn't have a dream. Holtzclaw was teaching people to dream.

[00:28:05] Jean Greene: right? 

[00:28:06] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: Dream.

what you might consider to be the impossible dream. But dream it anyhow.

Move away from these little shacks.

[00:28:16] Jean Greene: Right.

[00:28:17] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: Perhaps we get into that in the next chapter. But it starts in chapter 10 with educating the people and having them to accept the idea that I am not your enemy.

I am your friend, and we know that the principle of getting into any community is, first of all, befriending the people, making them feel comfortable with you, and putting their trust in you. If people don't trust 

you, you, haven't built any trust, you're not going to get anywhere further. You're not going to get anywhere.

past

introducing yourself,

you know, so [00:29:00] Holtzclaw, he didn't just go by and holler and do a famous speech or anything else. In one place in, in the chapter 10, he said he wanted to teach the people how to think, create and develop. So he spent the night with one of the persons and while he was there, That morning, they had some salt meat and some biscuits or something for breakfast.

But he said it was a very simple, plain, dry, he called it a dry, dry

meal. 

So 

he looked over through a hole in that cabin and saw some berries. We called them dewberries. But he plucked a few berries, put them on his plate, added some sugar, and began to eat them. So it was like An addition to that dry breakfast and what happened was people [00:30:00] then learn how to make that a delicacy, but they also learned how to preserve the berries to, to make them, you know, food that could be added to something else.

This, this was a teaching technique that we call show and tell today.

[00:30:17] Jean Greene: Right. 

[00:30:18] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: Show and tell is important in the vocational areas that their practice is show and tell. I learned from voc tech people. What I didn't know in academics. I learned from them. Oh, so this is why you do this, what you 

do. And so, I became somewhat,

I

don't know if you call it cross cultural or cross curriculum.

[00:30:44] Jean Greene: Cross curriculum. 

[00:30:46] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: Cross 

curriculum. You

know, and, and I loved all the teachers. I don't care what they taught. Juanita Smith, cooking. I learned so much from her.

And from the ones that were building.

I learned [00:31:00] from them what academic skills were needed in order for them to do that. Holtzclaw was a bundle of all of these 

[00:31:08] Jean Greene: things.

Mm 

[00:31:09] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: And so, yes, he's relevant. His idea the kind of character that he had, for him, it was important for people to learn how to respect others and respect themselves. So he was teaching them respectability. Respect yourself. Aretha Franklin came out with the 

song. 

Respect. That's important. Because if people don't respect themselves, they're not likely to respect you or anybody else or anything that's done.

So, yes, Holtzclaw is relevant today and he will always be relevant because the things that he taught

were humanitarian.

you know, I mean, humanity is important. Look at, [00:32:00] look at the war and, and how we're 

we're looking at humanity in. What's happening to humanity how are they going to resolve that conflict?

You know, if you hear the president's speeches, yes, it's about sending them some more money. But it's also about our respect for humanity.

[00:32:22] Jean Greene: Right.

[00:32:23] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: How we are going to do humanitarian 

[00:32:27] Jean Greene: Right. Right. And you're right you've hit so many points during this session. Trust, you have to build trust. He's teaching, he taught people to become more sustainable in their agriculture, in their, in their ability to provide for their families he taught them about budgetary responsibility, and I know we'll probably get more into that in the next session, but in this one, Those points that you were making strike home so seriously [00:33:00] for me.

The other thing, when you were talking about questioning, and as a journalist, I was taught, you know, who, what, when, where, why, and how.

And so when I'm, I'm looking at a story, I'm getting ready to write an essay or I'm getting ready to do a speech, whatever I'm thinking, who am I talking to? What is this about?

You know, how am I going to get this across? How can I get that to a person as succinctly as It clearly is possible. This is what Hopscotch was doing when he sat at those folks table and took those berries, something they had on hand

[00:33:38] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: Right there 

[00:33:39] Jean Greene: Right there.

outside the hole in the wall. And they hadn't thought about bringing that through that hole and putting a little sugar

And making what, what folks pay a lot of money for now, some marmalade or some, some compote.

[00:33:54] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: right?

[00:33:55] Jean Greene: And he took the known, what should have been known [00:34:00] and made it clear for them. that the way the, teachers went out and did that, the responsibility that he placed on his teachers to work with not only a person's mind, but with their life. 

[00:34:14] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: Right. 

[00:34:15] Jean Greene: You know, we, we look now Dr.

Davis, and we are not, we are not really, and I'm talking, we as an educational profession, sometimes we're not willing to even take up. Clearly, the way the old school teachers did, you and, the folks who preceded you and who came just immediately after you, who took the student from where they were, whatever base that was, and helped uplift them to another level. Holtzclaw took those people where they were and brought them up. Now. You know, I see folks not wanting to, to You know what I'm saying. They don't want to talk to them where they are. Why can't we get the students that are like this level? [00:35:00] Everybody got students on this level. It's what you're willing to work with and how much you're willing to put into it to bring to fruition.

The dream of William Holtzclaw. Well, Dr. Davis, I'm going to end this session. Thank you so much for your thoughts on chapter 10. I look forward to you coming back and talking with us on chapter 11. I'm really looking forward to that. So thank you and we'll see you next time.

[00:35:26] Dr. Shirley Hopkins Davis: You're welcome.

​