Exchange Place: How A Small Struggling School Transformed Civil Rights in New Orleans and the Nation
Season 1, Episode 10: The Cole Sisters: An American Family

JULY 28, 2023 | THE 431 EXCHANGE; MYA CARTER, JEFF GEOFFRAY (HOSTS); PAMELA COLE (GUEST); KEVIN GULLAGE (MUSIC)

TRANSCRIPT:

Ep. 10 - The Cole Sisters

[Dear Audience, this transcript corresponds exactly to the Youtube Podcast version that has a slightly different structure for the opening three minutes. Therefore, while the words correspond perfectly the timecode is off by 30 seconds or so. Thank you for your understanding. Thank you.]

[00:00:00]

[00:00:00] Pamela Cole: My dad went to New Orleans at the age of eighteen because his mother passed. He had a younger brother and sister, and they moved in with relatives in New Orleans.

He had uncles who worked for the L&N Railroad that got him a job so that his paycheck would help support his younger brother and sister. His Uncle Isaiah Porter was his father figure. Uncle Ike, as we called him, was [00:00:30] in our life into my late twenties when he passed away. He was a constant figure at our house.

My mom was from Newberry, South Carolina. Her mother was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. And that's how they ended up in New Orleans from Newberry, so her mother could go to Charity Hospital to get treatment.

[00:00:49] Mya Carter: The 431 Exchange presents Exchange Place: How A Small Struggling School [00:01:00] Transformed Civil Rights in New Orleans and the Nation. Exchange Place is the story of a school whose mission was to train mostly African American women the skills they needed to integrate the secretarial offices of the Deep South between 1965 and '72. Those offices were not just segregated, for the most part, they were completely off limits to women of color, and many were fighting to ensure the workplace would stay that way for years or [00:01:30] decades to come. The first season of the podcast tells the inspirational biographies of the school's graduates who changed the moral skyline of their city, how they did it, and how the schools' teachers and supporters struggled to overcome the massive forces arrayed against them.

Episode 10: The Cole Sisters

An exchange between Pamela Cole, Adult Education Center class of 1972, and Jeff Geoffray, the youngest son of the Center's director, [00:02:00] Dr. Alice Geoffray.

Part 1: Early Life

[00:02:04] Jeff Geoffray: Your dad quit high school after his mom passed so he could take care of his younger brother and sister. His Aunt Fanny and Uncle Ike stepped in to help put a roof over his head and help him with a coveted job working for the railroad. Uncle Ike became like a surrogate father to June. June's railroad job as a freight handler didn't take him away from New Orleans and his family. Your mom noticed him in the neighborhood because she saw how good he was as a [00:02:30] caretaker to his little brother and sister. He liked to sing on his walk home from work and he had a beautiful voice.

[00:02:36] Pamela Cole: He had this beautiful tenor voice, he would make it go up and he would make it go down. We used to sing at home a lot. And my dad was the one that would try to keep us in line with our voices.

[00:02:48] Jeff Geoffray: So here's this tall, handsome man singing on his way home from work. And your mom had to figure out a way to get his attention.

[00:02:56] Pamela Cole: It was actually my aunt who shared that with us. She said my mom would [00:03:00] sashay to get him to notice her. [laughs].

[00:03:01] Jeff Geoffray: He did notice her, and they got married and started a family. He had a steady job, plus he worked odd jobs on the weekend. And your mother worked too, sometimes as a domestic. With both parents working, would you say your family was in the middle class?

[00:03:17] Pamela Cole: I'm not gonna say middle class because they shared a house with my mom's brother and his wife. So it was like often you had a multifamily sharing [00:03:30] one house. At that age, I didn't know if we were poor but I guess we were because I was a number six. And so I'm sure to have six children and you're sharing a house with another family, that was pretty chaotic.

[00:03:44] Jeff Geoffray: Whereas home loans, interstates and other support and infrastructure projects were making it possible for White Americans to move to the suburbs as their families grew, most suburbs had strict racial ordinances that made them off limits to Black families, and [00:04:00] even other minorities. So housing availabilities for Black families were limited. Moving in with relatives, even if you had a big family, was a common option.

[00:04:09] Pamela Cole: Finding homes was difficult for somebody with six kids. Somebody else would have to rent a house for you and then you slowly assimilated in with that family so that the whole family could survive. You pooled resources.

[00:04:25] Jeff Geoffray: Your mom took care of the children of two of her sisters who had died. So you had a large [00:04:30] household.

[00:04:30] Pamela Cole: She only had two sisters living out of four. As with all Black families, those families merged in with yours.

[00:04:37] Jeff Geoffray: Eventually, you moved from the neighborhoods to the St. Bernard Project, one of many projects that had been built for low income people after World War II, but places that were becoming increasingly segregated, and along with becoming segregated, were also more and more poorly maintained by the early 1960s. What schools did you attend?

[00:04:58] Pamela Cole: Yeah, I went to Edward [00:05:00] H. Phillips for my early years, while Carol, Brenda and Eunice went to Medard H. Nelson. It was when we were in the St. Bernard Project that I went to Phillips because it was a brand new elementary school that they built.

[00:05:15] Jeff Geoffray: Your brother Pete, who was a Boy Scout, an altar boy, and a talented artist started getting into trouble while you lived in the projects, that prompted your mom and dad to try to get out of the projects. They finally found a home that was big enough for you and [00:05:30] your sisters, brothers and cousins. You moved from the projects to Lapeyrouse Street in the 7th Ward near McDonogh 42.

[00:05:38] Pamela Cole: We stayed in a project roughly about four years, we moved on Lapeyrouse Street when I was about nine, and I entered third grade at McDonogh 42. So we were living on Lapeyrouse Street at that time where we remained up until my sophomore year in high school, and that was the house we [00:06:00] lived in when Carol started the Adult Education Center.

[00:06:04] Jeff Geoffray: It seemed like everyone had to have more than one job to make ends meet. Even with Juneius' full time job, he had more than one side gig to pay the bills.

[00:06:13] Pamela Cole: Mr. Bertussi, that's who my dad would go and help out on a Saturday. Mr. Bertussi realized that my dad had all these kids and would give him odd jobs to do on his day off. One of the things I do remember was Mr. Bertussi gave us [00:06:30] his Chambers stove. He knew my dad liked to cook. When he remodeled he bought his wife a newer stove, but he had the old stove at their house delivered to us and I loved it, it was an old-fashioned stove but it had a grill in the center where we could make pancakes.

[00:06:49] Jeff Geoffray: June controlled the kitchen, not your mom.

[00:06:51] Pamela Cole: He did all of the cooking in the family. You chopped seasoning, you peeled shrimp, you was his sous chef, then you exited the kitchen. He [00:07:00] was known to sneak squirrels and rabbits in the house and then tell you it was chicken, so, so we would say, "Go in the kitchen, ask for a glass of water. If it's in newspaper, we know is wild."

[00:07:11] Jeff Geoffray: June expressed a lot of joy in cooking.

[00:07:14] Pamela Cole: The whole time he was cooking he would have his little bottle of L&J sweet vino. He cooked with it, he drank with it, but he would always tell us, "Whenever you're cooking," and I tell everybody he said this before Justin Wilson, "Never cook with a wine you can't [00:07:30] drink and don't drink a wine you can't cook with." I would go in the room and tell my mama, "Mama, daddy is pouring wine in the food. We're gonna be drunk."

[00:07:37] Jeff Geoffray: He was creative with his cooking, but he was also a methodical meal planner. He prepared food on Sundays in a way that would leave leftovers for the week. Not to mention preparing the red beans and rice for your mama to put on the stove for Monday dinner.

[00:07:51] Pamela Cole: My dad was very precise. He had to be in bed by six-thirty. So by seven o'clock, he wanted the [00:08:00] whole house quiet because he got up around four-thirty.

[00:08:03] Jeff Geoffray: Was it unusual to see a man doing the cooking?

[00:08:06] Pamela Cole: We had never heard of dads doing the cooking. It was always the moms. It upset my older brother until he took over those responsibilities with his own family.

[00:08:16] Jeff Geoffray: In another role reversal, your mother fixed everything in the house and taught the girls to do it too.

[00:08:22] Pamela Cole: She taught us how to paint, how to nail. If the iron cord would fray, she'd cut that cord off and put it on the stove [00:08:30] and keep ironing until she could get the iron over to her brother because my brother would change out the cord for her, but nothing stopped her.

[00:08:37] Jeff Geoffray: June had another language that he used with his family.

[00:08:41] Pamela Cole: My dad was a whistler. He whistled from the bus stop home. When we would see him come around that corner, he was usually toting a bag upon his shoulder from the circle food store. He would come up the street and he would just be whistling and waving at the neighbors. When he got in the house, he would say, it was like a [00:09:00] "tu-tu," that was to let us know he was home so we knew his little whistle tweet. When we made too much noise, It was, uh, a little bit longer to let you know, okay, y'all working on my last nerve. But we knew what each one of his whistles meant.

[00:09:15] Jeff Geoffray: The close knit neighborhood you lived and was filled with stores you could walk to including many stores owned by Italians and other minorities.

[00:09:23] Pamela Cole: When we lived on Lapeyrouse Street there was the cleaners and his name was Mr. Prince. Mr. Prince was not [00:09:30] only the cleaners, but he was also the cobbler. You took everything to Mr. Prince. He would shine your shoes, put on a new heel, add a tap, and then clean your suit for you. It was one stop shopping in the neighborhood before it was even popular. When Easter came, you got that pair of new Easter shoes. You wanted that heal to last so your mama told you, go tell Mr. Prince to put the tap on these heels so that kept your heel from wearing out so soon.

Then two doors down from him was Liuzza's. [00:10:00] She was an Italian lady and she was a sweet shop. But Miss Ernie carried socks, stockings, she carried burettes, she carried ribbon. That's where you bought all your hair ribbons. Back then, you had to wear ribbon in your hair everyday at school or your teacher put a paper hair bow in your hair. So you would go in there and you'd say, "Miss Ernie, I need a yard and a half of ribbon. So it was one stop shopping on Lapeyrouse Street.

[00:10:25] Jeff Geoffray: Your mom's oldest sister, Aunt Marjorie, made it possible for your oldest [00:10:30] sister, Joanne, to leave New Orleans and go to school in Washington DC, where Aunt Marjorie lived with her husband. Joanne eventually graduated and focused on a career in anesthesiology. Carol, the second oldest girl, became the mainstay of the family for you, your mother and your remaining sisters. She also was in the first graduating class of the Adult Education Center and became one of the first Black secretaries at Shell Oil. Carol, like your dad, seems larger than life to me, the [00:11:00] ideal sister, a working woman, a great mom and wife, a lifelong learner and a deeply spiritual woman, a woman known for her great taste, charm, and poise. What an incredible role model she was for you and your sisters.

[00:11:15] Pamela Cole: Carol felt her job as the older sister was to be a help mate to my parents. Let me shoulder some of the responsibility. You could rely on her for anything. So whatever Carol said became the law with us. And [00:11:30] my mom, she said, "Okay, Carol, you in charge." And Carol would manage the house. My mama said, "Carol, I'm gonna be working," like sometimes when her lady would go out of town or go on vacation with her husband and they would ask my mom to stay with the kids, it would be a week. For us it meant, okay, my mom is going to make extra money because she would say, "Oh, they're gonna pay me a hundred dollars to stay with the kids." A hundred dollars back then spent like a thousand. It meant we gonna get some special treatment when Mama come home. So Carol [00:12:00] was eager to step up. My mom did not have to worry, Carol would step in at PTA meetings where after the PTA meeting, you would go in and the teacher would say how well your child is doing. Carol would step in and go to those PTA meetings, get our work and come home. And she was adamant about telling my mom everything. So you did not want to get a bad report.

[00:12:20] Jeff Geoffray: Your mom was working as a domestic, so Carol helped manage the household when your mom was working. For instance, when your mom would stay overnight with quote, "Her [00:12:30] lady," as you say, Carol seemed like someone old beyond her years, including how she managed her money.

[00:12:36] Pamela Cole: She was a saver. Carol would save every penny. After she did the obligation to my mom and took care of whatever needs she had, everything else was put in a bank. That's what I learned from Carol.

[00:12:49] Jeff Geoffray: Carol had a keen interest in culture.

[00:12:52] Pamela Cole: Oh yes, Carol was our culture advisor. She was an avid reader all her life and [00:13:00] when Carol learned she was eager to pass it on. Carol introduced us to James Baldwin. I think I read James Baldwin, "Another Country," as well as James Weldon Johnson's "The Creation." She introduced me to "Manchild in the Promised Land." Carol wanted us to be aware of Black poets and authors. That was her, her thing. She wanted to make sure we knew our history and the culture, and I thank her for [00:13:30] that every day.

[00:13:31] Jeff Geoffray: As soon as Carol graduated from high school, she started working full time as a dishwasher, and at other menial jobs. She didn't feel like she could afford to go to college. She wanted to earn money so she could help with the family expenses. She also liked to spend some of her hard earned discretionary cash on things that would benefit her sisters. One of those things was something that made a big cultural impact on you, if not your quality of life, she bought a stereo [00:14:00] and with it, introduced you to artists who would change your life.

[00:14:04] Pamela Cole: Yep, a stereo from La Biche's. It came with four albums. I'll never forget, one was Miriam Makeba. One was "Roar of the Greasepaint." I think two other ones was maybe a Frank Sinatra something, but it was what La Biche's would do. They would give you albums so you can have something to test your music out on until you've been to the record store. But I fell in love with the Miriam Makeba. [00:14:30] My mom and dad just knew Louie Armstrong, Pearl Bailey, but Carol actually brought home music that still is with me today. Nancy Wilson, Nina Simone, Roberta Flack and all of the great people.

[00:14:47] Jeff Geoffray: You said that the cleanest place in the house was around the stereo, because everyone wanted to be closest to the music when you were cleaning the house on Saturday.

[00:14:55] Pamela Cole: That's the only way you got your work done, was to put on the music early [00:15:00] Saturday morning, and everybody wanted to fight to clean up the living room and the first bedroom because that's where the music was.

[00:15:08] Jeff Geoffray: Carol reminds me of the actress Diahann Carroll. Whether playing a poor welfare mom with seven kids or an aspiring nurse, she projected a positive self-image. Carol was a saver, but she also knew how to spend her money in a way that projected a positive self-image.

[00:15:24] Pamela Cole: She had that same class as Diahann Carroll. My, uh, sense of style, [00:15:30] fashion, how you dress, all came from Carol. She would pay sixty-five dollars for a pair of shoes and I would say, "Sixty-five dollars?!?" I would be thinking like that's a lot of money, she must be rich. Everybody in New Orleans was a seamstress. She would have clothes made. But she would not deny herself a good pair of shoes. That was her one thing.

[00:15:53] Jeff Geoffray: In 1965, with so much going for her, Carol felt adrift. She was working [00:16:00] as a dishwasher in a Chinese restaurant by Lake Pontchartrain. She didn't feel comfortable quitting her job, and going to school for several years. She wanted to start a career as soon as possible. She was in a long term relationship with her future husband, but neither she nor Alvarez, who she had met in high school, thought it was a good idea to get married before they were further along with a stable living. Then, practically on a dime, she came home one evening after work and said she was going to [00:16:30] quit her job to go to school at the Adult Education Center.

[00:16:33] Pamela Cole: It was a Hong Kong restaurant, something like that. But she said it was out on the lakefront. I know she didn't like the late hours, you know, coming from that area at night. She never said who told her about the school but she heard about the school. I remember her telling my mom that she was quitting her job and that she was going to go to school and become... She said, "I'm gonna go to school and, not become a secretary but I'm going to go to school and get some typing skills."

[00:16:59] Jeff Geoffray: Carol's decision [00:17:00] had a profound impact on you. To keep up at school, Carol rented a typewriter to practice at home.

[00:17:06] Pamela Cole: It was a manual typewriter. So the kitchen was the last room in the house, typical shot gun, and the girls occupied the bedroom. My mom and dad had the first bedroom and the girls had the bedroom next to the kitchen. My dad had to get up early in the morning so we had to close the door off to their room. There was no door between our room and the kitchen. So Carol, she would be at the kitchen [00:17:30] table and she would be there typing "now is a time for all good men to come to the aid of their country." We didn't have TV, even if you did, you couldn't look at it after a certain time.

But hearing her enunciate the words N-O-W, now is the ti- and she was spelled the letters out as she typed, N-O-W, and it would be slow. Then I could see the progress. I started to hearing her go click, clickety click, first it was click, click, but then it became a rhythm. Then I'd, I would [00:18:00] listen every night and she would have different things that she would bring home to type and practice, that's what spoiled me, I wanted the keys to sound click, clickety click, click, clickety. That was why when she was not at home I would get on that typewriter and with my two fingers, I would be trying to type, "Now is the time," just so I could hit clickety, clickety, and then slinging that platen over and hearing that bell go bing, that was music to me, that was truly music.

[00:18:28] Jeff Geoffray: Carol was learning [00:18:30] techniques to dress for the office in a fashionable way without breaking the bank. So you were learning along with her.

[00:18:36] Pamela Cole: I don't know which teacher it was, she brought a simple Black dress to class and showed them different ways you could wear the same dress. It was to show them that until you get on your feet, find yourself one good dress that if you have to wear everyday, make it look new. So it taught them how to wear a scarf, how to throw on a jacket, how to add [00:19:00] jewelry. Up until then, we had never really accessorized unless we were going to a ball during Mardi Gras time.

We knew the crystal drop beads and a crystal necklace but day-to-day, you just put on simple clothes and went on to work. But the school introduced charm class because they realized that women were going to have limited resources to enter the job market. So their thing was let us show you the type of foundation you should have, women still wore undergarments, [00:19:30] girdles, slips and things like that, and how you can accessorize your clothing and put forth a professional unified look. When I got to the school, that was my favorite class. After I saw Carol, I looked forward to learning the charm. I just wanted to know how to dress.

[00:19:48] Jeff Geoffray: When Carol abruptly decided to change her hairstyle to an Afro in 1967 or so, it nearly broke the family apart.

[00:19:56] Pamela Cole: One day, Carol came home, cut her hair [00:20:00] off, washed it, washed all of the straightening out her hair and she said, "I'm wearing a natural from now on." She never told us what made her do it. But Carol started wearing the natural.

[00:20:11] Jeff Geoffray: Junius blew his top.

[00:20:13] Pamela Cole: When she had the hair cut so that she could personify that Afroism that was going around, my dad was upset. That was the hairstyle of militants and the Black Panther Party. That's what he affiliated with it.

[00:20:27] Jeff Geoffray: She was committed to representing what you [00:20:30] describe as Afroism, and all that it meant.

[00:20:33] Pamela Cole: She truly was, and I think it was because she would listen to Nina Simone albums and when I listened to Nina Simone, I understand that spirit. When I read Nina Simone's autobiography written by her daughter, I understood the pain she was feeling. That resonated with Carol. Carol was a deep feeling person, if you made her cry, you was like, "Oh, my gosh, I made Carol cry?" That meant you [00:21:00] hurt her deeply.

[00:21:01] Jeff Geoffray: Going natural was a meaningful political and cultural statement for Carol.

[00:21:06] Pamela Cole: Meaningful thing for her, yeah, it wasn't just style for her. It wasn't just style.

[00:21:12] Jeff Geoffray: June was upset about how that political statement could put his daughters in danger. And then all of his daughters joined in for their own reasons, including you.

[00:21:22] Pamela Cole: Oh, yes. After Carol got the Afro, Brenda followed, and then Eunice follows, so I hadn't gotten mine yet. But [00:21:30] he was like, "I'm not gonna have no militant living in my house." So he said, "All y'all can get out." My mom said, "If they go, I go." So he had to back down but oh, he was incensed every day, he let us know he did not appreciate it, he did not like it.

[00:21:48] Jeff Geoffray: Why do you think he was so incensed?

[00:21:50] Pamela Cole: He was always concerned for our health. When the mini-skirts came out, oh, my dad had a fit. Six girls, [00:22:00] and "You think you're going to be baring your thighs?" Like my dad was old fashioned to the max. I can remember when we were little, and my mom bought us some shorts. He made us burn those shorts, "No, you will not be burning any shorts," my mom would say, "June, it's hot." Mm-mmm. My dad did not believe in shorts. We had to wear pedal pushers or something like that.

[00:22:22] Jeff Geoffray: Did you associate the Afro with what was referred to as Black militancy?

[00:22:25] Pamela Cole: No, not at all. When I was in Junior high, the Vietnam [00:22:30] War was prevalent in the news. A lot of the young men were beginning to let their hair grow a little bit longer. They were supporting shorter 'fros, but most of the females were not until Angela Davis came to the forefront. Angela Davis wasn't so much a militant, as much as being a female, a strong female. There were other females, but she was the one that stood out. The younger women started wanting to emulate Angela Davis.

[00:22:59] Jeff Geoffray: You lived in the St. [00:23:00] Bernard Projects for a few years until your oldest brother Pete started getting in trouble. And your dad was fearful that his girls might encounter the same kind of troubles.

[00:23:09] Pamela Cole: Pete got in trouble when we moved into the project. Pete got in bed with some guys, I know the first time the police came to out house, he was fifteen. And they told my mom, Pete was in a stolen car. That did not sit well with my dad. And that's what precipitated us moving out of the project. Because my dad thought, "Okay, he's [00:23:30] getting in bed with bad guys." Up until then, my brother had been a Boy Scout and altar boy, then a few months, maybe a year into living in the project and now you're getting in trouble? I can remember as a child before living in the project, my brother took me to a Boy Scout meeting with him, it was a Christmas party they were having. And that was how I found that he was a Boy Scout. But he was the type of kid who would go to the store for neighbors on his bike. And then when we moved into the project, I s- I [00:24:00] saw a change in him.

[00:24:01] Jeff Geoffray: Later in life, your perspective on Pete changed.

[00:24:04] Pamela Cole: Later in life, my brother told me, he said, "There were six girls, I'm the oldest boy. Do you know what those guys were saying to me about hurting y'all?" You know, he said, "What I did, I had do to protect y'all."

[00:24:19] Jeff Geoffray: Then you started recalling all the times your brother intervened as his sisters' protector.

[00:24:25] Pamela Cole: I can remember Joanne just wanted out of New Orleans, but [00:24:30] she was adamant about finishing school. She was walking home from the bus stop. And some girls who thought she was uppity, decided that they were going to jump her. So these girls jumped on her at the bus stop and another guy came and told my brother, he said, "Your sister is being double teamed up at the bus stop," and I'll never forget, he ran out of the house to go help my sister. And then so for a while there, he took it upon himself, "I gotta walk Joanne to the bus stop and I got to be there at the bus [00:25:00] stop when Joanne gets off the bus."

[00:25:02] Jeff Geoffray: Pete was not a naturally tough guy, but he felt he had to be tough when he moved into the projects.

[00:25:08] Pamela Cole: You have a teenager moving into an area where you got to prove yourself, especially with the male child. Unfortunately, my brother had curly hair and dimples. The girls liked it, but it didn't sit well with the guys. And as a matter of fact, he had, uh, a slight scar in his cheek where he had fallen off the bike when it was raining. It ended up [00:25:30] him getting stitches in his face. Well he told the guys that that scar on his face was because he had gotten into a fight.

[00:25:36] Jeff Geoffray: Pete's baby face may have saved him when he got in trouble with the police. In the book, "The South: Jim Crow and Its Afterlives," Adolf Reed describes how a young Black teenager was tried and sentenced as an adult for the same crime Pete was accused of. According to Reed, a year into his sentence at Angola Prison, the character in his book was murdered. Pete covered up his artistic [00:26:00] talents when he lived in the projects.

[00:26:02] Pamela Cole: My brother had very good artistic talents that just came naturally. He painted a mural on the bathroom wall that was swans and cattails. On the kitchen cabinets, he drew ducks, but this was a talent he had to do so that the boys in the project didn't know he thoroughly enjoyed painting.

[00:26:23] Jeff Geoffray: Eunice Cole, who attended the Center after Carol was the bootleg hairdresser from the family.

[00:26:29] Pamela Cole: Carol [00:26:30] introduced us to style, but Eunice was the bootleg hairdresser in the neighborhood. Eunice learned how to cut hair without attending one beautician school. She didn't go to cosmetology school or anything. Eunice was the one who cut my first set of bangs. She gave me my first hair cut. She would cut teachers' hairs at school, she would look at a picture and somehow figure, I can do that. And she would do it.

[00:26:56] Jeff Geoffray: Eunice's sense of style impressed Wanda Nichols of [00:27:00] Amoco before she had even graduated from the Center. Wanda had been a teacher and counselor at the Adult Education Center during its first class, and then went on to a full time position with Amoco. Amoco, originally part of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Trust was as recently as 1950, the largest producer of oil and gasoline in the United States. When Amoco and British Petroleum combined in 1998, it was the world's largest industrial merger.[00:27:30]

[00:27:30] Pamela Cole: Your mom brought Wanda Nichols in to talk to the students, Wanda saw Eunice and immediately said, "Oh, I want that girl right there."

[00:27:39] Jeff Geoffray: Wanda made a job offer to Eunice way before graduation, but Eunice didn't want to start before she graduated from the Center. When Eunice did join the company, Wanda helped to prepare her for a higher role in the company.

[00:27:52] Pamela Cole: Eunice wanted to graduate. She joined up with them right after graduating from the Adult Education Center, so [00:28:00] she had a bonafide job offer. She worked with Wanda Nichols and she would tell me how Wanda would take her to lunch and show her the proper utensils to use. Wanda took her to a party to show her how to present yourself in a social setting. She was really grooming Eunice for a higher life within the company, trying to make sure when the time came for her to move up, she would be prepared.

[00:28:26] Jeff Geoffray: It was Eunice's image, the way she looked and the way she carried [00:28:30] herself that literally stood out to Wanda.

[00:28:32] Pamela Cole: I think that's what struck Wanda Nichols about Eunice, was that Eunice was the tallest one. Eunice was about five foot six or five seven. And she was trim and slim, she always made sure her hair was well put together, clothing and she just carried herself elegantly.

[00:28:52] Jeff Geoffray: Brenda Cole was the third sister you saw graduate from the Center before you had even finished high school. Before Brenda attended the Center, she [00:29:00] attended Southern University for three years. But she left before graduating because she thought, especially with the experience of her other two sisters, that the Center was a more direct path to a good job.

[00:29:11] Pamela Cole: Brenda was a little bit different because she was at Southern for three years. So th- her viewpoints were a little bit more radical than ours because I think she was more influenced by what was happening on the college campuses.

[00:29:25] Jeff Geoffray: Southern University in Baton Rouge was an historically Black college, but it [00:29:30] was governed by the Louisiana State Legislature, a body historically, adamantly opposed to desegregation and equal rights of any kind for that matter. Southern became a hotbed for political action in the late 1960s and '70s. And their reaction by the powers that be, was typically an overreaction with fatal consequences. The governor responded to a student led boycott with 300 police and National Guard and even a tank, an ensuing [00:30:00] melee resulted in the death of two unarmed students. No officer was ever charged in the crime. The incident incited other violence, including, in his own words, the violent rampage of Mark Essex in New Orleans, even though Brenda was more radical than you and your other sisters, she wasn't entirely comfortable on the Southern campus, so she withdrew from school. Meanwhile, you and your other sisters in the family felt that Brenda had a problem with her self-esteem. Whenever she excelled at something she [00:30:30] withdrew. That was unfortunate, as she was talented in a number of things from cooking to public speaking.

[00:30:36] Pamela Cole: Her self-esteem was little low at times like Brenda had a beautiful voice, could sing but even as a child when they recognized her skills at St. Raymond and they asked Brenda to sing at the St. Raymond Mother's Day Program, Brenda did not show up.

[00:30:53] Jeff Geoffray: Brenda was asked to do a speech for graduation from the Adult Education Center.

[00:30:57] Pamela Cole: Your mother asked Brenda to do the [00:31:00] graduation speech. Brenda didn't want to do it. I'm not sure what hotel it was, but the dishwashers went on strike. When Brenda found out the dishwashers were on strike at the hotel, she said I cannot cross their picket line. I'm not going to do the speech. So she expressed that to your mom. I think they settled the strike and time for the graduation to go on. But it didn't sit well with Brenda. Brenda still did not want to do the graduation speech.

[00:31:28] Jeff Geoffray: Brenda went on to [00:31:30] graduate and landed a job as one of the first Black CRT operators at Charity Hospital. So by the time you were a senior in high school, you had seen three of your sisters go to the Center, graduate and get a job that helped them become independent financially. But your role model was actually your mom's sister, Aunt Marjorie, who had helped your sister, Joanne, graduate from Howard University in Washington, DC. Life was centered around family which made Joanne's returning home to New Orleans a big deal.

[00:31:58] Pamela Cole: The difference in [00:32:00] those days was everything was centered around family. Everything. You had family that lived in walking distance to you, number one. So you could always walk without relying on transportation, a bus or cab to visit family. It became that much more when family from out of state came home for the holidays and that family type relationship was rekindled, you know.

[00:32:27] Jeff Geoffray: Ties between the family in New Orleans and the extended [00:32:30] family who had moved away was intricate. For instance, an aunt who lived in New Orleans helped pay her nieces and nephews private tuition to go to Catholic schools.

[00:32:38] Pamela Cole: My aunt never married and she never had children. So we were like her kids. She was, uh, working as a nurse in Detroit. She helped my dad put us in Catholic school. I was a real youngster at that time. But Carol, Brenda and my oldest brother and my oldest sister went to St. Catherines before they closed the school [00:33:00] down. Then my aunt put Eunice, me, and Brenda through St. Raymond's Catholic School.

[00:33:06] Jeff Geoffray: Your aunt in Detroit felt indebted to your dad for helping to raise her. Meanwhile, your Aunt Marjorie, your mom's sister, helped put Joanne, your oldest sister, on a path to higher education that led her out of New Orleans.

[00:33:19] Pamela Cole: One of my mom's older sisters, my Aunt Marjorie, was the one who educated my older sister, sending her to a college in Washington. It was her dream to educate [00:33:30] my sister Joanne and then my uncle's oldest daughter. When they first came to New Orleans with their mother, who was sick. Their mother brought my Aunt Marjorie, my mom and my Uncle Tim, the three youngest, and the rest of the family remained in Newberry. My aunt felt it was her responsibility to take care of the younger two. That was just how I always remembered her, she was the one who called, check on you, see if there was anything you needed, she bought my oldest brother his [00:34:00] first bicycle. Before she, uh, moved off to DC, she was the one who would help my mom care for us.

[00:34:08] Jeff Geoffray: The family managed to put enough money together to pay for Aunt Marjorie to go to a private secretarial school for Black women right before or during World War II. During World War II, there was a brief window where the government was known to be hiring Black women for jobs in Washington DC. Some of the same factors that came into play, that made it possible for the women depicted in Hidden [00:34:30] Figures to become computers, opened a window for Aunt Marjorie too.

[00:34:34] Pamela Cole: I think it was either just before or during World War II when they were needing secretaries and everything because that's how she ended up in DC working for the government. They heard that they were hiring.

[00:34:48] Jeff Geoffray: Aunt Marjorie became a role model.

[00:34:50] Pamela Cole: In third grade, I wrote her a letter and she responded, it was part of a penmanship class. And I got to read that letter in front of the class. That left an [00:35:00] indelible mark on me, not so much because I got to read her letter, but because she responded to it.

[00:35:07] Jeff Geoffray: Aunt Marjorie was solidly middle class.

[00:35:10] Pamela Cole: She and my uncle had a very middle class lifestyle. He was a Mason, and she was one of the, uh, I forget the female version of the Mason club. But that was their social life. They built a beautiful brick home that had a basement that was furnished where they entertained during the '60s. One thing I remember, was all [00:35:30] her photo albums would be pictures of them entertaining, much like you would see in the old Ebony magazines. That left a mark on me.

[00:35:39] Jeff Geoffray: One mark that Aunt Marjorie left on you was the idea that if you left New Orleans, you could do better.

[00:35:44] Pamela Cole: For me it meant when you left New Orleans, you did better. That was the message it sent to me. Once you leave, you can always do better.

[00:35:54] Jeff Geoffray: Your oldest sister, Joanne, with the help of Aunt Marjorie, went to college and became an [00:36:00] anesthesiologist. She was a modern career woman through and through. But when she had her first child, Shawn, there was a clash between her career, motherhood and marriage that was complicated by a severe case of what we would recognize now as postpartum depression.

[00:36:16] Pamela Cole: Joanne's whole idea was to have a career. When she got pregnant, her husband wanted her to quit her job as an anesthesiologist and be a stay at home mom. Back in the 60s, they were not [00:36:30] diagnosing postpartum depression. My mom had to go up to Detroit and stay with Joanne and her husband for four months. My mom ended up bringing Shawn back home with her and became his protector. But she was never overly motherly with him. I was more of his mother from the time he came home, I took him on, helping my mom to care for him once I got out of school. He and I were very close to the point that when I dated my first [00:37:00] husband, he actually thought that Shawn was my child because Shawn would cry and carry on every time he would come over to court me or whatever. Shawn just wasn't having it. And so he told me one day, he said, "Are you sure this is not your child?"

[00:37:13] Jeff Geoffray: In myriad ways, the process of desegregating schools and workplaces was a burden that fell on African Americans. The slow moving plans for integrating the New Orleans schools almost derailed your high school experience, just as it was coming to an end in [00:37:30] 1970.

[00:37:30] Pamela Cole: I think up until I went into high school, most of the schools in New Orleans were still segregated. When I was in my senior year, I got a notice I was to attend John McDonogh on Esplanade. I'm in my senior year and I wanted to graduate from Joseph S. Clark. So what we did was, what everybody did, you gave a false address so that you could stay in the school you wanted.

[00:37:56] Jeff Geoffray: It was kind of an open secret how many students were [00:38:00] trying to get out of being transferred to newly integrating schools. Sometimes administrators looked the other way.

[00:38:06] Pamela Cole: One of my teachers, his mother was our neighbor. When I saw him one morning, dropping his daughter's off, I asked him for a ride to school and he said, "Oh, who are you visiting?" I said, "I'm visiting my grandmother."

[00:38:19] Jeff Geoffray: That's the epitome of a neighborhood school. You living next door to your teacher's mother, teachers giving rides to students. Then your principal gave you a ride to school one morning.

[00:38:29] Pamela Cole: I was [00:38:30] walking to school down Galvez Street and my principal blew his horn and gave me a ride and he said, "Are you visiting your grandmother again?" So I kind of think they knew but they didn't pressure me to go to John Mac.

[00:38:43] Jeff Geoffray: Your younger brother Stacy was the first to attend an integrated school.

[00:38:47] Pamela Cole: My younger brother Stacy, graduated from John McDonogh in 1974. He was the only one in our family to attend integrated school.

[00:38:58] Jeff Geoffray: Stacy thrived to [00:39:00] John McDonogh, developing his musical talents and ultimately going on to a successful musical career as a trumpeter with the likes of the great Dave Bartholomew, bandleader and co-writer of many hits for Fats Domino and others.

[00:39:12] Pamela Cole: Yes, that was where he further developed his musical talents, he played with a lot of groups in the '70s, before he returned to his jazz roots around the late '80s, to the early '90s, he started playing with Dave Bartholomew.

[00:39:28] Mya Carter: Part [00:39:30] 2: The Adult Education Center

[00:39:33] Pamela Cole: When we went to the school, it was a type of family. We knew that everybody wanted us to succeed. That has stayed with me for so many years because I think back on when I came out of high school, and I was unsure what direction I wanted, I look at going to college, but then my heart wasn't in college because I [00:40:00] wasn't sure of what I wanted to be, or do at eighteen years of age. Because my sisters had gone to the school and had so much success, it seemed to me that was one option I did have while I decided on what I wanted to be at least I had that option.

[00:40:21] Jeff Geoffray: What made you finally decide to choose the Adult Education Center over other options?

[00:40:25] Pamela Cole: To go into school and feel welcomed, [00:40:30] especially when I met women who were like me, but also some of them were mothers and I wasn't, but they were mothers and yet, we all were able to find a common ground, we all knew we would help one another to get where we needed to be. And again, that family type thing, even with people that you were meeting for the first time.

[00:40:52] Jeff Geoffray: In New Orleans, the neighborhood one grew up in said a lot about who they were, the neighborhood was a part of who you were. At the Center, you met [00:41:00] people from all over New Orleans.

[00:41:01] Pamela Cole: Normally, I just knew people in my area of town. But at the school, I met people who were from Uptown and from areas that I had never visited. But once we attended the school, we all just became, we are the next class to graduate from the Adult Education Center. And we all wanted one another to be successful.

[00:41:22] Jeff Geoffray: One of the concerns of the faculty was to have a healthy balance between competitiveness and camaraderie. For instance, [00:41:30] the school was constantly having contests from typing to speech making, and of course, the Model Secretary Awards. The faculty wanted the students to set high standards for themselves. Did you feel a sense of competitiveness?

[00:41:43] Pamela Cole: There were challenging times, but I can't remember a time when anybody was really angry about anything because there was always somebody who would talk to you. "What are you going through? Or what can I help you with?" The whole goal was for us to be successful, to graduate [00:42:00] and perhaps move on into the working world where we could utilize the skills that we had acquired.

[00:42:06] Jeff Geoffray: Typing was a challenge, but later became a strength. You'd taken typing in high school, but didn't get much instruction there. You'd played around on the typewriter that Carol rented, an- and you tried to make it sing. But it wasn't until you worked with a patient teacher, and in a supportive environment that you acquired the kind of skills that would be valuable for the rest of your career.

[00:42:27] Pamela Cole: The typing teacher recognized [00:42:30] I needed help. Her idea was to give me simple words so my fingers would learn to type those words and still remain on that Home Row. It started out with me just typing S-S so that I would know where that S key was, then the next day it would be A-A-A-A and then she was saying, "Okay, type S-A-D, S-A-D." And so it was that repetitive typing that helped reinforce that one day I am gonna be a typist.

[00:42:59] Jeff Geoffray: [00:43:00] It was like you were learning how to type and unlearning the things you had taught yourself. The teacher would give the rest of the class an assignment so she could focus one-on-one with you. Did you feel like you were being left behind?

[00:43:11] Pamela Cole: My greatest victory was when I was able to take my first typing test with the rest of the class, and I did thirty-two words a minute. The whole class cheered me on because they knew I was kind of like a separate student over there in the corner learning my keyboard. I don't know why that was a [00:43:30] challenge for me but once I got the hang of it, oh, it was on after that.

[00:43:35] Jeff Geoffray: Eunice was one of the former graduates who came back to speak during your school session. What did she talk about?

[00:43:40] Pamela Cole: What's to be expected when you enter into the corporate world. The teachers could prepare us as best they could but once you had a former student come back, an alumni to come back and talk to you and say, "Hey, it's not gonna be all like it is in the classroom," and gives you a little bit insight, that really helped you. It helped you to gain [00:44:00] perspective of exactly, uh, what was expected of you when you entered into the corporate world.

[00:44:05] Jeff Geoffray: You brought your love of the South African artist, Miriam Makeba to school, but you didn't realize how provocative her lyrics were to a White person living in the United States.

[00:44:14] Pamela Cole: We were having a discussion and I was telling, I had discovered a song, I said, "Ooh, the song is on this album we had at home." And so that's how I was singing it to them. I'm not sure which teacher it was but [00:44:30] she said, "Why don't you sing it for the class?" So I started singing the song for the class, "White men don't sleep alone, and don't sleep too deep. But I've heard of a rumor that's running around for the Black man's demanding his own piece of ground."

[00:44:44] Jeff Geoffray: " When the White man first came here from over the seas, he looked and he said, this is God's own country. He was mighty well pleased with the land that he'd found. And he said, "I'll make here my own piece of ground." Now the White diggers were few and the gold was so deep, that the Black [00:45:00] man was called because his labor was cheap. With drill and with shovel, he toiled underground for six pennies a day to tend to the ground." "A Piece Of Ground" by Miriam Makeba is about the history of South Africa from a native's perspective, but it sheds a sinister light on American apartheid and exploitation. How did the teacher react?

[00:45:20] Pamela Cole: I think she was a little bit perturbed. No, we're not asleep, no, the White man is not asleep. But she'd went in a different area. And I'm not [00:45:30] sure that what, I think what the song was expressing was that not to say literally that the White people weren't sleeping. But more or less that the Black man was now going to be a little bit more forceful about maintaining his own wealth, his own strength, his own resources. It was a song to me that seemed to fit in with the Black Power Movement.

[00:45:55] Jeff Geoffray: The Black Power Movement, Critical Race Theory, Black Lives Matter, it's [00:46:00] hard for people, including myself, including some people of color, who've lived in this world, who've lived in the shadows of statues that celebrate a White supremacist narrative all their lives, to understand where a song like A Piece Of Ground comes from, and why it rings true. In the world we've grown up in, it's hard not to absorb the overpowering narrative, that Western civilization is a force of good no matter what kind of death and destruction it leaves in its wake, that it's good for [00:46:30] you, even if it kills you, that the means justify the end, because it leads to some kind of salvation or progress.

On the contrary, the song you were singing in class humanizes the struggle of people who've been dehumanized by a White patriarchal hegemony that would collapse under its own weight if it were to recognize the humanity of its victims. Each stanza of the song is simply a statement of fact, it's not a revelation, it's not a provocation. In the same way, [00:47:00] it shouldn't be a provocation to say that Black life and Black history matter, nor should it be a provocation to inquire why our society and its laws often produce unequal outcomes for people of color, and minorities, regardless of a person's intelligence, or talents, or dedication to success. Western civilization simply can't afford to give ground, or at least that's how it feels sometimes. I'm a capitalist through and through, but I can also [00:47:30] see that in our society, respect for the property of so called Whites, has equal or greater importance than all other virtues or human rights.

[00:47:39] Pamela Cole: A lot of Blacks in New Orleans were suddenly coming into the realization that I'm proud of my heritage, I'm proud my hair is nappy, and I'm not going to press it. And I'm not going to do a lot of things that goes against the grain because I'm now finding this new, this new strength and who I actually am. And at that [00:48:00] time we identified closely with coming from Africa, and to me, the song just resonated with the times that was going on in New Orleans, especially among young people. Young people were looking for change, they were looking for change regarding Jim Crow and all of the segregation that was going on.

[00:48:18] Jeff Geoffray: In preparing you to integrate the all White corporate offices, the school had to teach you how to imitate, to assimilate the norms of those offices so you'd be hired in the first place. [00:48:30] And so that once you were hired, you would fit in to the extent you would feel both comfortable and confident. In teaching you how to imitate the norms of an office where you might be the only Black woman, did the school take a non-assimilationist approach? By that I mean, by teaching you approaches to fitting in, did they denigrate your own culture or reinforce the notion that one culture was superior to another?

[00:48:54] Pamela Cole: No one was offended when he told us you have to shave your legs. Black women [00:49:00] had hair on their legs and were very proud of it. During th- the Charm class, they told us that you've got to make sure you shave your legs because that will be frowned upon even though we would be wearing hosiery. I had friends who had very hairy legs, that when they put on hosiery, the hair would either lay flat or it would bunch up. So I could see where that would be a problem. With me, my hair did not show on my legs. It was very faint, but I still [00:49:30] shaved because Carol shaved her legs, and I followed whatever it was that Carol did. We got our own little Gillette and you had to make sure you kept your razors. I remember skinning my shins a couple of times before I got the hang of it, how to, uh, navigate around your shin bones and things like that. But no one took offense to it. They were just showing us the necessary steps we had to take to assimilate into the corporate environment and to be accepted. [00:50:00] And so I t- I didn't see any offense in it at all.

[00:50:03] Jeff Geoffray: Shaving your legs was one sacrifice you were willing to make to assimilate, but cutting your hair to get a job at Shell Oil was another matter.

[00:50:11] Pamela Cole: I'll never forget, they said, "Pam, Shell wants to hire you but your Afro is rather big." When I would wash my hair, my Afro was very tight because the hair would curl. It would take about a week for me to pick it out to the way I liked it. My role model for my Afro was [00:50:30] actually Roberta Flack. I loved the photo she had on one of her albums and it seemed the Afro was perfectly shaped. Angela Davis's was a militant style. I always liked that polishy look that Roberta Flack had. And to achieve it, I went to the barber with the album in my hand. And I told him, this is what I want my Afro to look like.

My hair was shoulder length at the time and I had just washed it to get out most of the effects from the [00:51:00] straightening comb, my hair was just beyond my shoulders and all the guys said, "Hey, I want to see her get all of this hair cut off." And so this barber, he just snipping, snipping and I just closed my eyes and covered them until I could see the full effect. And I was pleased when I left. So when I went home and washed it and everything, my hair just shrunk. I was like, wait a minute, what's happening here? But then Carol said, "You know what you have to do? You have to oil your scalp and you're gonna have to braid your hair so that your curl pattern [00:51:30] can form." So Carol taught us all about tending your Afro and then when you picked it out, she would take a scarf and place it over your hair. And that would make your Afro be more pronounced because you didn't have stray hairs sticking up or anything.

[00:51:44] Jeff Geoffray: That's a lot of work but I understand much less work than straightening your hair and wouldn't require as many harmful chemicals on your scalp and fewer products in general to maintain. No wonder you didn't want to go backwards to assimilate at Shell or another [00:52:00] job. Of course your dad wasn't impressed.

[00:52:02] Pamela Cole: My dad would tell me I looked like a Q-Tip because I was so skinny and then I had all this fuzz at the top because he was totally against it.

[00:52:12] Jeff Geoffray: When they told you that Shell wanted you to cut your hair, you said, "My hair is not going to be doing the work, I am."

[00:52:18] Pamela Cole: I told your mom, I said, "Ms. Geoffray, my hair's not gonna be doing the work, I am." And because I felt strongly about my hair, that was the one thing that was my pride [00:52:30] because I guess I got so many compliments on it when I would be out and about people who say, "You got a nice Afro there." And I would say, "Oh, thank you." So to me, my hair stood for pride, not so much that I'm a militant. And that was the point I kept trying to bring home.

[00:52:47] Jeff Geoffray: You weren't a militant, but neither did you want a hairstyle that you felt could impact your health and your quality of life.

[00:52:54] Pamela Cole: I am not a militant. I want a better life but I don't want to straighten my [00:53:00] hair anymore. I just want to have my Afro as a source of, "This who I am." And believe it or not, they hired me.

[00:53:09] Mya Carter: That concludes Episode 10 of Exchange Place, "The Cole Sisters."

Please join us for Episode 11 coming up next.

[00:53:19] Jeff Geoffray: This has been a presentation of The 431 Exchange. We're a nonprofit organization dedicated to adults seeking to transform their lives through continuing education.

We invite you to learn [00:53:30] more about us by going to our website at www.431exchange.org.

To hear more inspiring stories, please sign up for our newsletter.

Thanks.

Copyright 431 Exchange LLC 2022.

[00:53:46] Music by Kevin Gullage: I stole a kiss

I stole a kiss [00:54:00]

and it was so divine

I kissed his lips

When he said he would be mine

I can't resist the feeling when I stole his kiss

He took my hand

and asked to [00:54:30] hold it forever

I said I do

I said I do

Take thee for worse or better