Exchange Place: How A Small Struggling School Transformed Civil Rights in New Orleans and the Nation
Season 1, Episode 6: Ms. Linda Phoenix Teamer: Overcoming Gravity

JUNE 02, 2023 | THE 431 EXCHANGE; MYA CARTER (HOST), JEFF GEOFFRAY (NARRATOR); LINDA PHOENIX TEAMER (GUEST); KEVIN GULLAGE (MUSIC)

TRANSCRIPT:

[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.]

[00:00:00] Linda Phoenix: My dad was a very proud man and so was my mom. I'd been sheltered from discrimination -- blatant discrimination -- I should say. My parents would block certain things, you know, certain groceries I couldn't go to if I just wanted a popsicle or something. I thought they were being mean, but I know now they were sheltering me from any discomfort or pain or something that might affect my self-esteem. My classmates in high school, they would all say, "Oh, [00:00:30] Linda Phoenix, that little quiet girl?" 'Cause I was always so quiet, but I was taking everything in, because I was learning how to navigate to get to where I wanted to be. I was innocent. I lived in the Negro world. In my world, I never had to worry, maybe that's what they were trying to protect me from the threat of whatever could knock me down or could get me in trouble, or whatever.

[00:00:58] Mya Carter: The [00:01:00] 431 Exchange presents Exchange Place: How A Small Struggling School 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 [00:01:30] many were fighting to ensure the workplace would stay that way for years or 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 school's teachers and supporters struggled to overcome the massive forces arrayed against them.

Episode 6: Linda Phoenix - Overcoming Gravity. An exchange between Linda Phoenix [00:02:00] Teamer, Adult Education Center class of 1971, and Jeff Geoffray, the youngest son of the Center's Director, Dr. Alice Geoffray.

Part One: Early Life.

[00:02:12] Jeff Geoffray: Linda, you were raised in the country town of Violet, Louisiana in St. Bernard Parish, south of New Orleans. It was also known as Leander Perez country. When you were growing up, Perez was one of the most powerful segregationists in the nation, who openly bragged about how his schemes [00:02:30] successfully prevented nearly every single eligible African American citizen from voting in a part of the state where there was a sizeable Black population. He was also famously corrupt and it's well documented that he cheated Louisiana citizens out of tens of millions of dollars in oil revenues.

[00:02:47] Linda Phoenix: Yeah, that's where my family lived. I was born at Charity Hospital, the big hospital in New Orleans, and sent back of course to Violet, Louisiana. And lived there until I was eight years old. [00:03:00] It's very, very small and still is segregated.

[00:03:03] Jeff Geoffray: Your father had a kind of special status in the community. He was...

[00:03:07] Linda Phoenix: Was mixed race. So I didn't know that at the time. I just knew he was a very handsome tall man, always had on a suit, which was different for African Americans because you think of blue collar workers or ditch diggers or whatever, especially in poor Violet, Louisiana. Now, I, when I look back, I understand why. My dad had more privileges than [00:03:30] most of the Black men in, in St. Bernard Parish, and is a legend in that little town, because he was a tall handsome man, very light skinned with the quote, unquote, "good hair." We didn't live fancy or anything, but somehow he was able to navigate all of that. And everything, I don't know how to say it, but he was more or less protected from the power structure.

[00:03:54] Jeff Geoffray: What protected him?

[00:03:56] Linda Phoenix: I think my dad, his birth, his mother was a victim of [00:04:00] rape. He had a father assigned to him. But this man, whoever raped his mother, knew that it was his son and he protected him from all of the power.

[00:04:13] Jeff Geoffray: Let me make sure I understand. Your father's mother was a victim of rape by a White man who was close enough to the top of the power structure that he could get the blessing of Perez to protect his mixed race son, protect your father, in other words. As part of that [00:04:30] protection, he had a stand-in father, a Black man, to cover up the crime. You said you were sheltered, innocent was the word you used. How did you find this out?

[00:04:40] Linda Phoenix: I guess when I was a teenager, my aunts would talk about it, because people would say, "Oh, your dad's arrogant." They didn't use arrogant. They would use... Oh wait, what's the word? He was self-assured. I would hear things like, "Yeah, that's because that White man is protecting him." I didn't know what White man they [laughs] were talking about. But at the [00:05:00] time, as I got older and understood, his mom, my grandmother was very dark, and so was the man assigned to be his father, very dark.

[00:05:09] Jeff Geoffray: And your father was light skinned with the quote, unquote, "good hair." Why was it important to have an assigned Black father?

[00:05:16] Linda Phoenix: Well because they didn't want it known that there was a rapist there. So what they would do, "You are going to be the father of this child." You were a piece of property, right? You were a piece of property. And so, as [00:05:30] the owner of this property, you could do whatever you want. I mean you were not a human being, you were a property. So when the guys got horny, that's what they did. If you were just to mention the word "Perez" in St. Bernard Parish it's almost like Black people would shake in their shoes. He was a very powerful man. You didn't cross him. Like the Godfather of the Mafia, no one crossed him, Blacks nor White.

[00:05:53] Jeff Geoffray: Do you think it was wise of your parents to protect you?

[00:05:56] Linda Phoenix: I'm, I'm like triple sensitive to everything. I have... [00:06:00] you know how people say they have a sixth sense? I have eighteen of them. I try to figure everything out all the time. I think they knew that. I would go too deep for my own comfort, but I... it made me who I am today, and I don't regret the way I was raised.

[00:06:17] Jeff Geoffray: What did your father do for a living?

[00:06:19] Linda Phoenix: He was an insurance salesman, door-to-door salesman. He would sell what they would call burial policies to African Americans. So he got to interact and see and be with [00:06:30] everybody in St. Bernard Parish, some in Plaquemines Parish and that's why he had that have the suit. He was very big on education. We had to do our homework. We had to read the newspaper everyday. We had to watch the news so that we could learn what was going on in the world, not just in little bitty St. Bernard Parish or New Orleans. He worked for a Black insurance company. They could only sell what they would call burial insurance. It wasn't life insurance. It was just [00:07:00] basically to bury you. That's what you were paying for.

[00:07:02] Jeff Geoffray: Why did folks need burial insurance?

[00:07:05] Linda Phoenix: If a person or a family could not afford this insurance, there would be a situation where they would call it, "There's going to be a saucer on her chest." That meant to be waked and funeralized in someone's living room, whoever had a house big enough. And everybody who went to see the body would put money in this saucer to cover the cost, [00:07:30] because you can have a free funeral in someone's living room. To bury, it still costs money. They would call that, "A saucer on the chest." I used to wonder, "What does that mean? Do I need a saucer on my chest to get money?" I just didn't understand the dynamics at the time.

[00:07:45] Jeff Geoffray: The insurance policies your dad sold were important to people who wanted to make sure they had a proper wake, funeral and burial, as opposed to having a saucer on their chest as you say. The size and character of a person's funeral was important.

[00:07:59] Linda Phoenix: A lot of [00:08:00] times he would pay the policies, I learned later. He would pay for people that could not pay the policies. So if you had a sick relative and the family couldn't afford, he would just take it out of his pocket and pay for it.

[00:08:12] Jeff Geoffray: Your father's name was Joseph Mosley, but your last name is Phoenix. That's an interesting last name, but it's not your father's.

[00:08:20] Linda Phoenix: Joseph's last name is Mosley. My name used to be Linda Mosley. In St. Bernard Parish everybody knows everybody and know who the parents are. My [00:08:30] mom thought she was married. My dad had come back from the Korean War and they thought they had gotten married, but somehow there was no record of it. But when I went to school, I needed my birth certificate. On my birth certificate it says "father unknown," because they weren't ever legally married. I had to take on my mom's maiden name. That's how Phoenix got attached forever and ever and ever to my name.

[00:08:57] Jeff Geoffray: The bureaucracy was all White and under the control [00:09:00] of archsegregationists like Leander Perez who not only blocked African American citizens from voting, but also from holding practically any job, especially jobs in local government, down to the janitors. Controlling recordkeeping, marriage certifications, birth certificates, and such, must've been a powerful tool to maintain control.

[00:09:20] Linda Phoenix: Most Black people know this, but our birth records, our christening records, baptism was subject to other people deciding how [00:09:30] that's going to go, not us, not the family. You had no control over it, because it was handled [laughs] by the powers that be.

[00:09:37] Jeff Geoffray: To get to Violet from New Orleans you had to travel down a road known as St. Bernard Highway that was very isolated.

[00:09:43] Linda Phoenix: Very isolated. Just one, two lane highway. Oak trees cover it like a tent. At night, you would just see the shadow of the trees. There would be head-on crashes all the time. Even now when I'm going to [00:10:00] St. Bernard Parish, I try my best to go as far as I can on Judge Perez Drive, [laughs] before I cross over to St. Bernard Highway, because I just have memories of people dying there. All of those trees and all the land that all of those guys owned were lynching grounds, right? That's where they lynched people.

[00:10:20] Jeff Geoffray: Your town was divided by St. Bernard Highway.

[00:10:22] Linda Phoenix: It was one street, maybe less than a mile where we lived. St. Bernard Highway divided it [00:10:30] Blacks from Whites. Everybody was either related to each other or families so close that you thought they were related to you. Once a year in Goodwill Louisiana, which is where my grandmother was raised, there's a big family reunion, and it's two miles long and it's on the street. It's like Mardi Gras. Every family are standing in front of their houses with tents and foods and drinks. They will wear t-shirts with their family names on it. It's really for the young people to get [00:11:00] to know their family members. I still don't know all of my family members. I just think everybody in St. Bernard Parish is related to me. Blood or circumstances or acquaintance, everybody is family.

[00:11:13] Jeff Geoffray: There was only one grocery store close by, and it had a policy that was widespread, at least throughout Southern Louisiana if not beyond. I think you might refer to it as a, a "Black tax".

[00:11:25] Linda Phoenix: They would assign a, a price. If a loaf of bread was ten cents for everybody [00:11:30] else, it was twenty cents or thirty cents for you, and you just paid it.

[00:11:34] Jeff Geoffray: Groceries, even the staples were marked up for Black folks. You also knew to move to the back of the line if a White person was ready to pay, no matter how long you might've been standing there. On one occasion, the wall of protection your parents tried to maintain around you was breached when you went to the local store.

[00:11:53] Linda Phoenix: My aunt used to comb my hair, and she said, "We need some rubber bands. Just run to the grocery and get some." And so I [00:12:00] did and when I got back it was a little... I'll never forget, a little round gold can. In that can there were condoms. That's what they gave me as a little girl. Well that just lit my family up. They were so offended. My dad went to talk to somebody and they actually came to the house that evening to apologize. I don't know if he told his powerful friends I'd been violated in some way. But at the grocery [00:12:30] I remember everybody laughing so much when I purchased it. I didn't know why. Even when I got home, I didn't know exactly what it was, but I knew it was something bad that I should not have. I felt like I had done something wrong. It wasn't until much later I realized what it was. One of my older cousins told me why there was such an uproar. Like what did I do wrong, you know?

[00:12:53] Jeff Geoffray: You said your dad was a proud man. Your mom was a proud woman too.

[00:12:57] Linda Phoenix: My mom was very young when I was [00:13:00] born, seventeen actually. So my grandmother was almost like co-parenting with my mom and my dad. I, I was like her child, her daughter. Not just me, but all of her, all of her children's children. We all relate to her as a second mother. I know that happens in a lot of African American or Black families. But in this particular instance, no one did anything without her approval, what school you went to, [00:13:30] what church, what dress, what [laughs] shoes. Everybody ran everything by her, what job? "Hey, should I go work for this person or that person," and, because that's basically what you did back then. You worked for a person, not a company. And she was just a very smart, tall lady.

[00:13:47] Jeff Geoffray: Your grandmother acted as sort of a community leader, settling disputes, sheltering women who were fighting with their spouses, a voice of calm when people were troubled, fiercely independent. You had never [00:14:00] seen her angry or frustrated until she got sick and had to depend on others, as others had depended on her. She wasn't comfortable in that role of having to be taken care of. She was diagnosed with a fatal genetic disease.

[00:14:15] Linda Phoenix: Blood cancer is what they called it at the time, which has gone down our family line. Our oldest daughter's children. We've lost two of them to what they're calling now multiple myeloma. [00:14:30] We rallied the troops, everybody, all of her grandchildren, children, neighbors, church members, everyone was assigned a duty. When she became an invalid and couldn't actually get up, my job was to sleep with her at night. One of my aunts would give her the Camay soap bath, and that's all I remember smelling is [laughs] the Camay soap when I was in bed with her. I had to be alert and aware of her every movement all the time. [00:15:00] We would listen to Negro spirituals on the radio. All night, all day, all night. [laughs] That's all that as on the radio. Even today people, you know, will say, "Yeah, I remember Miss Rina."

[00:15:11] Jeff Geoffray: Rina, short for Serina. It was a poor community but there was a lot of support for people when they needed it. I remember you telling me there was a lot of sharing. When someone bought the first television, it was like everyone on the block had a new TV. People shared cars too.

[00:15:28] Linda Phoenix: Not everyone had a car, could [00:15:30] afford a car. And if they would allow you to have a car, because you had to get permission even to buy a car. Then the bus there was no such thing really. I don't remember a bus ever.

[00:15:40] Jeff Geoffray: The powers that be, Perez and all controlled who owned a car, and there was limited bus transportation. This became a problem when Serina had to stay for extended periods at Charity Hospital in New Orleans, the only public hospital for Blacks with the resources to handle her serious illness.

[00:15:57] Linda Phoenix: You had to get a ride with someone to see her or to [00:16:00] get her to the hospital and/or whatever. So when we crossed the Parish line into what's now... everyone knows now as the Lower 9th Ward, then there were taxi cabs and different things that you could get around then.

[00:16:12] Jeff Geoffray: Your family moved to the Lower 9th Ward to be closer to Charity Hospital for the sake of Serina. Were you happy to get out of Violet?

[00:16:20] Linda Phoenix: Not that I'd outgrown it, but New Orleans just had many more options. I was excited about meeting new people, because I felt how oppressed we were [00:16:30] there in St. Bernard Parish. So it was more like a freedom thing. Even though we moved, my dad still worked there, and it was still home there. It was just my mom, her sisters, and her nieces, we all lived in the same community renting places in the Lower 9th Ward. And all of us had to go to school of course.

[00:16:49] Jeff Geoffray: How did your mom feel about moving?

[00:16:51] Linda Phoenix: She would always tell her, "None of my children will ever live in St. Bernard Parish. You go wherever you want to, but it won't [00:17:00] be St. Bernard Parish." She was worried. She lived in fear every day of her life when she was there. Fear for everybody's life, not just her life, but everybody's lives. Even though at the time, society had changed somewhat, she had this ingrained in her and she said, "I did so much to keep my children out of St. Bernard Parish." Then my brother moved back. He was very successful, he and his wife, because by then you could own property. They had businesses. They started [00:17:30] developing property and they were allowed to do that. So it was very successful, but my mom still had this thing about St. Bernard Parish. She never really wanted to even go back to visit.

[00:17:41] Jeff Geoffray: When you moved to the 9th Ward, there were literal battles in the streets and in the schools. The day when Ruby Bridges, Leona Tate, Jessie Prevost, and a few other brave five and six-year-old little girls were confronted by vicious crowds when they tried to attend White schools in their own neighborhood, became known as [00:18:00] D-Day, or Desegregation Day. Many of those in the crowd were bused to the 9th Ward day after day, week after week, by none other than Leander Perez. The little girls had to face those mobs for months while they attended empty schools, because the forces of White supremacy had threatened anyone, Black or White who participated in integration. Ruby Bridges was the subject of a famous painting by Norman Rockwell called "The Problem We All Live With." In the painting, she's seen [00:18:30] walking to school escorted by federal marshals who tower over her, like they're protecting a head of state walking to the capital.

I think the title of Rockwell's painting refers to the problem of hatred we all live with, especially when it's used by people liked Perez for their own benefit, and made possible by America's deeply embedded caste-based institutions. The author John Steinbeck documented that hatred in his book, "Travels with Charley." In the book, he describes how the behavior of the crowds made him physically ill. [00:19:00] One of the saddest moments in his life. Linda, when you moved to the 9th Ward in the midst of this war, did you attend integrated schools?

[00:19:08] Linda Phoenix: Not at that age, because I went to a school in the Lower 9th Ward that was all Black, and it was a new school. I, I guess they had built it for us. [laughs] I don't know, but it was a new school, which made it exciting for me. There was unrest all around us everywhere, 'cause like I said, my dad would make us watch the news and read the newspaper. So I was quite aware, [00:19:30] but that happened in the Upper 9th Ward, where Ruby Bridges was.

[00:19:35] Jeff Geoffray: As much as D-Day was a public spectacle, the subject of news stories that spread around the world, the schools were barely integrated years later even thanks to people like Perez and other politicians and lawyers who stoked mobs and voters who enthusiastically followed their lead. Just as important, they were using vast economic resources to fight integration and other civil rights like equal [00:20:00] job opportunities. They were using those resources to fight tooth and nail in court. Perez and others were key players in a strategy called "massive resistance," initiated after Brown v. Board and publicly declared in what was known as the Southern Manifesto, signed by nearly every member of Congress from the South. It wasn't long after you arrived New Orleans, that Hurricane Betsy, one of the worst disasters in American history and another generation's Katrina, upturned your family's [00:20:30] life. Ironically, you were living on Flood Street in the Lower 9th Ward.

[00:20:34] Linda Phoenix: We lived on Flood Street and everything was flooded after Hurricane Betsy. We left that night because my grandmother was so sick and she lived with us. And we knew that if there was a bad hurricane we wouldn't be able to get her to the hospital if needed. We left and went to my aunt's house who lived on Orleans Avenue. My aunt's house was like our evacuation station. My [00:21:00] mom, another one of her sisters, some cousins, a lot of people, [laughs] were there at her house. So we actually watched the hurricane through the windows and all praying. Then when the flood happened, everybody went to the Municipal Auditorium, because that's where a lot of people evacuated after the water started coming. I remember walking around the Municipal Auditorium looking for family members. At the time there were no cellphones, of course, no landlines were operating during that [00:21:30] time. So all we did was walk around and look for anybody we thought might be our family.

One day I was with my family members and we walked to the top of the St. Claude Bridge, and you could see this sea of water. I actually saw one of my aunts have a nervous breakdown when she saw all the water. Her eyes just started going back and forth and she had to be hospitalized for a nervous breakdown. That's how traumatic it was for her to see.

[00:21:59] Jeff Geoffray: As a [00:22:00] young teenager, it must've been traumatic for you too, not to mention the fact your education was disrupted.

[00:22:05] Linda Phoenix: All the schools in the 9th Ward were flooded. I had to transfer to Andrew J. Bell School, because by then I was in seventh or eighth grade. I remember being so upset because school had just started. My dad had gotten me all of these really pretty clothes out of the Spiegel Catalog. All of that was totally destroyed. I had boxes and boxes of pretty dresses and was just so excited to [00:22:30] go to the school with my new things. [laughs] What was even more traumatic, when the Red Cross came in, and everybody's like, "Oh you have to go to the auditorium and register because they're going to give people money for clothes." So I'm there and they, you have to take your children, 'cause they needed to be sure that you had a certain amount of children.

And I remember them giving my mom ten dollars for clothing. And I'm like, "What, what?" At the time, ten dollars might've been a lot of money [00:23:00] for some people, but all I could remember was all those beautiful dresses and shoes and sweaters and everything from the Spiegel Catalog. So we went to Sears, and I remember this just like it was yesterday, and got this blue smocked long sleeve dress and that was all we had. [laughs] I don't even know if my brothers, you know, got clothing money, but I remember that dress from Sears that I had to wear almost every other day, 'cause we didn't have anything else.[00:23:30]

[00:23:30] Jeff Geoffray: Soon after Betsy, Serina lapsed into a coma.

[00:23:34] Linda Phoenix: We'd had the hurricane and all of that. She was a sick for a total of probably five or more years. But every time she would go to the hospital she would come back home. Sometimes they would send her home and she was in a coma. They would see how many people would go to see her in the hospital and take turns spending the night with her. The doctors told my mom and my aunts, when people are in a coma, they can still hear you. [00:24:00] So we set up like a hospital bed in the living room, and we would all go talk to her, lie down on her, rub her hand or head, because she was still breathing.

Then when she came out of the coma, I'll never [laughs] forget, my mom was trying to learn how to cook and she was cooking [laughs] some beans, 'cause, you know, that's what we ate. Some beans or whatever, and the first thing out of her mouth was "Marguerite, you need to put more garlic in those beans." [laughs] And everybody went [00:24:30] into shock, 'cause there she was back. She told us that she could hear everything that was going on, but she just couldn't speak.

[00:24:38] Jeff Geoffray: When she went into the hospital and then didn't return, it was a shock even though everyone knew she was gravely ill.

[00:24:45] Linda Phoenix: Every time she would go to the hospital, she would come home. The fact that she didn't this one time, that was devastating.

[00:24:52] Jeff Geoffray: It must've been quite a funeral. No saucer on the chest for Serina.

[00:24:56] Linda Phoenix: Her brother was a pastor of a church in St. Bernard [00:25:00] Parish, and so it was a big funeral.

[00:25:02] Jeff Geoffray: Your brothers were younger than you so they were coming of age just when desegregation really started to finally happen. Ironically, or maybe I should say, typically it was Black students who bore the brunt of integrating schools. Like Ruby Bridges, they were sent to mostly White schools with mostly White teachers, and faced a lot of resentment along the way. Were your brothers harassed or bullied at school by other students?

[00:25:28] Linda Phoenix: Yes, harassed. Not just by the [00:25:30] kids, the teachers, policemen whatever. If they saw you going in, they would intimidate them. "What are you doing here? You shouldn't be here." And there was always a legal force somewhere around to remind you, you were violating something. It was pretty bad.

[00:25:45] Jeff Geoffray: There was a ray of light. Your bothers' principal at Francis T. Nicholls was a man named Mr. Costanza, who showed a lot of empathy, even to the point of walking them home day after day to protect them from being harassed.

[00:25:57] Linda Phoenix: The principal was a great [00:26:00] principal. He tried very hard to keep all of the Black kids safe and educated. He was the leader of the school, and I'm sure... I don't know for a fact, but I'm sure he fired a lot of the teachers, coaches, and/or whatever. He would, he got to be like a family member, because one of my brothers was very rebellious. He would hold up a sign "on strike" in class, because he felt oppressed, and Mr. Costanza wouldn't allow him [laughs] to get kicked out. He would come and talk to my mom, and he [00:26:30] got to be like a family member to us, 'cause he was at our house all the time.

[00:26:34] Jeff Geoffray: You witnessed some of the kind of harassment your brothers faced.

[00:26:37] Linda Phoenix: My dad had gotten them a purple convertible Mustang. I was the oldest, I still had to take the bus, but the boys had a car. We lived maybe four blocks, but they wanted to drive to school. So they were driving this car and I'm standing at the bus stop and I see the police stop them and ask for their registration papers. It was two young [00:27:00] cops. "Where's your driver's license?" So my brother pulls out his driver's license. He throws the driver's license down the drain. He said, "I don't see a driver's license. Is this car stolen? Do you have registration?" So my brothers were terrified, because they didn't know what was gonna happen. He looked at the registration papers, tore it up and said, "I don't see a registration paper," and he said to the other guy, "What should we do with this?"

In the neighborhood neighbors would sit outside, so it just so happened that this one [00:27:30] neighbor, a White man walked down his steps, 'cause he was sitting on the porch. And he said, "I saw you throw the license down the drain and I saw you tear up the registration papers. So you might wanna leave this alone, because I'm a witness," and he was real tall and I don't know his name or anything, but he protected them. "Guys, so go ahead and drive this car the rest of the way to school. But now you gonna have to get a driver's license and more registration papers." That's what we had to do. I was right there and I didn't know what [00:28:00] I was going to do, but I was not going to allow them to harm my brothers. I, I felt very protective.

[00:28:06] Jeff Geoffray: In contrast to your younger brothers, you had a great time in a mostly segregated majority Black high school.

[00:28:13] Linda Phoenix: Oh yeah, I had a great time in high school. What made it so great was that I knew I was on my way to becoming an, an adult. I would be in charge of my life. I didn't want anybody to ever tell me what to do again. [laughs] In our [00:28:30] family, I don't know maybe other people's too, when you turn eighteen, you're on your own. You make all your own decisions. You provide for yourself. You're not kicked out of the house, but you are assumed to be an adult. And so I was on my way there trying to make it all happen, knowing I needed to be educated in order to make anything happen.

[00:28:48] Jeff Geoffray: You had an active social life that made your high school experience enjoyable.

[00:28:52] Linda Phoenix: We had lots of sports at my high school, and I went to every single game of every single sport. If it [00:29:00] was in the evening, and my cousins would take me, then I would have to wait for them to either pick me up, meet them at the bus stop. They would say, "She's so smart and so quiet." People were really surprised that I liked to party, because I was so quiet. I didn't say much, but I loved to party. I wasn't drinking. I wasn't doing the marijuana or any of that stuff. I just liked to dance and the social activities that were there. I had a blast. I had a wonderful time.

[00:29:26] Jeff Geoffray: At high school, you were on your way to independence, but your [00:29:30] parents would still be setting your boundaries, at least until you were eighteen. For instance, you were always under the eye of a chaperone when you weren't in school.

[00:29:39] Linda Phoenix: I always had to have a chaperone. I have hundreds of cousins. So if the school had a sock hop, a dance, or any activity after school, or in the evening, one of my male cousins would have to be my quote, unquote, "date." That didn't go so well, because they were looking at the other girls. They didn't care what I did [laughs] once they were there. But I always had to have a [00:30:00] chaperone. I couldn't take a bus at night by myself. I didn't have a car. That was the thing I wanted more than anything in the world was an automobile, so I could move and get around.

[00:30:11] Jeff Geoffray: In high school, you had high expectations for your future. In fact, you wanted to become an astronaut.

[00:30:17] Linda Phoenix: I had the comfort of being very close to my teachers, my principal. The only person I fault for not being an astronaut, is my high school counselor. You would go in and have a session with her. [00:30:30] "Where are you on your track to whatever it is you wanna do?" I would say, "I wanna be an astronaut." She said, "little girl, you are going to be either a teacher, a nurse, or a secretary. Get that out of your head about being an astronaut, because first of all you're an African American Black woman. Second of all, you're female. Like that's just not going to jibe. She thought I was interested in becoming a nurse, because the sciences that was connected to that field. And [00:31:00] I was determined that I was not going to be a nurse, because I had helped nurse my grandmother. And I thought it was just too emotional. I would get too emotionally attached, and I knew that wouldn't work for me because I would be a basket case everyday. I didn't wanna be a nurse. I did not [laughs] wanna be a teacher. Then we got into the business aspect.

[00:31:21] Jeff Geoffray: You had a teacher who encouraged your writing.

[00:31:23] Linda Phoenix: She was one of the Caucasian teachers, Mrs. Barak was her name. I was a very good [00:31:30] English and literature student. I would excel at writing articles. She encouraged me to think about maybe getting a degree in literature. I thought, "Well no, I don't wanna read about Shakespeare anymore. I'm done with him." But when she said a secretary, I said, "Maybe I'll do that."

[00:31:49] Jeff Geoffray: You didn't stop thinking about other possibilities though.

[00:31:52] Linda Phoenix: I had these high expectations, and the secretary was like a step-down for me, because of my aspirations. As a matter of fact, [00:32:00] another Adult Education Center student Pam Cole and I were really good friends in high school. So I thought, I couldn't be an astronaut. She said maybe we can go and be airline stewardesses. I said, "Oh yeah, we could do that. We're getting close. And once I get there, maybe I can reach the stars."

In the magazines, there would be advertisements for airline stewardess training schools. So I thought, "I'm not gonna go to college. I'm gonna go to this airline training school."

[00:32:27] Jeff Geoffray: But the flight training school was more expensive than [00:32:30] college.

[00:32:30] Linda Phoenix: Pam and I both applied and it was on the West Coast. I think TWA at the time had these classes, but it was expensive. We actually could not afford it. When it fell through, my mom was like, "You have two options. You either go to college or go to jail. You're going to [laughs] do something." She said it in that way, like do all parents have a button they just press and call the police and they come take your children to jail. [laughs] I knew I wouldn't commit any [00:33:00] crimes. It was just like, you know, you go to jail or you go to college.

[00:33:05] Maya Carter: Part 2: The Adult Education Center.

[00:33:13] Linda Phoenix: After high school I enrolled at Louisiana State University at New Orleans. It was right at the turn of integration. It was very hard for any person of color to get educated there. The students would protest. The teachers would protest. It was [00:33:30] just a big mess. It was not a very friendly environment, although all of us African Americans hung together, stuck together, tried to help each other, but the determination of the administration, of the staff and the students was for us to fail.

[00:33:44] Jeff Geoffray: While LSUNO, now UNO, was technically integrated, there was was still de facto segregation in terms of books, classes and facilities, at least up to 1970 when you attended. Even the cafeteria was segregated.

[00:33:58] Linda Phoenix: When you go to the [00:34:00] cafeteria, and just like you would have in high school. You had the Black table. And it was always the same table. I guess the news media could see us going into the school and, "yay!" But, once you got there you had all of the roadblocks in place.

[00:34:11] Jeff Geoffray: The roadblocks at UNO weren't confined to the campus. There were obstacles in place to inhibit you from even getting to the campus.

[00:34:19] Linda Phoenix: We would take the bus to get there, and if you had your badge on or something, your student ID, the bus drivers would just pass you by. [laughs] We all did a lot of walking.

[00:34:28] Jeff Geoffray: Your negative experience [00:34:30] at UNO didn't go unnoticed by more recent administrations.

[00:34:33] Linda Phoenix: Three or four years ago, my husband was invited to participate in a program at UNO. The current president apologized to me. He said, "I know when you were here, I know what you had to go through. On behalf of UNO, I am sorry." But some of the students persevered. I just didn't have whatever it took.

[00:34:54] Jeff Geoffray: You were unhappy at the school, but another option came out of the blue.

[00:34:58] Linda Phoenix: I'd been a straight A [00:35:00] student all of my life. When I went to LSUNO, I had such a hard time, I don't know getting great grades. Well, so it made me feel like maybe I should've gone to Southern University. But my mom wanted me in the city. I remember Pam telling me about the Adult Education Center. Her sisters had gone and why didn't I do that? I was in business administration and it was basically secretarial skills. She said, "you can get this in, in a shorter period of time. Get a job." Everybody just wanted to [00:35:30] earn money. So that's how I ended up at the Adult Education Center.

[00:35:33] Jeff Geoffray: The financial pros and cons of LSUNO versus the Center contributed to your decision.

[00:35:39] Linda Phoenix: At UNO, you had to pay tuition, although it was minimal, it was a lot for us, for my family, for me. Pam told me that you would get a little stipend and the school was free. And then you would almost be guaranteed a job, which was just perfect for me.

[00:35:54] Jeff Geoffray: At that point, you could also get tuition paid in the form of a loan from private business colleges like Meadows [00:36:00] Draughon. Did you consider those?

[00:36:02] Linda Phoenix: I always thought they were rip-offs. I don't know why, where I got that from, if I read about it, heard about it, or whatever, but you would give them your money, but then you wouldn't be guaranteed a job. That just wasn't an option for me. But there were a lot of students that had gone to Straight Business School. It was almost like an elite type situation. There you would get jobs but it would be with the African American business people, the funeral homes, insurance companies.

[00:36:28] Jeff Geoffray: Compared to your dreams of going to [00:36:30] flight school, was the Adult Education Center a let-down?

[00:36:32] Linda Phoenix: I, I was so happy. It was like this came out of nowhere and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

[00:36:39] Jeff Geoffray: What were the most valuable skills you learned during the program?

[00:36:42] Linda Phoenix: Well I excelled in shorthand. Years later, even though I didn't have to use it, I would continue to practice. So I excelled with shorthand and typing, but what I learned that has taken me through life is professionalism. At the Adult Education Center, we had [00:37:00] image consulting before there was such a thing, hair, makeup, the hosieries, just the whole nine yards. I've always been very conscientious of my presentation, what I present to people in my dress, in my demeanor. We learned that and speech, and of course, writing skills. Everything we did at that school would apply today. It really would. Every, every aspect of it, you know, would still apply. I did well there.

[00:37:29] Jeff Geoffray: Why do you think you [00:37:30] did so well there as opposed to UNO?

[00:37:32] Linda Phoenix: We were challenged. We were a family. We promoted and supported each other. If someone was having a hard time, we took care of each other. Some of us were more fortunate than others and we would share. And it was integrated.

[00:37:47] Jeff Geoffray: You mentioned image consulting. Did you mean the class called Personal Dynamics that some of the ladies called Dress for Success or Charm Class?

[00:37:56] Linda Phoenix: Personal Dynamics, that's right. It taught you how to keep your [00:38:00] nylons up. [laughs] So it wouldn't, so it wouldn't sag. [laughs] At the time you had girdles and all the other foundation. It would just open your eyes and have more awareness about your appearance, your nails, everything. And so, it was almost fun, whereas the other classes, you were head down, just working to get it done and try to get to 100 words a minute typing or whatever.

[00:38:22] Jeff Geoffray: That class addressed intensely personal topics. Did it make some women feel uncomfortable?

[00:38:28] Linda Phoenix: It was a big lesson for [00:38:30] females. Some women were bold to address things, even hygiene. In my house, I don't remember being taught hygiene. You just picked it up or you watched what everybody else did. Yeah, you took bath every day, you brushed your teeth. You wake up, you do this, you do that. In a professional sense, it was different.

[00:38:47] Jeff Geoffray: Developing a practical hairstyle for a five day a week office environment was an important topic for women, especially or in a unique way for Black women.

[00:38:57] Linda Phoenix: We couldn't wash our hair every day or every other [00:39:00] day. It was too hard to do the hot combs and the hot curlers. You go outside and then it's raining and then you didn't have that same professional look. A lot of women resorted to wigs. Some women had Afros, but it had to be a very low Afro, always neat and trim. That was accepted. In some places it was not.

[00:39:20] Jeff Geoffray: Were you forced to conform to some standard that the teacher set in terms of how you dressed or how you wore your hair? For instance, if you chose to wear an Afro?

[00:39:29] Linda Phoenix: No. [00:39:30] Oh no. Just however you were. They would look beyond that if you had the skills and the professionalism. The business men that would recruit from the Adult Education Center had an awareness of all of this already, because they would come to the school and look around and chat with us.

[00:39:46] Jeff Geoffray: Linda, were there role models you could look to as far as other African American women in business, even by the media or pop culture?

[00:39:54] Linda Phoenix: You could see it, but they were the crème de la crème. Who do they know? Or they're [00:40:00] so smart or so something, so you could see it, but what was great about the Adult Education Center, students would come back that were like them, and tell them about their experiences. That would give lot of confidence. So if you didn't have that confidence, I think it made a lot of the students feel like that won't ever be me.

[00:40:19] Jeff Geoffray: Apart from racial categories, what other kinds of diversity did the school expose you to that was remarkable?

[00:40:25] Linda Phoenix: There were single moms, because the shotgun weddings was for Whites and [00:40:30] Blacks. And we're so Catholic here.

[00:40:32] Jeff Geoffray: What benefits do you think your fellow White students gained from experiencing what was for its time, a unique integrated setting?

[00:40:39] Linda Phoenix: I'm sure it was beneficial to the White students to interact with us, because then we weren't monsters. We were just people trying to do and achieve the same things that they were.

[00:40:50] Jeff Geoffray: Apart from Mrs. Barack in high school, you hadn't had another closer interaction with white teachers. What struck you about the teachers at the Center, both Black [00:41:00] and White?

[00:41:01] Linda Phoenix: They were all determined to make us succeed, which was refreshing, especially coming from UNO.

[00:41:07] Jeff Geoffray: We know the White businessmen you interacted with benefited too, in terms of tapping into a new market for talent at a time when demand exceeded supply.

[00:41:17] Linda Phoenix: And probably gave them a sense of pride that they were on the outside of everything else that was going on, which was pretty brave at that time. So I think about the Civil Right's Movement. It, it, it could not have been [00:41:30] successful without White males. Those were the ones that were fighting for us. Martin Luther King couldn't do what he did without the support of Jewish people or whatever, some Caucasians. So that was pretty brave of them to step outside of the norm for their world.

[00:41:46] Jeff Geoffray: White businessmen participated in classes that helped hone your interview skills.

[00:41:51] Linda Phoenix: Yes, they were speakers. We would have a class and if it was interview skills or whatever they would come and talk to us about it.

[00:41:58] Jeff Geoffray: The mock interviews gave you a chance to [00:42:00] interview with potential employers, as well as getting input on how you presented yourself.

[00:42:05] Linda Phoenix: Yes, we practiced interviewing with each other with the instructors, even to the point of crossing your legs at your ankles and sitting up straight. We had a boatload of information, and, uh, scenarios, "Suppose the interviewer asked you this, what would your response be?"

[00:42:21] Jeff Geoffray: Once you were ready to go out for live interviews, did you feel a sense of competition with your fellow students?

[00:42:27] Linda Phoenix: I, I didn't feel competition. We [00:42:30] always tried to help each other. We wanted each other to succeed. When someone else had gotten a job, they would tell you about the culture of the organization, so it wasn't competitive. We were excited if anybody was awarded a job.

[00:42:46] Jeff Geoffray: By the time you were ready to graduate, did you feel confident you were going to get a meaningful job?

[00:42:51] Linda Phoenix: Confident, yeah, without a doubt, yes. I didn't know where, but I knew that one would happen.

[00:42:57] Jeff Geoffray: You were part of the later classes, so you didn't have the [00:43:00] anxiety about getting a job that Alice reported amongst the first two or three classes of students. In the first program, some of the students felt like they were going to miss out, as they heard one fellow student after another getting hired. Alice felt that anxiety too. She and Mr. Coleman wanted to make sure every student was hired for a job that met their expectations. In fact, they guaranteed the students would get good jobs if they put in the work. And of course, all of them did. To the [00:43:30] end, Alice said there was a sense of exhilaration and relief when the last few members of any class were hired.

[00:43:36] Linda Phoenix: I don't know how your mom made it through emotionally. I wonder where did that come from with her, because it could've been different. She could've not cared. You know what, I wonder, what propelled her to be that person.

[00:43:49] Jeff Geoffray: She felt an incredible sense of empathy with you all, especially as it related to all that you shared in common as women. She measured her success by your success. She [00:44:00] measured your success by your succeeding at a job that improved your quality of life. Linda, you had more than once successful interview, including the one that landed you in the job of your choice?

[00:44:11] Linda Phoenix: I remember being an intern at IBM, because IBM built our electric typewriters. I remember having an internship there, and thinking that I didn't wanna be there. Whatever the environment was, I didn't like it much, but I had to go on an interview in order to get [00:44:30] the internship, and won the spot. The only other interview was Shell Oil Company and I was basically hired during that interview.

[00:44:38] Jeff Geoffray: The job at Shell turned out to be a great stepping stone to your later career as a flight attendant. But you had some offers to work in government too.

[00:44:45] Linda Phoenix: Yeah. That's one of my regrets sometimes. I had a great career and all, but I thought, 'Wow, if I'd had a government job, I would probably be Condoleeza Rice by now!'

[00:44:54] Mya Carter: Part 3: Working Life[00:45:00]

[00:45:00] Linda Phoenix: I was focused on becoming an astronaut. Other people looked at me and thought, well, that's really impossible, but I kept trying to push it. I didn't quite get why I couldn't become an astronaut. I, I, I don't see my color. But other people do. So I never put those two things together.

[00:45:21] Jeff Geoffray: Linda, your ambition put you on a vertical path, even if not as high as outer space. You were chose to be an executive secretary for [00:45:30] the President of Shell Oil, which meant you greeted oil executives from across the world on the top floor of One Shell Square, which at the time was the tallest or second-tallest skyscraper in the South.

[00:45:42] Linda Phoenix: I would fill in for the executive secretary. I was the substitute for her every now and again, Carol was her name, had to leave, or she was on maternity leave and I would be the person that would sit on that forty-fourth floor in the big glass office. [00:46:00] Oil executives from all over the world would sometimes pass the door, and, and, and go, "This can't be the right office. Something is amiss." They would look up and make sure it's the right office number. I thought it was humorous. I never felt offended. I guess maybe I was too young, and of course there was some jealousies from people, friends included even my immediate manager, because the job assignment came from the top, from the president. No one [00:46:30] could override him. I didn't know why, but, [laughs] that was just what he wanted and I was happy to do it. In hindsight, I think his idea was maybe he thought she was going to leave and I was in training to become that person for him. My real job was in accounting. The two departments were totally different. I can't remember what floor I worked on.

It, it was a big change from what my job assignment was. Of course, he would always [00:47:00] thank me for being a professional, which is what I learned. At the Adult Education Center, professionalism was first. You can go home and cry, you can do whatever, but in the meantime, your job assignment required professionalism. That's what I was doing.

[00:47:16] Jeff Geoffray: The job at Shell was a good job and it gave you an opportunity to meet top business executives.

[00:47:21] Linda Phoenix: I would welcome men, White men basically from the different oil companies, and I used to think to myself, "I wonder what it's [00:47:30] like to work for that person." But with such a great job I couldn't defect. They had accepted me as I was, very open to African American women, and allowed us to climb. But I don't know if it was being female or being African American. I thought to myself, "You can only go so far."

[00:47:49] Jeff Geoffray: Your ambition to become a flight attendant continued to be on the front burner, even though you had never flown in an airplane.

[00:47:56] Linda Phoenix: My first airplane ride was to the [00:48:00] Delta Air Lines interview. I didn't know if I was gonna like flying. I had read this book, "Coffee, Tea or Me" and I thought, "I'm gonna be those ladies." They were flying all around the world, buying the Louis Vuitton and all the, you know, gifts. They would meet these great guys. I didn't realize at that time, that they were probably having sex with these guys. [laughs] I was so innocent. But I read that, and I thought, "That's me." And I want you to know that this guy republished that book and I wrote him a letter [00:48:30] telling him he was responsible for my thirty-year career at Delta Air Lines. And he sent me an autograph copy of it. But it wasn't just African Americans, it was when men could become flight attendants too. So it was the male flight attendants and the African Americans.

[00:48:46] Jeff Geoffray: The screening process was intense...

[00:48:48] Linda Phoenix: I went for a two-day interview, where you would have to have a physical and they would screen you, this psychiatrist. I can't remember his name now, but he was famous in [00:49:00] Atlanta. You would take a psychological exam because they wanted to make sure that you wouldn't try break in the cockpit. After that, you would go home and then two weeks later, I received the letter saying that I was hired.

[00:49:12] Jeff Geoffray: How did that feel?

[00:49:14] Linda Phoenix: Oh I was excited. I was working for Shell Oil Company. Everybody was very excited. For me, I think this was like winning a prize. It wasn't like, "Oh, she found a better job." It was like, "Wow, that is so fantastic." They threw a going away party and everything for me.

[00:49:28] Jeff Geoffray: But you still had to get [00:49:30] past the training before you could get your wings.

[00:49:32] Linda Phoenix: We got to Atlanta and we're in dormitories for a six-week training. There were tests every single day and you had to make at least a ninety-six on this test. By the second or third day, we had to do another physical, and I had fever of 104. I had the flu that was going into pneumonia, but I didn't feel bad. I just had this fever and I was tired, but I thought it was because I had done so much to [00:50:00] get to Atlanta. The doctor's like, "Well, you can't go to work." "Oh yes, I'm going to work. I quit my job [laughs] and I moved to Atlanta. We need to figure this out." The doctor told me to go get in bed or go back home and come back. "You won't lose your place here, but you can come back in about a month." "Oh, no I'm not taking that chance. Let me just go to my room."

I had to take my test every day in order to qualify to be a flight attendant. So the instructors would [00:50:30] come to my room and give me the test, and my roommate and other flight attendants would study orally so that I could hear everything that was going on, so that I could learn without having to go to class. And then take the test. I had these two little ladies who were room mothers, Mrs. Upchurch and I have forgotten the other lady's name. But they would stay in the room with me. They were so supportive. My mom was stroking out because I was in a foreign place [00:51:00] and I was sick and I was by myself. But they did an absolutely great job of taking care of me, so I managed and I kept my seniority. What you learned was that seniority rules everything. Had I gone back home, I would've been a month behind my classmates. That meant that I wouldn't have the bidding priority, because that's how we would bid for trips based on your, based on your seniority.

[00:51:24] Jeff Geoffray: At one point you thought you were going to die. You even dressed up to die.

[00:51:29] Linda Phoenix: I [00:51:30] did. I dressed up to die. Washed my hair, I'd curled my hair. I put on a nice nightgown. [laughs] I got in bed, so that they wouldn't discover me and I would look like anything. I dressed up to die. It was something, but I'm so glad that I stayed and everything worked out.

[00:51:49] Jeff Geoffray: They eliminated half your class before it was over.

[00:51:52] Linda Phoenix: They were eliminating flight attendants every day. I would say we started our class with about [00:52:00] 200 fight attendants. At the time they really started hiring a lot of people because all of a sudden airlines were blowing up. We ended up with probably less than 100, out of those 200 that were in the original class. Hm, if you didn't make a ninety-six, you were gone. They gave you a ticket and you go back home. And that's just how it was.

[00:52:20] Jeff Geoffray: Seniority was so important, it occupied your fever hallucinations.

[00:52:25] Linda Phoenix: During my hallucinating, I kept dreaming, because you take the number in your [00:52:30] class, your rank, and I kept dreaming about this number fifteen and I kept telling them, I know I'm gonna pull number fifteen out of this hat, because that's what I've been dreaming about. And sure enough, I pulled number fifteen. [laughs]

[00:52:44] Jeff Geoffray: Your seniority allowed you to choose New Orleans as a home base, so you could be close to your family.

[00:52:50] Linda Phoenix: You get assigned a city, a base station. New Orleans had about hm, seventeen openings for flight attendants. My seniority allowed me to come [00:53:00] back home, and with that, some of the other flight attendants. I brought about ten other African American flight attendants to New Orleans. In New York we would need eight roommates to be able to live there. New Orleans was a metropolitan city and everybody loved New Orleans so everybody wanted to come to New Orleans.

[00:53:20] Jeff Geoffray: Your job allowed you to travel regularly to places you had dreamed about like Los Angeles. Was it everything you imagined?

[00:53:27] Linda Phoenix: It was so fabulous. I've always loved the [00:53:30] West Coast, San Francisco, San Diego. I said, "God used to live in San Diego," because the weather is always so perfect. We would leave Los Angeles the next day after great Mexican food and whatever else. Then go nonstop to New York City and stay in Midtown shop, eat, Broadway shows, the Apollo, that was one of my favorite rotations, as we call it. When you're flying, you're rotating from home to different cities and [00:54:00] back. It was fabulous.

[00:54:01] Jeff Geoffray: Was there novelty in being amongst the first Black flight attendants?

[00:54:05] Linda Phoenix: It was a big deal to see an African American flight attendant on the airplane and off. They'd see you in your uniform, it was like you became a star of some sort. It was like you're famous.

[00:54:16] Jeff Geoffray: Even to this day, there have been cases of discrimination against Black and their hairstyle in the workplace. How did you wear your hair?

[00:54:23] Linda Phoenix: I've never had a problem with my hair, because I have what they call the good hair. You know what I [00:54:30] mean? It, it wasn't straight, but it was wavy and soft, and I could always pull it back. But Delta Air Lines had rules and regulations for everyone. Your hair had to be above your shoulders. If it was long, it had to be in a ponytail away from your face. That applied to everybody. At the time, most African Americans were having permanent relaxers. We had one flight attendant that was a big rebel. She was just a rebel. And we called her [00:55:00] Mother Earth, because she was into [laughs] all natural everything, food, before it was even a thing. She did not wanna wear polyester. She did not wanna wear nylons on her legs. She fought and fought. She too wanted her hair curly. She didn't wanna put chemicals anywhere near her body. But she would have to try to pull this really thick curly, curly coarse hair back into a ponytail. And they allowed it because she was going [00:55:30] to EEOC and say they were discriminating against her, because she was African American.

I think she's still flying and still fighting for different things. [laughs]

[00:55:39] Jeff Geoffray: She stood up for herself with the help of the EEOC, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that was established as part of the Civil Right's Act of 1964. Linda, you became an unwed mother by choice at a time when pregnancy was considered a disability.

[00:55:55] Linda Phoenix: I come on right after they started allowing flight [00:56:00] attendants to be married. At one time you couldn't be married or have kids or anything because you needed to stay flexible. If you became pregnant, you were quote unquote, "disabled." You couldn't fly if you were pregnant. All of that changed with the Civil Right's Movement. When ladies would get married or get pregnant and couldn't fly, they would go work in the office until they had the baby and then the babysitting was under control. A lot of women would hide their pregnancies for a long time so that they wouldn't have [00:56:30] take off from work, because they loved flying.

[00:56:33] Jeff Geoffray: You were surprised when you became pregnant. It wasn't on purpose.

[00:56:37] Linda Phoenix: I had dated Serina's dad for about four years. I accidentally got pregnant, and I was on the pill. I didn't intend to get pregnant, but at the fourth year, I was ready to break up with him and I did. And then after we broke up, I realized I was pregnant, because I had an [00:57:00] unusual pregnancy, in that I didn't have the normal signs that a female would have. I remember just feeling bad and going to the doctor and her telling me. I didn't wanna tell Serina's dad because I knew he would want to get back together and get married. I didn't want to get married, but I always wanted children, I just didn't want to get married.

[00:57:21] Jeff Geoffray: You named your daughter Serina after your grandmother. Why didn't you wanna get married?

[00:57:26] Linda Phoenix: I'd seen my mom, my aunts, and everything had to answer to [00:57:30] their husbands and boyfriends and common law husbands or whatever. I never wanted to be in that position. They're really smart women and probably would've excelled at anything they tried, but they had to abide by whatever rules, laws, and expectations put on them, because these men were providing not just for them, but for their children.

[00:57:52] Jeff Geoffray: You equated single motherhood with freedom.

[00:57:54] Linda Phoenix: Yeah, I didn't wanna insult anybody but when a woman has a baby, it's more her child than it is the [00:58:00] man's. [laughs] I always felt like they had an option. They could walk away. But moms seldom, rarely or ever walk away from their kids. Unless they had some kind of mental or emotional problem. So I didn't ever want that. I wanted my freedom, when it wasn't even popular to be free.

[00:58:18] Jeff Geoffray: And independence.

[00:58:19] Linda Phoenix: Independence, yeah. That's fair to say. Also, earning my own money so I wouldn't be dependent on anybody. Not just man, but on anybody for any reason.

[00:58:29] Jeff Geoffray: You [00:58:30] waited a while to tell Lloyd, Serina's father. It was after you had the baby.

[00:58:34] Linda Phoenix: It took me at least two or three months to let him know, 'cause my mom encouraged me to let him know. By then I was about thirty-four years old.

[00:58:42] Jeff Geoffray: Did you have regrets about not getting married to Lloyd?

[00:58:45] Linda Phoenix: No, that was the best life to be single and have a baby. And some of my flight attendant friends who were the traditionally married at a certain age and have baby, would sometimes ask me, you know, "Oh, my god Linda, how do you do it without a husband." I said, "My [00:59:00] question to you is how do you do it with a husband." I just have to fend for Serina and I. I don't have to think if he were to get sick or if something happened in his side of the family. I could just focus on me and my baby. That's basically what I did. To me that was the best world. Later on, some of them came around and said, "You're exactly right," once they were divorced.

[00:59:22] Jeff Geoffray: Your mom must've been upset since you were unmarried and having a baby.

[00:59:27] Linda Phoenix: Oh, my mom was so worried that I wouldn't [00:59:30] have a baby. It was a big celebration for me to be pregnant, married or unmarried. By then, I'd, you know, purchased a home. I was financially stable. So nothing was going to change. I had a job with the company that supported women 100%. With pregnancy, I could take a whole year off and I got paid. I had the best of all worlds. And, uh, I liked it.

[00:59:52] Jeff Geoffray: How did Lloyd react when you finally told him?

[00:59:55] Linda Phoenix: I had to tell him and he just said to me, "If you and I are going to be [01:00:00] parents, I wanna be dad 100%." I said, "As long as we can keep our personal lives separate." But he fought to try to get us married and back together. I can't tell you how many years. I have a little treasure box to show Serina how her dad chased me. He's bought two engagement rings and I was like, "No. No. I don't want to be married."

[01:00:23] Jeff Geoffray: Lloyd was an accomplished athlete with a promising teaching career in front of him when you were dating.

[01:00:28] Linda Phoenix: Lloyd was the first Black [01:00:30] athlete LSU recruited on a scholarship. They have his name is there on the field house. He was just celebrated and inducted into the LSU Hall of Fame after, I don't know, fifty years. [laughs] We're still very good friends and we co-parented, and we had tumultuous times because his idea was something different than mine, and he kept trying to bring me over to the dark side and get married. [laughs] I didn't care about all of that. I knew he was a good guy and he still is. He's a great guy, but it just, [01:01:00] it was me. And he'll tell you that it was me.

[01:01:02] Jeff Geoffray: What were some of the things that you two disagreed on?

[01:01:05] Linda Phoenix: He and I had legal fights almost, because he wanted her name to be Wills. I wanted her name to be Phoenix. In my mind, I'm thinking he still has the option as a man to walk away. When he walks away, so would his family so my daughter would have their name and they would be going off someplace and she would feel odd with that name. And so I wanted to hold her close to [01:01:30] our family, because I knew my family. I didn't know a whole lot about his family, but I knew my family no matter what would take care of her. She can associate Phoenix with so many people. I wanted her to have that security.

[01:01:44] Jeff Geoffray: You said you've been described as dangerously independent. Is your stance regarding Serina's name and single motherhood an example of that?

[01:01:52] Linda Phoenix: My dangerously independent spirit. I didn't want to have to compromise what I [01:02:00] wanted to do, where I wanted to go. I didn't want to have to consider someone else in that sense. I don't know if that makes sense right now, but I always wanted my freedom.

[01:02:10] Jeff Geoffray: After more than twenty years on the job, you felt you were treated unfairly by Delta over one incident, and that led to your becoming an advocate for the union.

[01:02:20] Linda Phoenix: Delta Air Lines was the only major airline that was non-union. In 1999, I started developing [01:02:30] panic attacks. I landed in New Orleans one day and I felt my heart was racing. I didn't feel bad or anything but my heart was racing out of control. I pulled over on the side of the road and I called my brother. I said, "Something's wrong with my heart. I hope I'm still alive by the time you get here but I need to go to the hospital." I went to the hospital and had all of the tests run, and they discovered that I didn't have anything happening with my heart. I had a trip out to Los [01:03:00] Angeles the next day. I'd missed the window of opportunity to call in to tell them I wouldn't be there, because of this panic attack.

I did call and it was late and they had to scurry and get a reserve flight attendant to take my trip. Because of that, I had a mark on my record, which had been perfect before. And I trained flight attendants. I was in management for a little bit. I wrote safety procedures, regulations for flight attendants with the FAA. I [01:03:30] had an unblemished record and just because, that one particular incident when I was really officially sick, it went against my employment record. I thought, "Oh no, this is not [laughs] gonna happen." I started trying to fight it the way I knew how, by writing letters to the CEO.

[01:03:46] Jeff Geoffray: But the letter writing didn't result in the mark being removed from your records.

[01:03:51] Linda Phoenix: What was on my record was really up to my immediate supervisor who was a flight attendant that couldn't fly anymore because she had [01:04:00] broken her foot.

[01:04:01] Jeff Geoffray: And she didn't wanna remove the mark. You seemed to have no recourse even though you had proof of being in the hospital and to the extent possible, had followed all the procedures in terms of notification at the earliest possible moment.

[01:04:15] Linda Phoenix: I started saying to myself, "If we had a union, this wouldn't happen." So I became a very active union supporter, to the point that my manager was like, "Oh, Linda, can you just take that union tag off your [01:04:30] bag?" I said, "No. Fire me first." My friends would just look at me and cry, "Oh, please Linda, this is gonna happen to you. That's gonna happen to you." I hired an employment lawyer. That's how determined I was. My biggest supporters were the pilots. They would tell me, "Just keep doing it," because they've always been unionized. Those were my biggest supporters and promoters.

[01:04:53] Jeff Geoffray: Ultimately you hit a brick wall in your organizing.

[01:04:56] Linda Phoenix: Yeah, I did. I hit a brick wall with the flight attendants. [laughs] [01:05:00] "Why should we pay union dues? That's more money out of our paycheck. We just don't need it." But they had been brainwashed, because they hired this woman who was a union buster, because it was moving in that direction. With that, we would have these mandatory conferences to say how wonderful and great Delta is without a union. And if you had a union, this might happen. Your salaries would be controlled by this organization and not by us that love you [01:05:30] so much. So I hit the brick wall with the flight attendants, and I think a lot of them now wished that we had that. You know?

[01:05:38] Jeff Geoffray: Especially older flight attendants who had comparable seniority. You were a flight attendant during 9/11. Where were you that day?

[01:05:46] Linda Phoenix: I was home. I was in bed. Rolled over and saw Katie Curic talk about these airplanes, and I really thought she was talking about a movie. And I'm like, "What movie is this?" These airplanes are flying into these buildings. You could actually see it. [01:06:00] And I, I was so confused. I thought I was dreaming, but I was at home. I had friends, neighbors and friends that were out there flying. And then my heart skipped a beat when I realized it was real, but I didn't see a Delta jet. My daughter Serina was thirteen or fourteen at the time. She was in middle school. She became hysterical, because in her mind if I got in the air, I was gonna get blown up or something. And [01:06:30] so, I, I tried to go to work about a week after, because I wasn't afraid for whatever reason. Just, I don't know, I, I, I was just never afraid of anything happening.

When I got to work, my manager called me. And she said, "You have to get off this airplane." She said, "I just got a call from your family. You daughter is hysterical and she wants you home." So I got off the airplane. I went back home and my manager said, "You just stay home with her until she feels better about you flying." Then to ease her back into feeling [01:07:00] safe, I took her with me on one of the trips, just a little short trip, just so she could see if an airplane is in the sky, it's not gonna fall.

[01:07:07] Jeff Geoffray: Travel then and now has changed a lot.

[01:07:10] Linda Phoenix: My career was, was great. I can't imagine, [laughs] doing the same thing right now with all the unrest and the crazy people, and unruly passengers. During that time, people were more respectful. They dressed differently. Everybody would dress up to travel and they thought they were someplace elegant. [01:07:30] And the airlines, of course would treat them like they were special. It wasn't the quick ten-cent fares and all that's going on. You paid a premium but you expected and received premium services. Every now and again we would get some person who, [laughs] might've been afraid to fly. We called them the white knucklers right. Just squeezing everything and everybody, and every time somebody sneezed they would scream or something.

[01:07:56] Jeff Geoffray: Hurricane Katrina had an impact on your career?

[01:07:58] Linda Phoenix: I didn't [01:08:00] intend to retire when I did, but I showed up for work one day after Hurricane Katrina. We were living in Atlanta. I was commuting. I said, well, I need to go back to work. I need to fly. I walked in and I had my uniform on, and you had to sign in to let them know you were there. Right next to the sign-in sheet was some papers, because Delta was at the time was in bankruptcy. They were trying to get, get people to retire or whatever. And so, I picked up the paper and I looked [01:08:30] at it, and I started filling it out. So the woman who we call the desk supervisor, "What are you doing?" I said, "Well, I don't wanna fly anymore. I'm leaving. I'm not gonna fly this trip either." And she said, "Wait, what do you mean?" And I said, "No, I'm serious."

So I continued to, you know, fill it out. I had no thoughts about doing it before I got to that moment. It was right after Katrina. I was overwhelmed. I was tired. I was sad. I quit. And my manager said, "No, you can retire. We'll make sure you [01:09:00] get a pension." I quit my job when I was the only one that still had a job, because my entire family was homeless and jobless after Katrina. So I just called it divine intervention that allowed me to be able to do that. And I've never looked back and I've never been sorry, not one single day.

[01:09:18] Mya Carter: Part Four: Today and the Future

[01:09:25] Linda Phoenix: I started flying when I was twenty-three years old.

And I had, in my [01:09:30] mind, that I would retire at fifty-two, because that was so old, and because that was the earliest you could retire. We had so many mature, as they like to be called, flight attendants in their seventies and eightees. And I would go, "Oh, my god, don't you have a life? Why don't you go home and take a nap or something." Like, "Why do you [laughs] wanna continue flying?" What I learned is flying was who they were not what they did for a living.

[01:09:58] Jeff Geoffray: When you least expected it, [01:10:00] you met a prominent New Orleans civic leader, Charles Teamer, and the two of you formed a deep attachment.

[01:10:06] Linda Phoenix: Hurricane Katrina retired me. My entire family was jobless, homeless. We all were living in Atlanta. At the time, I was dating another guy. We would go out from time to time. He was an airline pilot. We used to see each other regularly. But I knew I was never gonna marry him and he was happy about that, 'cause he had been married before and he knew I had no interest. So I went to this party [01:10:30] with him. It was a Boulé party, one of those highfalutin parties for Black businessmen. I told my friend before we got to the party, I said, "Please don't let anybody know that I'm from New Orleans, because I don't wanna have to talk about Hurricane Katrina, because I'm gonna cry." 'Cause I, you know, I cried every day for months after Katrina. Just so happens Charles was the keynote speaker there. And the first thing, he got up at this big formal thing and said, "Everybody know there was a little thing [01:11:00] called Hurricane Katrina." And I was trying to hold it in, but then I just started crying. So my friend was like, "I thought you didn't want anybody to know that you're from New Orleans." You know. But here I was crying and like trying not to of course. Then the conversation got to be about, "Oh, poor thing, you're from New Orleans." I didn't want the sadness. I wanted to have a good time. So, after Charles made a speech, he realized that I was crying, but he said, "Oh, I'm sorry. They told me what happened," and that was it.

[01:11:29] Jeff Geoffray: But [01:11:30] nothing really developed from that first meeting.

[01:11:32] Linda Phoenix: At the time I was commuting back and forth between Atlanta and New Orleans, because I lived in Atlanta but we had to come back and forth. My brother was rebuilding his house, both brothers. So we're trying to get my mom's home established. And the whole family basically trying to clean up after Katrina. I would see Charles back and forth, on the airplane and just wave 'cause we were familiar. Then one day, we were on the same flight and the flight cancelled. And he came over and he sat next to me. He said, "Are [01:12:00] you still crying in public as much as you used to?" [laughs] And I said, "I am." He said, "Well, I have a whole lot more to cry about than you do, but I just don't do it in public." He said, "You wanna go have a cup of coffee?" So we started talking at a coffee shop. I learned that he had lost his wife in 2004. Hurricane Katrina was 2005. During Katrina, he lost his home he'd been in forever. So we were really friends. We would see each other from time to time at the [01:12:30] airport more than anything.

[01:12:31] Jeff Geoffray: You came out of retirement to work with your brother after Katrina.

[01:12:35] Linda Phoenix: My brother lost seventeen employees and I'd retired. He wanted me to, uh, help him with his business. So I went to work part-time. I would take care of my mom, go to work, and all. So I had gone from just Serina and I here, to my mom living here, and my nephew.

[01:12:52] Jeff Geoffray: Charles had moved back to New Orleans before you did, and then you moved back full time too.

[01:12:58] Linda Phoenix: Charles was involved in so many [01:13:00] activities. From time to time, he would ask me to go to a reception. Neither one of us can determine when that got personal. We were just buddies. I tell him all the time, "You told me all of your secrets with all the women you were dating." [laughs] Neither one of us can really determine when it got romantic. But at the time, my mom was still on a rapid decline. But he knew that my obligation was to my mother. He would tell me how he admired that I put everything aside for my [01:13:30] mom. Charles was popular and well renowned in the city. That didn't matter to me. Some women would say, "Oh, I would die to walk in a place with a Charles Teamer." I didn't understand that mentality. I would say, "Well, just go ahead." You know, I, [laughs] it doesn't matter to me.

[01:13:45] Jeff Geoffray: Charles respected your devotion to your mom.

[01:13:49] Linda Phoenix: He said, "What I admired about you was that you were not impressed by me, my accomplishments, or anything." He said, "Nor were you intimidated." I didn't feel [01:14:00] like I had to please him with whatever requirements he may have had. I didn't care about his requirements. He had to meet mine, which is I'm a caregiver first with my mom and my daughter. And I'm third on the list. Well you might be fourth or fifth as far as my obligation would be.

[01:14:16] Jeff Geoffray: At the time, Charles was a happy bachelor.

[01:14:18] Linda Phoenix: Completely. Women falling all over just to be in his presence. I would laugh. I thought it was amusing.

[01:14:25] Jeff Geoffray: Why was he so popular?

[01:14:26] Linda Phoenix: He Chaired so many boards, and when people come to our [01:14:30] house and they see all the plaques and adorations and everything placed on him, I would remind them it's all volunteer. His popularity was more volunteer work than the money he made. He was just so focused and determined to give back to the community and help African Americans rise up.

[01:14:49] Jeff Geoffray: But your relationship continued to grow more serious.

[01:14:52] Linda Phoenix: Bye and bye time went on and we actually managed to take some trips together. My aunt and one of my cousins would [01:15:00] stay with my mom, so that I could have a social life. I knew my mom was going to die, but you still don't know. You just know that something's gonna happen. So on a Christmas Eve we were Antoine's and Charles gave me a ring, an engagement ring. He never really asked me to marry him. But we had been dating about eight years or something. So just as he gave me this ring, I'm like, 'Oh my God,' I thought he was safe because he had been married for forty years when I met him. So I never thought in a [01:15:30] hundred years that he would wanna remarry, because he was having such a good time being a single man.

[01:15:34] Jeff Geoffray: So you were surprised when he proposed.

[01:15:37] Linda Phoenix: Yeah, he pulled out this ring and he never really asked me to marry him, but I received a phone call because my nephew was sitting with my mom while we went out, and he told me she had fallen. So I immediately had to leave and took the ring and put it in my purse. I never put it on my finger, I put it in my purse and I said, "I, I'll catch up with you later. I have to go." So unromantic. I didn't see him for [01:16:00] about a week later. We talked or something, but I remember my mom being in bed. My sister-in-law asked me. She said, "Whatever happened to that guy you were dating, you were going out with?" And I said, "Oh, I think I'm engaged." She said, "What?" And I said, "Yeah, I have a ring." So I pulled it out. [laughs] It didn't fit or anything. She was looking at me like, "What do you mean, you think you're engaged?" And I'm, "Well because he never really asked me. He didn't have the time. I never had the time to answer him because it was an emergency. I just had to leave." [01:16:30] And he was okay with that.

[01:16:31] Jeff Geoffray: You were still dangerously independent, but you were married.

[01:16:35] Linda Phoenix: I guess he knew that he needed to let me do whatever it was I wanted to do, needed to do in order to have me, right? He was wise enough to know he couldn't require any time, any, anything of me. Dangerously independent. People would ask me, "What made you say yes to him?" And I said, "I think it's because even till today, we've been married nine [01:17:00] years, I don't have to check in with him about anything." Sometimes I tell him, "I forget I have a husband." [laughs] One day I was driving and one of my friends got sick in Atlanta and I said, "Oh," I say, "I'm gonna just drive to the airport right now and get on the plane to go see her," you know, 'cause I was a flight attendant. You keep certain things where you can get toiletries. And I said, "Oh, I have a husband. I need to at least check with him, [laughs] before I go to Atlanta for a week." So he allows me to just be me and accepts me for just being me. Now, [01:17:30] I try to change him!

[01:17:32] Jeff Geoffray: As of a few years ago, you were still seriously plotting ways to go into space. What do you think of when you see examples of space tourism?

[01:17:40] Linda Phoenix: I was so jealous that they had this opportunity with Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson. But now, I have more of an awareness of my mortality. I have people counting on me. So for safety reasons, I think I would be a little bit more cautious about it.

[01:17:58] Maya Carter: That concludes [01:18:00] Episode 6 of Exchange Place: Linda Phoenix - Overcoming Gravity.

Please join us for Episode 7!

[01:18:07] Jeff Geoffray: This has been a presentation of the 431 Exchange. We're a non-profit organization dedicated to adults seeking to transform their lives through continuing education. We invite you to learn more about us by going to our website at www.431Exchange.org. To hear more inspiring stories please sign up for our newsletter. Thanks. [01:18:30] Copyright 431 Exchange LLC, 2022.[01:19:00] [01:19:30]

Outro Song:

“I’m Toiling”

Composed By: Prof. J.W. Williams

Performed By: Sister Alberta Gullage and The Gospel Highlighters of Kilgore, Louisiana

Organ: Samuel Berfect

Piano: Ophelia Gistayer

Drums: Willie Campbell

He opened my eyes

That I might see

Give me joy

And everything

He gets my soul

One happy day

Right when I have started

on my way

He’s been my doctor

My lawyer too

He’s the only one

Knows what to do

That’s why I say

He’s almighty

He’s the prince of peace