Interviewer: Right here we go.
We're here with Wayne Woodward
in Amarillo Texas.
Today is June 9th, 2016
with a Civil Rights in Black and Brown Oral History Project
of Texas Christian University.
Quickly, before we start just to get this out of the way,
any time that you want to stop the interview
or take a break from the interview
just let us know and we'll stop it
Whether it's for any reason that you want.
-: Sure.
Interviewer: It's your right.
And the first question we want to do some life history
before we get into any other things.
-: Sure.
Interviewer: I want to ask you where you were born,
where you grew up,
and what your parents did while you were growing up.
-: Okay, I was born in Freeport, Texas, 1944.
My parents moved here in 1948, Amarillo.
My dad sold insurance.
He was promoted and transferred here
by his company to open up an office.
My mother at that time was a housewife
and I have been here on and off all my life.
Interviewer: So you grew up in Amarillo?
-: I did.
I grew up in Amarillo.
Interviewer: And what were your thoughts of Amarillo
when you got here?
Can you describe the local culture, how it was then?
-: Well, of course, when I got here I was four years old.
But other than that
I guess my first memories were
I recall downtown Polk street
there was a store called Kress.
Well, there's one called Woolworth's too, but Kress.
I recall seeing
restrooms for white people and Negroes.
And as I recall that's what was on the door.
I recall riding the bus with my mother and
it's very common for the blacks to
get on the bus and go to the back.
I seem like I do recall asking my mother, why was that?
And she said that's just the way it is.
I do recall
in high school that
the black students had their own high school
over North Amarillo.
I graduated high school in '63
so this would have been '60, '61, '62, '63,
right around that area.
And they all went to their own high school
and in the school I went to
I don't recall seeing any black people
and I really don't recall seeing any Hispanics.
The Hispanics were over in East Amarillo
and they went to another high school, I think.
Interviewer: After you graduate from high school
which college did you go to?
-: I graduated from high school.
First I'll start off at a two year junior college
here in Amarillo.
Amarillo Junior College.
And then I went to West Texas.
At that time it was West Texas State University
and majored in history
and English.
At that time the war was going on in Vietnam
and I was in a fraternity
and having a wonderful time
but some of the people in my fraternity didn't study
as I recall
and they flunked out and they got sent straight to Vietnam.
I did study, but that he scared me
so I studied more and more and more and graduated
and thought, gosh, what do I do now?
So I started working on a master's degree in history.
Did not finish that.
Ultimately changed over to education.
Master's degree in education.
Interviewer: Where did you go from there?
-: My first job was California.
A little town called Shoshone.
Shoshone was in Death Valley, California.
I got a job out there through a Head Hunter.
I grew up here in Amarillo and I thought, well
I want to go out and see the world
and at that point in time, the way I thought
when you see the world you go to California.
So I got a job out there, out in the middle of nowhere
a little town of about 500 people
which is still there today.
I was out there five or six years ago
and it's still there today.
I was out there one year.
I taught history.
World history, U.S. history
and geography, world geography, grades seven through 12.
And then I decided
I can't take this anymore in a little town
so I moved back here.
Moved back here in the summertime, would've been around '69.
A friend of mine worked in Hereford schools
so he got me an interview and
I went over to Hereford and started over there.
They didn't need anybody in history, but English, they did.
I told them I could do that
so I got a job teaching over there.
Interviewer: What grades were you teaching?
-: That time seventh, ninth grade English.
Interviewer: So you were teaching teenagers.
And what were your experiences teaching in Hereford
before the whole controversy started over your case?
-: Nothing really bad at all.
I do recall getting to Hereford and
was immediately asked to
join the Lions Club and the Colonias.
I didn't know hardly anything about those
except I did know one of my friend's father's father was
in the Lions Club here, here in Amarillo.
He was basically
I don't know if you'd call him a racist
but he talked horrible about minorities.
Anyway, they wanted me to join.
And I just didn't.
I just didn't want to do any thing like that.
And then they pretty much left me alone.
Nobody bothered me about joining anything.
At that time I was not real political.
I knew in Hereford there was a labor camp,
migrant labor camp,
which a few times just drove out to see what it was like
and, oh, it was bad.
Some of them had didn't have indoor plumbing.
As I recall they had outhouses down to end of the streets.
I do recall one house with a big hole in the wall
probably a foot, foot and a half.
You could drive down the street,
look through the hole and see the inside of the house.
But at that time I really didn't think much about it.
I guess I thought, well, that's just the way it is
and it didn't affect me a whole lot, I guess.
Interviewer: And when did you join the ACLU
or what inspired you to join the ACLU
when you were working at Hereford?
-: Well, I had a good friend of mine, we grew up
and he became knowledgeable about what it was, the ACLU,
and he began to talk to me about it.
So I joined the ACLU
gosh, this would have been about 1972 or three
and I was in Hereford
and we didn't have a chapter over there at all.
I did come to meeting here once.
Now, They did have a chapter here in Amarillo, the ACLU.
I think I only remember coming once over here to a meeting
but I just joined, paid the dues and carried my card.
Interviewer: And did anything in particular inspire you
Did any of the beliefs of the ACLU
or something you had seen in the area?
-: What I began to see is that
they really supported rights of minorities, of any minority.
I think what I really joined, as I recall
one of the reason I joined is, it was very simple.
They explained in their literature
that they just defended the bill of rights.
Nothing more, nothing less.
And that they didn't make the laws.
Somebody else made the laws.
They just defend what's already on the books.
And it's just the first 10 amendments to The Constitution.
And I thought, well, that seems fair.
I don't know why everybody hates this organization
because they just defend the Bill of Rights
and I always thought at that time, and still do,
I always thought that's what the country was about.
Interviewer: And can you explain to us
how that affected your job in Hereford after
I believe you handed a piece of literature
after class to a student.
-: Yeah.
First of all
I'm not sure how I became friends with a Catholic priest.
I am not Catholic
but I became friends with a Catholic priest
named Father Jose
and Father Jose had
his ministry out at the labor camp.
He actually had a very small apartment
out at the labor camp.
I don't remember how I became associated with father Jose.
But anyway, for about a year, every couple weeks or so
I'd go out to visit father Jose.
He was actually sent here from New York City
and he was sent to Hereford
and we would sit around and talk in his small apartment
about problems, social problems
that are going on in Hereford.
And like I said
his little place is right there inside the labor camp.
So after about, I don't know
eight months, a year
of just going out there and talking
We decided, well, what are we going to do about this?
Isn't there anything we can do besides just
come out here sit around and talk?
So he suggested, and I agreed that we start a local chapter
of the American Civil Liberties Union.
And so that's what we did.
We some way got out the word.
I think he was charged with putting the word out
as I recall.
Anyway, we had a meeting
of about 10 people or so
and I thought it was a good idea
that we had these meetings and
I wanted people to know about it
so I called the newspaper the next day and said, guess what?
We've started a local chapter
of the American civil liberties union.
They were very happy to hear that
and they were very happy to put that the next day
on the front page of the paper, The Hereford Brand
which I still thought that was a very good thing.
I was very naive.
I thought people ought to be happy
that we're starting something to defend the rights
of all Americans.
Well, I quickly found out
that they were not pleased about that.
Probably the very next day or maybe even that day
I was called in by the principal and
wanted to know what this was all about
and I explained to him what it was
The American civil liberties union.
I'm not sure he had ever heard of that before.
I explained to him, it's just
it's been around since the twenties
and they just defend the rights of all Americans.
He said, well, and so he let it go.
I started the union with Father Jose
but one of the teachers,
history teacher that taught right beside me
also joined the same time.
So that went on.
I was called in, he was not called in at first
as I remember.
But sometime later, a week or so later
we were both called in at the same time
and told we need to get out of this radical organization.