Interview with Dorothy Brown 

Interviewed on October 9,2026

Interviewed by Connor Barcus

Interviewed at Mill Pond Health Campus 

 

Dorothy Brown [DB] : My name is Dorothy Louise Brown.  I wanna share with you some of my experiences being a public school teacher, as an African American, and as the first African American [educator] in the city of Greencastle and Putnam County. 

 

I’d like to go back to December the 7th, 1941, when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. I was born in Springfield, Tennessee, right outside of Nashville, Tennessee. I had one brother who was 15 months younger than myself, and my mom. My dad was a tobacco farmer, and he chose to leave his family looking for a better job – which he did.  So, we went five years without actually seeing him.

 

I lived in an all Black community, we had doctors, restaurants, schools, etcetera, etcetera. We got on the train and ended up in Greencastle. I had never heard of Greencastle. But as my dad was looking for work, he came upon DePauw University and helped build a couple of the buildings that are still standing at DePauw. 

 

When I went to the classroom [in Greencastle], there were only eight other people that looked like me, the rest were White. I had never been to school with White students, but the teachers at Ridpath Elementary were just good teachers and I learned a lot. I don’t think they made any difference between Black or White students. 

 

I graduated from Greencastle High School in 1950. I was a good student. I obeyed. I didn’t get in trouble, as my brother did, but that’s okay. 

 

When I graduated from Greencastle High School I had good grades. But as I look back, the only thing that kinda bothers me is the fact that nobody helped me or told me what I should do in order to go to college. But my mom and dad worked on the DePauw Campus. My mom was a cook and my dad was a house man, he cooked. He stayed at the Beta house cleaning for 39 years. 

 

I ended up going to Terre Haute. The school at that time was called Indiana State Teachers College. And since I wanted to be a teacher I thought that was the best place to be. I graduated in three years, not that I was so smart, but in the summertime I was unable to find a summer job. So, I thought just find the money, go to school, and shorten the time that I would be in college. 

My first job was in Gary, Indiana, which seemed all Black to me. And it’s like, this is the way it was in Tennessee. And I stayed there for ten years. 

But interestingly, one Spring break, I wasn’t married, didn’t have any kids at that time, so I came back to Greencastle for Spring break. And the principal of one of the elementary schools called me and said, “I need a substitute tomorrow. Can you help me out?” Well first of all, I didn’t realize that he knew I was back in Greencastle or that he knew anything about me.  But anyway, I said “okay. I’ll come help you out.” Which I did.  And interestingly, a student that was in that classroom at that time did some little stupid thing that boys will do in the fourth grade. And I have reminded him that I didn’t forget that time. I said, “you don’t realize, but I’m working in the ghetto. I know people much tougher than you are.” He didn’t do anything really bad, he just thought it’d be funny. So, I thought it’d be funny for him to know that I was still around. And his brother, on Valentine’s day, he brought me a little box of candy to apologize for what his brother had said to me back then. I thought that was kind of funny. 

 

I substituted. That was interesting. That would have been sometime in the mid-fifties, like maybe ‘55, ‘56, or something like that. But by that time I had married and had one child. And in Gary you had to take a whole year off when you had a child. So, I was back in Greencastle. I heard the special-ed teacher wasn’t going to come back. So, I applied for the job in Greencastle. I thought, well, if they don’t hire me I still have a job in Gary. But, they did hire me, and I was surprised because I was the first African American person to be hired as a teacher in Greencastle. I taught special-ed for three years at Miller School in Greencastle. 

 

Well first of all, I wasn’t qualified. I didn’t have the qualifications, but neither did anybody else. So, I taught and also took a class at I.U., and that’s how I got my degree in special education. But, after three years I was tired. I thought I needed to do something different. So, they needed another fifth grade teacher at Miller, and I applied to do that, and the administrators in Greencastle gave me that position. I taught fifth grade with another teacher. That was fun because there were two of us in the same classroom. We did that for eleven years and that was a lot of fun. 

 

One of the students that I had during that time’s mother was the public librarian in Greencastle. And she thought that I was sending too much homework for her son, she resented that, and I knew she did. Anyway, we got that all worked out. But one day, just before school was out, the secretary came downstairs, handed me a note, and the note was from the superintendent who wanted to see me. I was scared to death. Not that I had done any wrong, but I just knew that this mother had started something. So, I didn’t tell the teacher I was working with, I didn’t tell anybody where I was going. I go to the superintendent’s office. He gave me a warm welcome, and I know was just shaking, I was so scared. We started talking and what he was talking about made no sense to me. And pretty soon he started talking about changing principals. He said, “I want you to be one of those principals.” And I said, “me? I’m Black, and a woman. And you want me to be a principal.” He said, “yes.” So, I thought oh my lord have mercy.  I said, “how much time are you going to give me to think about it?” He said, “three to four days.” I said, “okay.” I decided I was not going to tell anybody that I had been to see the superintendent. I was going to make the decision all by myself. And if I make a wrong decision I have nobody to blame but me. So, I told nobody. But I accepted. And everything went real smoothly, I couldn’t believe how smoothly it went. 

 

We had so much fun.  The teachers, everyday, there were about four or five, a couple men that smoked, we’d go on the back porch of the school and just sit and talk about the day. When Halloween came we dressed up and went to visit some of the teachers, and we did the same thing at Christmas time. We had cookouts. Everything was just really, really nice. 

 

Then one day, I got a phone call from this lady who used to be the secretary at Miller School when I was teaching there. She and her husband had moved to Indianapolis. And I thought, now why is she calling me? She said, “Well, my husband and I would like for you to come up and look at our school system. It’s really nice. See what you think about it.” Now I thought, why would she [invite me]? We weren’t friends or anything ‘cause I was always playing tricks on her and she didn’t know it was me. And I didn’t tell it until she passed away.  But anyway, I thought, okay, I’ll go up. They want me to see their system, I’ll go. I had not been reading the papers about what was going on in other school systems in Indiana. Her husband, by the way, was the assistant superintendent in this particular school district. So, they took me to the administration building, introduced me to the elementary director, took me to a school that they had picked out for me to be a principal [at], but I wasn’t catching on to anything. It made no sense to me. They took me to this building. Took me out on the playground with the students. It’s like, well why do I need to look at a playground?  I’m a principal of a school down in Greencastle. Why do I need to be looking at this school? Long story short: the federal judge had mandated that six township schools around Indianapolis had to integrate. They had to accept more Black students from the city of Indianapolis and divide them around. And they did not have any Black administrators in these six districts around Indianapolis. They had everything all worked out, planned, and I didn’t see any of it coming. Absolutely none.  But then, when they brought me before the school board, they wanted to interview me. Then, I started getting nervous again. But anyway, long story short: they asked me to be one of the six principals around. And I accepted. That meant I had to leave Greencastle, it meant I had to move to Indianapolis. I don’t like big cities. But anyway, I thought well look, I’m moving up, this is why I went to college and got my degrees. I never expected to be a principal or anything higher than a teacher. 

 

I kind of knew when I started being the administrator that a lot of the people in this building where I was the new principal, they were having problems with me because I was African American. In fact, finally, one of the librarians came in one day and said, “Can I talk to you?” I said “Of course. Would you like to sit down? Would you like for me to close the door?” She started talking, and then she started crying. And I said, “Are you having problems working with me because I’m Black?” And she started crying. Now I felt sorry for her. I said, “Well, you know what? There’s nothing I can do about that.”

 

I bumped into the Art teacher one day. She said, “Tell me something. Why do they have to come to Greencastle to get a Black principal? We got Black principals up here.” And I went, “Not my job. I don’t know.” It was an interesting experience that I had while I was there. I stayed five years. And after five years, the fifth year, I knew I had to leave. 

 

One morning a sixth grade girl came to me and handed me a piece of paper, and I could tell her mother had taken a piece of newspaper, put her phone number on it, and told her to give it to me. And she wanted me to call her. Well one, I said “I’ll do that, but it’s gonna take me a while, ” because one of my things was every morning I went to every classroom, spoke to the teachers, and spoke to the kids. It took me a while because I had three of everything. Three first grade, three fifth grades, etcetera. What the mother wanted with me when I finally called her was she was very upset because her sixth grade daughter was not going to the bathroom all day long. The kids had to carry their lunch money and give it to the people in the kitchen as they went through the line. The Black students from the area were jumping on the white kids and taking their money when they went to the bathroom. So this particular sixth grade girl was not going to the bathroom because she was scared. Her mother told her “well, hit them. Get your money. Don’t let them take your money like that.” And she said “well, our principal has a plan that if she catches anybody fighting, she’s not going to talk to them and try to figure out who started it. Doesn’t matter to her. She’s gonna get both of you. Both of you will get a spanking.” Well, you could spank in those days. So, the mother says, “All I can tell you is that you just go ahead and do the fighting.” The mother I was talking to on the phone, she said “You know what? I hope you don’t put your hand on my daughter, ‘cause I’m from Kentucky, and I’ll come over there and whoop your goddamn black ass.” And I said, “Come on, ‘cause I ain’t going nowhere. I’m gonna be right here when you get here, ‘cause I’m from Tennessee. Come on. Do it.” And I slammed the phone down about as hard as I could. I thought she was coming, ‘cause I knew her, and she was a little lady, and she’d smoke her cigarettes. She was bad, you know? She didn’t come. I called the superintendent’s office, and wanted to talk to him, tell him what was happening. But he wasn’t in the office, so I asked the secretary to please tell him what I said and what I said to the mother. He never called me back. He never came to see how things turned out. And I decided it was time for me to leave. So, I came back to Greencastle. I never did sell my house in Greencastle. So, I came back to Greencastle, went to church at Gobin like I usually did. Anyway, I got a phone call within about a week from the lady who was in charge of the education department, called me, and I was hired at DePauw. And that’s kind of the story. 

 

Connor Barcus [CB]: I read in a previous interview [you did], kind of going back to when you talked about going to school in Terre Haute to become a teacher. In a previous interview you’re quoted as saying, “Back in those days if you were African American, what were you going to do? So most of my friends and I became teachers.” I was wondering if you could explain more about maybe how being Black in the community, or anything else was contributing to you wanting to become a teacher? Or if it was something else just from within you? 

 

[DB]: As I recall, I didn’t think about the choices I had. Well, I guess I did think about them because I didn’t have many choices. I thought I could get a job as a teacher somewhere. But things weren’t open to me, not even in Greencastle.

 

When I was in high school, probably from ninth grade on, I cleaned houses for people to get money to spend, and that wasn’t very much at the time. I got 25 cents per hour, and I worked four hours on Saturday cleaning somebody’s house, so they gave me a dollar. But that’s not going to go very far if I’m buying crazy stuff, but I needed school supplies. I don’t think I had choices because I was Black.

 

I remember when I was cleaning for one lady, she said to me after I finished cleaning, she was connected with DePauw. She said, “Would you like to go downtown and have a Coke?” Oh I said “yes,” ‘cause number one, I wouldn’t spend my money on that because I only had a dollar a week to spend. But we went to one of the local drug stores, and we sat down to get a Coke. And she was gonna buy it for me, and that was exciting for me. Finally, the owner of the drug store came up to her, looked at her and said, “I can serve you, but I can’t serve her.” And he looked me straight in the eye. That has stayed with me forever. But when they hired me in Indianapolis to do that job, the next page on the front page of the Indianapolis Star was me hugging this little kindergarten white kid. I come back to Greencastle on Saturday like I usually do, went to his drug store to get my medicine, started out the door, and he said “Oh, Dorothy. Let me tell you how proud we are of you.” What I wanted to say was, “But you hurt my feelings when I was in high school and you wouldn’t serve me.” But I was smart enough not to say that. You don’t do that. And thought about what position he was in. If he had served me he would’ve lost some business. I knew that. So, the only thing I thought I could get a job at doing without any problems was being a teacher somewhere, and of course not in Greencastle. And there were Black teachers in Terre Haute, but I didn’t want to stay there. I didn’t like Terre Haute. It has some kind of a chemical plant and it stunk the whole time. So, I didn’t want to be there. Yeah. 

 

[CB]: You also said that your first job teaching in Greencastle was as a special-ed teacher, correct?

 

[DB]: The first job I had, I substituted that one time. That was the first time.  

 

[CB]: So working as a special-ed teacher obviously that’s changed a lot over the years. But what can you remember about teaching special-ed in the classroom from when you did that?

 

[DB]: Well first of all, the kids were just really warm hearted. In fact, this was probably eight or ten years ago, I was in the store in Greencastle. And one of those students, of course they’re all men and women now, but he came up and hugged me and made me cry ‘cause he talked about how good I had been to him and helping him become who he became. Because he was pretty slow. I probably only had maybe 12, 15 kids. That’s not very many compared to Gary, and you got maybe 50 kids in your class. 

I was still taking class to be a special-ed teacher. So, we were all learning together. But it made sense to me they’re human beings, they’re students, they’re trying to learn. It just takes them longer to catch on. I had no problems with any of them. They were just good people. People you felt sorry for. I’m not sorry that I worked with them. 

 

[CB]: Are there any specific experiences you could also give about being a student in Greencastle as well? 

 

[DB]: I was in the fourth grade when we came. It was the second semester of the fourth grade. And fourth grade went well. I loved my fifth grade teacher. Sixth grade. When I got to junior high, the geography teacher often would make remarks about different races of people. And I remember he talked about Black peoples’ hair being “kinky.” Whatever that means. I didn’t like that. But I’m not gonna say anything. You know, I don’t forget who I am and I don’t forget where I came from. And I’m a person who’s gonna pay attention, I’m gonna keep my mouth closed. 

 

And I remember I was very good. Well, I made all As. Now I’m not bragging, because I didn’t have anything. I didn’t even grow up with books. We didn’t have any books, there was nothing for me to read when I was growing up. And I remember I played the piano. I was really good in shorthand. And the shorthand teacher, I was always getting the right answer, she would come and stand behind me. I think she thought I had written down, was cheating in some kind of way. And I didn’t like that, but I couldn’t say anything. And I still wonder to today why none of the teachers or administrators ever talked to my parents and said, “You know, what’s Dorothy gonna do once she graduates?”  Nobody. And of course my parents didn’t know ‘cause neither one of them finished grade school, let alone high school. So what are you gonna do? What is she gonna do? Nobody ever questioned anything. So, I had to do everything by myself. It was hard. It was very hard. 

 

[CB]: You keep going back to like talking about how you’re in these experiences and you felt like you had to keep your mouth shut within these educational spaces. Are there any experiences where whether you or somebody else who was Black in these classrooms did not keep their mouth shut that you can remember? 

 

[DB]: I think we all did. Who’s gonna support you? If you see something that you don’t like, or you complain, you don’t know what’s going to happen to you. So, you go by. You watch what your adults are doing and how they’re doing it. So, if you say something and cause somebody to feel angry about it, who’s gonna support you? Who’s gonna back you up? There’s nobody who’s gonna do it. They’re afraid too. 

 

I like Greencastle. I really do. But there are a lot of nasty things that went on. But people, they were cool about it. They kept it under the rug. 

 

You know, there was a very prominent man in Greencastle who, well… Some of the friends, my friends, were all White because that’s the population. And they get ready to go on a trip somewhere they would invite me. And I started going. And then we went abroad. One summer they were gonna go to Australia, and I had never been to Australia. But I was smart enough… Getting older now you pick up on stuff. You can do this, don’t do this, but you can do this. And I said, “Well, tell me who’s going on this trip?” So, they named who was going. [I] said, “I can’t go.” I said, “Because I’ve been told by White people that there’s somebody on the trip and they like to tell Black jokes. Who’s gonna support me? I’m not going that far away from home and take that stuff.” But now I’ll take it. But now I’m 95. I’ve been around a long time. I know what I can do, but I wouldn’t do that now ‘cause that’s not me. 

 

School wasn’t hard in Greencastle. My classmates, they didn’t say stuff that would make you uncomfortable. But there were a lot of people here, that have been here, been around we know. So, you just stay away from them. You know, one of them I went to college with, but she act like she’d never seen me before. And when I graduated from Indiana State I think there were only maybe four Black people. 

 

[CB]: So, you also talked about when you were working at Miller School you were friends with a lot of teachers. You were saying you would go out back, have cigarettes with them, talk, visit with them. But you also talked about how a lot of the prejudice here kind of felt “swept under the rug.” Do you feel like it was different or still swept under the rug in the schools here when you were [working] there?

 

[DB]: I never felt that [way] about the school because of who the people were, who the teachers  were. I’d say no. It had never popped into my head that it was in the schools because the principal who called me to substitute, he was the same person who hired me for the special education job. He came with me, he wanted to be there when they talked to me and asked me all the questions necessary. And I don’t know where that came from, ‘cause I had never known him before. But he knew about me, that he wanted to support me ‘cause he thought I’d make a good special-ed teacher. So, I don’t know if that answers your specific question. I never felt that way about the education. 

[CB]: You talked about what your typical day was like working as a principal in a school. I was wondering if you could tell me anything of what a typical day working as a teacher in schools was like? 

 

[DB]: What the day was like? 

 

[CB]: Yeah. 

 

[DB]: Well, I really liked when I was teaching fifth grade because I had a partner. And we each chose a subject that we liked the best, that’s what we taught. We did that for 11 years. Now that’s fun because she did not like math, she hated math. And I didn’t like the sciences. But when she was teaching I was paying attention to what she was doing. We kept up with each other, you had to. But the kids liked it. It was just… You were happy to get up, get dressed, and go to school, ‘cause it was fun. It was fun. Everybody got along. We just didn’t have any problems believe it or not. 

 

[CB]: Do you feel like that was more unique to Greencastle and Putnam County when you worked here compared to when you worked in Gary or Indy? Or do you think that it was similar? 

Like was that kind of thing going on there as well? 

 

[DB]: Oh no, all three schools were different. I think they were all different. Yeah. Well, in Gary there was only one White family in the school building, everybody else was Black. And I don’t remember that they even had recess. I don’t even remember having recess. Something was just going on all the time. It was fun for me because it was my first time away from home. And I started getting a good check, thirty-eight-hundred dollars a year. It’s like, how you get by with that? Well, things were different back in the fifties. Out of all of my teachings I would say Greencastle was the one I enjoyed the most. I just learned so much, and you got a college here. It was just a whole new world for me to move here even though things… I thought things were going to be like they were in Tennessee. 

 

Because in Tennessee I knew where I could go and where I would be accepted because they had signs over the doors, colored or white. You come to Greencastle, you don’t have any signs but you’re not welcome here. And it took me a long time to start going to the golf course. I don’t play golf, but you know, go there for dinner or something like that. And the Elks. And there are still places, not often because I’ve gotten older and I’m staying in more than I have before in my life, but anyway sometimes there are certain places I can go and I stop and think do I really want to go in here. And one I can remember for the Elks, I was going to see somebody there and I got inside and opened the door. I turned around and left. I didn’t go. I didn’t know who would be behind those doors. And when people drink it gives them something other that makes them do what they shouldn’t be doing or say what they shouldn’t be saying. So, I still have memories of that, but I don’t hold that against anybody ‘cause my thing is what you do you pay for. Now I don’t have to pay for anything stupid that anybody else does. I don’t have to go in there if I want something to drink. I can buy it, go home, and sit down to drink it. So, that’s the way it is. And if I had life to live all over again I’d do the same thing. 

 

One of the other things I found interesting when I went to Indianapolis… I didn’t start living over there until I just had to.  I knew they were gonna let me commute everyday. I really didn’t want to live in Indianapolis, but that was okay. But one of the things I felt like I had to do, I knew where the Black students were coming from, what area. So, I felt like I had to find the time to go to every Black student’s home to meet them, their parents, to see where they lived. That was important. And I also had to find time, I thought, to do the same with the teachers and the staff in my building. A lot of them didn’t want me at their house. I knew that. I knew that. And that’s okay. If you don’t want somebody in your house you just don’t. And there were two teachers that just hated me, and I know they did, but that was on them. And I would go in and say, “Good morning boys and girls.” And ‘cause you know they’d say, “Good morning Mrs. Brown.” And I’d say, “Good morning Mrs. Barcus.” And Mrs. Barcus was huddled over here pretending she’s getting something out of her desk so she didn’t have to speak to me. But I did it every morning. She couldn’t get away from me. I know when people don’t like me, but I know what my job is and I’m gonna do it and I’m gonna be fair to everybody. So, I’d do the same thing all over again if I had to. 

 

[CB]: You mentioned how the proximity and the access to somewhere like DePauw University within Putnam County and Greencastle impacted you as a teacher or a student. Could you explain more about that?

 

[DB]: I don’t know if I quite understood that or not but I’ll answer it by saying neither one of my parents graduated from high school. And I’m sure they did not even make it to say maybe the sixth or seventh grade, something like that. But both of them being employed at a university saw more, just bigger than life, what an education is, how important it is. We didn’t have any money, they didn’t have any money, but we had more than what we had when we were in Tennessee. And they knew that was important. So, they did all they could to help me get what they thought I needed, to have a better life than even they had. Does that kind of answer that? 

 

[CB]: Yeah. 

 

[DB]: Education was very very important. In fact, my dad thought he was a… He worked at the Beta house for 39 years and he thought he was a Beta. Like one summer I remember he and I were sitting on the porch and here comes two or three White guys. They were here for the, what do you call it? What do they do every summer? Come back for a party. So, my dad looked down the sidewalk and he said, “You know, I think they’re coming to see me. I said, “How you know they’re coming to see you?” He said, “Because they look like Betas and I’m a Beta.” But the Betas did try… Do you belong to a fraternity? 

 

[CB]: No. 

 

[DB]: You jumped. Well anyway, the Betas, especially the astronaut Joe Allen, was a Beta, and the Betas at one time wanted my dad to be a Beta, to get initiated. But the headquarters in Cincinnati did not allow them ‘cause number one he’s Black, and number two he didn’t have an education. Well I can understand number two, but I didn’t understand number one. And they didn’t give it to him. But you know what? Three years ago, when Dr. White became the president of DePauw, the Betas actually initiated him. Yeah they did, ‘cause I was there, my kids were there. They initiated him as a Beta and I signed the book. Yeah, I know. That’s crazy isn’t it? 

 

[CB]: That’s incredible. Yeah that is. 

 

[DB]: And I was crazier because I was the house mother of the Phi Psis for 27 years. Can you believe that? 

 

[CB]: That’s a long time. 

 

[DB]: And I saw a lot of stuff. 

 

[CB]: I bet. 

 

[DB]: One of ‘em I love to tell is it was the night after initiation. And one of them, I think he was a sophomore, and he came in the kitchen, and he didn’t have any shoes on. And I said, “You know better than to come to the kitchen with no shoes on. You can come down here butt naked but you better have some shoes on. He said, “Okay.” About five minutes later he came in and was like, “Hey mom, look.” He was in the doorway of the kitchen butt naked. And when I tell the story the friends say, “well, did he have his shoes on?” I said, “I didn’t get down that far.” How many times you wanna come back? You won’t wanna talk to me anymore. 

 

[CB]: No. I’ll talk to you all day, Dorothy. 

 

[DB]: I knew it was important for me ‘cause… Maybe people nowadays don’t realize that, maybe they don’t. I think there’s a Black teacher down in Cloverdale currently. I think. And then it has something to do with sports. But I don’t think Greencastle has anybody. Did you graduate from Greencastle? 

 

[CB]: I did.

[DB]: Oh, okay.  I didn’t know if your family was… 

 

[CB]: Yeah. Lived here my whole life. 

 

[DB]: Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Does Greencastle have any Black teachers or administrators?  

 

[CB]: In my memory off the top of my head I had one. I had a Black principal the very first year I went to middle school, Mr. Wooden. 

 

[DB] Okay. That’s right. There was somebody over there but I don’t know who he was, and he didn’t stay very long. 

 

[CB]: Yeah. I think he left the year after I… Yeah. After my sixth grade year he left to go administrate somewhere else. 

 

[DB]: Oh, okay. And then there were… It was ex-husband's nephew, taught. He went to school in Texas and he’s been in California for all of his life. But he taught, I don’t remember what he taught at Greencastle, but he was there only maybe like two years? And then there was a woman from I think Reelsville, Black woman. And she was the principal at Ridpath, but she only stayed a couple of years. So, there hasn’t been very many. So, at the top of my mind that’s what I wanted to get out, being non-white in Greencastle. But, I have met some people who are gung ho about how they feel about things, and I just, I like to get in the corner and just be real quiet and suck up all the information I can and then decide what I want to do with it. So, I guess you’d say I’m not a fighter, but I did what I thought I needed to do at the time. 

 

[CB]: You were saying how you were one of the sole Black figures within the schools here. Like one of the only Black figures within the school as like a teacher or an administrator, and how were wondering with me if I had any people of other races, or Black people, that were administrators or teachers in my life growing up here. I was wondering if you see that as something important to the county, or just more of your thoughts about it? 

 

[DB]: I don’t know because I’m thinking back to, I don’t know how many years, I haven’t had a chance to think this through. But there was a time when there was a strong NAACP organization in Greencastle that included a lot of DePauw people. And another thing when in 1941, or 1942, when we came to Greencastle, there were a lot of Black people here. One thing that drew them was work, and also the bombing of Pearl Harbor drew a lot of non-whites further north ‘cause you get better jobs, better homes, etcetera. And I look around at my girlfriend and I because we didn’t have a lot to do, we didn’t have money to do anything, we didn’t have toys. So, we would walk from one corner, we were allowed to stay out until it got dark outside, then we had to come in. But we would walk from her house to my house. And one time we sat down and wrote down all the names of the Black people that we knew in Greencastle. And we're talking close to 2,000 people. So, they came on the train, some of them stopped. White people were allowed to buy, paid for people to come work for them, and they would help them get better jobs, etcetera. Some of them, once they left, got to Greencastle and they saw there were better opportunities in Indianapolis, then they went that way. But I look around now and it’s like what happened to all those people. There were only maybe two or three, well probably maybe five or six, of those families that are still here. You see a lot of other non-Whites, but where’d they come from? Some of them come out of the prison and just stop right here. But they’re not here anymore. They’re still constantly looking for a better life. Yeah, I don’t know if that answers your question? 

 

[CB]: No. I think that’s fascinating. 

 

And you’re talking about looking for a better life. Is there anything that’s happened within like the history of the county that you think has caused that drop off in non-White population here? 

 

[DB]: I don’t think I see that. Because once you get to Greencastle and you stay here for a while somehow somebody has made it look like this a great place to be. Don’t you want to stay here and raise your family?  Etcetera, etcetera. But then you stay. The longer you stay the more you see. There’s still places I probably wouldn’t, I wouldn’t… I volunteered, something for the courts, it has letters and I can’t remember what the letters are now. But my job was to come to court when that particular person had a reason to be at court. But I had to go out. I was a field person, would go to the home, see what was happening. I went to one home, pulled up in the driveway, and I didn’t turn my gas off.  There’s something here and I know I can’t explain it, but [it] tells me this is not where I wanna be. I think Greencastle is uhh, I’m not gonna come up with the right word that I want right now, but it’s not who people think it really is. There’s something else going on with Greencastle. That probably doesn’t make sense to you. 

 

[CB]: No. It does. 

 

[DB]: Okay. Okay. It’s not what it’s cracked up to be. I’m very, very surprised my two daughters are still here. 

 

Well I hope to see you again. 

 

[CB]: I hope to see you again as well, Dorothy. Thank you so much for doing this.