Charlene Factory: Oklahoma Activism in Education in the Civil Rights Movement

Brown: Hello, my name is Autumn Brown, and I am a researcher with Oklahoma State’s Oklahoma Oral History Research [Program] for our Activism in Education in the Civil Rights Movement oral history project. Today, February 7, 2020, I am meeting with Charlene Factory to discuss her experiences with school desegregation in Oklahoma City. Ms. Factory, thank you so much for talking with me today. Let’s begin by telling me a little bit about yourself. Where were you born? Tell me a little bit about you

r family. Factory: Okay, I was born in Lawton, Oklahoma; I was raised in Chickasha, Oklahoma. My early years were—my brother and I lived with my grandmother, affectionately known as Big Mama, and we stayed with her. It was when Mama started working at Langston that we went to stay with her while she was commuting back and forth. We went to Lincoln School, which was an all-Black school, grades one through twelve. There was no kindergarten at that particular time. To me, it was a wonderful childho

od. It was just fun and playing outside. As I think back now how free children were to play outside, not worrying about being kidnapped or being molested or anything like that, then you understand how great your childhood was and the freedoms that you had. My family consisted of my brother, myself, Mom and Daddy, our immediate family. Of course, we were a very close family, my grandmother; had an uncle Lemuel. My mother had two living siblings: her sister Helen Marie. There was an older brother

that died as an infant. It was Samuel that was the firstborn of the four children, so there were only three surviving children. As far as the family, I think Big Mama just instilled in everybody that God is first and then family is second. That was the one thing that she always told us. As a result, we did become a very close family throughout the years. I don’t know. Anything else you want to know about the family? Brown: You said you lived with your grandmother. How many years did you live wit

h your grandmother? Factory: I started school in Chickasha, so we lived with her then, probably up through…oh, gosh. There was a time we did move back to Oklahoma City. I spent the fifth and sixth grades at Edwards Elementary School, and then it was after that. That’s when Mama went to work at Langston, and that’s when we moved back to Chickasha. I did three grades there, seventh, eighth, and ninth. Then we came back to Oklahoma City, and that’s when I started at Douglass High School. Off and on

—and I think all of us did. I remember my aunt and her children and family living off-and-on with Big Mama. That was kind of what you did back then if you needed help, you know, within the family. Brown: What was the community like when you were growing up? You talked a little bit about children being able to play, but can you talk about what the community was like, considering the fact that we were still in the midst of segregation? Factory: At that time, everybody knew everybody because everyb

ody lived on the same part of town. Everybody just knew everybody. They knew who you were. I can remember times when I would do something somewhere, and before I got home, my grandmother already knew it and was waiting for me at the front door. It was just that way. I can remember my grandmother having me to take food to somebody because they needed…. Somebody, maybe the mother was sick and couldn’t cook. My grandmother was one that had a telephone. People would come in to use the telephone, or

we would get calls for certain people, and then I would have to go down and tell Ms. So-and-so to come in and call whomever. I think on the area where we lived, I think we probably had the only storm cellar in that area because any time there was severe weather, we would all go down in the storm cellar. When we got there, you’d hear people beating on the door because they wanted to get in, no questions asked, just whoever showed up. Everybody knew Ms. Sipuel had a storm cellar. We often laugh ab

out how we would go down. My grandmother would can goods all the time, and the storm cellar was where she kept them. She would put her jars down there, and we all had to be careful not to knock them over or anything in the storm cellar. Then she kept big barrels outside for rainwater. I can’t remember what else she did with the rainwater. I think sometimes she washed her hair with rainwater. I don’t know what else she did with it. Living with Big Mama, we got to experience, also, as most people

did at that time, they ate what they grew, whether it’d be chickens or cows or hogs or whatever. There was not very much shopping done, other than going to the store maybe to get a loaf of bread or some seasoning or something like that. My grandmother grew chickens, and she would get them in the mail. She would order maybe fifty chickens, and they would all come in the mail. Sometimes when some of them got there, they’d be dead, and she’d have to throw them out. She put them in what she called t

he little chicken house, and she kept a heater there for them until they grew big enough to get out on the chicken yard. They grew hogs. My daddy would butcher a hog every year. That was a fun time for me because my mother would be…. At that time, you could get flour and goods like that in big ol’ sacks. You probably heard of them. They would use that fabric to make bags for the sausage. I would run back and forth with the meat, taking it back and forth for them to do that. My mother would be ma

king the sausage bags, and my grandmother would be putting all the ingredients together and then putting it through this little grinder and then into the sausage bags. Gardens, whatever you grew in your garden, you canned. The food from the hog was frozen. She had a smokehouse where she kept her hams. They were left out there to do whatever you do to smoke hams. The rest of the community pretty much survived the same way. There was a lot of trading of vegetables and whatever. Somebody needed thi

s. They would, “Ms. Sipuel, can I bring you some greens that I grow,” and trade off things like that. It was a very close community, and I think probably that speaks for all Black communities back in that era. There was one—and even in the Black community, there was an area called “across the tracks,” and it was literally across the tracks. The train tracks separated, and it was an economic thing. The people on one side of the track, the streets were pretty much concrete, better homes. Across th

e track was not as developed as the other side, and they would be mostly dirt roads and houses not built the same way they were on the other side of the track. Even at that, there was no ridicule of anyone because they lived on the other side of the track, as some people do these days. If you live in a certain area, you get ridiculed; the kids get ridiculed at school. There was none of that. Everybody looked at each other as pretty much being equal. Brown: Do you know what year this was, when yo

u’re talking about? Factory: The year for what? Brown: What’s the earliest year you can remember going back to? Factory: I can remember going and enrolling in school in the first grade. When I was enrolling, my mother let me give the lady the information: my name and my mother and father’s name. I had the lady to write my name as Charlene Warren Fisher. Warren is my daddy’s name because my mother…and she signed it. All through school, I was known as Charlene Warren Fisher. When I went to get my

driver’s license at age sixteen and I looked at my birth certificate, it had Charlene Lois Fisher. I told Mama, I said, “Mama, they got a mistake on my driver’s license. They got Charlene Lois Fisher on here, and it’s not my name.” She said, “No, that is your name. Your name is Charlene Lois Fisher. … When you enrolled in grade school, you told those people your name was Charlene Warren Fisher.” I said, “Well, why’d I do that?” She said, “You got mad at me one day and told me you weren’t going

to use my name anymore, that you were going to use your daddy’s name, and that’s what you did.” I said, “And you let me do it?” She said, “Well, you got away with it. I didn’t care.” (Laughs) I do remember as far back as that, doing that. As far as any specific thing that happened in those very early years, not a lot, not a lot. I can remember the school, going to different classes, where my classroom was and things like that, but nothing specific. Brown: What experiences can you remember from s

chool? Considering the fact that you said it was an all-Black school, what was your experience like attending a segregated school? Factory: Well, at that time, we didn’t even know it was segregated. (Laughs) Like I tell people all the time, we didn’t even know we were poor until we grew up and the white man told us we were poor. Teachers knew you, teachers knew your parents, so you knew to only do so much. However, if there were some teachers that, just like now, you felt you could get away with

it, you would. I can remember there was this one teacher named Mr. Roper. We would always act crazy in his class, and he gave us swats one day. One day, he gave me swats. I think it was maybe two swats or something. Oh, I started crying, and I ran out. I said, “I’m going to tell my Big Mama.” I ran out of the building and ran across the street and told Big Mama. Big Mama went over, and, you know, well, she took care of that. She said she knew I wasn’t hurt because she had a chair that she could

sit in, and she could see the school. She would sit there at lunchtime and watch me, you know, after school, see everything I was doing. She said she happened to be sitting in the chair that day, and she saw me come out of the school. She saw me crying. She said the closer I got to the house, the louder I cried, so she knew it wasn’t…. The fact that this man had hit this teenage girl with a board was what she was upset about. Then I had another teacher named Mr. Dawster, and we would act up in

his class because he was very lenient. I don’t know. Somehow he must’ve told my family about it because I walked in class one day, and I didn’t even see my daddy sitting in the back of the room. I went in there in true form, just talking loud and crazy, and when I turned around and saw my daddy, I thought, “Oh, my god.” (Laughs) That took care of that. Those are things that I can remember. There wasn’t a lot of fighting or name calling. There were definitely no gangs. Everybody was just in the s

ame boat, you know. We were all alike. There was no—even though some families were better economically than others, it wasn’t any looking down on anybody. Brown: Can you tell me about your parents? Factory: Warren and Ada Lois Fisher, funny, loved to travel, enjoyed family. Every holiday, there was a cookout. Sometimes we’d go out to the lake, and we could take our friends with us. If not, my daddy loved to grill. He started out with one of those little bitty brown grills you see at Walmart, you

know. Then eventually he got the big grill and would grill. Nobody ever tried to schedule anything on any holiday because we knew where we were supposed to be. We were supposed to be at Mama’s house. They loved their grandchildren, would spoil them to death, and definitely loved each other. They could be so funny sometimes. Mama could be in the kitchen cooking, and there was this little table right there in the kitchen area out of the dining room. He would sit right there and read the paper, an

d they would get into the biggest arguments over…. It might be something on the news, something totally out of, you know, other things that’s going on that they’re doing with them. Oh, they would argue back and forth and end up getting loud, and then when they got through, he’d say, “Come on, Lois, let’s go to the store,” and they were through. (Laughs) My daddy was really funny. He used profanity quite a bit. The grandkids all loved him dearly. … They called him Warren; he didn’t want to be cal

led Grandpa. Mama was called Mama Lois. They didn’t want that Grandma, Grandpa, Granny thing, so that was kind of unique for the kids. My boys, in particular, he taught them how to manicure a lawn, and when I say manicure, I mean everything from the mowing to the edging to the pulling of the weeds to spreading dirt, cow manure, everything to make the yard beautiful. They really loved him. Actually, they loved both of them because Mama would spoil them to death and didn’t want me to ever whoop th

em or anything. I guess really just typical grandparents and probably a typical family. We’d take vacations in the summertime. Sometimes we’d go to Grand Canyon and sometimes California. Mostly they were out west vacations. They would take—one year, we took my grandmother, my mother’s mother. Another year, we took my daddy’s father and stepmother on the vacation. They were definitely—we’d definitely look out for the elderly. I can remember when my dad’s father died, and he said, “Warren, I want

you to promise me you’ll take care of Rosie.” That was his wife. He promised him that. Then when he died, we moved. We called her Mama Rosie. Bruce had to move into my bedroom. She took his bedroom, and they kept her for years until she passed. Then when my grandmother, Big Mama, became ill, they moved her from Chickasha to Oklahoma City. The older she got, she would have problems holding herself until she got to the bathroom. There was no fussing, no nothing. My daddy just got plastic and cover

ed all the carpet from the bedroom to the bathroom so it would be easy to clean up. She eventually died of cancer. Big Mama was my heart, though. I loved my Big Mama. Brown: You grew up with her. Factory: Oh, yeah, yeah, that was my girl. Brown: And that was your mom’s mom? Factory: Yes. Yeah, but her dad died; oh, I was young. I have a picture with him. He was Big Daddy, but he died when I was very, very young. He was a Church of God in Christ, what they call a bishop, Sipuel. I was raised in t

he Holiness Church with my grandmother. There was a church next door. There was always church on Sunday and whatever else was going on. It was fun. Brown: How old were you when you became aware of civil rights activism happening throughout the community? Factory: I didn’t really become aware of civil rights until I was up, up in age because I can remember the time when all of this was going on with Mama. The reason I remember is because I remember all of these different people coming to the hous

e, and talking and meetings and things at the house. I can remember when my mother and her roommate—they needed money for the case, the NAACP did. She and her roommate went on the road, and they went around to every small community in Oklahoma. They drove themselves. They went and spoke at churches, meetings, and people were giving dollars, ten dollars, and whatever. They raised something like twenty-five thousand dollars just doing that because the case needed to be funded. My mother’s roommate

had two children, so Big Mama kept all of us while they were doing that, but I didn’t really know what it was at the time. Brown: How old were you during this time? Factory: Shoot, I don’t know, maybe elementary school probably. It must have been during the summertime because with Mildred and Roland staying with us, I don’t remember going to school during that time. It had to be during the summer. Like I said, I had no idea what it was for. I was too young to understand, you know, even if they

told me. Brown: Your mom was just integrating higher education, and you were just a little elementary kid? Factory: Just going on along with life, (Laughs) just playing and riding my bicycle. Brown: Yeah, that’s crazy! Factory: Mama did not really become—and this is why a lot of the small communities recognize her name, because of what she did back then. A lot of it came down through generations about her from a lot of these little small towns. Of course, people like Mama and Martin Luther King

and all of these people, eventually children aren’t going to know anything about them because it’s been too far back, you know. I almost forgot my thought now. Shoot, I forgot what I was getting ready to say, girl. I thought it was important. (Laughs) Brown: Well, you were just talking about your mom and her going to small towns, but her not really…. Did she not make a big deal about what she was doing? It was just kind of like something…. Factory: No, it wasn’t. I never really knew anything abo

ut the threats and all of that until I got grown. No, there was nothing. Even as we grew up, there was nothing about like, “Y’all know what I did? Do y’all know that?” There was none of that. Oh, I know what I was going to say. She did not really become really well-known to everybody until the Civil Rights Movement came about. That’s when people started really recognizing what she had done. Then they started having her speaking at different engagements and going around to…. I think Governor Bore

n did something and then Governor Walters. One of them (I can’t remember which one) put her on the Board of Regents at OU. It was during that Civil Rights Era that she really became well, well-known. That’s why a lot of people—see, I’m older than Bruce. During that time, I was married and gone, and Bruce was still there. That’s why a lot of people know Bruce and don’t know me is because he would be driving up to the meetings and driving her around the state, he and Daddy both. That’s when she re

ally hit her peak, was during that time and after. Brown: I know you said you were in elementary when all of this was actually happening, but once you got older and started learning a little bit more about what your mom was doing, like, can you recall, like you mentioned, some of the threats and things like that? Like what types of threats would she receive? Factory: Death threats. Death phone calls. I haven’t seen them, but it’s been told that there were threats that came to the house. I think

in her book she might’ve mentioned it. In one of those books somewhere, somebody mentioned it. As a matter of fact, I think that’s when I first found out about it, and probably Bruce. Then I learned a lot when she was writing her autobiography. I learned a lot at that time because it was just something we never discussed. Mama was just Mama, you know, making popcorn balls and snow ice cream and all of that. It was just nothing special. She didn’t make it anything special. I’ll put it that way. B

rown: Why do you think she didn’t make it anything special? Factory: I think that was just her. It was something she did. She wasn’t a braggadocious-type person. Whatever she did, she did, and she believed in whatever she did. Probably as we were younger—well, I was just too young for her to be trying to explain all of that to me. It probably would’ve been frightening. I’m sure that’s not something that Big Mama or my daddy wanted to do. That was just her. Brown: Do you think your mom would acce

pt the label of an activist? Factory: Probably. Brown: Yeah? Do you know a little bit about what maybe led her to make this decision? So when I read about her, I mean, I read about the fact that at Langston she was majoring in English. She always wanted to be a lawyer, and they tried to create a Langston law school, but she refused. Do you know anything about why she held her ground and said, “No. I want to go to OU’s law school, period. I’m not going out of state. I’m not going to Langston’s. I

want this.” Factory: Okay, well, she took this role because when the NAACP was looking, they were trying to integrate places. They targeted OU, but they needed someone that they felt could really go there and do well and get a degree. They wanted my uncle Lemuel, and he was actually…. My mother’s the smartest person I have ever known, and my uncle was really smarter than she was. They wanted him, but he had just come back from World War II, and he didn’t want to do that. He wanted to go to Howa

rd University, and he didn’t want to get involved. He said he’d had enough discrimination during the war, and he just didn’t want to do it. Mama said that she would, and so that’s how she ended up taking that role. He went on to get his law degree at Howard University, so he did complete his degree. As far as not going to the school here at the capitol that they created, she knew, from just listening to her talk, she knew that that was not equal education, first of all, and that was not going to

serve the purpose of integrating the OU School of Law. Bruce can really explain that part better than I can, but I do know that that was her basis for it. We all know that that was a sham, two teachers were going to teach law for a law degree. She chose OU even though she knew what she was going to be faced with, and I’m sure you’ve read about all the discrimination things and putting her behind the chain and all of that. Brown: Yeah, I actually went and visited OU, and they took me to the exac

t place that they would sit her behind the chain. I mean, it’s remodeled now, but they took us into that little space where she had to sit. I was like, “That’s just….” Factory: In the cafeteria, I think they had a little place for her in there, as well. Then it got to the point that some of the law students would go and sit behind the chain with her and help her. I think she might not have enrolled on the first day of school, but after she got there, the students started giving her their notes a

nd things to catch up with where they were. Brown: Wow. Factory: That was, you know, kind of profound that the students really helped with that process. Of course, I’m sure you know that George Cross, the president at the time, was really in her favor. He really was for her. When they went to enroll, he told her and Roscoe Dunjee and the others that were with them that if he could, he would, but the law said that he couldn’t do it. They said, “Well, all we want you to do is put that in writing,

stating that it’s not her credentials. She has everything she needs to enroll but the fact that I cannot enroll her because of what the law says.” That was the basis of how it got to the Supreme Court because the law was unequal. Brown: Right. Factory: Yeah. Brown: What I read, it was like there was no academic basis for denying her outside of just race. The law was such that it carried a fine that teachers who taught mixed-race classes would have to pay a fine, and then students who sat in thos

e classes had to pay a fine. It was, like, monetized. Factory: There were some people that if they wanted to get a higher degree, they would go out of state to get it. Brown: I read Oklahoma would pay for that, but it was pennies compared to what out-of-state tuition costs. Factory: Exactly. Brown: Black people ended up having to raise money anyway, so it was almost like Black folks were, like, paying a surplus for segregation because they were having to pay for it anyway. Factory: Yeah, they wa

nted to keep us ignorant. Brown: Yeah. Factory: You know, they didn’t even want to teach us how to read back in the day. Brown: Right, right. Wow. Can you talk about your mom’s role as a teacher? She ended up teaching at Langston University. Do you know about her teaching? Factory: The only thing I know or that I can remember is I never had a class under her. She always arranged where I wouldn’t have that because she said she didn’t want to flunk me. (Laughs) Anyway, she was known as a very, ver

y good teacher. She was known as a strict teacher. Anybody that I have ever talked with that had a class under her talks about the kind of teacher that she was, how knowledgeable she was, how strict she was in her classroom, but it was fair. She was at Langston for, oh my god, I don’t know how many years, and she commuted every day. After Daddy retired, if the weather was bad, he would take her up there and bring her back. I don’t ever remember even spending a night on campus, so whatever the we

ather was, she was there. That was during the day that—I don’t know when you went there, but Highway 33…. Was Highway 33 still there, the road that winds? Brown: Oh, yeah, the really dangerous one? Factory: Yeah. You know how dangerous that was, and especially during bad weather. She still…dedicated is all I can say, dedicated, fair, knowledgeable. That’s what I can gather from everything that I’ve heard from students that have had her class. Even when I was there, you know, students would say,

“Oh, girl, your mama’s killing me. She’s killing me,” but they would do whatever needed to be done. When they left, they knew whatever subject matter they needed from that class. Brown: What did she teach? Factory: You know, I don’t even know. Maybe some government classes because she was in the history department. I don’t know what her lineup was of which classes or even what…. She mostly had, I believe, upperclassmen. I can’t remember any lowerclassmen, freshmen or anything. I think she might

have had maybe juniors and seniors or something. Brown: Okay. Would you say that your mother’s role in the movement had any impact on your family or family life? Factory: As we were growing up? No. No, that was altogether separate. Actually, by the time we were really growing up, that part was done and over. When we were growing up, she was going to OU to get a master’s, I think, in something, (I don’t remember) some kind of history or something. I think that was because of what she was teaching

. She already had a law degree, but she went back and got a master’s in something. Then I think she went back and got further study in something else in the history area. I can remember her doing research on the Trail of Tears, the Indian movement, you know, and however that relates to whatever she did. I don’t know. I remember that because I would be her typist. I would type up her—and oh, my god, when she gave you something to type, you know those yellow, huge steno pads? Have you seen those t

hat they used to have? Okay, it would always be in longhand. She would write something out, and if she wanted to include something, it might be on another piece of paper, and it would be taped right here. Then she would forget something else. Then she would get a straight pin, and then she would tack that in down here. Then on further down, there would be some scribbling. She would scribble that out and then tape that in. It was the biggest mess, and then she would number it: one, two, three, fo

ur, five, six. It was just so crazy. The way she would give you things to type, nobody else would’ve been able to do it because you’d have to really follow her. Sometimes I was just like, “Is this what you mean right here?” That’s what I would go through, typing her papers for her, and her notes. Brown: What’s something you want people to know or remember about your mom? Factory: That she was a very compassionate, intelligent woman that cared about family, definitely her race. I’m trying to thin

k. How can I put fairness or equal or people not being mistreated? I guess that sums it up. Well, I said family oriented, very family oriented. Yeah, that’s about it because we probably did as a family everything that other families normally do that did not have that kind of, whose parents were like her, went through things like she did. It didn’t seem to really affect her as a person as far as her ego. You know, when people tell you, you know, “Nigger” and call you all these names and all that

you have to go through, that didn’t affect her life later on that we could tell. She was just Mama. I’m sure you’ve heard about the sundown mob. Brown: Yes. Factory: Okay, so I don’t need to explain that. … I didn’t know about that, either, until I got older, about the sundown. I tell you what I do remember, also, is when she was going to school, all I knew was she was going to school. I didn’t relate it until I got older, but I can remember on Saturdays they had, I believe it was a Chevy. It wa

s a two-tone cream and brown. I can remember on weekends my daddy would be out there working on that car. He would get a mechanic’s book; he had a mechanic’s book. That’s just the way he was. He was very strict on directions and all this kind of stuff. Whatever was wrong with that car, if he could hear a noise, or if the oil needed changing, or the carburetor, or—what are those little things they used to put in the cars, the little white things? You all don’t know about that now. Spark plugs. Sp

ark plugs. He’d try to see which one was bad and all that kind of stuff and make sure the tires were right. I can remember him keeping that car in shape for her to go to school. Like I said, I couldn’t put it together then, but as I look back at all those times and remember him out there working on that car, I know that that’s what he was doing because they had to drive down every day to OU to class. Brown: With the sundown mob looming, was it just really important to make sure she wasn’t…. Fact

ory: Exactly. He didn’t want her to get caught there after dark. Brown: Right. That’s love. Factory: Yeah, oh, yeah. He loved her. I tell you, they could argue like, oh, god, like two people on the street ready to fight, but that was it. When they were through, they were through. Brown: Lastly, do you think your mom’s work has impacted education today? Factory: Yes, I do, and I see that when I go to OU or when I talk to people that are in law school or have gone to law school at OU. They’re than

king me, you know, for what she did. Of course, I can get no recognition. I mean, I can’t get—all of it goes to her. They let me know that they know. They know that had it not been for her and doing what she did, they probably would not have had the opportunity to get their education there and the quality education that they want there. OU has been doing pretty good lately about recognizing her and putting things in place for everybody to know what she did. Even with the role that OU played, you

know, the tide wasn’t equal. Brown: Well, I can tell you right now, when I listen to Clara Luper’s interview, she talks about her good friend Ada Lois, or Nancy Davis say that it was Ada Lois who pushed her and urged her to go to OSU. Even then, people still paid homage to…. Factory: Now, if you want to really hear someone talk about it, you ought to talk to Anita Hill. Brown: Anita Hill or Arnold? Factory: Hill. Brown: Okay. Factory: Anita Hill was the—she doesn’t live here, though. Anita Hill

was the lady that Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court judge…. Brown: Oh, yeah. Factory: Okay. She always speaks of Mama and how encouraging she was to her during those days. She talks about how Mama would maybe write her a note, you know, of encouragement and when she would see her. I can’t remember. There was a quote she always gave that Mama said to her one time, but I can’t remember what it was now. Oh, she can go on and on about her respect for Mama and how she helped her through those times

when she was going through that ordeal with Clarence Thomas. She’s a very good speaker, too. Brown: That makes sense why she spoke. She was the keynote speaker for the Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher Center of Social Justice at USAO. Factory: Chickasha. Brown: That makes sense why she was the keynote for that gala. I’m going there on Wednesday. Factory: Oh, okay. Brown: Dr. Tonnia Anderson… Factory: Anderson, yeah. Brown: …I reached out to her, so Wednesday I’m going to go visit the center and talk to h

er a little bit. Factory: Oh, while you’re there, you ought to get her to show you Lincoln High School. That’s the school, I think now it’s a middle school or something, but they’ve renovated it. You know, even in Chickasha, I’ll have to say this for that little, small town. As I’ve traveled around the state and seen where other people, my colleagues, Langston and stuff, went to school and people I’ve worked with, their schools were just not…. In Chickasha, they built a two-story brick building

with an auditorium, and it served as a basketball court, as well. Then on the side, there were classrooms for elementary students. They taught automotive and woodwork in that school, and that’s something that a lot of Black schools did not do back in that time. Now, the equipment that we got, anytime we got new textbooks, they were the ones from the white school because the white school got the current [edition], so we ended up with theirs, their typewriters. “Y’all, we’re getting new typewriter

s.” Well, they were coming from Chickasha High School, from where the white students were. Even in the cemetery there, which you’ll probably see when you go…there’s a section for Blacks, but it is kept up by the people in the cemetery. It’s mowed, everything. I’ve gone to cemeteries with friends in small towns, and it’s weeds, you know. Sometimes you can’t hardly find it, and they have to really look for the grave that they’re looking for. Things like that told me that we really did have it bett

er. Not my family, but Blacks in Chickasha had it better than a lot of other little towns around the state. If you see Chickasha High School and if you look across the street on First Street, that’s where we lived. We lived on that corner diagonal of the high school. Brown: Chickasha High School? Factory: Yes, 601 South First Street. My grandmother owned about probably half of that block because the property that the church was on was hers. It was her house, and then there was another house that

she kept as a rent house next to hers. She was kind of a—and then I’m told that at one time she had a little store there. I didn’t know that. Bruce and I didn’t even know that until somebody dug it up from somewhere and found out. She was kind of an entrepreneur in her own right. (Laughs) Big Mama was a mess, though. Brown: Awesome. Well, is there anything else that you want to add or include? Factory: Well, probably when I leave here, I’ll think of something that I probably should’ve told you,

but I can say this. It’s not that important, but one of the things that always impressed me with Mama was how well she knew the Bible. She could quote that Bible verbatim, chapter, verse, everything. She didn’t do it often. I’ll tell you when I really realized my mama was smart. (Laughs) I was doing a cryptoquote. You ever do those? Brown: No. Factory: Okay. Well, you know what they are, right? Brown: Yeah. Factory: Okay, well they come in the newspaper. I was working on this cryptoquote, and I

couldn’t get a word. I can’t remember what—there was a quote, some famous quote by somebody. I said, “Mama, you know how to do cryptoquotes?” “Yeah.” I didn’t even know she knew how to do cryptoquotes, okay? I thought I was really doing something smart. (Laughs) “I’m trying to get this one word,” and she said, “Tell me what you have so far.” I told her what I had, and she just went through the whole quote. I said, “How’d you know that?” She said, “Well, I just knew it.” That’s when it hit me, “

She’s really smart!” (Laughs) On a cryptoquote, you know? Not thinking about law school or anything, but to me a cryptoquote told me how intelligent she was. (Laughter) … I don’t know, unless you can think of something else that you might want to know. Brown: Really I just—context, like who she was as a woman, as a mother, like, outside of just the case. Factory: I don’t think there’s anybody right now living that would know her even as a friend. The one person that probably knew her better than

anyone was her roommate. They became friends when they became roommates at Langston. You know how you can get a roommate and you don’t know who it is? They developed a lifelong friendship. They called each other “mate” because they said they used to call each other “roommate” but then they just finally dropped the “room” and just called each other “mate.” I was, I guess, in high school before I knew Mate’s real name because we just called her Mate. I was doing my graduation announcements. I wro

te on there “Mate,” and I put her address. (Laughs) Mama said, “Who is this to?” I said, “This is Mate.” She said, “That’s not her name.” I said, “What is her name?” (Laughs) They loved each other. They loved each other, and they were very, very close, very close. She could probably tell you some things that, you know…. She had some other close friends, but most of them that I can remember are gone. I can’t remember. I don’t know what she would be now, 1924? How old would she be now, about ninet

y-something? Brown: Yeah, if she was born in ’24. Factory: If they’re alive, they probably don’t remember. They’ve probably got dementia or something. Brown: I wish. That would be awesome. … Well, before we end, is there anything else? I’m about to turn this off. Factory: Oh, not that I can think of. Brown: Okay. ------- End of interview -------