Vivian Feggans

BEGINNING OF TAPE [00:00]

LEWIS: [00:03] All right. Well, you know me.

FEGGANS: Yeah!

LEWIS: I’m supposed to introduce myself, but you know me. So thank you, Miss Vivian, for doing this for us. I think this is going to be very, very beneficial. Very, very informative, for years to come.

FEGGANS: Hopefully, yes.

LEWIS: So I thank everybody. So I’ve got your consent forms, for using your recording. And as I said, if you think of think of or come across any items that you want us to use or have here, let us know. And are you good? Do you need anything to drink or anything?

FEGGANS: No, I’m good. 

LEWIS: [00:43] So, first question is: Yancey, your connection to B.F. Yancey School. When did you go here?

FEGGANS: So I went here for my entire elementary school career. They didn’t have kindergarten at the time, so it was from grade one to grade six—so I went as far as grade six. Would’ve gone to seventh, but then seventh, we went to our first year at an integrated school at Scottsville. Because Yancey went from one to seven at that time. 

LEWIS: [01:14] Do you remember around what timeframe that was? 

FEGGANS: Yes. Oh, I should’ve gotten this straight. Let’s see. 

LEWIS: Or even in the neighborhood—

FEGGANS: So probably ’66 to, plus ’66 to—

LEWIS: [01:34] Like ’73?

FEGGANS: No, no. It would’ve been seven years here, so ’66-7…’71. That can’t be right.

LEWIS: That sounds right—

FEGGANS: Yeah, I’ll probably have to—

LEWIS: Because it was around ’71-or-2. 

FEGGANS: No, more likely it was—No, because I was at, I went to Scottsville for seven, eight, and nine. And I graduated from Albemarle in ’73. 

LEWIS: [02:06] You graduated, so—

FEGGANS: Twelve years from ’73. 

LEWIS: Yeah, so it was like mid-‘60s then. Yeah, that works.

FEGGANS: Yeah, mid-‘60s. 

LEWIS: [02:19] Now your principal and your teachers here: Do you remember who the principal was? 

FEGGANS: The principal was Elijah Gant.

LEWIS: Gant, Mr. Gant.

FEGGANS: He was from South Carolina, originally, before he came here. And the teachers—so many teachers. When I first started, my first-grade teacher was Miss Ridley. I don’t know about her first name. Second grade teacher was Mrs. Scott. Third grade teacher, I can’t remember. Fourth-grade teacher, I don’t think I—was Mrs. Carter. Fifth grade teacher was Mrs. Price. Sixth-grade teacher—I know Mr. Fleming was one of my teachers in sixth grade, but he was a gym teacher, and I think he also taught science or math. So, yeah, that’s six years. 

LEWIS: [03:15] So was there anything memorable about Mr. Gant or any experiences—?

FEGGANS: Yes. So, we’re being transparent and honest: not everything was pretty about those days. It was really enriching to be part of a segregated school, because that’s the era that I grew up in. And at that time, the school was very much ties to the community and, vice-versa, the community was very much tied to the school. But Mr. Gant, when he came up—he was here the whole time I can remember I was here—but he was really mean. And he would really go over and above when it came to discipline. So he would physically beat us—you know, kids when they misbehaved. And he had this long, very flexible switch kind of thing—stick, I don’t know—but that’s what he would use for punishing people that he felt like had done whatever. So at the principal level, it’s weird now as I think back on it, because you think the teachers themselves would delegate that. Because during those days, there was corporal punishment in the schools. I mean, I’m not sure about white schools; I guess it was in schools in general. But he just went too far. And he also seemed to have favorite kids. And some kids who seemed to have parents who were very active in the PTA or something, they were considered favorites and you never would even expect him to do anything to those kids. But, those kids were from poorer families—and in those days you knew, we were a small community and you knew when someone was struggling as a family—he was really hard on people that were poor. I saw him exact punishment on one of my really good friends, and I don’t remember her doing anything So those times I think about as really scary and sad, because you just never knew. For me I just—I managed to keep quiet and stay out of trouble somehow. Although some people got in trouble who were not really doing anything. So I can think of really wonderful times—but now that we’re talking it through, I wonder if some people want to forget their whole Yancey experience because of that. And that makes it very sad. 

LEWIS: [05:52] So that division, that favoritism you’re talking about, that’s really not rooted in race or anything. That’s more rooted in social—

FEGGANS: Class. Classism.

LEWIS: [06:04] It’s more classism, yeah. You know, the parents who are more—And I guess we still see that today, right?

FEGGANS: Yeah. I mean, I think so.

LEWIS: Parents who may have more money, they can pull more strings. Or they may have more time to be involved.

FEGGANS: Exactly. Now, there may not be corporal punishment today, but children who are struggling financially and have challenges at home or are obviously poorer just may not get the attention—I’m just thinking like today what that might look like, since they no longer have corporal punishment. But what do some children have to go through?

LEWIS: I think maybe they get left behind, with the grades. They don’t get the same resources other kids get. 

FEGGANS: And oftentimes children in that—Because I know even for me, I was poor. But maybe, I don’t know, we never seemed to have an issue, or maybe it’s because we live—My family lived behind where he lived. He was renting a house in my little community, which is not even five minutes up 6. So he rented a house there. My father was a bit crazy, so he might have known that was a little too close. It just makes me wonder what memories and what good things other children that had to deal with some of that would think about—or just want to forget about it. 

LEWIS: [07:32] So what about the teachers? Do you feel like the teachers were somewhat of a buffer? Did you see them in a different light?

FEGGANS: I didn’t see them as a buffer, because it seems like maybe in those days people wouldn’t have challenged the principal. And I don’t even know why we had to get someone all the way from South Carolina, now that I’m an adult and can think critically about things like that. I don’t know how he ended up being placed in our school. You know, we had some wonderful teachers. And again, all the teachers had the right to discipline us: that was just the way it was at the time. But some of them never did; they never had need to. One other teacher who was a firm disciplinarian was Mrs. Price—excuse me, Miss Price. Her first name was Flossie. She was the fifth-grade teacher. I think it was fifth grade. But every year, when we got to her grade, she would say, “I wish I had my other class back. They were the best class I ever had.” So we found out later she told every class the same thing. (Lewis laughs) But she was a person who, if one person acted up, she was just liable to just give everybody a couple of licks in the hand. So she wasn’t mean-spirited about it; she was just trained. And I guess Black teachers in those days were trained to be disciplinarians. That was maybe part of their training, I guess. So it was just part of life. And most people that I talk to don’t have any ill feelings about it, because we were also disciplined at home. So that was nothing new. But with Mr. Elijah Gant, he was just so mean and so brutal. So it kind of makes—because you know, now I have two grown children. I have my first grandchild, who’s three, just turned three. But neither of my children say, both of them—my son doesn’t have kids yet, but he and my daughter both said they are not going to do corporal punishment. Because the way they see it, it’s too integrally connected with slavery and beatings. And I don’t see it that way, because there’s discipline and there’s something off the charts.

LEWIS: [09:45] Abuse.

FEGGANS: There’s healthy discipline that I think sometimes children need to know, you limitations on certain things. But that’s how a lot of children now see it: “I don’t want to beat my kids,” because they see it as something born out of slavery, the beatings that some people do.  

LEWIS: [10:03] And I understand that some of that went overboard when you were at school But to my knowledge, most feel like they were actually being educated—and kids wanted to be educated. So do you feel like there is not enough discipline now, maybe?

FEGGANS: Absolutely. Because I think a lot of—I think teachers do need to have the right to come up with a firm discipline, of something that they really do, to help children who, for example, might be a disruptor in classes, that needs whatever attention. And the other thing in school, of course, the other thing we had was religion in schools then. So every day when we came to school, we had devotions. So we would recite a Bible verse; we might sing a song. Everybody was responsible for learning a Bible verse and singing. Whereas I think now, that’s another really tragic thing, that we no longer have religion in the schools.

LEWIS: [11:11] So what abut segregation and integration? Are there any events around that that are memorable for you, whether good or bad? 

FEGGANS: Absolutely. As I said, all I knew was segregation at first, because that was the world I lived in at the time. And it was fine with me, because that was all I knew. And we had so many rich experiences at Yancey, and the community was so connected through the school, and vice-versa. So when we had different things, we could expect a full house of parents and the community to be here. And when I started Scottsville in grade seven, the very first day at school—I’ll never forget—Miss, I can’t remember her first name, but Mrs. Phillips was my homeroom teacher. And I remember she seemed really ancient. She may not have been—when you’re a kid, everybody seems old, right? Now I’m in those shoes. (laughs) So she had this really funny grey hair that had yellow in it from dyeing, I guess, and she had really stained teeth and she drank—she had her coffee whilst at her desk. And I think she smoked. But I’m just saying—I’m describing her because I had never seen a teacher looking like that. I mean all my teachers here at Yancey were very proper—you know, well dressed, prim. That was just what Black teachers looked like to me. And then when I saw her, I’m like, almost afraid. I was taken aback. And after we all went in and took a seat, the first question that she asked was, “Would all the white children in my class stand up? Take your seats. Now will all the coloreds stand up? Take your seats.” So me and my peers who were in my homeroom, we were all looking like, “What is this: the Twilight Zone?” I’m sure we all shared a moment of—For me, it was just terrible discomfort, like I was just catapulted in that moment into this foreign place, that was nothing familiar to me even though it was a schoolroom. I’ll never forget that: that was my first memory. But the weird thing is, I’ve written about that, and I’ve chronicled some of my stuff—

LEWIS: [13:40] So do you think that was her trying to set the precedent?

FEGGANS: That’s what I felt. I don’t understand why else, since I didn’t have anybody else’s homeroom. And never occurred to me to ask, “What did your homeroom teacher do?” Because then we might know this was something they were asked to do, or that each one handled it different. But I felt like she did that to delineate. (mic noise) “This is who you are. We’re, quote unquote, integrated, but we’re still segregated.” That’s how I felt about that. But then on the other hand—

LEWIS: (unclear)

FEGGANS: Yeah, it’s weird because I think, with almost anything, you sort of have to look at the opposite side of it, too. With her, she was the person, well, one of the first people to really—Well, my mom was the first person to introduce me to a love of literature. Because my mom ordered me, when I was a little girl, the classics. All these little books. They may have been Signet Classics. So it was Black Beauty, all these amazing—yeah, yeah, So I just loved from when I was really young to read and loved books. So when she read to us—she read and told us to read along, because she also I think was our English teacher. She read us Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, and that was powerful to me. So I loved—She was a wonderful reader, and reading and having us follow along really engaged me into the world of the book. So that’s something fondly that I can remember about her. So it’s really weird how, at first when I met her, she seemed really almost like a monster. But then I learned to respect and to really respect her as a teacher. And I learned a lot from her. 

LEWIS: [15:33] What about your peers?

FEGGANS: I’m not sure. Yeah. I wasn’t one of these people who—Now, I really think about stuff deeply, but when I was younger I never, I just kept it in my head. I never really said to my friends, “Hey, what do you think about this?” (mic noise) But that would be an interesting question for some of the people, to ask some of those people now.

LEWIS: [15:56] But what about your relationship with your white classmates and peers? 

FEGGANS: You know, in the first year, seventh grade, I don’t even remember whether I had a relationship with any other—not in the seventh grade. In the eighth grade, I remember I started having friends from the gym class: Emily Pugh was one of my friends. I mean, we didn’t come to each other’s houses, but we were friendly in the school context. And Colleen Wilkinson was another one, both of whom—So we started, we were in the eighth grade and we went through Albemarle together, Albemarle High. So now, when I go to the reunions, I see them and we’re happy to see each other. And I remember there were quite a few really friendly people—friendly white kids. If there were some that were—as my mother used to call it, the word was “rebbish” in those days, I don’t even think that word was used anymore, it was one of those old words—but if there was one, I don’t really remember them being really outward with their race issues. Which, I’m not sure if that would be everybody’s story. 

LEWIS: [17:12] Were there any events, or any particular memories, that you remember the school used to have, or even in the community as well?

FEGGANS: Here at Yancey?

LEWIS: Yeah. Here at Yancey and the larger community.

FEGGANS: Yeah, yeah. Yes, so with Yancey, if I even close my eyes and go back and try to get a memory, the first memory that comes to me is May Day. That’s what I and other friends—because they’ll just mention it to me as well. That, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do a reenactment or something of that?” So I think, even for the girls, it was just we looked forward to that. It happened every May. And all the children in the school—Each teacher brought boxes of Kleenex tissue of different colors: pinks, greens, all the pastel colors. And we made tissue-paper flowers. All the classrooms did this, and we made those flowers. And those flowers were then put on that mesh wiring that you put around, and made a float. So it made the platform for the float for May Day. And I think we had a king and queen for May Day—you know, the king and queen. So we all used a whole school period—like maybe a study hall period—making those flowers, like a month ahead, to make sure we had enough. And we did—like I said, I wanted to do some research before I did the interview, but I was too busy—because there’s a dance that you do for May Day. And you use the bamboo sticks. So the boys would be at the end. So a boy would be on that end and this end, and one boy would hold two sticks, and with the sticks you go “clip, blop, blop,” and the girls dance through—and you couldn’t get your foot caught in it. So the teachers worked with us, like I said about a month ahead, and we practiced and we did this. And the whole community—I mean it was a lovely sight. Because it was so much color, it was food, hot dogs. It was just a whole community day. That was what we did that whole day. And it was something to behold. So that’s what I really remember about Yancey.

LEWIS: [19:37] So you mentioned the king and the queen. Do you remember how the king and the queen were chosen?

FEGGANS: I think it was tickets. (laughs) I think. Some of this stuff is so far—Yeah, I think you sold tickets. 

LEWIS: [19:50] Anything else come to mind? 

FEGGANS: Well then growing up, as I reached past teenage years, we would go, at that time it was Hudson Field. Which, I don’t know if you know Miss Lonny Agee? 

LEWIS: Yes.

FEGGANS: So the big field that’s right across from it—it’s a huge field with all the pine trees grown up now—well, that used to be an empty field where the boys in the community used to play ball, like baseball. And there were would be dances that would be held up there. Like sometimes the deejay—there was a really popular deejay up in Lynchburg. His name was The Beast From the East.

LEWIS: Oh yeah. Yeah, I know him.

FEGGANS: Yeah, so even back then—so he would come down and put up his music. And people would come to Hudson Field and have a good time dancing. There may be hot dogs and stuff, and it was just a lot of fun. And there was another community center in Keene called Glendower, where they used to have sock hops and parties for younger people. And the other big piece is church life, because most of us had to go to church. You know, we were raised in the church. So some of our church adults also may have worked at the school in some regard, or was a teacher at the school. So we saw each other at school—then we saw each other at churches. And then, in those days, no church had church every Sunday. Everybody had church two Sundays. So New Hope Church, where I went, where I grew up in, we had church on the second Sunday and the fourth Sunday. New Green Mountain, up the road, had it first and third. So we got to go to other people’s church. So we kept—We were constantly in communion with each other, regarding the community. And then once it started to be popular, one person went to fourth Sundays, and then the rural churches said, “I think we should go to—“ And so now, sometimes I want to visit another church and I’m like—we have such a small congregation you feel kind of bad if you don’t go to yours. So much has changed now, that have really separated the community, that that community life structure really has crumbled a lot. 

LEWIS: [22:16] The way you articulated that was great, because there’s a lot of different reasons people can give on why a community is tight-knit or not, doing as much together anymore. But to talk about the church being the foundation is important. Maybe if we get that back—

FEGGANS: Exactly.

LEWIS: —it would help everything else.

FEGGANS: Absolutely. It’s really, my heart really aches with this piece about the rural Black church. And I think it’s the rural church in general, but for my purposes, and I’ve said this to my nephew--who’s a very creative person, he’s a musician, that we really should try to get together and do a play called The Black Church. Or Black Church Revival because, oh my God, that was—Our revivals, at everybody’s different churches, we would all go to each other churches. We can remember the woman who would come every year from Buckingham and sing “Lord, Let the Train Run East.” She would open up the praise and worship. And the churches for revivals, they were full. I mean standing-room only, not to mention the men who would stand outside in their suits. And I remember my cousin Lloyd says, when they were little, they used to count all the different out-of-state tags on cars, that people had come home for revival. Now hardly anybody comes. For example, my church, nobody really comes from—The church I go to now is a younger church. But I’ve heard it’s all over; people just don’t really come home anymore. It’s not a big deal. So I think it would be nice to have a play, a musical, that captures everything, starting with the moms, the grandparents, the mothers started preparing. I know my mom and aunt did. They started preparing, they’d call each other and say, “Hey, what are we going to cook for our baskets?” So everybody would cook their own baskets. Not like now, where things are catered and whatever. So they would start this two months in advance, what they were going to do. And so the church was the foundation. And then the school was very integrally connected to the church and everything else, too.

LEWIS: [24:36] So I know the park hasn’t been there terribly long. Before that was it a field?

FEGGANS: It was just trees.

LEWIS: It was trees.

FEGGANS: Nothing was over there. 

LEWIS: Because I was curious if you used that area for anything before it was a park. 

FEGGANS: No. No, before it just belonged to the Samson family. Maybe that’s why it’s called Samson Park.   

LEWIS: [24:58] what else would you like to share about growing up in Esmont? 

FEGGANS: I think that’s about it. 

LEWIS: [25:06] Like I said about any memorabilia or any memorable artifacts you may come across. And also, is there anyone that you think we should reach directly to talk to?

FEGGANS: I thought she was going to be here today: Miss Waltine Eubanks. 

LEWIS: Yeah, I thought of her, too.

FEGGANS: Because I know she was planning, but I know that she had a tragedy in her family. I think she has many artifacts. Mrs. Rosa Hudson has many artifacts but she says—you know, she doesn’t drive as much anymore, and she says we need to come to her house, which I really want to do. 

LEWIS: [25:38] We also had an idea of interviewing people after church.

FEGGANS: That would be excellent. Yeah, visit the different churches. Wonderful idea, because it’s so much history. And, too, I wish the ages of the forties, the forty-somethings to the fifty-somethings, that’s missing. And some younger—because my niece, she went here the whole time. And I would love to see some younger people come and have their input as well. They’re not as enthusiastic yet about investing in advocacy in the community and stuff. But that would be interesting to know how their experience was. Because my experience was segregated, but as they came to school all they knew was integration. I’m just interested to know what differences may be. 

LEWIS: [26:36] Besides people, any organizations you can think of?

FEGGANS: Well, the alumni—but some of us are here. Graham is a member, some of the older people in the community are members that started this. And there are people in Keene—because Yancey serves such a broad distance. It served Chestnut Grove, our little other Esmont borough, Howardsville, Schuyler. Everybody, all the Black folk came from all those places to here. So there’s a lot of people—there’s a lot of history that lives with those people. I think that’s one good place to start, would be church. 

LEWIS: Well, Miss Vivian, thank you!

FEGGANS: Thank you!

LEWIS: I appreciate it.

FEGGANS: Thank you so much. Yes, my pleasure.

END OF TAPE [27:27]