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Gertrude Spillman Sledd
I think my grandmother was a slave, both of my grandmothers were slaves. Because even my mother's oldest sister and brother, Aunt Lina and Uncle Bascom, they were the two oldest, they were slaves when they were children. My father kept horses and he always kept a very good horse, one that traveled fast. And we had what they called "surreys" then. A seat in front and a seat in back. After I finished Wayman — I finished in 1911 — I taught at Shakertown that first year. A one-room school for the colored people out at Shakertown. And then the next year I taught at Salvisa. But it was just six months and then I went to Wilberforce after Christmas. One room schools began in July, ended in December. In 1915, Sledd got a job as a high school teacher at Bate School, where Professor John W. Bate was principal. The school had been built in 1912. When he (Bate) came here, they told me it was a one-room school at first. He was the only teacher at first, and he built it up to where he had three or four teachers. As he taught and as the children reached the eighth grade, he trained them. And any number of the teachers in the school, the three or four teachers, were his students. Then, in 1912, he built Bate School. I went there in 1915. He had a high school, but he was the only teacher. He taught what high school subjects that were taught. There were 12 rooms in the building, I think, when I went there. There must have been about seven teachers. I taught high school. I taught everything. Of course, we had to build it up. At first, we just had the two years (of high school). We had in the first year all the subjects, Latin, algebra, English, science, social studies, all that you were supposed to take in the first year ... And we had two graduate: Emogene Lankford, she's living, and the other girl is dead now that was there. I visited my uncle, who was a minister in Paducah, and a young man said to me, "We need teachers here, why don't you apply?" I applied and I got the job. I had the sixth grade and taught Latin and English. I was there in 1917 to 1918. I was in Paducah during World War I. Mrs. Sledd returned to Bate in the fall of 1919. She taught there until she retired in 1961. She was married in 1921 and spent the summers in Paducah with her husband. When I came to Bate School, the Bate School was under the county. Mrs. Lydia Lewis was the superintendent. I went to Paducah and stayed. When I came back, Mr. Fallis was superintendent. The school was still under the county, but in a year after I was here, the state required Danville to take over the black school, and it was put in the city system. Mr. Bosley was our superintendent. Mrs. Sledd says segregation was accepted, both by her generation and by the student she taught. Their social activities were different (black and white). They didn't mix. They could go to movies, but you had to sit in the balcony. You see, the movie, there was only one movie house in Danville. That was on Main Street. We went, but we had to sit in the balcony. That was until integration, 1964, I believe. (At a soda fountain,) you could go there and get it, but you couldn't eat it. The bus stations, black had their section and white had their section. Just like at train station, blacks had their waiting room and the whites had their waiting rooms. You were brought up under that system, and you didn't pay any attention to it. When the trouble began is when they started talking about integration before it got here, and they had these sit-ins and Martin Luther King and all that. That's when the trouble began, but not until then. Mrs. Sledd remembers rural communities where black people lived. Those have since faded out. Out here, what they call the fort, was a colored community (intersection of Stanford Road and Lancaster Road). There was quite a few communities around here, out from Stoney Point, there used to be a community out from them, but there's no colored people live out there now. The Stoney Point church is out there and one or two families live there. Well, now, you take Parksville, there used to be quite a few communities, but all the people have moved to the city. That's what's happened to the blacks in these small country places. They moved to the cities, those that haven't died. (A10)
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© 1991-2004 The Advocate-Messenger. All Rights Reserved |
Gertrude Spillman Sledd will celebrate
her 101st birthday in July. Mrs. Sledd was born in Salvisa, the daughter of
Burry and Jane Hall Smith Spillman, but she has spent most of her life in
Danville.
She began teaching at Bate School an 1915, and after spending a few
years teaching in Paducah, she spent the rest of her career at Bate,
retiring in 1961.