Oral History Program Betty Sawyer Interviewed by Melissa Smith 29 January 2018 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Betty Sawyer Interviewed by Melissa Smith 29 January 2018 Copyright © 2023 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. 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These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Sawyer, Betty, an oral history by Melissa Smith, 29 January 2018, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections and University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Betty Sawyer. It is being conducted January 29, 2018 at Weber State University and concerns women and minority leaders in northern Utah. The interviewer is Melissa Smith. MS: Hello, we're recording with Betty Sawyer today. This is Melissa Smith. Okay. Yeah, it looks like it's picking up. For the record, can you state your full name and spell it out? BS: Betty Sawyer, B-E-T-T-Y S-A-W-Y-E-R. MS: And what is your position with the university? BS: I am the Community Engagement Coordinator in Access and Diversity. MS: Okay. Can you start by telling us about your background, like kind of where you grew up and your teen years and your education? BS: I was born and raised in a small town on the eastern shore of Maryland called Pokomoke City. And that's where I spent my formative years until I went off to college at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. The community that I grew up in was pretty much segregated: blacks living on one side of town and whites on the other. And my elementary school was segregated. I was one of ten students selected to integrate our all-white high school during the summer of the sixth grade. MS: Can you tell me a little bit more about that? BS: I was out playing one afternoon and I come home and at my house [was] our elementary school principal and two of my teachers there with my mom. So I knew I was in trouble and I'm trying to figure out, "Okay, what are they doing at my house?" But they had come over to ask my mom if it was okay, if she would let me be a part of that group to integrate the high school. And I guess, you 1 know, because Mom was a community activist and very involved -- PTA, all of those kinds of things -- they felt that I had a great support system to be able to be a part of this experiment in integration. MS: So, do you remember what inspired that integration? Was it like, a law or a judgment? BS: Oh yes, it was, it was a part of Brown v. Board of Education. It took our school over ten years to follow up on that effort to integrate public education, to the extent that legally, they were at risk of losing funding and all of that if they did not integrate the schools. They withstood it as long as they could. So myself along with other students, there were I think six of us that caught the bus at the same place, at the corner store, to take that ride. And it wasn't a long ride but we did take the bus to the all-white high school, Pokomoke High School. And that was like 1966, '67. MS: Do you remember your first ride on that bus? BS: Oh yeah, very vividly. MS: Tell me about that. BS: First ride, first day, first week at school… for lack of a better term, scary. Again, having had never had to ride a bus to school before, I was able to walk to school my entire elementary career and was in my neighborhood. So this, even though it was probably about a mile or less, it seemed like an extremely long ride that morning. We kind of sat together and looked at each other and had made a pact that we would look for each other throughout that day. We were greeted at the school by the principal there and given our schedules and where we would go to class. And it was very intimidating, being 2 such a few and being that young. You know, 13-years-old, going into this environment. MS: Mm-hmm. BS: I remember the first week, the first month, probably the first six months there, there was a lot of tension with this. There were parents that did take their kids out of school. There were folk, when we began to be in class together, in gym class together and things of that nature; all along through that first year at different intervals people were taking their students, the white students, out of school and sending them to private schools so they wouldn't have to be there during this time. MS: Okay. How long did this go on, where the students were being taken out of school and going to private schools? BS: Oh, probably for the next five or six years. MS: [inaudible] BS: And I think once they figured it wasn't going anywhere, they made a decision on whether or not to continue to pay money to privately educate or come on back and be a part of the only school that was there in the community for them to go to. But during those years there were a lot of fights, a lot of challenges between students that went on. For me personally, there were a lot of challenges even in the classroom because for whatever reason, the teachers weren't conducive to this as well. So there was overt discrimination going on in the schools. There were teachers who acted like they didn't know how to teach a black child because, you know, you wouldn't get asked questions, you'd be overlooked. Or if you did raise your hand you were overlooked. 3 I remember my first report card. My mother was an avid reader; she worked at the library, one of her two or three jobs that she always had. So she would always bring home books for us to read, so we were always reading. And so English: I enjoyed reading, I enjoyed writing. But I remember getting my report card and getting a B with four pluses beside it. And my mom is like, "What's wrong with an A-?" But the teacher, I guess, didn't feel that a black student could get an A in English and so I got a B with four pluses. (laughs) MS: Okay, that makes no sense but ... BS: It's like, "Okay, what gets you an A here?" MS: Yeah. BS: So, that kind of thing. MS: Yeah, not an A, a B with four pluses. So what experiences did you have when you were growing up and when you were a young adult that led you to believe that you were or could be a leader? BS: I think my parents prepared us. I'm the youngest of six children, and so I have the beautiful experience of learning and participating with my older siblings in things. Only one of my other siblings went to an integrated school, the others all went to segregated schools. But the school was wonderful; it was great. I was always there for programs with my other siblings and that. Our church, of course, played a significant role in our lives and [as] a young person, we were always put in leadership roles at church. We had choirs, we had what we called the usher board, we had youth associations, we had our association where we traveled from church to church to represent our church. 4 And so, you know, you got to sing, you got to do speeches, you got to do all of those things. So from a young age, that was kind of my involvement. And again, with my mother being involved in community, we didn't stay home. We went with her wherever she went; we were always in the midst of social justice issues and things that were going on in the community to see how people work together and what kind of challenges that persisted. So when the opportunity came to do things, I wasn't shy about saying, "Okay, I will." It was easier with my mom to go along than to fight it so I just learned to say, "Okay, let's do it." MS: Is there any event in particular that stands out to you that you participated in with your family? BS: Wow, there were so many. There was a vacant lot near our home, about a couple of doors down, and my mom decided, “Why have a vacant lot? Let's put some playground equipment out there and make it a playground for the kids so they didn't have to go as far to go and play.” And so we went to City Hall with her to make her petition and she went next door to ask [the] gentleman that owned the lot if he would allow it to be used as such. So we were able to go with her to City Hall to ask for funding to put playground equipment out there, and it happened. MS: Good. BS: Yeah. She opened up a pantry in the community to help low-income families. And again, we were there with her when she went to ask for a building to house the pantry. MS: Do you know what inspired your mom to do all of this? 5 BS: I just think she just had this very compassionate heart. She was always looking after other people. Our home was always open to everybody, whether someone needed a place to stay or a meal to eat. That's what she did and I think that was a carryover from her upbringing. She came from a family of 13 children, and her father was a farmer and a leader in the community and church and helped other people. So she continued to do that. MS: That's just what she knew. BS: And it kind of rubbed down and then followed the rest of us. MS: Okay. What would you say that your core values are? BS: I think one of the things that has carried me through my life, one of my earliest lessons that my parents taught us, was that nobody's better than anybody. We're different. God made us all in His image and likeness. We're created equal so don't let anyone tell you anything different. So that stuck with me. She would also tell us when we would leave to go to school, "Hold your head up high, stick your chest out." She said, "No one will know what's in your pocket unless you show them." And so issues around class and race and poverty weren't prominent. It's how you treat people, and treating people the way you want to be treated yourself. And so even when I wanted to be angry, even when I wanted to fight back, her words would kind of resonate to me about, “We're all in this together.” There's an African proverb that I subscribe to and have used throughout my adulthood that says, "I am because we are, and because we are, therefore I am." And that just points to the fact that we're interconnected. A lot of times we want to see the differences but in reality, we definitely have more similarities 6 than we do differences. MS: Mm-hmm. BS: And so, to build on what we have in common. MS: So how do you think your core values and what you learned growing up have influenced what you do now in the community? BS: For the most part, it has kept me active in the community. I have been active ever since I came here. [As a] matter of fact, I looked up organizations to connect with. My mother had been an NAACP president while I was growing up, so I looked for the NAACP and found that. Being involved in church, immediately looked for a church. Because when I came to Utah it took me two weeks to see another black person. So I'm like, "Where am I and what is going on?" I ran into a lady at the grocery store and she says, "Oh, I go to this church, Calvary Baptist Church." We were in Salt Lake at the time and we went there. It was like walking into heaven. It's like, "Woohoo! I see black people!" kind of thing. So that has definitely helped get me rooted and grounded here. But because there were so few black people, I think for me, I just built on that strength of building community. I started having people at my home. We would meet at the park to do things together. And that spilled over to not just having fun together, but how can we make things better for people while we're here in this place? Kind of that “bloom where you're planted” mentality. MS: So when did you get planted in Utah? When did you come here? BS: I came here the fall of 1975, after graduating from Morgan State University in Baltimore. I graduated Memorial Day, right before Memorial Day. It was around the 25th or so of May. And that same weekend I had an aunt and uncle that 7 graduated from Coppin State in Baltimore, so the whole family was together in Baltimore. I have a brother-in-law; we graduated at the same institution. So it was a big family reunion that weekend. As all of the grandkids [sat] around talking about what we were going to do next, we had decided that we would go back the following week to my grandfather's farm in North Carolina and all hang out together before we went our separate ways. We grew up spending our summers in North Carolina and pulling weeds and playing, more so than doing any work, but that's what we did during the summer. So we said, "Yes, we're going to go back to the farm one last time." Unfortunately, my grandfather passed away five days later, so we ended up gathering at the farm but not for the reason we thought we would. And my oldest brother lived in Utah, in Salt Lake. He [came] home for my grandfather's funeral in his Winnebago and talked eight guys into jumping in the Winnebago and coming back to Utah with him. And one was my brother-in-law. And, you know, we're like, "Utah? Where is that?" (laughs) And pulled out the encyclopedia, find Utah. We're looking and reading and like, "Hmm, I don't know." And looking at the map. I said, 'Well, it's close, it looks close to California. If I don't like it, I'll keep going." I always wanted to travel. MS: Mm-hmm. BS: So 40-plus years later, I'm still in Utah. And everybody has left that came except my brother who's still here, who's a real outdoorsman, so he loves being able to go to the desert and do all those fun things. MS: That's nice, you’ve got a little bit of family here. BS: Yes, a little bit. 8 MS: That's an interesting story. BS: (laughs) Very. MS: Eight people just jumped in the car. BS: They jumped in and they came out first, found jobs and place to stay. And then my sister, she had a young child and we traveled with another brother-in-law by car and came out and joined them. I remember riding into the Salt Lake Valley. It was nighttime, the lights were bright. I was like, "Wow, this is beautiful." And when we pulled off the freeway, couldn't find anything open. It's like, "Okay, hmm. That's different. What happened to all these lights, they just leave them on?" MS: Yeah. BS: But yes. MS: Name a person who's had a tremendous impact on you as a leader or has been like a mentor to you. BS: There have been so many, aside from, you know, my mother, who's been my number one, and my sisters. When I came to Utah, one of the first people I met in Salt Lake was Miss Alberta Henry. And at the time she was president of the NAACP in Salt Lake, so she took me under her wings. Reverend France Davis, a longtime friend who was very involved and active in community has definitely been a mentor. Once I got married and moved to Ogden, Miss Elizabeth Peoples. Elizabeth Peoples became that mentor and friend. She worked at the Community Action Agency. She was involved with a lot of social issues and social clubs. H.C. Massey, the Gillespies, the list goes on and on. I was kind of the youngest one in the group for a lot of them, and so they were glad to take 9 me in and teach me the ropes and support this journey that I have. Younger mentors: Donna Crawford and I go back a long way and worked together when I worked in the Governor's office, working on the Martin Luther King Commission and those kinds of things. Kathy Christie, who is retired, just recently retired, [an] educator in Salt Lake, has always been a friend and mentor for me as well. So I've been blessed to have some strong folk to look after and walk this journey with me. MS: So tell me about working in the Governor's office. BS: I was appointed by Governor Bangerter to be the Director of the Governor's Office of Black Affairs back in 1989, when I started that position. Our job was to be that eyes and ears and kind of a conduit between not only the governor but other state agencies and the black community. So in that, bringing issues and working with other state agencies to work on issues that were impacting our community. It was a wonderful time to be there, a lot of opportunities for growth and development. And in being there one of the issues that we worked on was making Utah, a [inaudible], the Martin Luther King state holiday, bringing that and making Utah be one of those states that honored the federal holiday, the national movement. So we were able to work for years, to work with our legislators and the governor and community to promote that holiday and probably getting it passed. I had the opportunity to work with Mrs. King on numerous occasions coming in and out of the state of Utah to support that effort, going to conferences with the King Commission and all, and Lloyd Davis, who was the 10 national staff person for the King Commission at the time. And after we saw [the] passage of the holiday, I was able to work to gain approval to establish a Martin Luther King Commission to support the holiday and to kind of institutionalize that, working with our schools and other agencies, to help educate and inform people on how to celebrate Dr. King's legacy and the importance of doing that. While I was in the Governor's Office, I had the opportunity to work on a lot of policies and positions in education, in criminal justice, across the board. I had the opportunity to sit on a lot of boards and commissions and committee meetings. But one of the programs that we were able to establish was a minority and women internship program. As we looked at diversifying the state workforces, there's not a pathway for women and people of color to come here. You advertise and among the people you know and in-house, and if everyone there, the majority of them are already white, then where's the chance for anyone else to get here? So we worked with higher ed institutions to provide internships in our different state government agencies. And that was a success. We worked on developing a marketing program to bring conferences and conventions to Utah, another way just to promote awareness and to support black businesses as well when those things did come to town. We worked to get an endowment for minority students in higher ed, that exists today in a different form, but it's still there. So a lot of things going on and again, just having the opportunity to be in the right place at the right time to support those efforts. MS: You are a busy woman. BS: Yeah, just a little bit. My husband and kids would definitely say that because, 11 like my mom, I drag them along on everything that's going on. MS: Good. We need people like that. BS: (laughs) It is. MS: People that get out and get it done and help people. So what do you see as being one of the biggest challenges of being a woman or minority leader in northern Utah? BS: I think that there are still too many times that, as a woman leader, as a person of color, you’re second-guessed on your knowledge, your authority, your expertise. I still have to prove myself in different circles. And it's like, "Okay, haven't I done that already? Haven't we had this conversation before?" And I think that's still a challenge. I think we still have challenges on how we support women of color. There are great opportunities and agencies and organizations that support women in general but I'm often, far too often, still the only one in the room when I go someplace, when I'm at a meeting. It's like, "Okay, you don't know anybody? You didn't reach out to anybody else?" And I think that's something that we have to do a much better job [on]. I think for the most part people mean well, but it takes work. You have to think a little more and do a little more to expand who's going to be at the table. And we still don't do that well. And these are all major issues around health, education, intergenerational poverty, criminal justice, youth involvement. And again, I'm often one or one of two people of color or women sitting at the table when these issues are being addressed. So that's definitely an area that we need to work more on. Along with that, how do we bring up other young women? Are we 12 mentoring others? I go to places and I still don't see young women at the table. Just kind of the same old group of us that are there. So I think we can be more intentional about how we replicate the work that we do by engaging women much younger than us to make sure that they're at the table with us with their ideas and that they get the experience to lead. And always issues around how do we help and support the least of our brothers and sisters? I think again, we often hear how Utah is so family-based and we're concerned about this, but the gap is getting wider in so many areas in terms of disparities around health, around education, around school-to-prison pipeline. So if we were doing all of this great work, why isn't the gap lessening? So I think, while we think we are, I don't believe that we have been as intentional and committed as we could be to how everyone is growing and being successful in these spaces. MS: Okay, so how do you think we can be more intentional and narrow that gap? BS: I think it has to be on the agenda and not just in lip service. Are we getting the people at the table who have the expertise to talk and work through these issues? Are we putting funding in that place? Oftentimes when it comes to having a diversity office or something like that, it's a one-person office with no staff and hardly no money. And what can you do with that? That's not even realistic to expect. But we do expect the impossible. We expect, you know, that one person to change the world and to make everything better. I think we have to be realistic about what we think about those issues. A lot of times, we look at the -- and I don't like to use the term victim -- but the person that's being most impacted, as why don't they just ... Like they have 13 - it's just that simple. If you're poor, get a job. If you're homeless, find a house. If you're whatever, just do that. And the issues are so much more complex and complicated than that person. [We’re] not recognizing the institutional barriers that have been in place for so long that keep people marginalized and out of that mainstream. So in order to change it, we have to go back and seriously look at those things as well: the structural challenges that are there, the structural impediments that are in place, to be able to pull those layers back and [say], “Now let's get to the root causes and challenges that are there.” MS: And so what are some of those structural barriers that you've noticed? BS: I think employment itself. How do we advertise? Do we use the same things? Send it to the paper, put it here, and then folk are just going to run in and apply for this job. Structurally that's not going to change the diversity of a workforce. You have to be more proactive than that. You have to maybe get out of the office and go to some places where people of color are to personally invite and engage them. For an HR office, we don't have to do that. Why do that? We just send it out and we get plenty of applicants. However, if you want to change, then you're going to have to do something different. You're going to have to meet some people and reach out to those folk and say, "Look, we have this going on. I really need a diverse applicant pool. Will you? Can you?” or “Tell me how I can help change the dynamics of that.” So I think that's a real issue. I think structurally, even in our education system: how we teach, the materials that we use, all of those things end up being barriers. What's the extent of our urban education background for teacher education? Are they really getting a pedagogy 14 that prepares them to teach people of color, inner city? Or is it the same educational structure that they always had with one diversity class or a couple classes on diversity? That doesn't change how people interact with people. So, just a couple. MS: Yeah. BS: (laughs) MS: That's true. Like they get one education for everybody. BS: Yeah, that's it. Although we know that people learn differently. MS: [inaudible] BS: So why are we not doing it different? MS: Right, got to figure that out. BS: You know? We got to figure it out. Black history, Latino history, those things still aren't a part of our education system. Why not? You can't teach any history without teaching all history. MS: I know. BS: And it can't be one day and it can't be Martin Luther King and Rosa Park. I'm sorry, that doesn't work. MS: It can't be one month either. BS: It can't be one month. And we do try to stuff it all in February. MS: Yep. So what are some other insights that you can share about being a woman or a minority leader in the northern Utah? BS: I think one, you just have to be -- you know, easier said than done -- but be strong and do what you have to do. Remain confident and recognize that you do have value and that by shrinking or not being involved, you are limiting other people the breadth and wealth of your talent and your expertise. So even if you 15 are that only person in the room, even if you feel alone, do it afraid. Just go anyway. Don't let that limit your efforts to get out there and share your skills, knowledge and expertise. Because it's needed, it's critical to, for us to be able to do the things that we need to do and for our communities to change and be better. We need those voices at the table. I would also say, find out what you need to do to heal and behold. What do you do for fun? Where do you go? Have somebody that you can go to when you need to cry, scream, stomp, whatever it is, because it has to come out some kind of way. So find that good friend or that good place where you can go and get the healing and release that you need to be able to get up the next day and do it again, because that's the real. People assume if you have a smile on your face that life is perfect and everything is wonderful. But as women leaders, we have family, community, all of these things going on, and then we get to go to work and do amazing things as well. So we need a support system, we need to be confident ourselves, and we need to be able to go and get what we need to make us whole. MS: Thank you very much for doing this for me. BS: (laughs) MS: You're great. BS: You're welcome. MS: Do you have anything else you'd like to say or any questions? BS: I think it's important for us as women to reach out, to bring others along. It's not enough to assume that they'll come because they heard about it or they saw it, so they'll know. We have to be intentional with our efforts to bring other sisters 16 and women and be supportive, for us not to be as judgmental as we are because we do have a tendency to do that. You walk in a room, we size somebody up like real quick, in an instant. To be able to recognize where your challenges are so that you can work on them to eliminate them, or just know that they're there because we all have biases and things, idiosyncrasies. Recognizing where yours are and being conscious not to let that interfere with how you work with, deal with and support other women and then people in general. MS: Okay, thank you. BS: You're welcome. 17