Oral History Program Dr. Forrest Crawford Interviewed by Jennifer Millard 6 April 2019 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Dr. Forrest Crawford Interviewed by Jennifer Millard 6 April 2019 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. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. 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: Crawford, Forrest, an oral history by Jennifer Millard, 6 April 2016, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections and University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Dr. Forrest Crawford, conducted on April 6, 2016 in his office at Weber State University, by Jennifer Millard. Dr. Crawford discusses his life and experiences as a minority leader in Northern Utah. JM: This is an oral history interview with Dr. Forrest Crawford conducted by Jennifer Millard on April 6, 2016 at 11:30 am. We are in Dr. Crawford's office at Weber State university. In this interview, Dr. Crawford discusses his experiences as a minority leader in Northern Utah. We'll go ahead and start with our first question. Can you please start by telling us about your background and any experience from your childhood, growing up, and your education? FC: The first thing you probably ought to know is that I am not originally from Utah. I grew up in Oklahoma. It was a small town called Sand Springs. It is just right outside of Tulsa. More importantly about that city I grew up in is that Sand Springs at the time I grew up, it was a segregated community. The African American community lived downtown and just as you're going up town directly across the railroad tracks lived the white residents. We were pretty much segregated up until about 1965-1966. Where they actually closed all-black neighborhood school that we all attended grades 1-12—Booker T. Washington neighborhood school. I think it was kind of a whole Brown vs Board of Education residual of where they were trying to achieve some level of integration into the Sand Springs public schools. They shut our school down and we integrated into the white school and that was about 1964-1965, somewhere in there. Then I 1 eventually graduated from high school, and the predominately white school Charles Page High School was in the same city—in 1977. The other thing I think is important is that as I was growing up in this city, my predominantly black community was a very unique place. It was unlike any other place in the United States—as a kid, but as I was growing up, you start to learn and make larger community—larger world connections that this community is not so different from other communities across the United States. Particularly when I graduated high school, and I decided to play football in Northeastern Oklahoma Junior College. I met my other team mates that were from Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, and so forth, who came from fairly similar neighborhoods. So you begin to see that Sand Springs African American Community was not necessarily unique from many of the other African American segregated communities—you know from other states. So, we all had a common bond with each other. We shared the same stories that we talked about. Our neighborhoods, schools, and for the most part, we all attended the same church. We had the same kinds of elders who kind of took care of all of us and it wasn't just my mother and father taking care of us, you know, it was the whole neighborhood that takes care of all of the kids. That was kind of an interesting experience for myself and my family. I have six other brothers and sisters. I have a twin brother and I have an older sister and a younger sister and there's five boys in between them. I'm actually the middle child by 15 minutes and so I have three older and three younger. But my twin brother and I were very close and so we experienced the 2 segregation/integration into the predominately white school together and eventually finished together in 1970. JM: I would imagine at least for me, having a brother and friend like that would probably help a lot. FC: Yeah, it's helpful to always have a companion like that. The thing I think was unique about it is that when I was in the neighborhood school—my original classmates from the black school—there was 29 of us in that school that by the time we graduated from the predominate white school there were seven of us. JM: Oh wow. Thank you, that's some really good information. You've talked a little bit about this, but what are some experiences you had in childhood or teen years that led you to believe that you could be a leader? FC: One of the things that I learned, I experienced pretty frequently in the black community. Other kids experienced this also —is that to get a lot of selfvalidation and affirmation among the elders in the black community. While we grew up in the environment where we had nothing, we also grew up on an environment where we had a lot! The elders in the community cared about us, they bragged about us, they encouraged us. Even though we attended church— you know the activities that we participated in, leadership opportunities we participated in—we were validated and affirmed, even though we lived in fairly abject conditions. So yes, we knew we were poor. But we also knew that people cared about us. I think that one of the things that really kept us from being so oppressed—to the point that it was debilitating and we couldn't do anything—was 3 the fact that that we all had a very strong self-identity about who we were. So the elders and my parents gave us that. I always remember that experience and by the time we graduated from the predominately black school, we were going to the white school, like we were very empowered. The problem with that, is that by the time we arrived, we were pushed, shoved, and name called. Those kinds of things that divided us, that those were very much, “Us and Them” kind of environment. That grates on you after a while and you feel like, “Maybe I don't have the talents—academic talents. Maybe I don't have the sports talents maybe I shouldn't participate in the chess club and these kinds of things because I just don't have the ability.” That was a consequence a lot of people black students—just kind of faded out and faded away. But that was always a chord that we achieved against those kinds of odds. My family was—I wouldn't necessarily refer to them as extraordinary, but my mother was a very strong advocate of education and also an activist in in the community. She was not going to allow her kids to be oppressed and subjugated in a way where they devalued the importance of education. She knew that education was the redemptive tool that we needed to be successful in society. She pushed us, she and aunts and uncles and so forth pushed us very hard about being successful, despite the odds. JM: Very good. Thank you. What are your core values and how do you feel they have influenced your leadership experiences and abilities? 4 FC: I would say that my core values, I mean I would say cumulatively, I probably have many of them. I would say that I view myself as an enabler. I say enabler because part of what I really believe in is that you don't try to intervene and help people out on your by your standards. That you provide resources to those individuals to empower and help themselves. Part of so what enablers do, they have to find themselves in situations where they can provide this bridge, provide this opportunity for someone else to be successful. That's how enablers gain their reputation if you will for empowering others. I believe that that part of my mantra, if you will, is providing opportunities for others to be successful. That's from the perspective because I believe that others provided opportunities for me to be successful. JC: Ok. Thank you. Can you tell me about a person who has had a tremendous impact on you as a leader? Maybe someone who was a mentor? How did this person impact your life generally and your leadership abilities specifically? FC: I was an athlete and that was one of the things that really separated my experience in the predominately white school from some of my peers. It was by the time we fully integrated and I decided to participate in sports—I played football and I was a wrestler and ran track. That yes on the front end to have some of the kids calling you the n-word and teasing you and so forth. But by the time I joined my teammates in participating in competitive sports, it was a little bit awkward for them to be referring to me as such. Here I am their teammate, we're together trying to win games. I think that my experience was a little bit different where I probably experienced those kinds of things at a minimal because my 5 primary experience going through the integrated school experience with sports was probably umbrella if you will. As a result of that, you had coaches who mentored you, who took care of you, who encouraged you. The coach that probably stands out most significant for me is a coach that I actually had in junior college, who was the catalyst for encouraging me to go to Weber State College at the time to try out to play football. I mean that's how I ended up in Utah was I played junior college and coach Gwen, my coach at the time and life mentor and now, a very good friend. We still have contact with each other. He was my coach in junior college and he actually found himself in Ogden Utah at Weber State College, as an assistance coach. As I finished my time at the junior college at Northeastern Oklahoma, he encouraged me to come and try out my talents at Weber State College. I was successful enough to decide I wanted to stay here in1972. I was a student athlete at Weber State and I was able to graduate and eventually finished in 1975. So I would say that coach Richard Gwen is probably the most distinguished person in my mind—obviously that has had that kind of influence. JM: Great, thank you. What do you see as being the biggest challenges of being a minority leader in Utah, which is predominately a white community? And what do you do to overcome these challenges? FC: In a lot of ways, for at least me, Utah wasn't significantly different from Oklahoma. You know, you had the bible belt predominately white in Oklahoma. You have the Latter-day Saint community here in Utah. So I think that in each one of those situations what you should always try to overcome, is trying to break 6 down barriers of myths and stereotypes that they might be about whom you are and what you represent, what you cared about and so forth. What I find myself doing is and even to this day, is that you're continually on an education journey. That you're always having to engage the majority community in the teachable moment. That you're always having to correct them. Misperceptions that they might have. I have my doctorate, for example through Brigham Young University. You would think that that would be the last place that I would go to earn my doctorate degree because that's the heart and soul of Mormonism in the state of Utah. But found it to be aside from the fact that it is a very good education school. I also felt like that I needed to learn just as much about the Latter-day Saint culture in community, but that they needed to learn a lot about me. I went with that particular notion of course as an undergraduate playing football at Weber State and attending graduate school at the University of Utah. You have a significant exposure to the culture at various levels. So as a consequence, I felt that going into the Brigham Young University doctoral program, I felt that I was pretty well equipped to engage whatever similarities and differences that we might have. Being at BYU was a unique experience in that that environment makes you realize that you don't know a lot about the Mormons. Because when I found myself in that environment, there were a lot of nuances about the Latter-day church, culture, and system that I was not privy to. So it was a whole new learning continuum. You know, yes you can kind of attach to some of the things that you have known or that has a whole different layout of nuances that opens 7 your eyes—about what was important to the LDS community. But I said, “Okay, well once you kind of go through that process you say, ‘Well I think it is important for them to know things about me.’” The sad part about that is that I don't think that being in an environment, my experience personally was that they wouldn't take any interest in knowing all that I had to offer, what all they were particularly worried about was you know, “You old Baptist from Oklahoma, you need to convert and be a Mormon.” So they were focused more on me being baptized and becoming a Mormon than they were learning about who I was as an individual—what I had to share, at least at that time. I think that the church is a little different and has more tolerance now and I think that other African Americans who actually have joined the church, I think they might have had a very different experience than I have had. But what I remember most about being in that situation is that they were probably—I mean they weren’t belligerent but they were just less tolerant. I was in Provo and Provo was a very different place. You learn to navigate the significant differences that you encounter. JM: Yeah. Thank you. What advice would you give emerging young minority leaders in order to be successful? FC: Emerging leaders… I would say it's important to have a strong foundation. You have to be grounded in who you are as an individual. You have to embrace that and be prepared to share it in a clear and deliberate manner. I would also say that as you are being grounded, that you have to grow with a lot of tolerance in your heart. Learn about others around you because it's not all about you. That's 8 probably one of the most frustrating things that as I navigated the Utah culture, is that everywhere you twist and turn, the assumption that you draw is about them it's not about you. That makes some people combative—at least resist you. But I also think that you have to be very tolerant and I think you have to be very patient. You have to do a lot of looking and listening and asking questions. I think that the Latter-day church and community members much more open and engaging about their culture and society and what's important. And I also think that Utah, as a society in general—again as a church community in particular, there's a lot more diversity in the state of Utah as time has evolved. Now don't get me wrong, Utah still ranks the top of the five most white states in in the United States. Utah is in the top five, but we have a lot of diversity in this state that has taken place significantly. In fact, over the last 15 years in earnest. I think that as a result that that's kind of shifted the discourse of demographics. There's a profound shift there. I think that you see a lot of indicators that the minority community leadership is Utah. It's not like you know a, “We verses Them.” The minority community members have ownership. We have vested ownership in this state. The success of the state of Utah is home away from home—well for me it is. I consider Utah my home in the same manner that I that I call Oklahoma my home. So I think that being a tolerant and being—you know reach out is different from yourself. I think that the third thing is actively participating in society. You know, that don't be afraid to join organizations. Don't be afraid to forge partnerships, you know, professional and otherwise. That one of the things I see a lot of 9 around here that is significant is cross-cultural adoptions. So you have a significant rise in the refugee community here. There's a lot of cross-cultural collaborative relationships that are a significant signature now of the state of Utah. We have to say that that's not part of who we are. It's not in it shouldn't be something that's unique, it ought to be something that we have built in society as a way that says, “Hey you know we can absolve this difference because our personalities are not like it was when the pioneers showed up or even 15 years ago.” So we are evolving as a rocky mountain state. I think that Utah stands on the edge of really being a leader. You know, you bring the Olympics here, that means something to people more than just the Latter-day saint community. I think that minority leaders have to find that niche where they have vested interest in in the culture and society. JM: Okay, thank you. FC: So they feel some sense of ownership. JM: Are there any other insights that you can share about being a minority leader in Utah? FC: Well, I think as you do that, I think what you have to understand is that that’s a pretty tall order if you’re in the minority. You get tired and you get burned out. You have to find ways to replenish yourself. You have to find ways to validate yourself. If you’re always in situations where you are having to be in the perpetual teachable moment—because at the end of the day that gets pretty tiring. It gets to be pretty tiring. If you decided that you’re going to be in the perpetual teachable moment then the question becomes, “How do you refuel? 10 Where do you go? Is it the church you belong to? Is it the social club you belong to? Is it in the travel that you engage? Is it immediate family and immediate family in your community?” Those kinds of things. I would say to find ways to refuel. It’s maybe an informal way to reference it. JM: Okay, that’s good advice, thank you. That’s the end of the questions that I have for you. I just want to say thank you very much for sharing your experiences with us and being willing to participate in this interview. FC: Okay. JM: Thank you. FC: Thanks, great. 11