Oral History Program Sandra Johnson Boyd Interviewed by Lynn Evans 20 June 2008 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Sandra Johnson Boyd Interviewed by Lynn Evans 20 June 2008 Copyright © 2012 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii 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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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Boyd, Sandra Johnson, an oral history by Lynn Evans, 20 June 2008, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Sandra Johnson Boyd. The interview was conducted on June 20, 2008, by Lynn Evans, in Centerville, Utah. Boyd discusses her political party affiliation and her reasons for her aligning with this party. LE: This is an oral history interview with Sandy Johnson Boyd. It is being conducted on the 20th of June 2008 in her home in Centerville, Utah. I am Lynn Evans and today is the 20th of June and this is concerning, her, Sandy's political party affiliation, what they were when she was first at legal age to vote and what they are presently. Sandy why don't you tell a little bit about yourself, and where you were born and where you grew up? SB: I was born in Benton, Kentucky, and I grew up in Benton, Kentucky. Went grade school through twelfth grade there, and then went to Tennessee, Jackson, Tennessee to a Methodist liberal arts school there to go to college. LE: Now a lot of people may not know where Benton is, I didn't know where it was. Is that Western Kentucky? SB: It's extreme western Kentucky, right just very near the Tennessee/Kentucky border. LE: Okay, and as you know this is a, in this election year, this is a kind of historic election year, two of the Democrat candidates, one being an African-American the other one being a woman, have, were both in the running for the Democratic Party affiliation, excuse me, Democratic Party nomination. And it is historic in that it is a black person and a woman. And with John McCain being the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party. Have you, now which of these two partied do you affiliate with today? SB: I'm a Republican today. LE: Okay, and have you always been a Republican? 1 SB: No, I grew up in a family who were extremely loyal to the Democratic Party. And I knew nothing else but being a Democrat. I had a different mindset then than I today and there have been many things that contributed to my change of heart, but I was in my first election that I voted for president, it was John F. Kennedy. LE: What, was there any reason why your family was Democrat, was it...? SB: My grandfather and grandmother came though the Depression and the whole town was in dire circumstances. They did have a little more than other people as far as food and things like that because he had a farm, and also he owned a general store, during that time, a grocery store. So they did have a little more than some people but it was extremely difficult for all the families, and so he attributes the Depression, the ending of it to the policies of Franklin Roosevelt. So, he was so loyal to Franklin Roosevelt, that he even had, I remember growing up as a child, he had a gold plaque, of Franklin Roosevelt's face over the mantle. Now that's... he had a place of reverence in that household. LE: Now was it because FDR's. SB: Ending the Depression. LE: Ending the Depression, the New Deal, things like that that he was loyal to? SB: He was very much in favor of the New Deal. LE: When was the last time you voted in a presidential election as a Democrat? SB: It was for John F. Kennedy in 1960. LE: What was some of the reasons why you voted for him? SB: Well at that time I believed we owed the poor of the nation even the world, better circumstances. And I had not come to realize that taking care of the poor, the 2 government has no money. And I didn't know that then. I have since learned that we are the money; the citizens who pay taxes, are the money. The government itself has no money, and so for the government to take care of people and take care of all these social programs that were being implemented during that time, there wasn't anything to do but raise taxes and then it comes back to us. But I thought at that time that the poor should be taken care of and there's some things that have happened since then that have made me readjust my thinking. I still think they deserve help, but the way that is done is different now to me, or should be, different, than the way it was then. LE: Is there anything else? You mentioned John F. Kennedy and helping the poor, is there anything else that you specifically recall supporting in the Democrat Party in the 60's or in the early 60's with Kennedy or was it just that, or were there other things? SB: Well, I just thought that the world could be changed if the government could take over and take care of all the problems. I just did, I was naive enough to think that the way it could work. And in 1960 when he was first elected there were no social programs to speak of. You had child services, state child services that would take care of children who were in battered homes and that kind of thing. But that was—I majored in social work in college and that was what I wanted to do was just change the world by all these programs that I hoped would come to be. But by the time I graduated in 1961 you see, Kennedy had not had time to implement any of these programs he had advocated. So, I had to go to teaching school, because the only jobs available were in the state and it was with child services and those were very limited. As I taught school for the next few years, I saw more and more jobs open up for people in social work. But at the time that I needed the job, when I first graduated from college, they were not available yet. And 3 since that time all we have to do is look in the paper and anywhere and see how many, many, many jobs are available in social programs. LE: Did you think at the time, you mentioned that the government needed to take care of people, did you see that that was helping with Roosevelt, and do you think that it could have been and has been, the Democrats have done, have tried to do that, since John F. Kennedy? SB: Oh I think so, oh I think that's been their number one priority to take from the rich and give it to the poor. And I have found by watching from very close range that happened and realizing that that does not work. The dole system does not work. It perpetuates itself for generations after generation, and the likelihood of ever taking care of the problem of unemployment and the poor and that kind of thing is not going to be taken care of by the dole system. And I feel like that is where the mistake has been made and I think if you look at the way the government has dealt with the Indian reservations, not requiring anything of them, but giving them everything, it has destroyed their initiative, their self-respect and they have all kind of problems, and have not progressed on the Indian reservations. Because they have been victims of the Dole for generations, since this country first came to be. And I just think if a welfare system could have been designed, and I know we have to have the welfare system, and I believe it's necessary, in many cases it's necessary, but I feel like if a system had been designed where you had to contribute something in the way of time or effort in order to get what you received from the government that we wouldn't have generation after generation wanting to accept the dole system. 4 LE: Since you've been a Republican for about forty years now, and I didn't know if you wanted me to tell your age--you don't have to if you don't want to, but since you've been one for about 40 years, is there something or someone in the Democratic Party or the Republican Party that caused you to want to switch your political affiliation? SB: Well, when I married in 1963, my husband was and his family were staunch Republicans. And so he would, you know, very subtly, mention certain things that he believed and his parents believed and why they believed these things and he would leave certain editorials from the newspaper that were pro-Republican on my plate in the morning before breakfast, and that kind of thing LE: chuckle . And so I began to think about things in a way that I never had before, because it began to—nobody in my family had ever suggested that it should be anything but the government taking care of some of these things, and that there might be a better way of doing it. And that it actually fell on our shoulders as taxpayers because we were funding the government. So that just really hit, I had never put all that together. But I think the thing that really made me change and realize some of the things the Republican Party stood for and advocated were true and probably more beneficial. I taught school in an area of Memphis, Tennessee where every one of my students were very, very disadvantaged. They all lived in a housing project called Hurt Village. And their parents were all, most of 'em, single moms, but they were all on welfare. Nearly all the children with very few exceptions that I taught, for those three years that I taught in Memphis, were on welfare. And I remember I was thinking this is just not working. These children are growing up expecting the government to take care of them, and their families because they know no other way of life, and they don't have anyone out there telling them that they can do 5 better than this. And I remember saying to one of my students one day, who was about twelve years old and she was you know, she had repeated two or three times grades, she was probably about a 5th grade level at the time, but she was about thirteen at the time, I think, and I said, "Emma what do you want to do when you grow up"? and she said, 'Well, I'm gonna grow up and I'm gonna draw a welfare check like my mom does and I'm gonna buy myself a motorcycle." And I thought this is not working. If you already have a twelve or thirteen year-old- girl, who's repeated two grades already in school, using this as the ambition for her life, then this program that we have is not working. So I think just several things, the influence of my husband and his family, plus seeing what was going on with these children, and really realizing that they were not progressing beyond the mentality of what their parents were doing, that it was something that needed to be changed. LE: Do you think that's directly related to the way the two political parties look at it, the Democrat Party looking at it as we're going to give the people everything, and provide for them and the Republican party, more conservative, saying as Americans we can take the initiative and its that American ingenuity or hard work and if you work hard enough you can provide for yourself and you can get those things? SB: I think there two, that's the two attitudes, I really do. All the time that we've had the Republican Party in office we've always had the welfare system working. And there is the dole thing still there. I think what they really hope to do in their philosophy is to change the program so that more jobs are available, for more people to work. But if you don't motivate people to go out and take those jobs then you're just back behind the 8 ball just like, you know, they're not making the progress you need them to make. But I 6 think that the Republican form of government and maybe they would be more likely to be the ones who might say okay we need to restructure this system, where that we don't have so many taking the dole, but that there is some requirement for them to receive the money from the government, that they have to contribute something. LE: Did your… did any of your parents or siblings switch their party affiliations or are they still Democrats? SB: Absolutely not, they are dyed in the wool, all of them, till this day Democrats. LE: Do you know who they were planning on voting for? SB: Hillary Clinton. LE: They were voting for Hillary? SB: Yes LE: Was there any reason why...? SB: I think they thought that Bill Clinton was absolutely, the prosperity during, they contribute everything to him, and of course I don't believe that. I think he came in on the coattails of somebody else. And a lot of the things that happened during that time he was totally not responsible for. For one thing the Congress was not Democratic, and they hold the most power when you get right down to it the Senate and the House of Representatives were both held by the Republican Party during his tenure. And so you can't give him credit really, for a whole lot of anything. LE: But they were giving him credit for all of it? SB: They were giving him credit for things going better financially in every way for them. I think they hoped by getting Hillary in the White House, that they would basically be 7 having Bill Clinton in there for another four years, I think in the back of their mind that's what they hoped. LE: So they wanted to get a couple of more terms out of him? SB: Yeah, that's right. LE: How did your decision, you were married and young at the time, how did your decision to become a Republican, how did that affect your family, or friends, did they give you static about it? SB: No, they didn't say too much, we don't talk politics very much because they think they are totally right and I think I am. So we don't talk politics very much. LE: Is there anything that you can agree on? Or anything like that? Does it seem to be so cut and dried that you just kind of avoid the subject? SB: That's right chuckle , we sort of avoid the subject. Because they still are of the mindset that the government should take over and do most everything for everybody, and that that's the way problems are solved and without realizing that there's no way to fund everything that the Democrats want to do without raising taxes. And that's more money out of our, personal income, that, you know, we already feel pinched in a lot of ways, and when you see people trying to bleed the system it makes you kind of resentful that your taxes have been raised. LE: Do you think that—I don't know how to put this —Do you think that obviously people don't realize that people that are on welfare, maybe they do realize maybe they don't realize. Do you think they realize that the government doesn't have this big bucket of money? That it's the taxpayers like you and me that have the money? 8 SB: I don't think a lot of people realize that. I just think they think that there is this big money machine in Washington that can take care of them. And I don't think they really put it all together that we are the government, we're the ones who fund it. Because I know I didn't at one time. I think there are things that the government does need to fund, I think we need, they need to fund the military, it needs to be a strong military. I don't think it needs to be cut back like Bill Clinton wanted to cut it back. I think we, we need to stay prepared militarily, hoping that we don't have to use it. And I think the government needs to be involved in keeping up of the major freeways and roads throughout the country. I'm not sure that I think that the government should be responsible for building up the new fire station or a new library. I think a whole lot of that, throughout the country. I mean you can go into little tiny hamlets that aren't very large at all and you might find a really nice big building that they've gotten government funding for. I think that if people in a certain community want a new library then they should be the ones to build the library. LE: That brings another question and this goes along the lines of having the people take care of what they want to take care of and what they need to provide for themselves rather than going to the federal government giving it to them. Now you lived in a town in Georgia called Chickamauga and their school system was top of the line and how was that funded? SB: That was funded by the city and the county. They did not take federal funding, because they did not want to be dictated to how they should run their school. LE: It was the city and the county, but it was the people within those communities who supported the school. 9 SB: The county had to contribute what they do to all the county schools, but over and above that, it was a city school. Therefore they could make requirements on students that the county schools might not and it was because the city was funding that, in place of the federal government. LE: What was that school like? Was it typical, was it average? SB: No, it was way above average. The students were always top of the pyramid as far as students' testing and everything in all the grades. I remember at the time that Bronwyn (Sandy's daughter) was a sophomore in high school, they were the first class to pass the Basic Skills Test in Georgia at a hundred percent, a hundred percent of their students passed that test the first time they took it. And that was the only school in Georgia that happened in. So these kids were expected to perform. They were motivated. The school was one of the best schools I've ever seen. LE: How did they do with hiring teachers? Obviously if it was that great academically they just didn't take anybody. Were there stringent requirements? SB: No, I really don't know much about the hiring policy. They had very good teachers but I don't really know and a lot of them had been there... people tenured. I know that when they got a job there they didn't want to leave. LE: I just thought of that because it was one of those things I remember you talking about before is how the city kind of took over that school and didn't get a lot of funding from federal government SB: They didn't get any funding. LE: It was just community involvement. 10 SB: They could have a dress code, they could do a lot of things that wouldn't have been possible had they taken federal funding. And they did not take any. LE: What I noticed when we were back there in Chickamauga, was how the whole town really rallied around for everything, athletic events, academic events, whatever. SB: It was called a semi-private school, and the teachers were paid by the county, the buses were run by the county, the lunch program, but they did not, and like I said they hired the teachers, but all other things were done by the city. And only the children within the city limits could go there without paying anything. If the kids came in from the county or from outside the city, they had to pay a small tuition. LE: Okay, well, that was just one of the things that I thought about when you were talking about the private enterprise or private citizens getting involved in providing for their own rather than having the government do it. I just thought about that example. Does today's Democratic Party, in your view, seem more or less like the party you once associated with? SB: I think it is much, much, much more liberal than it was at the time I was a member of the Democratic Party. And even for my family, if the truth were told, they can't support all of the policies that they advocate today. But because of the way they feel about the economy, and the way they think it should be run, they are willing to ignore some of the other policies that the Democratic Party advocate and still go with the Democratic Party. But I think basically, both parties have become more liberal than they were. And you're probably today looking at the Republican Party a little more akin to the Democratic Party of 1950 or so, than we'd like to admit. But it's just the way times have changed, and 11 both parties have become more liberal. But the Republican Party still is closer to the way I think, than the Democratic Party could ever be. LE: Well, that was my next question, is the Republican Party, now when you first joined that party, does it seem that it has become more liberal? SB: It does seem more liberal. LE: Do you think that's because it's almost like there's been more people needing welfare, I guess demanding more welfare from the government? That they've had to do that? SB: That could be. I see the Republican Party as not having as much passion and fight for certain ideas that they used to have. I mean, at one time you would have never been able to silence any of the Republicans about, praying in school, or having a Nativity scene on the town square, or whatever, I mean that would have just...you would have had them up in arms a few years ago. That would never have flown. And now it's kind of like, oh well, we'll concede on this because, if that'll keep them quiet then that'll get them off our back and maybe we'll be able to bring them over to our side of thinking on this other particular point that we're trying to make. I feel like there's a lot of give and take, not so much on the Democratic side. I don't see them giving very much ever. I mean they hang in there with more passion, about what they think than the Republicans do. I feel that way, I don't feel like we have the same commitment to our ideals that they had in the past. LE: Now, as we have talked before on different occasions, you've been very vocal about that very issue. Do you see John McCain, is the nomination for the Republican party, do you see him making any strides toward what you're talking about, being more conservative? 12 SB: I think he's having to change some of his ideas, and things that he has fought for in the past, or voted for in the past. I think he's having to change in order to try to get the backing of the Republican Party. I don't feel like he is wholly committed to what the party stands for at this time. But it's sort of like our decision is going to be made between the lesser of two evils. Because I'm not sure he will uphold what we really think when he, if he gets to be the President, I don't know whether he will or not. I just don't know. I don't think he feels in his heart, from the way he's voted on some things, I don't think he feels totally committed to the Republican Party. LE: You feel he's one of these middle of the road, moderate Republicans? SB: Yes, and I don't think he has much passion about anything except the military. LE: Because he was a prisoner of war? SB: Yeah, yeah. Yes. I think that is where his allegiance is. And I think we need that allegiance in the President. But, on the other things I don't think he thinks like I do. LE: That's interesting what you said about that the Democrats being more hungry, more staunch in their views than the Republicans. And as a result you see the Republican party becoming more liberal and the Democratic party even becoming more liberal that. It's almost where the Republican Party is now is where the Democratic Party used to be. SB: I think we had that passion in the Reagan years. I think he brought something back in this country that we had been missing for a long time, a pride in country, a patriotism and passion for what you believed, and we've not had it since that time, and I don't know if we'll see it again. I don't know. LE: Was there a candidate in the primaries that you would have voted for? SB: I would have voted for Mitt Romney. 13 LE: Is there anything in particular why you would've? SB: I think his ideas on family and strengthening the family. I do think that's at the core of what's wrong with the country today. You can't blame the government for everything. I think it's a lack of moral standards, that we've let slide here in this country. It's becoming more and more like some of the European countries. You might say more godless, people are not as concerned about religion anymore. But even those who are not religious are not as concerned about moral standards, and things like that as they were once in the past. And I think just the general lack of concern for things that are good. And I feel like of the whole group that were out there running, that Romney was more akin to what Ronald Reagan was trying to teach and preach. And I think he would have made the better president. I'm not saying that it would've been a perfect thing, because, you know, there are a lot of other things he might not have been as strong about, but I do think value wise, he would have been the better choice. LE: It is, it was an historic election in my opinion, having both Barack Obama, as an AfricanAmerican, and Hillary Clinton as a woman, and Mitt Romney as a Mormon, that to me seemed like it was a very exciting political year. It was very historic in my opinion as being something that whatever happened, it was going to be an historic time. And I think, at your time when you were first interested in politics, you probably never would have seen any of that happen. SB: Any of that, right, I don't think so. LE: In either party? SB: In either party, right. That's certainly true. Because you see, Kennedy was the first Catholic who had ever been elected. And a lot of people had said it can't happen just 14 because the Catholic wasn't the norm, but that was a milestone too, when he was elected. LE: Do you think, in your opinion, do you think that Romney, that people are less likely to vote for a Mormon than they would be an African-American? Would that hurt him? SB: I think the Conservative base, what they call the Born-Again Christian, Evangelical group, have so many misconceptions about Mormons that they are less likely to look past him being a Mormon than the Democrats are likely to look past a black or a woman. They see that as blazing the trail for change you know. And the Democrats were behind the feminist movement which Hillary, you know, is the greatest example of that, of what you can do now. And so, the black or the African-American is more in line with Civil Rights and all that. So they have that backing. The conservative South, who might not vote for a black, are the same ones who will not vote for a Mormon. So you have that to deal with. I don't think it would be a drawback, him being a Mormon, for the rest of the country. But for that one little group, they would, no matter how much his values were akin to theirs, the fact that he was a Mormon... LE: Still just looming over him... SB: That's right. I don't think that he could have won the South. The South might have been the thing that would make it go one way or the other. LE: Well our time's about up. I wanted to thank you for your time and helping me out with this project. I got a lot of good information and things I didn't know. Thanks very much. SB: Well, thank you. 15