Interviews

LM Cummings was little boy during the 1960's and he lived in the South part of Texas.

Q."Do you remember anything about the sixties?"

A.  "During the sixties my father was a college professor who graduated from a top notch college and my mother was a nurse and we were quite wealthy growing up. Well, my father worked at an all white college during the time and the black 'colleges' during the time had a very bad system. The teachers were about as 'smart' as the kids but they didn't know any better because they were never taught the subjects correctly. But every night my father would walk by the black colleges and pick up a few kids to feed and give shelter to them for a couple days. So my house was always full of people I didn't know and soon enough I got to know pretty much every person at that college. My friends at school would treat me differently but I didn't care because I knew that every mean that thing that they were saying about them was wrong. Eventually some of the wealthier black families started to complain because there sons weren't getting a good enough education because the students were smarter than the teachers. So they demanded better teachers. But no white teacher would quit their well paying job to go teach them, other than my father. So then when the local white folks heard about this my dad started getting a lot of letters which I later realized were threats about people saying that he should not teach them and go back to teaching white folks. His own dad sent him a letter saying that he shouldn't teach the school and that he was ashamed of him .But he refused not to teach and luckily no one ever tried to kill him. But my dad told me about the first day he went to teach. He firstly said that it was a terribly kept place. He said there was trash everywhere and the building looked like it was about to fall apart. Also he talked about how there were hundreds of African Americans there to greet him into the school and to listen to him speak. Out of all of the things this is what I remember about him most".

Linette Harwell was in her 20's during the 70's

Q."What do you remember about the 1960's and 1970?"

A. "Growing up my mother was a very strict Christian women.I lived in Ohio and I went to church with them and sang like a good girl but I never really had it in my heart. When I was young and way I could I would rebel against my parents. I didn't care what it was I just wanted to do anything. Then on May 4, 1970, while I was attending Kent State University I had a friend named Sandy Scheuer. She was protesting about the war in Vietnam with some other of my friends and she begged me to join her so... I did. We were peacefully protesting for a little while until the national guard showed up and then the protesting got a little but rougher so I got a little nervous and told her I was going to leave but she wasn't listening.I started walking away pretty fast then all of a sudden there were screams and I heard loud noises and I fell to the ground. At first I thought that someone jammed there fingers into my side but I look over toward my friends and I saw the Ohio National Guards with there guns up and smoke floating through the air and I realized that I had just been shot in the side and I was so shocked that I passed out. I woke up in a hospital laying in bed next to another man who I assumed had also been shot in the shooting but I later found out that he had been shot in the war . I didn't realize at this moment but this catastrophe might have been the best thing that ever happened to me".

George Mathis Harwell was in his late 20's during the 70's

Q.What do you remember about the 1960's and 1970's?

A. "War. I remember I was never a fan of the president at the time but when I heard that we went to war with Vietnam, I thought that was the stupidest thing I have ever heard. We were having so many problems here on our own soil but we just want to go fix someone else soil? Never made sense to me but because I was the right age and I wasn't in college I was drafted into the war. Ever seen the movie Forest Gump? When I got there it was kind of like the scene when Forest first gets to Nam. Beer cans everywhere and people with bug bites all over them, and hot as all hell. Being probably the whitest guy there I got sunburnt every single day but I had to toughen up because my superiors wouldn't take pity on me(George later got skin cancer from all of the sun exposure). One day we went out to patrol the area for Charlie. I swear to God we walked a marathon that day we were so tired. A little before sundown we realized that we were lost so we all stopped and huddled together to find out where we were. But we were so tired that no one cared to be a body guard or set up a perimeter. We were standing there for about ten minutes when I realized I hadn't taken a leak all day so I walked about 15 feet away. But then without hesitation I heard yelling and a heard a huge explosion and I felt an intense heat and the worst pain I have ever in my whole life to date. My body was flung into a nearby river and at that reason I realized that it had been some kind of bomb and I realized I would never see and of my squad members again." He then passed out went down the river and landed on a shore next to a village and a few men found him and luckily the men knew where a nearby US base was so they took him there and from there he was sent back to America where he was put in a hospital in Ohio and was in a coma for years. It turned out that a very large peace of shrapnel had hit his head. But luckily after he came out of the coma he was not permanently damaged in any way other than a massive scar on the back of his bald head. He was in the hospital for about a week when he hears about a school shooting that happened not to far from the hospital that he is in. Hours later a women was rushed into a bed next to him with blood dripping from her side. She was apparently walking away from the protest when she was shot in the side. Little did he know but this women named Linette would eventually become his best friend and the women that he is still married to today".

Violeta and Raul Gonzales immigrated to the United States from Cuba in April 1962, they were in their 30s at this time.

Q. What was your first impression of this country when you arrived? 

A. "When we first arrived we were in awe, we were finally free from the dictatorship.That assassin took my family's possessions all for himself and he robbed us from our freedom. Everything here was so nice and we felt like we actually had an opportunity to get ahead and have a better life. The food was so good, in Cuba, Castro not only robbed us from our money, but also from our food". 

Q. Were you for or against the Vietnam War. Why?
A. "Oh, we were all for for the Vietnam War. Whatever it took to stop communism from spreading. We don't want any more damn communists. I would have enlisted myself in that war if I didn't already have a kid. It is all Johnson's fault we lost the war. He should have just dropped a bomb or something. And then came Nixon who got persuaded by all those hippies and pulled out".
Q. What are your thoughts on the Civil Rights Movement?
A. "No comment".
Q. Why did you dislike hippies so much?
A. "Well. As I said before, those damn hippies persuaded Nixon to pull out of war. Also they were idle and did nothing but infest our streets with their irrelevant opinions in protests. Hippies did nothing good for us; they were  like a virus, once someone got infected a bunch of young people around them got infected too".



Richard Darnold was a teenager during the sixties
Q. What do you remember about the 60s and 70s?
A. I remember that we were in war with Vietnam. One of my friends was drafted. He did not make it back alive but to this day I still remember him as the great guy he was. I also remember we had great music. And the assassination of Robert Kennedy, he was a great guy, he had a lot of potential to be president just like his deceased brother.
Q. Did you ever worry about the draft?
A. No. Fortunately my family had money and I was able to go to college. Some of my friends who did not go to college though were, they were paranoid especially since one of them had already been drafted.
Q. What do you remember about the Civil Rights Movement?
A. "I remember when Martin Luther King Jr. got killed. He was a good person. i am most certain he is in heaven now".