Interviewer(s): Reed Amadon

Project: University of Houston

Deloris offered an insight into the class of 1958 at Yates High School. She was a student who lived through the civil rights activities and was propelled into involvement when she went off to college. Her life as an active student in a strong spirited school was contrasted with her inability to sit in a downtown restaurant or ride a bus outside the “colored” seats. She was a happy, intelligent student who lived in fear that the movement for equality would turn violent, sparking race riots like in other cities in the South. Her story exemplifies a fierce rejection of the status whites gave blacks. As her high school principle, William Holland, said, “You have got to be prepared. You can’t just be as good as the whites, you have to be better.”

She spent her life demonstrating her equality as an African American.