Freedom

(as told by Elizabeth Perkins Buchheit)

The best thing about my life is I was free. Nobody picked on me. Nobody said you’ve got to do this or you’ve got to do that and you felt in your heart that it had to amount to something.

My family had a lot of people live with us in Park Ridge. We had black people, white people and relatives. There were so many people without places to live. We had one bathroom. And I remember somebody asked my mother, “Do you use the same bathroom?” This was before civil rights. People were very touchy. But my mother said, “Of course! Of course!”

GREAT-GRANDMA WALKER had a friend that worked with her as a seamstress. She was a black lady who had come up from the south and she was working to save money to buy her husband’s freedom. She made two or three cents an hour and had to save $300. During the civil rights movement I used to say to Vernon, I think those intolerant people have to be born again. They cannot be converted. They’re just going to have to let ‘em go.

In President’s George W. Bush’s cabinet I think that some of ‘em just don’t get it about women’s rights or gay rights or anybody else’s rights. They just don’t understand that everybody is a human and needs their own rights.

VERNON WORK MYERS: I think with Bush we have an atrocious situation. I dislike him so much. I don’t know how he got elected for a second term.

As long as it doesn’t hurt anybody, that’s the way it should be. That’s the way I was raised. 100% free. Lucky, lucky me.

That’s the best thing about Vernon. He never paid much attention. He didn’t know whether I had high shoes or low shoes. “Where you going?” “I’m going over to the county court.” I used to go testify on environmental issues all the time. There always used to be articles written in the paper about me. Half of it was a bunch of hogwash. But anyway, Vernon wouldn’t know anything about it. He just wouldn’t pay any attention. He was on an entirely different level which was great.