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Transcript from "Active Alumna"

There are so many things going on. The Mary Francis Early lecture, there is an endowed professorship in the College of Education. Talk a little bit about … you mentioned GAPS. Talk a little bit about how those things came about.

Well, I was invited…the GAPS students were, I believe Dr. Daniels was their advisor. And in doing his documentary, some of the students who worked with him were in the GAPS organization, and somehow they came up with the idea of inviting me to their annual lecture to talk about my years here. And I called it…and I told him, yes, I'd come. And I called it “The Early Years… Integrating the University of Georgia." The Early Years, meaning my name Early. That was a wonderful occasion. I came down and I spoke, and at that time, they renamed the lecture in my honor, and that's how the lecture began. I was, of course, very humbled and honored by that, because I thought, you know, these students certainly didn't have to do it, but they seemed to be interested in what had gone on. They wanted to know, and, of course, I'd told him what had happened and tried not to make it negative, but just to let them know. Because I think, if you don't know where you came from, you don't really know where you're going.

Exactly right.

And the history is very important. As I said, I love history, and I think that it should be accurate and it should reflect what actually happens, not just what somebody remembers, because our memories don't serve us all the time, and that's the problem. But the GAPS, that was really the beginning. And then, immediately after that lecture was the fortieth anniversary of desegregation, and I was invited down as a guest, and I think I spoke at the…Charlayne did the key note address, and I spoke at the luncheon, but it was just remarks. And of course, they named the building after…the Hunter Holmes building, which was wonderful, I thought. That was quite a tribute, because Hamilton, unfortunately, had died. But I knew Charlayne more than I knew Hamilton, but I knew him, because when I went to Turner to do my student teaching, as I said, they were both students. They were very good students. And because we were, all of us were Turnerites, I wanted to support them, not only because they were black, but because they were my fellow alumni from Turner.