0:03 [SPEAKER_01]: It looked like saying it looked like dark absolute you know they were heard to it is the as a dustball even when they played football back then At the other end you saw some rusted the lap dated fancy. 0:26 [SPEAKER_01]: I look at it like this. 0:27 [SPEAKER_01]: It was a big part of the community 0:30 [SPEAKER_01]: but it was a yard that was in disrepair and it needed people coming together and I'm putting their hearts together, putting their souls together and letting their sweat flow together. 0:40 [SPEAKER_01]: And when you look at it today, that's how you see that transformation. 0:52 [SPEAKER_00]: This is the story of how a small, segregated high school in South Carolina. 0:58 [SPEAKER_00]: One estate championship in 1963, despite playing on a field known as the Dust Bowl. 1:07 [SPEAKER_00]: Even calling the Dust Bowl a field was an exaggeration. 1:11 [SPEAKER_00]: There was no grass, and it was such a poor playing surface that it sloped four to six feet 1:21 [SPEAKER_00]: The players themselves at Lakeview High School were shorter and smaller than their opponents, and yet they dominated them to the tune of 526-27. 1:30 [SPEAKER_00]: This means that over the course of 13 games, the average score was 40-2. 1:39 [SPEAKER_00]: This is also the story of a community that gathered to save the legacy of that team and 1:51 [SPEAKER_00]: as of this year, it's green and level. 1:56 [SPEAKER_00]: The 4-6 foot slope is gone, and the field is outfitted with a high-intensity light system for night games, thanks to the generosity of a local power company called Dominion Energy. 2:09 [SPEAKER_00]: The high school itself has been transformed into a thriving community center. 2:14 [SPEAKER_00]: And today I have the privilege of talking with some of the people who made it all possible. 2:20 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm here with the 1963 team captain, Benny Sultan, also chairman of the board for the Brooklyn Lakeview Empowerment Center. 2:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Joining us are Reverend Charles Jackson, former student and chaplain at Lakeview High School and Keller Kisson, President of Dominion Energy, South Carolina. 2:49 [SPEAKER_00]: Let's go ahead and go back into history and I'll let you guys decide on who would like to answer this question and you guys can try man whenever you'd like, but I'd like to start by finding out what the atmosphere was like in South Carolina leading up to 1963, a lot of people who will be listening may not have lived in 1963 certainly may not have been from South Carolina or the South. 3:20 [SPEAKER_05]: First of all, Shane, thank you for having us. 3:22 [SPEAKER_05]: My name is Benny Sulton, and I graduate from Lakeview in 1964. 3:27 [SPEAKER_05]: To answer your question, what it was like in 63. 3:32 [SPEAKER_05]: First of all, I think I need to just give a little background. 3:36 [SPEAKER_05]: Former Lakeview school goes back. 3:38 [SPEAKER_05]: The history goes back into the 1920s. 3:41 [SPEAKER_05]: and communities were segregated, and the schools was a hub, not only for education, but for other agents, it was a community center. 3:51 [SPEAKER_05]: So all of the services that were available came to the school, although it was a school, it also served the community. 4:00 [SPEAKER_05]: So most specifically, in 1963, what was happening is that integration was being talked about. 4:08 [SPEAKER_05]: And there were a lot of folk who whites who did not understand what was happening. 4:14 [SPEAKER_05]: And there wasn't a lot of interaction between the races. 4:17 [SPEAKER_05]: So they didn't really know us. 4:19 [SPEAKER_05]: All they knew is the accounts that someone else counter to rise about us. 4:25 [SPEAKER_05]: And I'm going to just mention one thing because the Keller said at the beginning that I was a captain of the football team and I was wanted to captain of his three of us, okay? 4:35 [SPEAKER_05]: And so I've been in a leadership role 4:37 [SPEAKER_05]: And when I graduated, leading up to graduation, they were looking for someone to be the valedictorian. 4:45 [SPEAKER_05]: And for some reason, they couldn't find anybody so they chose me. 4:50 [SPEAKER_05]: So teachers and administrators said to me, said, Benning, we want you to let folk know that African-Americans blocks that we're on the level, 5:02 [SPEAKER_05]: with anybody and we can compete. 5:04 [SPEAKER_05]: My focus has always been in what I wanted to pursue after high school was technology. 5:11 [SPEAKER_05]: So I wrote a speech and let them look at it and I'm just going to do one excerpt if you can believe it. 5:17 [SPEAKER_05]: From almost 60 years, I still remember it because it came from the heart, okay? 5:24 [SPEAKER_05]: And it was a charge to my classmates. 5:27 [SPEAKER_05]: and we said to them, we said, the science-minded youth of today are interested in their regards, vertical planes, hospice jets and orbiting capsules, and they are thrilled by linear accelerators and inertial celestial radar navigation systems for interplanetary trap. 5:45 [SPEAKER_05]: my fellow seniors, let no one tell you that you can't do it, and that you can't achieve. 5:50 [SPEAKER_05]: Let everyone know that you a graduate, a proud graduate, a late-view high school. 5:56 [SPEAKER_05]: I'm bringing that up not to give myself credit, but to answer your question, just that event, because the administration as far as the district and all, they were white. 6:08 [SPEAKER_05]: And they all were looking like because they were talking about when integration came that they were going to have to put us back a greater to because we were not too far. 6:18 [SPEAKER_05]: But I think that did something to let them know that we had some dynamic teachers and they were serious. 6:25 [SPEAKER_05]: All that was a segregated school system. 6:27 [SPEAKER_05]: Okay, so that I just wanted to give you a little overview of what was happening because, you know, when people perceive one thing. 6:34 [SPEAKER_05]: And then when they find out they go, oh. 6:37 [SPEAKER_05]: So I just wanted to mention that, and so to you that I think was an excited and greater school, we were taught, and there was discipline, the key word there, discipline, what we don't have today. 6:48 [SPEAKER_05]: We don't have the discipline in the schools, but we did have it back then. 6:52 [SPEAKER_00]: Back then, because of you being a segregated school, did you only face black students or did you also face white students? 7:02 [SPEAKER_05]: No, the whole system in South Carolina and all throughout the South was black and white. 7:09 [SPEAKER_05]: So there wasn't any interaction with the races other than black. 7:13 [SPEAKER_05]: It's always black and black, white and black. 7:16 [SPEAKER_05]: That was the hard segregation error. 7:17 [SPEAKER_05]: And the thing about it is, and I'm trying to emphasize that our teachers, now let me explain this, most of them had advanced degrees. 7:31 [SPEAKER_05]: to get advanced degrees, but when they came back home, 7:36 [SPEAKER_05]: they couldn't work at the local white universities because they were not integrated. 7:43 [SPEAKER_05]: So they came back to teach us. 7:45 [SPEAKER_05]: Those were the jobs that were open for them was teaching in the local all black high schools. 7:51 [SPEAKER_05]: So that's why the education that we received was really good because they were challenging. 7:57 [SPEAKER_05]: We were in the eighth grade and when ETV started now, 8:02 [SPEAKER_05]: ETV, I was in the first ETV class in 1960, taken algebra, and our math teacher, she was telling us that it's going to be the way of the future. 8:12 [SPEAKER_05]: That was long before podcasts, long before all of those things is that, and that was in 1960. 8:21 [SPEAKER_00]: You said that throughout your history at the school, it was segregated the entire time, correct? 8:27 [SPEAKER_05]: Absolutely. 8:28 [SPEAKER_05]: I started there in the seventh grade in 1959, and when I graduated in 1970, and some of the grades, both schools, the African Americans, it was typical to have first grade in 12th grade all within the same, on the same piece of property, and within the same buildings. 8:46 [SPEAKER_05]: Okay, I came from, there was a lot of feeder schools. 8:49 [SPEAKER_05]: There was only in Lexington County. 8:51 [SPEAKER_05]: There were three all black schools. 8:54 [SPEAKER_05]: And Lakeview was the largest of those schools. 8:57 [SPEAKER_05]: And because of where it was located, believe it or not, to help sustain segregation, students came from a joining counties, three other joining counties, from Caldon County, Richland County, 9:10 [SPEAKER_05]: came to lead you. 9:12 [SPEAKER_05]: I drove with school bus my last two years. 9:15 [SPEAKER_05]: And my route would take almost an hour to go around to pick up the students. 9:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Are you saying that while you attended school, you drove the school bus? 9:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely. 9:26 [SPEAKER_05]: Back in the 50s, 60s and early 70s. 9:31 [SPEAKER_05]: The students were the school bus drivers. 9:34 [SPEAKER_05]: And we had to go take a test from the highway 9:39 [SPEAKER_05]: and to get qualified to get a license to drive a school bus and yes or so we drove school buses and they paid us $35 per month and then saw like a lot today but we were glad to get that $35 okay and I've done a little research since in South Carolina they changed the law. 10:00 [SPEAKER_05]: and had adult-striving school buses. 10:02 [SPEAKER_05]: And I've done some research that difference in the safety record between when the students were driving and now that the adults are driving, they see that equal or the students may be better driving. 10:15 [SPEAKER_05]: And so one question I haven't been able to answer is back in when I was driving a scoop us and all of my peers the school bussers were governed. 10:24 [SPEAKER_05]: They had governance on them as far as the speed and they the fastest that they would go with the 45 miles an hour and that would be down a hill. 10:31 [SPEAKER_05]: So I'm not sure today what the adults, whether they have the bussers governed that way for speed. 10:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, what year was it when you started hearing about them, was it them introducing white people to the school or were they talking about closing the school down? 10:51 [SPEAKER_00]: What was the talk right? 10:53 [SPEAKER_05]: In the 1963 64 era, there wasn't any talk about actually closing like you. 10:59 [SPEAKER_05]: It was just that the schools would be integrated. 11:02 [SPEAKER_05]: We didn't know what that meant. 11:03 [SPEAKER_05]: We didn't know whether we would be. 11:05 [SPEAKER_05]: My students would be coming to our school or we'd be bus to other schools. 11:09 [SPEAKER_05]: We didn't know. 11:10 [SPEAKER_05]: But all we knew is that there was talk about the black students we're not going to be on the same level. 11:19 [SPEAKER_05]: And that motivated us to say that we can compete with anybody. 11:25 [SPEAKER_01]: So that immediately certainly with the amount of football fee you've got to tell them about that. 11:30 [SPEAKER_00]: He's got to hear that. 11:39 [SPEAKER_01]: academics is great, but he's got to hear about the football in the deep fence and the scores. 11:44 [SPEAKER_01]: So you got to tell him that. 11:45 [SPEAKER_05]: Let me let me do a fact on. 11:47 [SPEAKER_05]: When you're from a the proud area, even in segregation, when it was all black, you had certain schools, all black schools that have more resources, they had all of the things mostly that they needed. 12:00 [SPEAKER_05]: but Lakeview was in a deprived area even going back into the 60s. 12:06 [SPEAKER_05]: And as football players, we knew that everyone expected us not to be able to form or to win. 12:14 [SPEAKER_05]: That motivated us. 12:15 [SPEAKER_05]: So when we started playing, going back into the 50s before I started playing, my uncles played on the team and Lakeview always won. 12:23 [SPEAKER_05]: It was never whether we were going to win or not because we're going to be what the margin of victory is going to be. 12:29 [SPEAKER_05]: And then in my senior year, we all knew because we were slightly undersized as players. 12:36 [SPEAKER_05]: All players are with the scouts and everybody's looking for big people. 12:40 [SPEAKER_05]: So we knew that we probably wouldn't get the opportunity to play at the college level. 12:45 [SPEAKER_05]: So our coach said to us, 1963, he said, I want you all to go out and show everyone why Lakeview have held these championships and why we went all of these games. 12:57 [SPEAKER_05]: So that year, we scored 526 points and all of our opponents, 13 of them, 13:11 [SPEAKER_05]: So that's how many games in 13 games. 13:15 [SPEAKER_05]: 13 games. 13:16 [SPEAKER_05]: We scored 527. 13:18 [SPEAKER_05]: So there was and back in those days for a black school to get a headline that can be a local newspaper was a big deal and one of the headlines because some of the photos came over 13:32 [SPEAKER_05]: and they went back and reported that 66 to nothing was a routine win for late mentality. 13:39 [SPEAKER_05]: So we knew we took football to a heart. 13:42 [SPEAKER_05]: We were trained like Olympic athletes. 13:44 [SPEAKER_05]: We started the game. 13:46 [SPEAKER_05]: and our coach was a brilliant man. 13:48 [SPEAKER_05]: His name was Reginald Danner. 13:50 [SPEAKER_05]: And Danner said that size is only one factor. 13:54 [SPEAKER_05]: He said speed and know how and the desire to win can overcome size. 13:59 [SPEAKER_05]: And that's stuck with us. 14:01 [SPEAKER_05]: And he said this. 14:02 [SPEAKER_05]: He said, yeah, they may a player may be bigger than you. 14:06 [SPEAKER_05]: but he's not bigger than two of you. 14:08 [SPEAKER_05]: So everything that you do it as a team, every tackle, it was always two people. 14:13 [SPEAKER_05]: Every time we did an end sweep, there may be seven or eight people leading around there. 14:18 [SPEAKER_05]: Okay, so we raised this football thing to an art form. 14:21 [SPEAKER_05]: And we knew that we were, and then the whites, because it was segregation, 14:26 [SPEAKER_05]: They heard about us and they started coming over to this area in the black area and the strengths that Keller was just talking about, there's a row of homes long there. 14:38 [SPEAKER_05]: The whites would get up on top of, hey, the black people of 50 cents are a quarter to get on top of their homes so that they could see the get and we knew that we had an audience. 14:49 [SPEAKER_05]: and all of the other black schools around that was much larger than us and had the resources, they came over and our coach would always tell us. 14:58 [SPEAKER_05]: He said, they're coming to see all loops. 15:01 [SPEAKER_05]: And when you said that, we knew that it wasn't going to be 40 or nothing or 30 or nothing. 15:06 [SPEAKER_05]: It was going to be 50, 60 or nothing. 15:07 [SPEAKER_05]: So we did what we had to do. 15:09 [SPEAKER_05]: We took care of the business. 15:12 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm wondering if you could describe what the field looked like back then, and also if you could describe what a field would have looked like at a white school back then. 15:22 [SPEAKER_05]: It's a great point. 15:24 [SPEAKER_05]: The field, named by the students, going back before my time at my uncle was in the school in the 50s, it was named the Dust Bowl. 15:34 [SPEAKER_05]: because you couldn't find a blade of grass on it anywhere. 15:38 [SPEAKER_05]: It was until the city of West Columbia, volunteered by our administrators, what to them and before a game, they would come with the fire engine and water the field down, to hold down the dust. 15:50 [SPEAKER_05]: It was that bad. 15:52 [SPEAKER_05]: And the great, they was a ecologist mentioned that. 15:55 [SPEAKER_05]: Thank God that he got his crew over there to level it. 15:58 [SPEAKER_05]: Finally, I'm almost 50 years. 16:01 [SPEAKER_05]: There was almost four or six foot drop off from one end to the other. 16:06 [SPEAKER_01]: Now they didn't score all their touchdowns running down here. 16:08 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want you to know that. 16:09 [SPEAKER_01]: As you can tell from his comments, they scored his meeting running up here. 16:13 [SPEAKER_05]: Okay, so to that point, some of the coaches tried to use that as an excuse. 16:19 [SPEAKER_05]: And our coach was a young, brash coach. 16:22 [SPEAKER_05]: and he told them, at half time, how you normally change goals and switch going, he said, you can go downhill the whole time and we're still going to be like that. 16:35 [SPEAKER_01]: We did it. 16:39 [SPEAKER_01]: Amazing. 16:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Unless you guys have any more to add in, leading up to this 1963 event, I would like to go ahead and lead into that. 16:48 [SPEAKER_05]: Let me just say this, and you've been asking the questions and we've been trying to paint a picture of what the school was like. 16:55 [SPEAKER_05]: And as Keller said earlier, Master Jackson Charles Jackson Senior, he was there until he was in the 10th grade. 17:03 [SPEAKER_05]: And then he was the product of the integration. 17:07 [SPEAKER_05]: So I'd like for him just to tell a little bit about that transition, going from Lakeview to Brooklyn K. 17:19 [SPEAKER_04]: I'm Charles Jackson, Senior Pass of the Brooklyn Church. 17:22 [SPEAKER_04]: During the period of time of which I entered Lakeview in the first grade, I continued in my education to the 10th grade, and at such time, the Lakeview School closed due to integration. 17:35 [SPEAKER_04]: And the students who were attending Lakeview depending on where they resided were zone to either Brooklyn case at high school from which I graduated or airport high school. 17:49 [SPEAKER_04]: in the lives of students during the six to seven and six to eight years because at that time they began talking about closing the late youth school that was carried to us because we had very little interfacing and interaction with the white students. 18:09 [SPEAKER_04]: In fact, most of what we received by way of textbooks happened past on to us from the Brooklyn Casey High School or airport high school in Lexington, School District 2. 18:20 [SPEAKER_04]: So we were very uncomfortable, a lot of anxiety. 18:23 [SPEAKER_04]: Even some hostility among some of the students when we got to the final year, knowing that the school would no longer be, and we would have to integrate with the Brooklyn Casey High School or airport high school. 18:39 [SPEAKER_04]: as God would have it to be. 18:42 [SPEAKER_04]: I started preaching when I was but 10 years old. 18:49 [SPEAKER_04]: Now this is the miracle happening with which we did to be able to understand. 18:53 [SPEAKER_04]: This is the miracle. 18:55 [SPEAKER_04]: I was a licensed preacher in the fifth grade, Lakeview Elementary School, the principal of the Lakeview 19:09 [SPEAKER_04]: was Reverend Dr. Mao's Debugan, a pastor in the Columbia area. 19:18 [SPEAKER_04]: So when we got to that final year of integration, because I was a preacher, he called me in his office and he said to me, he said, Charles, the district is closing the Lakeview School. 19:33 [SPEAKER_04]: And we are being asked to integrate Brooklyn Casey. 19:38 [SPEAKER_04]: or airport depending on where we were zoned. 19:43 [SPEAKER_04]: There are a lot of feelings, emotions are really high. 19:47 [SPEAKER_04]: Teachers have indicated to me that their students are having a difficult time accepting the closing of their school. 19:56 [SPEAKER_04]: Since you are a preacher, I need something of you. 20:01 [SPEAKER_04]: I need you to serve as the primary leader of the students. 20:05 [SPEAKER_04]: at Lakeview, and ensure that there are no protests, there are no riots that if the students still they need to talk to somebody about whatever they're going to, I need you to be that person. 20:18 [SPEAKER_04]: I shall never forget that conversation that I had in the office of Dr. M. D. Bogan. 20:25 [SPEAKER_04]: And so I accepted that as a challenge, because I grew up with some strong, Christian values, 20:33 [SPEAKER_04]: and God in the principles, our parents who were a character of Christ into us. 20:40 [SPEAKER_04]: And so as a result of that, we saw community, something that has defined the Brooklyn ministry during the 52 years I've been serving. 20:49 [SPEAKER_04]: I just happened to serve my home church. 20:52 [SPEAKER_04]: The only church I have known anything about where I grew up in the Sunday School and 20:58 [SPEAKER_04]: youth activities that we have. 21:00 [SPEAKER_04]: So always look upon church as community, come unity, come let us unite one with another. 21:10 [SPEAKER_04]: And I think that has been what we have been able to accomplish together in partnership with the Indian energy, because we believe so very much in community. 21:20 [SPEAKER_04]: We have preached. 21:21 [SPEAKER_04]: We 21:21 [SPEAKER_04]: taught we'd live that during the years in which I've tried to share the book and church. 21:25 [SPEAKER_04]: In fact, when I graduated from seminary, I had more house in the mid-70s. 21:30 [SPEAKER_04]: I would say to our people repeatedly, every Sunday morning, and it would use to be printed on the bulletins that the true measure of a church. 21:39 [SPEAKER_04]: is not determined by what it does for itself, but by what it does for others. 21:46 [SPEAKER_04]: And I think that was instilled in me as a student at the Lakeview School as we had to deal with the closing of the Lakeview School and the integrating with Brooklyn Casey or Elport High School. 21:59 [SPEAKER_00]: I love that. 21:59 [SPEAKER_00]: Pastor Jackson, I have a quick question for you that I wrote down. 22:02 [SPEAKER_00]: You said it was in 10th grade, right? 22:04 [SPEAKER_00]: When that happened? 22:06 [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, sir. 22:06 [SPEAKER_00]: Were you a football player back then? 22:09 [SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely, it's like, let me share this with you. 22:15 [SPEAKER_04]: I tried to play basketball. 22:19 [SPEAKER_04]: And so I went out for the basketball team, ninth grade, and tenth grade. 22:24 [SPEAKER_04]: And I was cut. 22:25 [SPEAKER_04]: Watch this. 22:26 [SPEAKER_04]: They cut me both times I got cut. 22:30 [SPEAKER_04]: It just so happened that the coach of the basketball and football teams at that time, a guy named Halero White, succeeded Reginald and so he would. 22:41 [SPEAKER_04]: So he told me after he joined the Brooklyn Church, that I never would have become pastor of the Brooklyn Baptist Church. 22:48 [SPEAKER_04]: If he let me make the team, the guys on that team would have beat me all about the old blues and bandage. 22:55 [SPEAKER_04]: Because of how gifted and talented they were, he said, man, I had to save you because I knew the Lord had something else for you to do. 23:04 [SPEAKER_04]: So I got to do time, never try football, but I did try basketball twice. 23:10 [SPEAKER_01]: And I want to tell you, like Michael Jordan, they say he got cut off of his team. 23:14 [SPEAKER_01]: He was in like the 11th grade, Michael Jordan. 23:16 [SPEAKER_01]: That man right there is a super star. 23:20 [SPEAKER_01]: I never promised you that. 23:22 [SPEAKER_01]: So his parallel, that's the same thing. 23:23 [SPEAKER_01]: He done with 23. 23:24 [SPEAKER_01]: I tell you where is our big old heart for all to see. 23:28 [SPEAKER_01]: And he draws people to him. 23:30 [SPEAKER_01]: And he is a true superstar in this community. 23:33 [SPEAKER_01]: And we love him. 23:34 [SPEAKER_01]: I love the Lord. 23:35 [SPEAKER_04]: I love God's people, sir. 23:37 [SPEAKER_00]: I'll tell you that I've always been very tall and I'm six foot nine now and it's I've always been very tall and but one thing is that I've always raised by my mom and my grandmother and so whenever the coach either it'd be the football or the basketball coach would be calling around trying to get me on their team. 23:57 [SPEAKER_00]: My grandma would always be like, no that's how kids get hurt. 24:03 [SPEAKER_00]: And the coach at the coach would catch me at school and be like can we talk your grandma and to get new on the team I was like look my grandma. 24:10 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not one that you could talk stuff into Where he could never make a happen. 24:15 [SPEAKER_05]: We're a quick lad need to change the story because it hell That's what you just said 24:19 [SPEAKER_05]: Okay, we've been talking about football in the 1962 late view when the state championship in basketball, okay, the same coach, coach basketball, regional dinner, any coach football. 24:29 [SPEAKER_05]: But the story like yours is doing physical education, we go out on the dustball. 24:34 [SPEAKER_05]: play touch football. 24:37 [SPEAKER_05]: And there was a guy on the team when we played touch football. 24:40 [SPEAKER_05]: He was so fast and so agile could no one could even touch him with their hands. 24:46 [SPEAKER_05]: And the football culture came out there and saw him and said, who is this kid? 24:51 [SPEAKER_05]: And they called his name and they said, why don't you come out for football? 24:54 [SPEAKER_05]: Because we were in the ninth grade. 24:56 [SPEAKER_05]: So he did what you just said. 24:58 [SPEAKER_05]: He went down and he 25:03 [SPEAKER_05]: and said Ms. Menning said his name was Stanley said we want Stanley to come out for the football team and she said I don't know if I want my boy to play football and he told her he said I promise you we're going to take good care of it so when we went to the 10th grade because I've made the football team the varsity in the ninth grade okay so when Stanley came out the next year he scored 22 touchdowns his first year his average in the 11th grade 25:33 [SPEAKER_05]: All those points we were going, his average yard per cherry was 14 yards per cherry. 25:40 [SPEAKER_05]: And then it seemed like he was 18 yards per cherry. 25:46 [SPEAKER_05]: I had to bring that up because, like you, he wasn't playing football and the post-danner saw him and how he could, how agile he was and how he could catch a football, he could run the football, he could turn on a dime, so he went down and talked to his mother. 26:02 [SPEAKER_05]: And his mother allowed him to come out in the rest of his, and this was every article from back in those days, you'd always see his name, Stanley Washington, Stanley Washington. 26:13 [SPEAKER_05]: I'm going to point it to you. 26:16 [SPEAKER_00]: To give you an idea of just how amazing those numbers are, for Stanley Washington to be averaging 18 yards per carry, the leading Russia and the NFL this season averaged 4.9 yards per carry. 26:31 [SPEAKER_00]: I love it. 26:32 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'll ask a bar coach even bought my grandma like a box of chocolate once and she couldn't be swayed 26:42 [SPEAKER_00]: She was a strong weld woman, she wasn't going to be straight, but Pastor Jackson, another quick question, and maybe you can answer this because you were asked to be a leader at that time. 26:53 [SPEAKER_00]: But when the schools were segregated, and I'm assuming that the football team was still very talented in the basketball team was still very talented at the time, when those schools were segregated and those students had to go to those other schools, do you know, 27:10 [SPEAKER_00]: what happened to those students and were those students able to play at those schools at that time? 27:17 [SPEAKER_04]: The challenge was I think on both sides, there was still some resistance by the students who were 27:31 [SPEAKER_04]: integrating the schools and so therefore they did not feel, this is my humble opinion, as if they were welcome and believe it or not, only if you know this better, but a number of them did not play they went out and they quit. 27:47 [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, they went out and they did not continue playing. 27:50 [SPEAKER_04]: Some of them did, such as this guy named Bad Roan who went on a University of South Carolina, but unfortunately, a number of those guys who had played on their sophomore years prior to the closing their junior years went out for the team and eventually they quit. 28:06 [SPEAKER_00]: I wonder if they probably had a grandma or mom like mine, I mean, if I was in that situation and our schools were being segregated, that just seems like a dangerous situation. 28:16 [SPEAKER_04]: Did we get on this with it? 28:18 [SPEAKER_04]: That had a lot to do with it. 28:20 [SPEAKER_04]: Now, this is very interesting. 28:22 [SPEAKER_04]: And this is very interesting. 28:24 [SPEAKER_04]: I went out for basketball at Brooklyn, Chase, the high school. 28:28 [SPEAKER_04]: made the team and they started calling me action Jackson. 28:34 [SPEAKER_04]: Did you know that? 28:35 [SPEAKER_04]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no 28:58 [SPEAKER_04]: I shot twenty three percent from the freeze rule line. 29:02 [SPEAKER_04]: I had so many lane violations because not look. 29:05 [SPEAKER_04]: I knew I would miss the shot. 29:06 [SPEAKER_04]: So I wanted to see where the ball would go fall off the rim and try to get there and get rebound jiggle from somebody else because I'm real short. 29:13 [SPEAKER_04]: But then that's something I did not make the team at Lake Duke. 29:16 [SPEAKER_04]: But because a number of the guys chose not to play. 29:19 [SPEAKER_04]: I made the team at the Brooklyn case. 29:22 [SPEAKER_04]: It was an all-area play. 29:28 [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I couldn't shoot it out, but I was a defensive genius. 29:34 [SPEAKER_04]: They would always put me up on the top score if he was one, two or three. 29:38 [SPEAKER_00]: No, it's awesome. 29:38 [SPEAKER_04]: I shouldn't down. 29:40 [SPEAKER_04]: But I couldn't shoot. 29:42 [SPEAKER_04]: I was a coach's nightmare. 29:43 [SPEAKER_04]: Let me say this right quick. 29:44 [SPEAKER_04]: I know we got, I was a coach's nightmare at the end of the game. 29:47 [SPEAKER_04]: If you know anything about basketball, you remember something called Hacker Shake. 29:52 [SPEAKER_04]: Shaquille will kneel, they foul Shaquille will kneel. 29:54 [SPEAKER_04]: It was heck of a jackback when I was there. 29:56 [SPEAKER_04]: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha 30:19 [SPEAKER_04]: Harry Stroud and I played ball together and we're the best of friends, closest of friends even now. 30:25 [SPEAKER_04]: He's my pharmacist. 30:26 [SPEAKER_04]: And a guy named Fred or who played the basketball player basketball with me to the finest friends I yet have to this state. 30:32 [SPEAKER_04]: And those relationships were developed in 1968, 1969. 30:37 [SPEAKER_00]: That is awesome. 30:38 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't we now go into the 1963 championship. 30:42 [SPEAKER_00]: And if you could explain what it was like to be there and what the games were 30:49 [SPEAKER_05]: Okay, first of all, as I said, always practice before the practice session started official because we're all living and basically in the same community, we would get together on our own and train. 31:04 [SPEAKER_05]: We didn't have all of the equipment, our daddy ran a garage. 31:07 [SPEAKER_05]: So, 31:08 [SPEAKER_05]: He would give us some old tires and we would tie the tires together and put a rope around our waist and drag it across a field to get our legs strengthened and to get our stand-em-other. 31:20 [SPEAKER_05]: So we would start practicing leading up to the season. 31:24 [SPEAKER_05]: So the season of 63, because we had a very successful season in 62, and then the word we were so successful until the word was out that their playing teams are not really good or performing those kinds of things. 31:40 [SPEAKER_05]: So we were hearing that. 31:42 [SPEAKER_05]: So what we wanted to do, leading up for this championship season, we wanted to show everyone. 31:48 [SPEAKER_05]: So, there was a school out of Anderson, South Carolina, big school, but it was all black, okay, West Side was a name of the school. 31:57 [SPEAKER_05]: They had players back during segregation now when you came out of high school in the South, you could not get the scholarship, the go-to-rolls universe. 32:05 [SPEAKER_05]: So, there were several players that were going to the big tent from this school. 32:11 [SPEAKER_05]: And when we had them on their schedule, everyone said that there's no way that Lakeview was gonna beat them, west side high of Anderson. 32:20 [SPEAKER_05]: Because they had all these big players and some of them had scholarships and we brought them, they came into West Columbia and we beat them 40 to nothing. 32:31 [SPEAKER_05]: And everybody couldn't believe it because one of the players, his number at Michigan State is retired. 32:40 [SPEAKER_05]: but we had a plan for him and our coaches, there were little upset at us at the end of the play, but they smiled once they saw the results. 32:50 [SPEAKER_05]: This guy named was George Webster. 32:52 [SPEAKER_05]: He stayed six foot six and he waited about 245 pounds, which is big for back then, but he's not real big now, okay? 33:01 [SPEAKER_05]: But we were only like 150, 160. 33:03 [SPEAKER_05]: We had our big people were 170 pounds. 33:07 [SPEAKER_05]: So we had a play, designed for him, and that set the tone for the rest of the season, and we call it the rat play. 33:15 [SPEAKER_05]: And I'll quarterback jump back and went back to throw a pass and he intentionally threw an intersection because he did this guy play both ways. 33:23 [SPEAKER_05]: He played offensive defense. 33:25 [SPEAKER_05]: So we threw the ball to him where he had to reach up. 33:28 [SPEAKER_05]: He thought he was intersecting and he was intersecting the pass. 33:32 [SPEAKER_05]: But we had two of our receivers. 33:34 [SPEAKER_05]: They were coming at full speed. 33:37 [SPEAKER_05]: One hit him high and one hitting 33:42 [SPEAKER_05]: the rest of the game. 33:44 [SPEAKER_05]: He was infected because he played the whole game. 33:46 [SPEAKER_05]: He was literally a human being, I would have to get a message for it. 33:49 [SPEAKER_05]: Now the kids, we came up with the plot and then we came back to the game. 33:54 [SPEAKER_05]: You have to go out of the game because we kids are hard. 33:57 [SPEAKER_05]: So we came to the sandline. 33:58 [SPEAKER_05]: Our coaches looked at it, especially the head coach. 34:00 [SPEAKER_05]: The original dad said, he said, if you call everybody's son. 34:03 [SPEAKER_05]: And because I was one of the captain, he said, son, what kind of play was that? 34:07 [SPEAKER_05]: We don't have any plays designed when we throw the past throw a pass to the opposition. 34:12 [SPEAKER_05]: And then he thought about it. 34:13 [SPEAKER_05]: And then he wrote this hair back and he smiled. 34:16 [SPEAKER_05]: He said, boy, that was a smart play. 34:17 [SPEAKER_05]: So that whole season, wow. 34:20 [SPEAKER_05]: The championship you have six to three, as I said, some of the teams that were repeating no one thought that we could play with them. 34:29 [SPEAKER_05]: And when we would run up the score, our code, he got criticism. 34:33 [SPEAKER_05]: He got a lot of criticism because they said we were running up the scores against these teams. 34:37 [SPEAKER_05]: It's all right to beat them. 34:38 [SPEAKER_05]: You beat them six to seven. 34:40 [SPEAKER_05]: We beat one school, seven, and six to nothing. 34:42 [SPEAKER_05]: So they said, why? 34:43 [SPEAKER_05]: So by the end of the season, Coach Danna would take the first team out and put in the second team. 34:50 [SPEAKER_05]: And as soon as the second team got on offense, they'd score. 34:54 [SPEAKER_05]: and they did a little radio interview within one day and coach was very emotional he said you don't know what they want me to do he said I put the second team in he said I guess if they want me to just let them win he said well that's not how the game of football he says I put in the players and they want to win 35:12 [SPEAKER_05]: So I just let them have their time. 35:14 [SPEAKER_05]: So that whole season, our heart, mind, and goal was set on. 35:18 [SPEAKER_05]: We're going to be state champions and anybody that gets in our way, but we're going to beat them. 35:22 [SPEAKER_05]: Now the last thing that I want to say about it is that team that we played for the actual state championship game was out of Chelsea, South Carolina, Gresham Megan and that school is on the National Historic Register and the Lakeview site is now on the National Historic Register. 35:41 [SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, that we won the game 13-7, okay, which was a departure from all of the big scores because they were good and not making excuses, but I think it speaks to the level of death of our players. 35:58 [SPEAKER_05]: Our first team quarterback and two first team running backs got injured 36:11 [SPEAKER_05]: But they were, they were that good that we still won the game. 36:15 [SPEAKER_05]: And 13 to 7 was a departure from big scores. 36:19 [SPEAKER_05]: But we did win the game and coach Dan and up until he passed away. 36:23 [SPEAKER_05]: He always talked about it because he said, when those three, Billy, Stanley, and Lewis, when they got injured, he just knew that there was no way we were going to win the game. 36:34 [SPEAKER_05]: But he didn't let us know that. 36:36 [SPEAKER_05]: but we were determined and we would talk to the reserves and we tell them this is your time to shine because the home any other team around Colombia and South Carolina they were been started. 36:47 [SPEAKER_05]: But because of the team that we're on, they were reserved. 36:50 [SPEAKER_05]: So we told them, I was one of the captains. 36:51 [SPEAKER_05]: We told them, this is your time to shine. 36:53 [SPEAKER_05]: And one guy who ended up becoming a preacher like Pastor Jackson, you didn't agree. 36:58 [SPEAKER_05]: He broke away for a 65 yard run. 37:02 [SPEAKER_05]: And the team just, the team just was a labit. 37:05 [SPEAKER_05]: Because we knew you had that kind of talent, but nobody ever got a chance to see it because he was a reserve. 37:10 [SPEAKER_05]: But you didn't get it in the game. 37:11 [SPEAKER_05]: But that game, we won the game, but like I said, it's something that we will remember. 37:15 [SPEAKER_05]: and we'll take to our grades because we knew that you couldn't shine the seat or you know nowhere into place. 37:25 [SPEAKER_05]: And I'm saying, whites were there. 37:27 [SPEAKER_05]: It big numbers. 37:28 [SPEAKER_05]: We didn't know until 1996 that the district had recorded the game with an old 16 millimeter film camera. 37:38 [SPEAKER_05]: We didn't know 37:41 [SPEAKER_05]: So in 1996, we were down at the district office talking about the buildings because we didn't want the buildings to be destroyed and all of those kind of things. 37:49 [SPEAKER_05]: I'm sending the alumni. 37:50 [SPEAKER_05]: And one of the public relations people came over to me and said, we're cleaning out some things here because when second, when integration came a lot of the immobile items and all from the black schools were not maintained and safe. 38:03 [SPEAKER_05]: So he brought this little machine around and put these images start coming up. 38:08 [SPEAKER_05]: And he said, do you want this? 38:10 [SPEAKER_05]: And I almost passed out. 38:12 [SPEAKER_03]: I couldn't believe it. 38:13 [SPEAKER_05]: 13, three years. 38:15 [SPEAKER_05]: And I said, what did you get this? 38:17 [SPEAKER_05]: He said, it was here in the draw. 38:19 [SPEAKER_05]: So I took it. 38:21 [SPEAKER_05]: And like I said, I was in the technical trio and I had a lot of people in new video and relationships. 38:26 [SPEAKER_05]: So I took the film and had them to put it on the old VHS format. 38:32 [SPEAKER_05]: And I kept it that way for about eight years. 38:36 [SPEAKER_05]: And then over the years, we've had it enhanced. 38:38 [SPEAKER_05]: And Keller saw some of the footage from it's about 14 minutes of the game from 1963. 38:46 [SPEAKER_05]: And the play that the reserve running back broke away from 65 yards, it's as clear as they would say. 38:54 [SPEAKER_03]: Okay. 38:54 [SPEAKER_05]: That was really something that will carry with us for the rest of our lives. 38:58 [SPEAKER_04]: Are you aware how our history is coming alive and is ever present before us now? 39:05 [SPEAKER_04]: That's because of what the community absolutely is. 39:08 [SPEAKER_04]: That's why we're talking like we talked with Seth Brooks excite, they have not been that much talking about a conversation about that chaos, and Joe, the community did what they did. 39:17 [SPEAKER_02]: Sure, we wouldn't be having this conversation if they did it right, they did it right. 39:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Benny and Charles have been kind enough to share that footage with us and it will be up on our social media. 39:30 [SPEAKER_00]: The video includes a series of different clips from over the course of that game. 39:35 [SPEAKER_05]: This is, I don't think I ever told Pastor Jackson, now you can go back and ask some of the people from the time. 39:41 [SPEAKER_05]: After that season, at the end of the season, after one estate championship, there was a small black college in South Carolina called Morris College and they had a football team. 39:53 [SPEAKER_05]: And Coach Dana approached their coach and asked them that they want to play us because he wanted to see how good we were, he couldn't believe it, they said, okay, and we thought the game was going to happen, but the coach from Morris College said, 40:11 [SPEAKER_05]: No, I don't think I want to do it because if I beat y'all, then we just beat up a little high school and then if y'all beat us, then how did you let a little high school? 40:22 [SPEAKER_05]: There's no Wednesday to wish, but we were that confident. 40:25 [SPEAKER_05]: a lot of the players from the local all Blacks who have been in a college they would come over which they would come over and practice with us and get out and we would tackle them to say that we were not we're not afraid we don't care how big you are and one of them unfortunately frankly we heard his ankle he was a starting quarterback for Benedict College and we heard his like a not intentional but it was football 40:49 [SPEAKER_05]: And so he always talked about how tough we were. 40:52 [SPEAKER_05]: And one of the, one of the assistant coaches was from Florida his name was Robert jet Johnson. 40:58 [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, man. 40:59 [SPEAKER_05]: Robert J. Johnson was out of Florida, and his, he's in the Hall of Fame at the local college here in Colombia, Benedict College, and he was doing his student teaching at Lakeview doing that season in 1963. 41:13 [SPEAKER_05]: And I'll know you'll get what he said when we were winning all those games. 41:18 [SPEAKER_05]: He said to our head coach, he said, better, what did you get these kids from? 41:22 [SPEAKER_05]: I've never seen kids that want to 41:28 [SPEAKER_05]: That the only way that we could get respect is that we had to go out there and show folk that, hey, we're serious about this game. 41:36 [SPEAKER_05]: Okay, so that's why when it came up time for the championship game, we were going to win. 41:42 [SPEAKER_04]: Best all-way, 56 years, 2019, right, the community's four AAU hot water football team. 41:54 [SPEAKER_04]: Twelve-and-under, ten-and-under, eight-and-under, six-and-under, did something never having been done in pop-worn-of-football in the state of South Carolina. 42:05 [SPEAKER_04]: All of them, once they championship the same year, and one went on to win the weather two of them, the national championship in Orlando, Florida, and hence for the really beating of a football field, for these champions now, some fifty-six years in. 42:21 [SPEAKER_00]: In the next episode, we're going to be talking more about the legacy of this team. 42:26 [SPEAKER_00]: The 1963 South Carolina State Champions, Benny, Charles and Keller, are going to walk us through the different renovations, what they mean to them personally, and what they mean to the people of West Columbia. 42:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening.
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