Interview with Madeline Maupin Hicks, May 22, 2019

Madeline Maupin Hicks: Madeline Maupin Hicks...

Xian R. Brooks: All right, Dr. Hicks, I want to thank you for taking the time to talk to me today and to participate in our very first episode of this podcast. There was important for us to have you be the first person on this podcast because you are the first person of some very special thing. So if you could start by telling us who you are,

MH: I'm Madeline Maupin Hicks. I am a 19--a graduate of the class of 1975 from the University of Louisville School of Dentistry. And as such, I was the first African American female to attend to the University of Louisville in 1971 when we began our freshman year.

XB: Okay, so can you tell us a little bit about your upbringing? And childhood?

MH: Yes, my parents were educators. My mother was a teacher and later guidance 1:00counselor. My father was a teacher and the local public schools and later the first African American administrator at the central office of the Louisville Independent School District. And later principal and principal of the old Jackson Street junior high school and Booker T. Washington elementary school, and he was instrumental and having Jackson Street junior named named after Albert Meyzeek. So it was Meyzeek middle school and he left. Later he became acting superintendent of the Louisville Independent School District and then deputy superintendent of the Jefferson County School District.

XB: Okay, and then, based on that he has that Elementary School.

MH: Maupin Elementary, exactly

XB: Yes, ma'am. Okay, so what sparked your interest in medical school?

MH: When I was a kid, I like playing nurse. And I had nurse kits and things like that for Christmas. And my father told me that I didn't have to be a nurse, I could be a doctor. And so I pursued a medicine I looked into it. And when I was in the eighth grade, in a guidance class, we were asked to look into, or research, some career, some careers, what we thought we'd like to be in the 2:00future. And I researched, Medicine and Dentistry, and I decided I wanted to be a dentist. I also read read this book when I was young, that my great grandmother gave me and there was an article in that book on a lady named Ida Grey. And she was a female, African American female dentist, who practiced in Cincinnati, Ohio, and she went to University of Michigan School of Dentistry. And her story intrigued me. And later on, I research dentistry and decided that's what I wanted to do. And I stuck with it.

XB: And what was it about her story that intrigued you?

MH: She came from humble beginnings. But she was able to help a lot of people and some people believed in her. Because of her abilities. She had worked in a dental office. And the people that she worked for, helped her get into university of Michigan. And she, it was just interesting, because at that time, 3:00there were very few women dentist, and especially African-American women dentists, and she worked hard to pursue that career. And she was given the opportunity and succeeded in it. And it just interested me that she was one of a few and she was able to achieve her goals.

XB: Okay, so you said that, you know, there were very few women, dentists, and definitely very few African American women, dentists. So could you walk us through your first day of dental school?

MH: Let me let me say that this was in the 1800s. I'm talking about 1971. When I entered dental school, I had no idea that I would be the first African American female and knew that Dr. Harold Howard had preceded me, and he was the first African American student ever to attend. I didn't know that but I knew he had graduated the year before I started. So I didn't know that I was going to be the first African American female. I just wanted to go to school and It was a shock the first day of school when I found out that nobody else that looked like me was going to be here. I didn't answer your question. But that's what was.

XB: Yeah. So if you get so yeah. So you said it was a shock that you showed up 4:00the first day and saw that there was nobody else that looked like you. So could you walk us through? Actually, before you walk us through your first day? Could you walk us through your application process and kind of how you got to dental school?

MH: Well, I had a plot, I had gone to the old school at Brook and Broadway some years before to try to get some information on UofL. But I thought they were going to mail me something, I never got any information. I'm glad I didn't go to school in that building. It was a little scary. But by the time I came to school, the new building was here. And I was in the second freshman class that matriculated at 501, South Preston. And the as far as the admissions process, my old, my former dentists, Dr. Davis, brought me down here to talk to Dr. Ted Logan, who was then in charge of admissions. And I had Dr. Davis was my dentist and I had told him some time ago that I wanted to go to dental school. So I called him on his day off and he brought me down here. I thought that day that I was just going to talk to Dr. Logan, and maybe two of the school. And I ended up being interviewed by four different administrators that day, including the dean. And a few days later, I was asked to put in an application and took the DAT. At 5:00Dr. Logan's office, there was a med student and myself, who took the DAT in his office. And after the test results, they offered me a spot in the incoming class. And I was very excited because I had planned to get into enroll the following year. But I was glad again and they said somebody dropped out and I was able to enter that year.

XB: Okay, so now could you then walk us through your first day at dental school?

MH: The first day of school, I got here early, and we were going to have an orientation event. And I just waited and waited. As everybody gathered and assumed there would be at least one more African American student, I was not surprised that there would not be many women. But I was surprised that I was the only African American. In fact, I didn't see any African American faces for a long time. Eventually, there was some ladies who worked in the sterilization room that I met. And when I was a junior there, I met three other ladies up in surgery. But it was a little disconcerting.

XB: And how did you like, I guess overall, like how did that make you feel?

MH: I felt a little isolated. And I was really relieved when somebody spoke to me.

XB: Like when just anybody talked to you?

MH: One of the students said hello that first day and I remember who it was to this day. So and I had gone to IU in Bloomington for two years. And that experience 7:00made me comfortable in an integrated situation. But the spectrum wasn't quite as narrow as it was at UofL. There were other African American students on campus. And not as many in my science classes. But I did see some other people. And here I was the only student African American student in the whole school, so that was isolating.

XB: And so what were some of the barriers that you were faced with not only as a student, but I would say just as a African American person, you know, being the first.

MH: Well, actually, I tried not to make it an issue personally. I just wanted to do my best and I took the assignments on in the classroom, but when it came to studying, I was studying by myself. Whereas many of the other students knew one another and they had study groups. Then they shared information that I wasn't privy to for those first exams. So that was a little scary. But after the first exams, I found out I did okay, so am some of my classmates realize that I wasn't 8:00stupid. Not did. Okay. So that broke down some barriers. Because to be quite honest, most white people in that day assumed that if you were African American, you were inferior. So it took some doing to break down those walls. And I was an experiment for many of my classmates, because some of them never had had a one on one conversation with an African American before. I was it. So they had to, I had to prove myself in some ways.

XB: And so after you proved yourself, how did you notice like, what were the differences that you noticed and the interactions that folks had with you before? versus after you proved yourself?

MH: Well,the first couple of years? Sometimes I would say, answer a question about an assignment or something that we were supposed to do in the lab, to answer someone's questions, and they would turn from me and ask the next person, the same question. So they didn't trust that I knew what I was talking about. But by my junior year, they would come to me and ask me things. So it took that long for some people to realize that I knew what I was doing, or to treat me as an equal.

XB: Okay, and what was it that, um, because you're isolated? And you said that there weren't that many folks there, that we're accepting of you, that had even interacted with an African American person before? What was it that you did for support? Where did you find your support?

MH: Well, there was another young lady in the class, there were three of us when we started. And that was a class of 81. And there were three women in the class. And there was another student that I started studying with. And that helped a whole lot because she had some connections, and I was more a part of the group. And gradually, I was included in some of the study groups and that kind of thing.

XB: And then for, were there any other African Americans on campus that you were able to connect with, to kind of provide emotional support,

MH: the first year or so, there were no one, there was no one. But there was the med students. And they had a Student Association and the lady over in the admissions committee that helped organise that group, and she would have us to her house, 10:00her name was Catherine McElhaney. And we would go to her house for outings or I could go ask her for advice. And, and talk to the med students. And sometimes we'd eat lunch together in the old General Hospital cafeteria. So that was one connection. That was a major connection as far as of African American students.

XB: now know that, you know, professional schools, like dental school in med school, are different from undergrad in the sense that many folks are non traditional students when they get there as far as age goes. And there can be, you know, if they have like, you know, family, there are things that can, you know, kind of, like, add to the extra responsibilities add extra responsibility. So, did you have, like family was your family supportive, outside of your mom and your dad, so you know, what you were wanting to do?

MH: What was mainly my parents that were support supportive, but they didn't help me 11:00on an ongoing and an everyday basis. I was married when I started school. And my junior year, I had a son. So that was a little trying, but that was pretty much on my own, you know, like, psychologically, they would support me. And when I would complain about how things how tough things were or something, say something to my father, and he would, he would just say, "If you can't handle it. You can't make it I have, you can do this." But it was his psychological way of telling me that, you know, stop complaining and get on with it. So, it wasn't as though somebody was saying like some of the helicopter parents today, you know, honey, you know,

will give you know, it was it was not that approach. It was kind of tough love. So, you know, like he knew I Do it. And he was just saying, "Well, yeah. You know, you need to just get with it. You know, this is your goal, and you need to hang in there."

XB: Yeah. What were some of the other alternatives that he had for you to offer?

MH: Well, I had taught school for a year, and he was in the school system. So he said, If you know, if I couldn't handle dental school, I could always go back in the classroom.

XB: And you weren't interested in that?

MH: I was not. Dental school was always my goal. And I enjoy teaching. And that's what I'm doing now. ButI wanted to be in dentistry. And he knew that. So he was kind of giving me a swift kick, you know?

XB: And then what did you do? After dental school?

MH: I practiced, I started a private practice, and I practiced part time in doctor's office building at 250 East Liberty street, and also worked part time for the Health Department at Dixie Dental Clinic in Pleasure Ridge Park. And it was interesting, because that was during the busing era. And some of the patients parents would want to excuse their students from busing, they were trying to get them out of busing, so they can come into the clinic and want me to write them an excuse that said that the children needed dental work, and they can't get their dental work if they were bused.

XB: Were these white parents, or they were...

MH: They were white parents out in Pleasure Ridge Park and they come in and see me and I'd say, "well, Ma'am, I'm sorry that I can't write you an excuse on that basis, that, you know, you need X number of appointments, and you can get excuses from school to do that." And they would be very undone when I wouldn't write him an excuse. But the busing era, to be an African American female dentist in that location was a little, little trying. But not terribly so.

XB: What were some of the trying things?

MH: Well, the fact that it was the busing time, and there was a lot of hostility toward the notion of integration period. And here, I was integrating that clinic 14:00as the dentist in the clinic. So it was it was a little interesting.

XB: Did the patients eventually get on board?

MH: For the most part, I didn't have any problems. You know, there might have been some that had some issues, but it wasn't as overt for the most part. Those that wanted those excuses, created the most tension. If there were there could have been some that weren't, you know, to be scheduled on another day when there was another dentist, but I wasn't aware of that, really. But sometimes, I would go to get gas at a gas station and people wouldn't give me gas. It was it was a little tense in that neighborhood. Now you pump your own, but then, they would pump it for you.

XB: And then how long were you at that practice?

MH: I was there two and a half to three years while I was building my practice.

XB: Alright, and then. So tell me about that your practice built after.

MH: When I started my practice, I wanted in a location that said that we were professional. It wasn't a lot of dental offices during that time, had practices above drugstores or in areas where somebody else another business could have easily been there. But I wanted to set a different tone. And that's why I went to doctors office building. I wanted to be in a location where people all over the city could come. So I didn't want to be in the East End or the West End, I wanted to be downtown. And I wanted to change the culture of what patients viewed as dentistry and what services you receive in a dental office and how you should approach dental health. So I spend a lot of time then with videos and models and discussions with patients to help educate them to change from an environment where many of us would go to the dental office when they had a toothache, and they needed a tooth extraction. And so I felt it was my duty to help patients understand prevention, oral health in general, and how oral health affected the whole body. And to help them understand services, ways of being treated that would improve their overall health. As far as maintaining their dentition from the time we saw them, which sometimes was in childhood, to geriatrics, because it's a lot of geriatric patients, it goes itself because they can't function because they don't have adequate dentition. So, we spent a lot of time with education, helping patients understand they needed to replace teeth that they haven't extracted, and they needed to be concerned about periodontal disease and how just basic oral hygiene could help and what periodontal surgery would help them with. So if they had lost bone around their teeth, the many cha--many times they could preserve their teeth and not end up with the need to have them extracted, if we intercepted that process and removed the periodontal pockets, and that kind of thing. And so it took a little while 16:00to change that culture, but we were successful. And that's one of the things I'm most proud of that we helped change how people understood oral health.

XB: And were there any other ways that your private practice was different from the place that you were practicing that before that?

MH: Well, the clinic was not a comprehensive clinic, it was for children and pregnant mothers. And it was not comprehensive. And to the extent that we replaced anything that was missing, so we cleaned teeth, we filled teeth, and we extracted teeth and that was pretty much it. So my practice was much more comprehensive than that.

XB: And then as far as kind of like some of the things that you experienced with race relations and PRP at that practice, versus your own private practice, how were those things different? or How are those types of things handled?

MH: Well, I'll just say that. I think I was fortunate because as I was building my practice, I could have the practice reflect our society. So I have people from 17:00different cultures and backgrounds as employees, and also had patient base that was integrated.

XB: And I reckon having this set up like that, where your staff is reflective of society, as a patient base like that must have been pretty novel or uncommon for that time.

MH: And yes, it was initially Yes. Because when I started the dental offices, that I knew about where African Americans went for treatment. When I started practices were all African American, for the most part, and they were usu--They were most, most of them, I would say all of them were solo proprietors. In other words, there's usually one dentist in the office. And that also limited what a new dentist could do as far as learning from an older dentist. Today, a majority of our students either go to a graduate program, or they are in a group practice of some sort, or they are an associate in a private practice. So a younger dentists can learn from the more established dentists how to practice and get some hands on experience. My best experience, when I was in dental school, was working for one of the faculty. I worked as a dental assistant in his office as a Dr. Michael Utley. And he's on faculty here now. He had an office in St. Matthews and it was a risk for him to hire me. But he did, and I no problem with the patients as far as I knew. And I learned a lot from him about how to set up a 18:00practice and how to work in a practice as opposed to being in dental school. It's a lot different. Well, in dental school, you say may have maybe two or three patients a day. And in a typical office, you're going to have 15 to 20 patients a day, at least. And so how do you do that? And how do you manage the patients? How do you set up your practice? How do you set up your instruments so that they can be sterilized repetitively and organized. So the tray setups can be done easily. All that I learned from doctor Utley. Now, the students have a program, that's called AHEC, and they spend about six weeks in a different office setting. Sometimes it's in a clinical environment, sometimes it's in a private practice. But they get hands on experience working on patients in a practice setting. And they they're encouraged to pay attention to what happens at the front office, as well as how the patient the practices run, is how they treat patients and how the office is organized.

XB: So what does the student and population currently look like, at the University of Louisville School of Dentistry?

MH: It is more integrated than it was. There is an effort by the admissions department to integrate the student population They make an effort to have city people and rural people, people, students from different parts of the state of Kentucky, and from different areas of the country. So we have had students here. I was on the admissions, doing interviews through the admissions department for 19:00a while, for several years, and we admitted and interviewed students from Alaska, California, the North East, Canada, as well as Arkansas, and Texas and Utah, Oregon, we try to have some balance. And in that mix, we definitely try to have some African American students. So this is just off the top of my head. Most years, there have been at least five or six African American students per class. There is there's not a quota on that, it just has fallen in that, you know, they would accept more. But we're in competition for good students with a lot of dental schools. So, but that's a far cry from--so that means if we have five or six students per class, we multiply that times four, which is it's not 20:00as good as it could be. But it's a lot better than it was when I was in school.

XB: And I reckon the same thing is also true for women students.

MH: No--there tend to be more females across the board than there were when I was in school. So there were three of us in the class of 81. Initially, I think we had one transfer student before it was all over. So there were four of us who were graduated. Today, there's usually close to 50% females in the class, sometimes a little less, sometimes maybe 46%, or, but it's a lot different than it was when 21:00I was in school. And I think that's in most professions now, as far as law school, medical school, the the number of females has increased dramatically in the last 40 years.

XB: So you had mentioned the work that you had done with Dr. Utley. So when it comes to current students, in addition to AHEC, what other opportunities do they have? Or, you know, could you talk a little bit about the mentorship that you're able to provide to some of the students here?

MH: Some of the faculty participate in mentoring students, well, we'll take them to lunch or just hang out with them and talk about life in general, that kind of thing. That didn't exist too much. When--I didn't know of that happening. I 22:00think some of the students had that opportunity more than I did with some of the other faculty. I've never had that opportunity. That environment. So there was one females faculty person, there were only two female faculty one full-time and one that was here one day a week. And the part-- the full time faculty person had just graduated before we came before I came. And I could go talk to her sometime, but it wasn't like we socialized or anything that much. But I did feel free to go talk to her.

XB: And do you kind of serve that role at times to students here currently?

MH: Yes, I let the students know that I'm willing to talk to them and to spend some time with them. I have one student in the freshman class that has volunteered and has helped me in my ministry downtown. So she has been down there several times to work with the children that I have worked with downtown, on the weekends. And with students' projects, I will tell them, I'm not teaching some of the classes they're taking out, but I have in the past. So I'll tell the freshmen I have taught this class. And if you need any help bring me your projects. I'm available such and such a time. So sometimes they'll bring me their projects, or I'll meet them in the lab, and we'll go over things and I'll see how I can help them with their projects.

XB: So you had mentioned your ministry. Could you tell us a little bit about that?

MH: Yeah, yes. I have been volunteering down in Portland at a place called Hosea House. And God spoke to me and told me I need to go back to school. This was in 2010. So that was like in May of 2010. And I visited Southern seminary, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in July, and in August, I was in my first class. So I earned a degree in discipleship and family ministry from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2016. And so I was continuing to work here. And I went to school part time while I was teaching part time. And from while I was in southern, we started walking the community down between 13th and 8th street, and Jefferson and Chestnut, and building relationships with the children and praying for people off the street. And But anyway, that developed into a ministry where we go down into that community and serve the children, teach them Bible lessons and give them snacks and talk with their parents and pray with them. And we were in the process of trying to start a not for profit organization that will work 24:00with the mothers as a support group, to help mentor them, help the life of them and to work with children.

XB: And you started doing that, because you you saw that there was a need for that. Tell us a little bit about that.

MH: Well, actually, in our society, we are two or three generations of drug culture. And so we have generations of parents that have never been parented well. And they don't really know how to parent well, and the children are suffering as a 25:00result of that. And in that community, there is a lot of instability. And it's a low income housing area. And we see situations where people are in recovery, and then they're, they're back in society and but they don't have real guidance. And it was it's been on my heart for a long time that those of us who have been successful, have to give back. And in my own life and in my own family, I think "Well, I know that one big difference was that we had a strong belief in Christ. And our lives were centered around that. And that has made a big difference in how we've done life. And any successes that I've had has been based on that 26:00foundation. And I believe that is our duty to share that with people who don't know him. And that's where my heart is, that's, that's where I really want to serve I want other kids to have some of what I had coming up as the a lot of people, their parents and the children not being in a true loving environment, not making good decisions based on anything. They're just flying off the cuff about what they think, is a good idea without any sound foundation, or what is a good idea. And that's what I want to share with them. Hopefully, we can make a difference and turns some kids lives around.

XB: So is there any advice that you have for current dental students or any student for that matter, that may be underrepresented in their major or in their field? What advice would you have to give to them?

MH: Oh, that's a loaded question. I think they should try as hard as they can to be the best at their craft--at their discipline. To know when they need help, when 27:00they have a situation, they don't know how to handle to ask for help. And when they are established, or not necessarily fully established, but when they have the opportunity to give back and to serve, they need to do that. We have opportunities here at school for the students to reach out to other schoolchildren. And we have Smile of Kentucky of the dental school that brings in children whose parents may not have been getting them to the dentist regularly and they can't afford it or whatever, to come in and get dental 28:00services. That happens once a year. And they're also free clinics and churches that give have dental or medical health fairs wherever they have service. And when the students can participate, we encourage them to do that. There is something called RAM clinics that happen in different areas of need. And those RAM clinics are organized through our community dentistry department. And the students go and serve in a number of areas. A lot with faculty. And their are mission trips, there's an organization here at school called Christian Medical and Dental Association. It's not a university organization, but it's a club an elective club that the students can participate with. And they have mission trips several times during the year, and the students can participate with that. The school also has mission trip an exchange with a community in the Philippines as well as one I think they went to Tanzania this year, and they've been going to Belize for several years, where different disciplines of the school go down and serve the community. But we encourage service. So I'm hoping the students get the bug now and then when they're, they are in private practice or whatever they end up doing as their lifelong career that they they reach back.

XB: And how long will you continue to practice?

MH: I will continue to practice as long as it's fun and I think I'm making a contribution and the school thinks I am making a contribution.

XB: Right if they don't think you are Yeah. Yeah, hit the road.

Yeah, but so far and health wise. As long as I'm healthy enough, and so far, I've been very fortunate.

XB: Great, is there anything else that you would like to add?

MH: I would just say that if you're given the opportunity to do something, don't let anything stand in your way. When I was in school, there were also a few students who did things deliberately to try to keep me from being successful or didn't want to work with me on on a project, but they were minimal. For the most part, I was able to work with my classmates and my instructors. Some instructors were very supportive, some of them were not as much. But for the most part, there's always somebody around, it's going to help you. And you have to do your part. And if you're having a problem, then you go get help. I see some of the students struggle, and they don't go get help until it's too late. So I would encourage them that if there's something that they need help with, to seek out help early, and here we have people to help you. They're tutors. And if you need 31:00psychological health, there's, it's a way to get that some, you know, if you have a family problem, there's help for that. But, you know, and there, there have been students that found out they were having trouble with babysitters and that kind of thing. And I went and found babysitters for students. But if you don't say anything to anybody, they can't help you, because they don't know what you're dealing with. So don't live in isolation. This is a community. And usually, if you have an issue, there's somebody that not everybody's gonna be understand, but you don't need everybody. You just need one or two people helping you. And if you if you seek out people, or just listen and find out those people who are willing to help, or if you fix it, somebody might be willing to help go ask them. And if they don't have the answers, they probably know somebody who does. So students now have so many opportunities. And I would just encourage you to know what you enjoy doing. Or have an idea of what of what you think you might like to do, and sample many things and find out what really turns the light bulb on. And when you find something that you would do if nobody paid you to do it. Or that is something that you would make put a smile on your face and you would really enjoy every day, then that's what you need to do. And 32:00you need to find out what your niche is not everybody is going to be a dentist, not everybody has hand skills to do dentistry. Not everybody can deal with saliva and blood, all that, you know, and I think that's fun. So call me weird, whatever. But I enjoy that. So you have to find out what is a good niche for you. And there's so many things that you can do today. So I would encourage every high school student, every undergraduate student to have as many experiences as possible. There might be something that you didn't know existed. And you could go to go sample, go participate, get out learn. And that helps you make a career path decision.

XB: Is there anything that you want to touch on that? I didn't ask?

MH: I can't think of anything like this.

XB: Okay. Awesome. Cool. If there's nothing else--

MH: I can't think of anything. I think we talked about enough stuff before we kind of got it organized.

XB: Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I'll look at this and if there's something else let me know. Be sure to do that. Thank you. Okay.

MH: Okay, and I wanted to tell you, my uncle--. Okay. I just like to say that I would like students to realize that as you grow older, your interest will broaden. And it's never too late to go back and retool and train and learn a different area, to participate in another field that's different than your original occupation. For the past 25 or so years, I've participated in prison ministry as saying I've done it, see the project, I went back to school got a different degree, to a degree that you got a degree in ministry, in theology, but there are some of our faculty have hobbies in art. And they've gone back and taken lessons and a one retired faculty member showed me some pieces that she is selling now. So she's become quite the artist in the past few years. So always 34:00keep your mind open. And be alert to abilities that you have, many of us are more than one dimensional. So be open to learning and growing and, and always be evolving and becoming, don't be stagnant. We say that the university is a dynamic place, life is dynamic. Only those people that stagnate and cease to grow, and to expand their horizons are our unit dimensional, but there is a lot of life. There's a--we have a lot of abilities. And sometimes we know that but we don't know how to channel them or how to really use our abilities. But I 35:00would encourage you to get involved in different things when people ask you to do things if you have time. Experiment, not only seek out different professions as you're trying to figure out what you want your major occupation to be. But continue to experiment in life in positive directions to see what's out there and how you can grow and how you can help and continue to become the person that God intended you to be.

XB: I just thought of another question that I wanted to ask you. What high school 36:00did you go to?

MH: I graduated from Central High School. I went to Virginia Avenue Elementary School, which is now the West End Boys school. But my parents went to Virginia Avenue. I went to Virginia Avenue, I had some of their teachers as my teachers. And the teachers are we had fabulous teachers. And at Duvalle Junior High School, I had some great teachers learn to write well and to I was just, we had good math teachers, the science teachers. I was very well prepared when I went to college. And Central High School was great and went to Fisk University for 37:00two years, which is an HBSC University. And it was primarily African American that we had a few white students there. But Fisk was very rich in cultural history. And gave me a really good sense of self and the struggle of African Americans from Africa, to the new world and the time that we had been here since through slavery and after and went on I left there and went to IU in Bloomington. I had a good sense of self, even though it was a different time altogether. It was, it was small, I think there were about 1400 students there. When I was in school, I went to IU there were 30,000 students, huge campus, we had to get on buses to get to class. Very different from this. But I felt like I could swim in that. Because I had a good sense of self, as an African American female, understood what my ancestors have been through, and how they survived. And I felt like I could do. And sometimes our students now don't have that sense of self. And those of us that do, I think we have an obligation to try to help them understand. The students now very married, very many of them don't 38:00understand the struggle, they don't understand where we came from, they don't understand the survival of the fittest, that, you know, any of us here now have survived our gene pool has survived a lot through slavery, if you survived the slave trade, and you got here and live, that was a major accomplishment. And when you see other parts of the world and how people live, there's nobody in this country that lives in true poverty. And we all can make it, we need a hand up sometimes. Sometimes, some of us live a lot more humbly than others. But again, there's usually somebody there that can help. The basketball player Anderson, I can't think of his first name by now. For university level, he 39:00played basketball, I think he went to UK, but don't don't quote me on that. But anyway, he's a national basketball star. And now he talks to a lot of communities and students about how he kind of helped raise himself and his children, himself and his brother, I think, when they didn't have an adult, a responsible adult helping them. And his story is amazing. Think of a basketball player, I can't think of his name. First Name. But, and he spends time now, since he's retired from professional basketball, speaking and encouraging other students that come from homes and situations, as humble as he is, to the point that sometimes he didn't have anything to eat. And he had, you know, a few pennies, the battle for bread was significant. But he made it. And there were other people that encouraged him to make it. So, if you want to change your life, if your life isn't what you want it to be, it's possible to make a difference. So you don't have to assume that because I didn't have what I needed then and poor me that I'm following that. If you're gonna grow, you're gonna say, yeah, that I had a rough time. But I'm not gonna stay stuck. I'm gonna change things. The picture the life for myself and my children is going to be different than what I experienced. I have some control over my destiny. And with God's help, anything's possible. And you don't have to, in the state. Some women 40:00were abused, and young men were abused when they were kids. But either you can stay stuck, and I was abused, or you can say, Yeah, I was abused, and I'm going to use that experience for somebody else. But I'm going to make the best of my life that I possibly can. I'm going to go to class, when I'm supposed to go to class, I'm going to learn how to present myself. In the work environment, I'm going to understand that I have to show up on time and I need to do what I should do. Those are things that you can control, regardless of your background, and you have an obligation to do that.

XB: Anything else? I think that's enough.

MH: Hang in there, you know, you do what's right. And eventually things that come your way. You know, it's a lot but that's enough.