ScienceMakers Toolkit Manual - The History Makers

Earth Science
46
Waverly Person - Video Clip Transcription
Clip 1 - Early school experiences: I felt real good about schooling because my parents were always was interested
in us going to school. And I always wanted to go to school, but there again, we had a tough time going
to school because we were working the farm. And when time came to plant and harvest, you had to stay out of
school to plant and to harvest the crop. And so you missed a lot of time out of school. But I was always anxious
to go to school, but sometime we had to miss a lot of time because of that. We had to get the crop in. We
had to get the--that was our livelihood. We had to harvest, and we had to plant it…I was always interested in
reading and writing and math and stuff like that.
Clip 2 - Childhood observations: I was always nosy. I always wanted to know what was going on. I always
made an attempt to fi nd out what was going on. And at a very young age, I began to think why were we deprived
of so many things. We were paying taxes and things like that. I started to realize that at a very young
age and felt that it was an injustice, and that why should we have to be subjected to this? And one of the things
that really disturbed me, and this was in elementary school, was that our school would close before the white
school because they say, well, they closed the school so that we could go work on the farm, and the white
school would continue on. We’d close in early May, and they would close in June.
Clip 3 - Role models: I didn’t have any, really inclination of any particular thing that I really wanted to do.
One of the things that I somewhat leaned towards was to be a school teacher because that was a role model
you’d see. You could see black school teachers, but as far as anything else, you didn’t see. See, you kind of
looked at them as being school teachers, and so I had an idea that that’s probably what I’d want to do because
that’s what you see.
Clip 4 - Becoming a geophysicist: I went back to school because I had my background in math and science, so
I went back to American and Joe Washington University, and I took all of the math and the science and everything
that you needed to become a geophysicist, and I’m working there in it. And so I was developing more
and more interest in it and everything. And I’m working the whole time. And I went on, went back and so I,
I’m still a technician. And so I became qualifi ed with everything that was needed to become a professional
geophysicist, and I applied for it. The fi rst couple of times I was turned down, not because I didn’t qualify but
because of my color. At that time, you had to put down what your race was. And so I got disqualifi ed to even
get on the register to be hired because my race was there, and I know what was going on. When they were doing
the, the registering and, you know, looking at everything, well, automatically, I get disqualifi ed because I’m
black, okay. So I said, okay, I’m still working here, I’ll keep working, and I kept working and everything. And
then I kept applying. I kept applying. I’m getting experience all the time cause I had this project then that I was
working on by myself, and at that time, they were building Flaming Gorge and Glenn Canyon Dam and they
wanted somebody to work on that to look at what is happening here in the way of blast and what is happening
with, as far as earthquakes are concerned. What happens once they start building? What happens when they
put the water in and all that? And I’m working on that. So I kept applying, and so by that time, I had advanced
to a grade that was higher than what I could come in as a geophysicist, and I was a higher grade. And so I applied
again. And I got on the register. Okay, and then there came a time--at the time that this guy--I had developed
a very close relationship with several people there. And we were, we were very, very close friends and
they liked me because I did the work. And so they pushed for me. So I got the job as a geophysicist. And I had
to go down from a GS-7 to a fi ve [GS-5] to come in because they, I couldn’t come in as a seven [GS-7]. I had
to come in as a fi ve [GS-5]. So I was willing to take the downgrade because the potential was there. I could see
that, so I took it. And that’s where I got started, and I’m still the only Afro-American.