Cecil A. Partee Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

and said, in one of the contests, Longfellow's "A Psalm of Life," which is
about an eight-stanza poem which I was able to do at six. I can remember
going to Little Rock to the teacherst meeting and they had this oratorical
contest and I said that poem and a girl said a poem called, "Is It Because
I'm Nobody's Child?" The girl was given first place and I was given second
place and two persons contested the judgest decision and, as a consequence,
there was a compromise and they gave goth of us first place. One of those
two persons was the head of the English Department at Dunbar High School, and
the other was a black lawyer.
It was the very first time I had ever met a lawyer who was black. I suppose--
it might have been the first time I ever really met a lawyer, I'm not sure.
It was very interesting to me. He took an interest in me and the next day
he took me down to the area where his office was and introduced me to various
people at his office and at his barbershop and places of that sort. So, I
guess, really, that was the first time I had seen a lawyer and I guess maybe
in the back of my mind that has always stuck out.
Q: What was his name?
A: His name was William A. Booker.
Q: And this was in Little Rock.
A: In Little Rock, yes.
Q: How did you go to Little Rock? By train?
A: Oh, no, we drove in those days. We drove over there.
Q: What kind of car did you have?
A: First car we had was a 1930 Ford, cost $625.00.
Q: My goodness, (laughs)
A: We thought that was all the money in the world. We had to buy it for the
time that my mother became county supervisor because she needed a car to get
to the various schools in the county.
Q: What do you remember about Mr. Booker's office?
A: It had a lot of books in it. That's about as much as I can remember. It
had a lot of books and--he had a secretary and she was a very charming lady
and that's about all I remember about the office. I was only six years old.
Q: Yes. Did he describe anything about being a lawyer to you at that age
that stuck with you?
A: I'm not sure that there was any real description. He introduced me to
another lawyer there whose name was Scipio Jones. I remember meeting Mr.