Betty Glenn Thomas Oral History by Eva Schlesinger
Eva Schlesinger interviewed Betty Glenn Thomas for the Oberlin Oral History Project on April 25th, 1985, 45 years after Thomas became the first Black teacher in the Oberlin Public Schools. In recent years, this oral history along with other interviews done with Thomas have been revisited for the sake of the Betty Glenn Thomas Project, a collaboration between the college and community to remember the life of this Oberlin graduate who served her community in a myriad of ways. This interview, in conversation with the Oberlin News-Tribune coverage of the controversy surrounding Thomas’ hire, allows for a disruption of the “biographical imperative” to only remember Thomas as a first (May 37). We must also consider why Thomas took the position and if that in any way undermines the impact she had throughout her teaching career. Rather than approach Thomas’ life with an either/or line of questioning that seeks to either define Thomas as an activist or apolitical, a close look at these sources creates space to approach her complicated life with a both/and framework (May 93).
Thomas grew up in the northern part of Oberlin in an all-white neighborhood, and she said that as a child, “There was no prejudice in our home because as I realize now, I didn’t at the time, our family was the only black family in the neighborhood, and our neighbors—our house was their house—and everybody went back and forth. I guess because two of my grandparents were white that our family was sort of mixed up in a way (laughter)” (Schlesinger 5). Thomas’ father also held a carpentry position at the college which was significant for a Black person at the time. Thus, when Thomas was asked to leave Dayton in 1940 and return to Oberlin as the first Black teacher—upon the request for one by Oberlin’s Black community—she had conflicted feelings about her role. Thomas explained in the interview that she did not like the idea of teaching only Black students. She said, “When I came home and told my parents, my father said it was a step in the right direction that at least a black teacher would be hired. I accepted the job, but not very willingly” (Schlesinger 2). Before teaching at Oberlin, Thomas taught in the South where she experienced Jim Crow, and she explained that upon her arrival at the train station where she saw “Colored Only” signs, she wanted to get back on the train and turn around (Schlesinger 4). In Dayton she was also teaching in a segregated school in what she described as a “slum neighborhood.” Thomas’ experience with race in both the South and southern Ohio contrast what she described to be a happy upbringing in Oberlin where she did not feel she experienced much racial discrimination at all. For her return to Oberlin to come with the caveat of teaching in a segregated school must have been a shock to her; Oberlin was not a place of discrimination in Thomas’ mind. She wanted more from Oberlin.
Thomas ultimately chose to take the position because her father was ill, and she wanted to be in Oberlin with him. But even if Thomas did not set out to be an important first, her work in the schools did have implications. Scholar Stephanie Evans locates similarities despite the very different contexts of each Black teacher: “[Black women] assumed a connection between educational attainment and social responsibility. Their teaching regardless of era, level or venue, reflected perseverance, diversity or interest, community service, and social justice epistemology” (Evans 178). Thomas’ impact on Black students is highlighted in an oral history interview with Maggie Robinson, who had Thomas as her kindergarten teacher: “I felt that she was a little more demanding of students of color. I think she expected more. And maybe she wanted to make sure that we succeeded...She gave me the desire to want to learn and maybe, although I can’t remember why, made me know the importance that being in school was to learn and not a social gathering” (Rohde 2). Robinson also described a “sense of pride” from seeing a teacher that looked like her, even though at the time she wasn’t sure where that pride was coming from. Francine Toss, Thomas’ best friend and coworker at Eastwood, explained in an oral history interview that Thomas set the example for other teachers, and had the respect of parents, teachers, and students. Toss said, “ [Betty] loved teaching from the moment she started. Because she always focused on the kids. The politics were not a big deal with her. Once she committed to something, if that’s what she wanted to be doing, that was the focus, not the politics around it” (Grace 12).
Thomas shaped Robinson’s experience in the Oberlin schools, and Toss points out that Thomas continued to be the only Black teacher for quite a while. Thus, Thomas should be considered an important historical figure in Oberlin; however, she should not only be remembered as a first. Scholar Vivian May warns historians about specularization of Black women in history. May writes, “The danger is that admiration can simultaneously be a form of distancing, of putting someone in her ‘place,’ curbing her impact and silencing her voice even as she comes to be perceived as an exemplary figure” (May 38). Thomas’ contributions to Oberlin must be complemented by the way that Thomas historicizes herself.
In response to questions about race relations in Oberlin, Thomas does not speak much from personal experience: “I can’t think of any problems that we had. I know some people who didn’t think they were treated fairly. For instance there was a bowling alley, and black townspeople were not allowed to go in there. But many of those things didn’t bother me because I wasn’t interested in those things” (Schlesinger 3). She further explained, “I guess my philosophy is if there are some places people don’t want me to be, I really don’t care about being there.” Despite this mentality, Thomas was flung into the public eye and political sphere through the controversy surrounding her hire. Thomas’ response to this both in the moment it was happening and in her interview where she reflects on the controversy demonstrates a culture of dissemblance. Darlene Clark Hines coined this idea of a “cult of secrecy” that Black women develop in response to racial animosity by “remaining an enigma” (Hines 915). Clark Hines writes, “Only with secrecy, thus achieving a self-imposed invisibility, could ordinary Black women accrue the psychic space and harness the resources needed to hold their own in the often one-sided and mismatched resistance struggle.” Thomas was on her own in the public schools; she did not have other Black teachers working alongside her to confide in. Further, her teaching career was a dramatic shift from her childhood in Oberlin that she describes as free of racial discrimination. 230 Oberlin residents signed a petition in support of Thomas teaching in Oberlin, making her race and its implications on her position in the community visible. Thomas’ “self-imposed invisibility” was a survival technique for her to focus on her students rather than the politics she was thrown into. When Thomas was asked about her reason for hire, she explained, “Even though there was an understanding that it was just going to be for black students, a lot of people in the community didn’t know that I was going to teach. At the end of the year because there were black citizens who were not in favor of segregation, the school was integrated” (Schlesinger 2). What Thomas does not explore in the interview are her own feelings on the controversy that surrounded her. She told Schlesinger, “After three years, a teacher automatically got tenure, and I guess for some reason the Board wasn’t going to give me tenure” (Schlesinger 4). Thomas did not seem eager to discuss the questions of her race in relation to her teaching.
Works Cited
Betty Thomas Oral History for the Oberlin Oral History Project, interviewed by Eva Shlesinger, April 25th, 1985, transcript, located in the Oberlin Heritage Center Archives.
Evans, Stephanie Y., 2007. Black Women in the Ivory Tower, 1850-1954: An Intellectual History. University Press of Florida.
Hine, Darlene Clark. "Rape and the Inner Lives of Black Women in the Middle West." Signs 14, no. 4 (1989): 912-20. Accessed March 30, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/3174692.
Francine Toss Oral History for the Betty Glenn Thomas Project, interviewed by Avery Grace, April 8th, 2019, transcript, located in the Oberlin Heritage Center Archives.
Maggie Robinson Oral History for the Betty Glenn Thomas Project, interviewed by Julia Rohde, April 4th, 2019, transcript, located in the Oberlin Heritage Center Archives.