| Introduction
This interview was with Lila Jeanne Eichelberger. Mrs. Eichelberger taught
in Champaign Schools for more than 40 years and retired in 1989. She was a
teacher at Centennial High School before and during desegregation.
Yakera Barbee, an 8th grader at Franklin Middle School, conducted the
interview. She is one of three students who participated in this project
last year. She helped teach skills to 12 new students from Franklin Middle
School. All 15 students worked with WILL-AM 580 on an oral history project
documenting the actual desegregation of Champaign’s public elementary
schools in 1968. The students used parts of this interview for their
60-minute radio documentary, More Than a Bus Ride: Desegregating Champaign
Public Schools.
Yakera conducted the interview on March 2, 2005 at the WILL-AM 580 studio,
300 N. Goodwin Ave. in Urbana, IL.
YAKERA: Ok. Can you state your name for the record?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Lila Jeanne Eichelberger.
YAKERA: Where and when were you born?
YAKERA: In Mason County, Illinois, which is right straight west of here.
When? In 1928.
KIMBERLIE (Project Co-Director): Hold on one second. I’m hearing a tapping –
someone’s foot’s hitting…
MRS. EICHELBERGER: She’s bumping her chair.
KIMBERLIE: If you could stop that’d be great.
YAKERA: Ok. Was your town integrated or segregated?
MRS. EICHELBERGER It was segregated but there were – no African Americans
lived there.
YAKERA: Ok. Where did you go to college?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: University of Illinois?
YAKERA: Did you have any African American friends?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Yes.
YAKERA: Um…what were your relationships with your African American friends?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: There were very few Afro-Americans in college when I came
here and my experience was with a cute young woman in a Physical Education
class and many of the people ignored her and they’d sit on the opposite side
of the gym [as] her and I always sat with her. And people looked at me and
thought I was strange.
KIMBERLIE: Are you – I wanna ask a question. So why did you sit with her
when others wouldn’t?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: My father had always taught me that we were all born
equal and we treated everybody equally. And she seemed like a nice little
girl and she was a nice young woman.
KIMBERLIE: And what year was this? What college – what – was this college or
this was?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Yes, it was college. Uh huh, it would have been 1945 or
46…something like that.
YAKERA: What made you want to be a teacher?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Well when I came to college I said I didn’t know what I
wanted to do but I knew I didn’t want to be a teacher. But during the tests
that we took and everything it indicated that that’s what I would enjoy
doing most and I think the reason that I felt like I didn’t want to be a
teacher is I was a member of a 4H club and I had been teaching the younger
girls too, so – and cook and things like that and I think I just might have
been tired of being a teacher at that point.
YAKERA: Were there any African Americans in your 4H club.
MRS. EICHELBERGER: No, because there were no African Americans in my county.
ASIA: Ok. And what did you like about teaching?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: What did I like about it? I like working with young
people. They make you young, they’re exciting to be with and I like to guide
people that can gain from my experiences.
ASIA: What was Champaign like in 1968? What was the climate like and what
were the challenges and struggles?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Things were rather tense. I visited all of the homes of
my students and sometimes they would tell me – now you can’t go here or you
can’t go there, as long as you’re with us it’s ok. When a white woman went
into the African American community they always wond – I think some of the
people wondered why they were there.
YAKERA: So um, when you went to African American homes did you ever take
another African American with you?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: I usually took my student home from school so I would be
going with them.
YAKERA: Were you ever scared to visit African American students that lived
in the ghetto?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: I was never afraid but I did have one experience that was
a little frightening and I wouldn’t have been as frightened if I hadn’t
noticed that the student was terribly frightened. I could just tell by the
look on her face that she was extremely frightened and I made a courteous
exit from the home and went back to school and the next day when she came to
school she came in and cried and said she was so embarrassed and I said,
“You don’t need to be embarrassed. What bothered me is that you have to live
in those kinds of conditions that somebody,” – the individual walked into
the house and chased me out.
KIMBERLIE: Ok do you have a follow up to that Yakera?
YAKERA: Um, I was just going to ask could you tell me the story about what
happened.
MRS. EICHELBERGER: About what happened? Well apparently she told me that he
was a violent individual and because I followed her into the house he may
have thought that I was chasing her and he walked into the house and
confronted us and I just said, “Well Rosie, I think I had better go home,”
or “go back to school. I’ll see you,” - it happened to be on a Friday –
“I’ll see you on Monday.” And I could tell by the look on her face that she
was scared to death.
YAKERA: Do you know what his relationship was to her?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: She said that he just was an individual that lived in the
community.
YAKERA: Ok.
MRS. EICHELBERGER: And was upset over the conditions of desegregation.
KIMBERLIE: And I want to follow-up with something. You said that – just a
little while ago you said it was tense when you went into the homes.
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Not into the homes.
KIMBERLIE: Oh. In the community at that time?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Just in the community. I never felt that I wasn’t
welcomed – never felt that I wasn’t welcomed. I felt like I had a very good
relationship with all students and many times when situations would come up
at school – like we were making angel food cakes and somebody came into the
classroom and stole one of the cakes and I felt so bad about it and the
girls went upstairs to the Dean’s office and said, you know, “We know who
stole the cake.”
KIMBERLIE: I think I – I’m sorry – I asked my question improperly. Like you
said – when Yakera asked you 1968 you said it was a tense time and then you
related going into the homes and you could feel the tension of the time…do
you remember what it was that made the time tense around 1968 that you were
describing to her?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: I think it was just the conditions at the time. It was
kind of a tense time everywhere.
YAKERA: How were the white families different from the black families that
you visited?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Not a whole lot of difference with some of them. Early on
the homes in the African American community – some of them were sort of like
the way I had been raised because I had been raised on a farm and we didn’t
have electricity and we had outdoor toilets and things like that and in the
summertime – and I visited my students in the summertime – there would be
flies laying around but I was used to that because I had grown up the very
same way.
YAKERA: Um, what do you remember about the riots?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: The riots? Well it was a frightening experience to see
people coming down the hall and throwing garbage cans through glass plate
windows and things like that. I never felt in any danger. We were expected
to identify people that we saw doing things and after I got back into my
classroom after I had observed this incident I had no idea what the
individual looked like.
YAKERA: Did the school have any idea that the riots were going to occur?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: I don’t think so. I was not – I didn’t realize it – I
didn’t realize that the tension was that high. I hadn’t felt it in my
classrooms and I always stood in the hall – I didn’t feel it in the halls.
YAKERA: Were the black and white students that were involved in the riots
disciplined the same?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: I don’t know.
YAKERA: Um, I know you expected the same thing-
KIMBERLIE: I’m going to stop – I’m going to stop you. Yakera – can you think
of more questions – I’m feeling like there’s not a complete story there. Can
you think of some things that if – what other things could you ask her about
– do you have a picture in your mind of what happened and when it was? And
if you don’t you should ask her some questions that will give you – so that
you can tell it – so that the story is a full story.
YAKERA: Um…
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Does she have to ask a question or can I say something?
KIMBERLIE: Oh, you can-
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Ok. Um, a group of white males met the bus of African
American students and weren’t going to let them come in. And the African
Americans were more clever at handling situations like that and so they took
over.
YAKERA: What did they do?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Well they – I – it’s my understanding – I did not see
this – it’s my understanding that there were chains involved and that they
got the chains away from the white males. And I don’t – there was nobody
seriously injured but they took charge.
YAKERA: So, were the – who was disciplined? The white students or the blacks
students cause-
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Everybody was disciplined, as I recall. I was not
involved in any of that. I know that the white males were disciplined.
YAKERA: You don’t know what happened to the black students?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: No, I do not. Um, but I assume that equal treatment for
the involvement, probably.
YAKERA: And what were – how did parents feel about the riots? What did they
do about it?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Well that was one of the things that occurred after we
re-opened. We had parents that came to school and monitored the halls. The
white males’ parents – some of them were very upset because their guys were
disciplined I guess – I don’t know why they were really upset.
YAKERA: Did parents – were parents ever involved in the riots?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: No.
YAKERA: Ok.
KIMBERLIE: There’s one more question – what caused the riot? Why were the
whites there? Why were the whites there with chains to meet the African
Americans off the bus?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Well I assume that they didn’t want them in the school.
We never did find out what was in their head.
YAKERA: Why do you think – why do you think that – why do you think that
riots even happened?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: I think that we had some immature white males that didn’t
know how to get along with other people that did something they shouldn’t
have done.
KIMBERLIE: Ok. Home visits, right. So this riot occurs and she’s in the
homes and black and white families. Can you think of a question?
YAKERA: After the riots did you still visit African Americans?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Absolutely. Absolutely.
YAKERA: And you still visited white students?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Absolutely.
YAKERA: And it stayed the same as it was before?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: I never felt any different.
YAKERA: Ok. Did the families talk about what had happened at school with
you?
MRS. EICHELBERGER I don’t ever recall anybody bringing it up.
YAKERA: I know that you expected the same thing from both the black and
white students but what did some of the other teachers expect from the
students.
MRS. EICHELBERGER I don’t know.
YAKERA: What were the college prep classes?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: What were they? See I was never involved in a college
prep class. I did have students who went to college out of my classes but I
never – I was not involved with college prep classes so I don’t know how
they were treated or if they were integrated or not.
YAKERA: Um, what were the goals of the home-ec classes?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: It would depend upon the class. If it were – if we were
studying nutrition it would be to be a healthy individual, if we were doing
child development it would be learning how to interact with young children,
if it were a clothing class it would be selecting clothing or simple repairs
or making a garment…in management classes we taught them how to use their
time and money, energy efficiently.
YAKERA: What was the percentage of African American students in the home-ec
classes?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: That’s a question that’s very hard for me to answer
because I – and I shared this with Kimberlie the other day. Somebody said to
me at some point in my teaching, “How many black students do you have in
your class?” And I said, “I don’t really know because I look at each person
as an individual and I don’t count.” They were definitely open and they were
not the majority – African American students. That I do remember.
YAKERA: And who taught these classes? The home-ec classes?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Well I taught some of them and we had other teachers who
shared my philosophy about people that taught classes.
YAKERA: Were the teachers black or white?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Our teachers in our school were white. Mrs. Pertle was at
Central in Home Economics. I hired teachers and I never had a black
applicant in Home Economics.
YAKERA: And why do you think that was? Did – were there ever African
American teachers that taught college prep classes or any other classes?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Yes.
YAKERA: And how was that – how was the African American teachers’
relationship with the other teachers?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: I found it very – one of my best friends is an African
American teacher yet. I found – I think the teachers were very accepting.
YAKERA: Um, how was the desegregation plan explained to you?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: I don’t recall that it was ever explained to us we just
were told that when Centennial opened we would be bussing students – and we
bussed both black and white students there because there was no other way to
get there. There were very few – well there were hardly any – there was very
little housing around that area and many of the people who lived in the
houses around there had young children. So we had lots of bussed students.
YAKERA: And what did you think of the desegregation plan?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: I thought it was great.
YAKERA: What did others think of the desegregation plan?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: I don’t think any of us every questioned it.
YAKERA: Um, how did the parents feel about?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: I don’t think I ever discussed it with a parent.
YAKERA: Who in the community wanted desegregation and who didn’t?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: That’s a hard question for me to answer because I really
don’t know because my classes had always been integrated and – when I was at
Central – well at Champaign Senior High School and then when we moved to –
and had two high schools we wanted them both to be integrated so it really
wasn’t a whole lot different than what we had before because when we only
had one high school it was integrated and we wanted to continue that when we
opened Centennial.
YAKERA: When desegregation occurred did you stay at the same school or were
you moved?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Well I was already at Centennial – let’s see. Yes. I was
already at Centennial and I was committed to stay there.
YAKERA: What did you think about the moving around of teachers and students
for desegregation? Who got moved and who stayed?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Would you restate your question?
YAKERA: What did you think about the moving around of teachers and students
for desegregation?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: I don’t think that – I don’t know that there was any such
movement. Perhaps there was but I was not aware of it.
YAKERA: Did the schools and black neighborhoods survive after desegregation?
Were new schools built?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Well we haven’t built very many new schools and when –
since then and when we did it was Barkstall and Stratton and they’ve tried
to integrate both of them.
YAKERA: What was school like for you after desegregation?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: No different than it was before because I would already –
had been used to integration or desegregation – what every you want to call
it – because the students were all – when we had just one high school we had
all of the students and I interacted with African Americans just like I did
with the other students.
YAKERA: What was school like for the students who got moved from one school
to another?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Regardless of race I don’t think anybody really wanted to
come to the new high school. They all had a loyalty, their parents had a
loyalty to Champaign Senior High School and that’s where they’re – they
wanted their sons and daughters to go and that was where the sons and
daughters wanted to go. Um, and it was very difficult at Centennial to – and
as I explained to your – Kimberlie – we moved into an incomplete building,
we had no cafeteria, we had no gymnasium, our offices were makeshift offices
and classrooms and there was only a gravel road from Jefferson up to
Centennial. There were no streets to it. We were right out in the middle of
a cornfield. And nobody wanted to come there and the building wasn’t ready
for anybody to come to but we were so overcrowded at Champaign Senior High
School that we moved the sophomores – part of the sophomore class – out
there. And the building was supposed to have been completed so that we would
have – one year we would have just sophomores…then we would keep them and
would add another sophomore class so we would have sophomores and juniors.
Champaign High School was a three-year high school at that point and the
building was not completed so we ended up two years of just sophomores. Then
we added – we kept the juniors that had been out there, and then by 1967 we
had a complete high school.
YAKERA: And how did the students get along?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Fine. And the conditions around the building began to get
better. I can’t remember when we got an asphalt drive but we didn’t even
have asphalt drive out in front of Centennial at that point. So the busses
came schlishin in the gravel and kids got their feet wet and it was pretty
primitive.
YAKERA: Um, in your opinion was Champaign’s desegregation good or not?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Well I think it was better than a lot of places. I think
that it could have been improved but this is something that should have been
– gone on along time ago and a lot of problems had developed that – if it
occurred earlier wouldn’t have developed.
YAKERA: What is the difference between desegregation and integration?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Desegregation is when you put different people, different
races together in the same location. Integration is when they interact with
each other, become friends with each other…
YAKERA: And what do you – do you think – so do you think the schools were
integrated or desegregated?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: In the beginning I think it was just desegregated. I
think integration is occurring gradually. I don’t think it’s totally
integrated yet.
YAKERA: And why? Why do you think it’s not totally integrated yet?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: As human beings we like to be with our friends and
sometimes our friends don’t cross racial lines. You like to sit with your
friends in the cafeteria, you like to – you have some of the same interests
with your friends and more and more everything is becoming integrated. I see
that and I think that’s good.
YAKERA: Did you – while you were a teacher did you ever hear another teacher
say anything mean to an African American student?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: No.
YAKERA: And my last question is how do you think you were perceived by
African American students?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: I think they trusted me, I think they thought I was firm
but fair. I always was in my room before school started and many times I
would have students that would come in and they were equally African
Americans and white kids and we would just sit and talk or if they needed
help with a – some of their subjects I would help them. I think I was one of
their friends.
YAKERA: So do you think you were perceived the same way by white students?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Yes.
YAKERA: Were you going to ask a question?
KIMBERLIE: I have a couple.
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Go ahead.
KIMBERLIE: I’m trying to understand more these home visits. Did other
teachers as part of their role have home visits to make?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Only in Home Economics. Home Economics was a vocational
subject and because we were supposed to tailor our teaching to the home
situations, we needed to know what the home situations were.
YAKERA: So it seems like you had an advantage over other teachers in that
you were automatically interacting with parents of your students. How did
that affect your relationship with your students, black and white?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Right, right. Well any time that I had a concern I called
a parent and I felt very comfortable calling them and I think they felt
comfortable calling me. I had a lot of communication with parents,
contributed by the fact that I visited them at least once during the school
year and often more than once. Because they had a project each semester that
they needed to complete.
KIMBERLIE: And Yakera just because I’m on this on a question you should feel
free to add any other questions that you have. I have more but do you have
one on this one? Ok. So um what did you do on these home visits? Why were
you there and can you tell us some stories? If you remember any of those
home visits – I know this is 30 years ago but does anything-
MRS. EICHELBERGER: A lot more than 30 years ago <laughs>.
YAKERA: More is it? Ok. Can you think of anything that happened – what you
did on the home visits and any of the interactions you remember?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Um, well it was a matter of trying to get acquainted with
the mother or whoever was there and often, whether they were African
Americans or whites there were lots of little kids and I love little kids so
I usually played with the kids. If there were animals I usually had them in
my lap, I tried to be – to show them how comfortable I was because I was
comfortable. And we would talk about – I would ask for suggestions of what
they thought their – at that particular time they were all girls – what they
wanted their daughter to learn and were there things that I could help here
with…often the parents would call me with questions about things. I still
get calls from some of my former students about Home Economics related
things. And an interesting thing, we’d have a garage sale every year – a
community – or a neighborhood garage sale, and I have at least four students
that come every year to visit with me. Of course they’re – some of them are
grandparents by now. And I have to ask, you know, about the kids.
YAKERA: And then I have another one. Did – tell us for the record – because
you did tell me on the phone – what you did on the home visits. You were
there to – what was the Home Economic home visit about?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: We planned – each student planned a project that they
were going to do at home related to Home Economics. And my reason for
visiting might be to help them carry out this project or it might be to come
and see the project that they had finished. Some of their projects were
things that they could not bring to school to show me. Or if they were going
to organize a play group of small children I would visit them one time when
they were working with their children that they were working with.
KIMBERLIE: Yakera, anything?
YAKERA: Nope.
KIMBERLIE: Ok, I’ve got another one, believe it or not. Ok I’m thinking back
about some of the interviews you did last year and well – back to this about
1968 – what was going on in Champaign – do you remember the boycotts? What
did you think of them? Did you participate? Did your students’ families
participate? Can you talk a little bit about that time?
MRS. EICHELBERGER:: I know some of my students and their families
participated because they would tell me about it.
YAKERA: Can you a – since – can you kind of state that in a more for – tell
– you know the – when you say it can you kind of say what the ‘it’ is?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Oh the riot – or the boycotts? One of them was – I
believe it was Grant’s – they told me how they went down and sat in at the
food counter there. I think it was Grant’s.
YAKERA: So your students were sitting in at the counter?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Mhm.
KIMBERLIE: Yakera, do you have a follow-up to that? Have you ever sat in at
a counter or done any demonstration? Have you?
YAKERA: What are you talking about?
KIMBERLIE: You. Have you ever done anything like that? So aren’t you
curious? These students did something you didn’t do. Do you have some
questions about that?
YAKERA: No I…
KIMBERLIE: Think, think about it.
MRS. EICHELBERGER:: You really needed a lot of guts to do it because you
didn’t know what for sure was going to happen. Interestingly enough nothing
happened with this group of students. I think that’s one reason that they
told me about it was cause they were so elated that it went so smoothly.
Others had done it before them, um, and maybe had broken the ice.
KIMBERLIE: Do have the full story?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: It’s so foreign to her that she can’t think about it.
KIMBERLIE: Come on, you can do it.
YAKERA: Were there ever boycotts that didn’t go so good?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: I have no recollection of any but there may have been.
YAKERA: That’s a follow-up question.
KIMBERLIE: Good…come up with another one. Do you know what a boycott is?
YAKERA: Yeah!
KIMBERLIE: What is it?
YAKERA: I know – I don’t know the full definition but I know what it is.
KIMBERLIE: She’s here so <inaudible>.
YAKERA: Ok. What is a boycott?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Well that’s when an individual or a group decides to try
to do something that they haven’t been allowed to do or that they think they
haven’t been allowed to do. And they go against the common practice or they
refuse to do something. A boycott might be something that you just refuse to
do, that you’ve been asked to do because you didn’t think it was fair.
KIMBERLIE: Echelberger correctly remembered it was Grants that folks were
picket – were boycotting. Do you know – what’s the next question? Who, what,
where, when?
YAKERA: Why? Why were they boycotting?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Well, apparently they hadn’t been allowed to sit at the
lunch counter. Or maybe they had to sit at the end of the lunch counter.
That I don’t remember. But anyway it was something about that that I do
remember. You know I’m an old lady so I’ve forgotten a lot of this.
KIMBERLIE: This is going good. Now, so you’ve got these 16 year olds, right?
16-17 year olds that are actually boycotting so do you have a sense in your
mind, Yakera, the picture of what Mrs. Eichelberger is describing? You do?
Cause I don’t have a clear picture.
YAKERA: I do.
KIMBERLIE: So there must be another question in there.
YAKERA: I said I got it.
KIMBERLIE: Ok then I’ll go. Give us a – you know, what did your students –
how did your students inform you that they were involved? What did they say?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Well they just came in and said, “Guess what we did
yesterday.” And I said, “Well, what did you do yesterday?” And so they said,
“We sat at the lunch counter at Grant’s.” And I said, “Well what happened?”
And they said, “Nothing!” I said, “Good!”
KIMBERLIE: Ok so – so there – did any of the white students sit in? As far
as you know…
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Probably not.
KIMBERLIE: So there was somethings that were going on a little different in
some of the – some of your students’ lives and you knew about this?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: I don’t think any of the white students went to the – to
help in the situation at that point. I think they would today but it was
such a new situation at that point that I don’t think that they would have
even thought to do that. And it wasn’t because they disapproved, it was just
that they didn’t have nerve enough to try it, I think, even if they wanted
to.
YAKERA: I’m not even going to look at you.
KIMBERLIE: This is good. Anything else, Yakera?
YAKERA: [No.]
KIMBERLIE: Ok. There’s one thing that we do want to ask you. Are there other
teachers, parents, students, you would suggest that our students talk to
about this?
MRS. EICHELBERGER: Well I wish that you could talk to some of the people in
my department but unfortunately one of them is deceased and the other one
has had ensephalitis and isn’t able to do it but they shared my philosophy
too and we – we had a very warm relationship with our students because they
saw us as being accepting – and this is all students, not just
Afro-Americans. They saw us as accepting, that we would go bat for them when
they needed help, but unfortunately I’m the only remaining one. And I’m the
oldest of the whole outfit.
KIMBERLIE: Yakera, anything else? Ok. I guess we’re done then. Except for
the photos. I have to get some photos.
END
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