Interview with Pastor Nawanna Lewis Miller, June 30, 2019

AC: Today is June 30, 2019 and I am here with Pastor Nawanna Lewis Miller who graduated from UGA in 1973. Thank you so much for being with me today.

NM: It's my pleasure to be here.

AC: Awesome. Okay, I just want to learn about your experience while at UGA. You went during a very trying time in our country and so I really just want to chat with you because I'm interested personally and so many UGA students and others want to know about what it was like being an African-American woman at UGA during that time. So can you start off by giving us an overall summary of what you thought about it and then we'll dive deeper.

NM: Okay, sure. Thank you for the opportunity. I am very, very determined to 00:01:00make this a profitable experience for all who will hear. I went to Georgia. Started in 1969 and I remember seeing Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter when they integrated Georgia and this just a few years before. I guess I was 10 years old. And sitting here watching Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, I said to myself I'm going there. And I was just 10. I had no idea where it was or anything about it but the impact of that integration and what they went through made me want to go there. I later learned that they were graduates of the same high school where 00:02:00I attended, H.M. Turner High School [Henry McNeal Turner High School]. So when I got to Turner, it was a big deal that they had been there. So while I got accepted to a number of very good and academically challenging schools I made the decision to go to Georgia. I just have to sigh almost when I think back on it. That was a lot. I always tell people that when I arrived there were 19,990 or 80 white people and 10 black people.

AC: Wow, only ten black people.

NM: That were on campus at that time.

AC: Wow.

NM: And I remember the rallies and stuff and they played Dixie. I was just 00:03:00coming out of an all black high school that was really excellent and I get to Georgia excited about the new next step in life and the first thing I am confronted with is Dixie.

AC: Now can you explain what Dixie is to someone who is my age and may not know?

NM: Dixie to me was the anthem of the Old South: 'I wished I was in the land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten. Look away, look away, look away Dixieland.' And when they played that song they just went berserk. And I'm 00:04:00standing there because I'm supposed to be there right? That was what they were doing as freshman orientation and so I was standing there listening during orientation to Dixie. Nowhere to go. I mean, nothing to do all by myself. And I just thought well, it will be better when school starts. It wasn't. It wasn't better. It was worse because when school actually started there was a flood of people. And I had an African American roommate but you were almost just hoping and praying that you would see another African American.

AC: Right.

NM: And I didn't.

AC: Because there was only 10 of you all.

NM: There may have been more. And there were 10 who came in with me. Let me say it that way. There were 10 who came in with me and there may have been another 10 or 20 who were already there. And so the trauma. That's the only way to describe it. My daughter, now, is a mental health therapist. And so, I use a lot of terms that she uses. So the trauma of that experience was unbelievable. But I had to go to class and I had to do the work for class. I had to do the work for class. I remember walking across the bridge. I had English in the morning and I 00:06:00remember walking across the bridge and being totally alone. And then when I got to the other side for a science class the professor up in front of the class, I mean there must have been one hundred students in the class-- And he said that morning that he already sees one person who is going to flunk. Well, even if he wasn't talking about me. If I am the only black kid in the class, I assume that he is talking about me because he is looking at me. And the class sort of 00:07:00snickers under their breath. And so you sit there and you hope that what he said is not true. But I remember that midway, mid semester, they told me that i had - I would call his name because I can see him. I remember his name and this is how many years later. I remember his name but the teacher told me that -- He didn't mark my paper up. But basically he gave me a C. That was my first C in history. And so me being me, I asked for a meeting, went to his office and he-- and there 00:08:00was nothing he could point to that showed I deserved a C. And he had this terrible pain on his face. And he said he just could not give an A to a negro. And I wanted to just protest, do something but instead I walked back across the bridge and I thought to myself as I cried and tears just rolled down my face that I had to do something to help us because nobody else was going to.

The Black Student Union had started before I came to Georgia but I had to get 00:09:00used to the idea of a Black Student Union. We were freshmen and we went to the meetings but we weren't in tune the way the older students were in tune because we had not had the experience that I was beginning to have. So as a matter a fact, within a few months we became like the people, the brother and sisters who had already been through what we were now going through. And so the BSU became, it became our oasis. I think, I don't remember exactly of who owned the house 00:10:00but it reminded me of slavery, like down up under the swamp. So we would go there for the BSU meetings. And that is where I first saw all of the students gathered in one place.

AC: Wow, how did you feel when you first saw all the students gathered there in that small little house?

NM: I felt like, I felt us. It was us. And I could relate to us. And I wanted us to stay together. I felt like if we could just stay together and just do classes together and walk together. But that wasn't possible.

AC: Why?

NM: Well, because everybody lived in different dorms and everybody had a 00:11:00different schedule. But the saving grace was that there was Memorial Hall and that's where we - I learned - where we congregated. And I remember the University at one point in the spring telling us not to congregate there again because if you think about it, anytime black people congregate anywhere, even now in 2019, the fear is always that we are going to do something. We are a threat and we are going to do something destructive. But we were in the BSU in 00:12:00that one room on the first floor and that is where everybody gathered between classes. And they played Bid Whist, which I don't know how. I wasn't a card player then, I'm not a card player now. But the camaraderie was what was important. And so that's what we did. Every day we went by the BSU. But I write in a book called, Oh God my Preacher is Pregnant, I write the story of UGA, my time at UGA. And that story has allowed me finally, finally after all these years to even be able to say what happened. And as a result of that book, I look 00:13:00back and remembered how I used to see mirages, literally. I would think that I saw black people maybe off in the distance and I was so excited I would start running toward who I thought were black people. But when I got to where I thought they were, they weren't there. That's how bad it got for me. I ain't talkin about nobody else, just me.

AC: Yeah, right so let's talk about your experience after that orientation meeting, you talked about it getting worse.

NM: Yes.

AC: Your experience on campus, why did it get worse for you? What were you feeling?

NM: You felt the pressure. You felt the nobodiness that was perpetuated, that 00:14:00was you know. You were a blank. You were a-- as I write somewhere, that we were intruders. We were treated as intruders. There were other African American students who may have had a different response. But I can tell you that the people who I became close to, they felt the same way that I felt. And the whole idea for me is as an intruder. I wrote at some point an article about 'When the Dogs Left'. Meaning, after Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes integrated or 00:15:00desegregated, not integrated and the dogs left, that's when the misery started. And nobody has ever really addressed that to my knowledge. They didn't care. It's easier to pass UGA off as this phenomenal land grant institution and it is. But nobody cared what happened to me. There was one administrator, who really offered us hope. She worked with us in terms of schedules and financial aid and 00:16:00all of that. But she was like a rescuer and so we treated her with a lot of respect. But that pretty much sums it up for me.

AC: But what did you major in when you were at UGA?

NM: You're going to love this. I majored in broadcast journalism.

AC: Just like me.

NM: Just like you.

AC: Amazing! So, did you ever find refuge within your college, within the professors there? Did you ever-- where was your safe haven throughout all the chaos it seems like? Where did you find peace?

NM: I remember--and I can't remember her name--but there was one other or two other women who were professors that made it better. There was one woman Jeanie, 00:17:00I think her name was Jeanie. And she used to come and play bid whist in the black section. That was like phenomenal to me. And she befriended all of us. And that made it better. And basically you know when I stop to think and remember I had great professors and everything. But who was going to help us to film the way they helped each other. It wasn't there. And I'm not one who needs a lot of help to do anything. If it's to be done I'm going to do it. So it's not that I'm crying or bellyaching. The support just was not there and that's the reality.

AC: So did most of your support come from Black Student Union?

NM: Absolutely!

AC: Were there any professors or faculty members or staff that was helping in the organization or was it all student run?

NM: I can't even get the words out. We protested around the fall of 1970. That's when all of my resolve to do something came to fruition. Dwight Thomas, attorney Dwight Thomas who is right here in Atlanta, became the president of the BSU and he appointed me Mistress of Cultural Affairs. That's the times in which we 00:19:00lived. So when he had appointed me Mistress of Cultural Affairs, God in heaven gave me the revelation to start Pamoja. It's now the African American Cultural Ensemble, has presented amazing concerts and work through Dr. Gregory Broughton, yeah!

AC: I know. It's still around.

NM: So my relationship with Dr. Broughton just, is just amazing now. But when we started, when I started Pamoja, there was nothing for African Americans to do. So I started everything Pamoja. The Pamoja singers, the Pamoja dancers, Pamoja 00:20:00drum and arts and there was one other piece. It kinda dropped off. So those were the cultural things that I was led to begin, to start. Then I was led to start the Journalism Association for Minorities. And we produced the first newspaper for African Americans.

AC: Amazing!

NM: Yes. I love that. So with those kinds of social groups, we were able to sorta bridge the gap just a little. I have to laugh because when we talk about 00:21:00Pamoja, Pamoja dancers, I used to dance outside in front of Monument (Memorial) Hall by myself. My wardrobe consisted of sheets artfully draped around me in the freezing cold and I danced to the music.

AC: And now Pamoja just had a concert not too long ago when we left school.

NM: I had planned to be there but physically I could not. But I was aware of the concert. Dr. Broughton, I love the work that he has done, has been phenomenal. And I look forward to opportunities to help move the group along.

AC: That's amazing. Where did you live on campus when you were a student?

NM: Creswell Hall.

AC: Creswell. I lived in Russell Hall so not too far. You only stayed on campus for one year?

NM: No, I stayed on campus until I left. I took twenty hours every semester to graduate early. I graduated in 3 and half years to get outta there. But Creswell, Russell, Brumby were the newer dorms at that time. But the way they did in terms of how they assigned our rooms, all of the African Americans were assigned rooms on the end. So if you go to either one of those dorms, the black 00:23:00people would be in the dorms on the end. So that people could come-- the University, I'm not saying that they knew but what happened as a result, it was easy for people to just go down the list from top to bottom and make it difficult for the black students. For example, they would cut glass up. Break up glass and put it of outside your room. So that when you got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, you stepped in glass. It was easy. They knew we were all in a line straight down on the end of the halls.

AC: Right. Did you lean on your roommate at all when you guys were sad?

NM: No.

AC: Did you support each other?

NM: No. I guess, the only place for me the Nawanna Lewis Miller was to lean is the man I'm married to now. Every Friday at 12 o'clock I caught the Greyhound bus to Atlanta and stayed until Sunday and he would bring me back late Sunday night the whole 3 and a half years.

AC: Wow!

NM: I rarely-- I sometimes stayed on campus. But pretty much I came to Atlanta.

AC: You had to get away.

NM: I had to get away.

AC: Wow. Goodness this is so heavy and I am learning so much as a student now. 00:25:00Really, you have paved the way for us so thank you. I want to talk about some of your happier moments on campus. What was some of those moments for you?

NM: I guess the interactives with the other African American students. And the determination. I went to Georgia one way. I graduated another way. And that's not uncommon. But I went as this naive young girl. I came out of Georgia as this strong, independent African American woman who had been through hell and there 00:26:00was no other way to describe it. There was nothing pleasant about it. I mean, when I think about just matriculating on campus the only good thing I can remember is the BSU and meeting in Monument Hall [Memorial Hall]. That was it. We had some dances. We had some fun things that we did. We crashed a few fraternity and sorority parties. That was interesting. But fun? Not like other people can I really say that it was 'fun'.

AC: Right. So you talked about you coming to college one way and leaving 00:27:00another. What was that pivotal moment for you when you realized, I can't be this naive girl anymore--

NM: Yes.

AC: I need to grow up and be...what moment was that for you?

NM: When I crossed that bridge in tears. I am going to call his name. I hope is doing well. I hope he's still alive. At one pivotal moment when Mr. Peacock told me that there was no way he could give me an A because I was a negro. Huh, that was my wakeup call. That was my determination like, you are not going to dog me like this. You are not going to treat me like this. I am somebody. And I came out of Atlanta and my father had been very active in the Civil Rights movement. 00:28:00So I was Nawanna Lewis and my daddy didn't play. And so for me I couldn't go home crying. I had to stand up. I could not ever let them know what I went through. They couldn't take it. They wouldn't want me to take it. So that was the moment I decided to do something. And that's when in the fall Dwight went in as the president of the BSU and everything changed. So, you know, I had straight hair when I went there. By the fall, I had my afro back and she's a different person, you know. But nobody, nobody has ever asked.

AC: Wow! You talked about your parents being involved in the civil rights 00:29:00movement and you not being able to go home crying. They're like, 'not my child'!

NM: Absolutely!

AC: Did anyone talk you out wanting to go to be at UGA. To wanting to experience that--

NM: It was the community's victory for me to go to UGA.

AC: Wow.

NM: A whole lot of black, just like now. I celebrate you. I am excited to meet you. I am excited to know that you are there and you are finishing and you are successful in journalism. I am, as an African American mother, woman, I am thrilled for you. And so the way I am thrilled for you is the way everybody was thrilled for me. They wanted me to finish. I was the first in my family to get a 00:30:00college degree. So everybody was rooting for me.

AC: Wow. I-- this is so heavy.

NM: Yes it is. But we can't change it. That was the way it was. That is why what you are doing is so important because nobody ever asked and I can say, you know, there were other African American students who started sororities and fraternities and that was helpful for them. I never pledged. It just didn't happen.

AC: Here's what I am thinking about. If you were having that experience just going to orientation, right?

NM: Yes.

AC: Everyone has to go to orientation. If you were having that experience at orientation and then in your classroom with your professor you're supposed to 00:31:00trust and learn from. I wonder what were your experiences when you had to go to the dining halls, when you had to get on the buses. What was that like?

NM: It was like you were a foreigner. I mean, it was like being in a foreign country. But it wasn't just mine, it was everybody had experiences similar to mine. So, even in the dining hall we ended up in Snell Hall. Was it Snell?

AC: Snelling.

NM: Yeah, Snelling and the one at Creswell.

AC: Bolton, they called it Bolton. Has it always been called Bolton?

NM: I can't remember.

AC: I think there was one in Creswell but they separated it. This big one.

NM: Well, we went there and when we went there, we went-- Had a space in the back there. We were in Snelling. When we went there we had a space in the back. 00:32:00So what-- and then they wanted to make us the villain because we, as they say, 'we keep on gathering off by ourselves'. Hello? Yeah we do. That's all we had, you know. They weren't concerned about what else was going on. It just made us the villain again because we wanted to be with each other for a few minutes of our every day. So, yes. And eating was a challenge and I remember crying many a day in my food and not eating it. So by the time I got to be a sophomore I said 00:33:00no more meal tickets. I couldn't do that. How did we ride the bus? That got to be just a part of the routine so we went and jumped on the bus and that was it. But the bus now that you bring that up was probably the easiest place to be.

AC: Wow. Amazing. I'm learning so much. I'm taking so much in. You guys, the BSU, you said you guys had protests. You guys got fed up. You said it was time to do something about it. Can you talk to me about that? Did those take place on campus?

NM: Oh yeah! Let me tell you. It was so much to talk about. That was a part of the transition not only for me but for the other black students as well. Because 00:34:00when I came to be a-- Ronnie Hogue was the first scholarship athlete to come to Georgia. And he came in with me, with the other 9, 10. Ronnie was the scholarship basketball player and he was phenomenal and our good friend. And so we would go to see them play. And it was at that game freshman year or maybe it's the sophomore year that they started playing Dixie again.

AC: Oh my gosh.

NM: And by this time, this is sophomore year now, we could not take it, anymore. So everybody got ice-- We all sitting together in the what do you call it the--

AC: The stadium.

NM: Yes. We're all sitting in the stadium together in the stadium watching the game and we all got cups of ice and when they started playing those songs, Dixie, we started protesting. And we protested very well and it brought about a change in the attitude. When I think back on it, there was a murder. I do know...I... it was a murder. You would never read about it. There was an old black woman who was run over by a football player and killed.

AC: Oh my gosh.

NM: So we not only had to deal with the university, we went outside of the University to try to deal with the community. We protested that they needed to do something about this football player who had killed a black woman. It was that experience that drove us to really protest and, and make a change but it didn't work. They did nothing to the student. But it did not stop us because by that time we had been through too much. So that winter semester, that would be 00:37:001971. That winter semester they did something else. The university did something else, I can't-- And we began to protest. And it was during black history week and I told-- And some of the students went to this rally in Athens. And some of the rest of us were attending what the University sponsored for black history month. And we were sitting outside watching some black film and somebody ran-- 00:38:00came and got me to tell me that the students who were protesting had all been arrested.

AC: Oh my.

NM: And they had been put in jail. And so I along with other gatherers who were not there at the protest went to the jail. They were being kept in the slave barracks. The barracks that were left-- literally left over from slavery. There were no windows on the bars. And when we got there, I insisted that we be able 00:39:00to see the students and this white man who was a sheriff put a gun in my side and told me, told us that we were not, we were not getting in. We were not going to help them. And that, you know, they didn't want us to harry them anymore. Using the word 'harry' them. Harass. He said you will not harass-- harry us anymore and if you step across this line I will shoot you. So we left and we came back to Creswell. And boy, that night we went berserk. And so we went 00:40:00through Creswell hall. By this time we had sorta formed alliances with some of the females there.

AC: Some of the white females.

NM: The white females. And we raised money by asking people that we had met and knew and liked and got along with. They donated money. We went and bought food and something to drink and handed it. And asked a nice officer if he would make sure that our friends got the food. And we refused to leave until he passed it out. That kinda stuff. Those students--a lot of them, some of them lost scholarships. Some went to--they had to go to court. I was never in the court 00:41:00system because I--I'll tell you like this--I was from Atlanta. My daddy had schooled me on protests and that kind of thing. I was very familiar with Martin Luther King and his work so, she--Nawanna was not going to jail. I didn't do jail. I was not good at jail. I told them in the beginning I will stay on the outside and get the lawyers and the doctors and everything that you need. And that's what we did.

AC: Wow. Protest. So that protest was on campus and they got arrested. Taken to the Athens-Clarke County jail.

NM: Whatever that is. And you know that is when we protested for more black 00:42:00students, for more African American professors. All of that. That's when we got our manifesto. At least they heard that. They didn't do a lot about it but they did better than they had. So that's when we started getting more black students. That's when [Chuck] Kinnebrew and Larry West and all of the black football players came to UGA because we had protested. And that's the story. That's the back story. We were radically protesting to have black athletes, professors. Everything everybody else had we wanted as African American people. And our protest led to the beginning of change. It was just a flicker of light. But a 00:43:00flicker was better than total darkness.

AC: Wow. I have to ask, what kept you there?

NM: For African American people we were just getting to the point where we were integrating or desegregating schools like UGA. So you don't quit. A whole race of people are hoping that you get through. And so I don't care what you gotta do. Wipe your face, dry your eyes, square your shoulders and walk on through the difficulty. That was the attitude we had at the time. It wasn't about us. It was 00:44:00about a... people, a cause. That's what it was all about. I wasn't just going to UGA for Nawanna. If that were the case, I could have very easily come back to Atlanta and gone right over to Spellman. But that wasn't it. If we quit, the attitude for me is, if we quit now then how long will it be before we're able to ever have a chance like this again because the whole idea was that they were setting us up for failure. You know what I mean. And we knew that. They were setting us up for failure. So, in terms of the courses that we didn't know, we 00:45:00should not take together. A lot of people who came after me flunked out. But that wasn't my option. I could not flunk out. I had to go through.

AC: Yes. Well i just want to take the time out right now to thank you for helping to pave the way for me to be able to do something like this for the Special Collections Library. And even for myself being able to talk to you and just get so much knowledge and empowerment means so much.

What would you like to tell students at UGA now there, anyone listening to this, about your experience enlightening them?

NM: I am a parent of four earth children, two by marriage. To my knowledge I now 00:46:00have seven grandsons. So I will tell them, the students who may listen the same thing I tell my family. You don't have a choice to quit. You have a choice to succeed. And you don't just succeed, you succeed extremely well. There is a host of people who are coming behind you that need the wind of your wings to drag them forward. So press, press, press toward the mark of the high calling. You don't have a choice to fail. You have a choice to succeed and succeed extremely 00:47:00well. That's what I say just when I talk to all of my children, except my millennial daughter. We have a millennial. All of the rest, the other three-- The 2 sons went to Morehouse. Our daughter finished her schooling. Our millennial went to Ga State, so she finished her Daddy's alma mater. But I never let them--they did not have a choice. They knew that. They knew that we had not 00:48:00arrived so well that we can afford to let anything slip. We could not let absolutely nothing slip. Do it and do it well. And as I look back on my own life. I am thankful to God for everything that I went through. It made me stronger, helped other people. And just is a gift. I have peace of mind. I don't need a do-over for anything. You know why? I did everything right the first time.

AC: Wow. So on that note we are going to wrap up this interview. My name is Ashley Carter and thank you so much Pastor Nawanna. I appreciate it so much.

NM: Thank you so much for the invite and having the conversation with me. God bless you.

AC: Thank you.