Norma Clayton-Ivy – Back to the Future

Class of 1974
(Identifies with Class of 1973)
Retired

“Trailblazer”

(There are some parts where the video is just sound)

*Transcript Was Computer Generated*

Video 1

thank you so much for

agreeing to participate in this

interview let’s start off with the

questions can you introduce yourself my

name is norma clayton ivey

cop cup which stands for college of the

pacific my class is

graduating class 1974

but i identified with the class in 1973

because i marched with them march for

what graduation okay how did you learn

about pacific

i learned

about pacific through my high school

counselor her name

was and now it escapes me mrs thomas

juanita thomas

she is the one that introduced me to

pacific

and she gave my parents a application

to fill out what made you choose pacific

because a dear friend of mine

joyce parish how

who was in callison at that time came

down to visit

me in oakland california

and she had she talked to my parents

my mother who is still alive and my

father

and she convinced them

to have me go to pacific

and also my counselor said that pacific

was a difficult school to get in for

black people and that if i got in

that was a

how would i say it was a blessing

what are you currently doing now

i am currently retired

what brought you back to the campus

what brought me back to campus was

the death

the untimely death of of a dear

classmate his name was robert thompson

tucker excuse me robert tucker

and um

we heard about his death

in february of 2006

and a group of alums

we started to talk

about getting together

and one of the alums is one of my

dearest friends

her name is

penny henderson beeman

class of 1973

and she

sent me an email telling me that

she was coming to california because she

lives

right now in virginia

and that we should get together

and so i started

contacting hotels

and different venues that we could have

a an event

and at that time

i said no

you need to go back to the university to

see if they could help

in some kind of way

and that’s how it started

i got marilyn salisbury who was also the

class of 73 to help me and then

i started emailing

other

people i knew

and asked him

well tell them about the reunion and

they said who’s helping you when i said

uh just me and marilyn or

sometimes i would just say me

and that’s how it started

so we came back

came

i came to the university

the alumni office

and i had a talk

with the

director who was bill cohen at that time

and he asked me what do you want the

reunion to be

i said

this year in october 2006.

so that we got

a list of names and they were really

surprised of

how i had to explain to them

if i highlight

the pages

of people

you wouldn’t be able to see the page

and they were really surprised because

there were

really no document true documentation of

us because during the 70s government

the government said that they could not

code us

by our race

so my name i never received anything

about about alumni

my name was in a general pool

so when they they were really surprised

after we went through the yearbooks and

showed

the pictures of us they were really

surprised

so to make a

story short

we got it together we came here

in october

2006.

and um

most of the program

i had started the program

and then we

fought the committee found

tune it

and we had our first reunion

over i would say about 100 or more came

from the group of 1970s

and

we were all shocked about how much the

university had changed even though

i lived right there in i live in

sacramento and i would bring my children

here

on campus but i never came to any event

at the university

so we had three days

of reunions

the current students at that time were

not aware of black alumni

they were invited to one of our dinners

and they really enjoyed

that saturday

took a vote

and decided that we would start a club

and then um

the rest is history

so now our club is one of the leaders we

were the first affinity group

on campus

and um we have dead

a lot of work

working with students

working

in our communities

we have done over 100 events

so we became a leader on this campus

as far as alumni goes

we raise money for the alumni house

we also raised money for

the knowledge is power

study room

in the library

and we have done

essay contests

and we also have done black graduation

since 2012.

can you name the groups clubs and

organizations that you participated in

or did you already list them all

was in

i was a member of the black student

union

i was the corresponding secretary

i was the chair for the black ball for

two years

it was a it was a wonderful affair

and then i was also

a not a cheerleader but a dancer for the

university of pacific

we were called women of song

what was it like living or being on

campus

it was fun

so like did you

um live on campus like all four years or

was it yes i lived on campus okay i

lived on campus

it was a different environment

for me i grew up in an african-american

community

and coming to pacific was a shock

but i met some wonderful people here

not all my friends were not all

african-american but the majority were

i enjoyed going to the football games

i learned how to play

cards the game

called big wisps

i had

we got parties we did things we had a

black fashion show

i was

17 years well i had just turned 18. so i

was very young

nick

and so it was a wonderful experience

the best thing i could say that happened

to me on this campus besides having good

friends and receiving a good education

was that i met my husband here

and that marriage lasted for 44 years

and nine months

he was not a graduate of pacific

he was a he was in graduate school at

the university of california at davis

and

he was one of the best

most knowledgeable person i knew in my

life and i’m forever grateful for having

him because

i’ve had three wonderful children

were you involved with cip

uh yes in the sense that i was not a cip

student because i didn’t graduate from a

school in stockton

but i was here the first year cip was

established and cip was a place that

welcomed all of us

that’s where we are

tutoring

it was like a safe place on campus

they let us uh was on the top of

anderson y

which we could hold

we held our bsu meetings there

we always felt welcome under the

umbrella of cip

many of my friends

were

from the cip program

but to me

it didn’t make any difference because it

was just it

and still is a good program and then

what is a quote you want to go under

your picture

trailblazer

just trouble sir yes

and it cut off but luckily it was not

during when you were speaking before so

yeah

trailblazer okay yeah cause i have

started the club yeah

hopefully it will stay strong

thank you very much for it and

Video 2

see a lot of these people

kaylee i didn’t really know her but she

knew

cordell sims

3 sims

some of these were older um

students because they had a program

called teacher core yeah

here are the day twins

yeah

linda and chris day

they grew up in sacramento for what i

could understand

they were seniors when i came as a

freshman

okay

and that you have to get miss joy to

talk to you

she will talk to you because she can

tell you how many people

were who were african-american who were

on this campus

a lot of the me football players

at that time came from junior colleges

and then transferred in yeah

and i can say

many of them graduated

it’s one thing i loved about

the fall because we had football

and football was a way that we could

gather together and do our thing up in

the stands you couldn’t beat us dancing

in the stands we get in the middle

and we just have a good time then after

the game we went party

and you know we were even traveling one

time we traveled all the way to fresno

back then gas was like 89 cents or

whatever it was

we went to fresno

saw the football king

came back waited for the football

players and we partied at the top of the

see cause we had

records

okay

we would listen to

uh k-u-o-p because we had black djs yeah

the school

sold the radio station and whatever they

did but

the community

embraced us

we were not afraid to go down

pacific avenue down to el dorado we were

not afraid

we would go visit like our friends who

were in cip

we would go with them to their parents

homes

we would talk to them get to know them

and

sometimes

when when i was a sophomore we had some

students

that came all the way

from the hbcus

they were working on their master’s

degree in chemistry

and um like when i would go home

sometimes i would take somebody home

okay when we went home that was real

trick

load up on the food bring it back okay

that i would catch the bus go home

then my parents come up and get me

not really my father came here

i didn’t have a uh

i mean we were invited to come on campus

early you know to check it out

men check out nothing

all i saw was one picture

came here boom

it’s different atmosphere did i see miss

joy no i didn’t see miss joy until the

next day

i met

my first african-american

student

was penny henderson beeman

and we still talk

after all these years we all still talk

and that’s the beauty of us because

we would come together we knew what our

purpose was you know

my purpose was to be the godmother of

everybody and that’s what they told me

you will be the grandmother

you’re going to be the mommy of the

group well i’m past mommy age i’m

grandma group okay

so i would get

i would get upset with them they can

give me a career

but

they know

that

this is my passion

to make sure like i said that your

experience

is a good experience

because i don’t want to

this school is not meant for everybody

everybody can’t come here yeah but

everybody should have the opportunity to

apply here that’s true and see

what they can offer you mm-hmm

i mean the small classrooms that’s good

that’s great

and it was small classrooms when i was

here

i was here when computers

were these big old huge things that

looked like refrigerators and they had

these big old wheels that went around

okay we did the scantron

test we even did test

um multiple choice i’m good on multiple

choice

essays i don’t

i can write them but i’m good on those

multiple choice

my husband

god rest his soul could not stand

uh multiple choice or matching he could

not stand that he loved essay writing

interesting well he went to davis

when i went there to go visit him it’s

like 300 people in this class oh no

that’s just too many people for me

and so i mean it’s just

these books

there i wish you could have talked to

somebody like sharifah

she does not live here in california

she’s all

ways in southern

southern i mean in illinois

she can tell you some stuff see some of

these pictures i’ve never seen any of

these pictures in this yearbook because

i was gone

but this is 74. i

i think granite gave me my diploma in

january democargo

stan campbell

so many people this is

well you have to remember janine

it was a smaller campus oh really yes it

was much smaller

much smaller

this is george thompson

he was a dj at

kuop

do you want me and didn’t find this i

remember his name yeah does anybody’s

fine tony

he was the

um what

one of the people in student government

that’s professor larry walker

who was a professor in art

um that’s his daughter

i believe that is clarence williams

he was in graduate

school zimbabwe african rhythm wow yeah

that’s a lot of people

that were that’s a group

that is ralph george

Video 3

willie viney

they were football players

that’s alonzo carr

leave money again

lester williams

and that

that

is um

i think

email ransom

they were both cip

love williams

cip

and he and he became a director of civ

i believe he was a director of civ

this

cannonball athlete he was a

famous musician

and

here

park terry musician

he was a guest artist that day

okay

there i am and homecoming

eugene

tommy my highlight

katrina williams

i believe that’s michael mango

diane fallins

phyllis

[Applause]

find the graduation pictures

it’s a shame you guys don’t have your a

well because if it doesn’t have your

books anymore

i believe

that this

this is jerry

right here

jerry

charlene

patricia

it’s been so long ago

mr lucas

charlene doesn’t remember it

louise otis

okay okay

and louise came from the same high

school it’s me and george

[Applause]

your pictures at

here we go here with salisbury

okay

penny’s henderson beaming

i don’t remember who he is he’s in there

mind seeing your picture

oh yeah yeah

big change

i’ll get back to the football there’s

definitely a good picture of us

doing this about

patricia

here we go

jimmy carter

john joshua

oh okay

ozzie no me

noble notable

then there is

i could find okay of patricia

the other patricia

this is so long ago

sago

and these two gentlemen they ran

we knew them

here we are

there is me

diane

daphne

louise

penny

and that’s

is that eat up over there i think that’s

eda and that’s her child

billy jefferson

this is

barbara jones

lorraine dixon

linda day

walter

they were upper these are upper class

olfa

some of these people were in teacher

core

here you go miss joy

okay

i remember

this is

her name is adeja she calls herself a dj

numbers

it’s been so long since i looked to this

book

[Music]

Norma Ivy, Carina Carey, Stockton, April 25, 2022.