When Pamelia Adams steps up to the microphone, history doesn’t just speak—it sings with the voices of those who’ve walked before her. This episode features a heart-to-heart with Adams, a UT Tyler graduate student with a profound connection to Black History Month. She shares her personal journey interwoven with the legacy of civil rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Her academic research on Dr. King’s legacy serves as a backdrop to the narrative of her life—from her formative years to her role as a mother instilling the same values in her children.
Adams recounts the preparation for integration she received as a kindergartner. She hasn’t just witnessed history; she’s lived it and continues to shape it, breaking new ground.
TRANSCRIPT
LANDESS:
The origins of Black History Month began nearly a hundred years ago, and over the past 50 years, virtually every U.S. president and Congress made the declaration for the month of February. I’m UT Tyler Radio News Director Mike Landess. We wanted to know how Black History Month was viewed and observed nearly a century after it began, and so UT Tyler Radio Connects with graduate student Pamelia Adams of Jacksonville to get her take. You recently presented a powerful tribute right here on campus in one of your classes.
ADAMS: Yes, I did.
LANDESS: Well, tell me how that came to be. Was that scripted or did you talk off the top of your head?
ADAMS:
No, it wasn’t scripted. I talked off the top of my head, and I had some prepared notes in the event that I needed them. But it was just sharing my personal insight about Black History, and it actually parlayed into what my thesis is about. And so I’m writing about the space in place in the discourse of the civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King.
LANDESS:
Give us a piece of that, give us a little taste of what that was like, of the presentation that you did. Is there a particular element that you could share with us?
ADAMS:
Sure, I think it was very interesting to point out that my class of students who were all Black at a kindergarten, we were prepared by our kindergarten teacher, Rosa Clemens, to be able to start as the very first class to go, of Black students, to integrate for first grade, and so she had…
LANDESS:
What was this? I’m sorry.
ADAMS:
This was in Jacksonville, Texas, and the name of her cute little white little school was called “Clemens Kiddie Kollege” and she spelled “Kiddy” with a “K” and college with a “K.”
LANDESS:
OK.
ADAMS:
And that was intentional. She wanted us to know that, just like the letter C and the letter K have the same sound, they’re different. And she said, even though you’re little Black children, you’re going to go to school with the in quote “white kids.” You’re going to be prepared because you know that participation is our foundation as leaders of tomorrow. And that stayed with me. And even as a teenager, I participated in an organization, and it was about top teens of America. And it was an all-Black organization, and Ms. Clemens had said that one day, when we got old enough, we could be young ladies and young gentlemen, and we could be involved in Top Ladies of Distinction. And when, actually when I grew up and became an adult, I became a member of Top Ladies of Distinction.
LANDESS:
And what does that organization do?
ADAMS:
It promotes Black history, it promotes civil rights, it promotes empowerment and the fact that education is our way to be able to be generational leaders. So it’s very prolific.
LANDESS:
Let me ask you something about yourself here, for some context and perspective on what you’ve just expressed. Your dad was a pastor. You’re married and you have kids. How old?
ADAMS:
I have a 26-year-old and I have a 30-year-old.
LANDESS:
Ah, so you have young adults?
ADAMS: I do.
LANDESS: But they’re still your kids.
ADAMS: They’re still my kids, and that’s why I identified with Dr. King so much, because as a pastor, Dr. King was obviously a pastor but my father was, and back in that day, we used to have those 33-inch vinyl records, and my dad would put on my little record player and he would listen to the “I have a Dream” speech. And it was just indwelled in me at home. It was indwelled in me at that all-Black little school, the importance of the dream that we could have equality. And so when I had the opportunity to speak for the Communication Colloquium, I thought you know what, what a great opportunity to share my past personal history with the overall great history about Black history here in America.
LANDESS:
Well, tell me about moving through with your education. Have you run into any barriers, that any obvious barriers or even subtle barriers in terms of furthering your own personal education and the things that you want to be able to do with your life?
ADAMS:
Well, you know, ironically I haven’t. And, interestingly enough, when I became a graduate, I’m the first one in my family, my immediate family, to get my education. And it’s not, the school is not there now in Jacksonville, but I attended a junior college called Lon Morris College, and I was a Bearcat and I was very proud. And I thought, oh, I have an associate degree, I’m going to be able to go out and just change the world. I soon found out that an associate degree is nice, but they want you to have an undergraduate degree as far as a bachelor’s. And that’s how I ended up being here at The University of Texas at Tyler. And I got my undergraduate degree, with always a plan to go back and get my graduate degree, and I’m very close to doing that. I will be graduating in 2024. So I’m just very excited for this opportunity. And answer to your question no, I didn’t observe that, because I was prepared, I think, at the age of five and six, that no matter how they treat you, you know that you’re a child of God, that you’re somebody and that you belong there. So you walk into the places if God sent you there.
LANDESS:
I like that. So tell me a little bit about what it is you want to do. What is your subject matter?
ADAMS:
My subject matter is communication. And I love to talk and I never met a stranger. I think that’s because I’m a preacher’s kid, and there were so many opportunities to meet diverse groups of people multi-relational and educational and religious people, and so I just feel like it’s an opportunity to be able to use the gift of gab and to be able to educate. I am a certified teacher for Texas, and so I’ve worked with middle school students. I love that. My passion is education, and if there’s any opportunity where I can do that using communication, I just think that it’s going to be a win-win, because that’s what I was born to do.
LANDESS:
You live in Texas, where Juneteenth is now celebrated with barbecues and parties by all races, but Juneteenth marks the date when African Americans in the state first learned that Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Act outlawing slavery two and a half years before. Taking righteous indignation and then turning that into a party is something, and it says something about how you grow up and how we live in this country,
ADAMS:
It was nothing new to me because I come from a pro-Black family, and so we already celebrated Black History Month.We also celebrated Juneteenth, and I remember learning as a child that even though the slaves were free in January, we didn’t celebrate until June because they wanted to make sure they got the crops out of the field first, and they didn’t think about us having rights and opportunities, and so when I hear that the nation has caught up with what we were already doing in Texas, it’s just very exciting to be a Texan. Don’t mess with Texas.
LANDESS:
Celebrating Black History and Black culture is becoming much more visible these days on a national stage: Super Bowl halftime show testament to that with the singing of the Black National Anthem, Usher’s amazing performance. And then at the Grammys where a gay black woman, Tracy Chapman, stood side by side with country singer Luke Combs to perform “Fast Car,” which he had done a cover of that song. At a time of divisive political differences in this country, do you think we’re making any progress at all in embracing our racial differences?
ADAMS:
I do think that we’re making progress, and I’m very proud to be an American. And I’m proud to be able to know that as a child, when I was prepared for the negativity and I didn’t experience that. I’ll never forget walking into that classroom at that big, giant school where you could place our little tiny school into that big building in Jacksonville, Texas, and I walked in. There was a redheaded woman. She had beautiful blue eyes, and she had a magnetic smile and she told my mother and I, “Welcome to this class.” And when she introduced herself to Mrs. Franklin, Mrs. Franklin said, “And this is my daughter, Pamelia.” And interestingly enough I still stay in contact with Ms. Rudloff and she, I found her on Facebook and I just recognized those beautiful eyes and I said I know you don’t know me from anyone, but you look like this teacher that I had in first grade, and I know that I’m in my fifties, but you look like Ms. Rudloff. I know you have a new last name. Apparently she had gotten married, but interestingly enough, the love that I have for education, that I felt for Ms. Clemens, it just easily translated to another woman who loved education and made me feel welcome, and I’ll never forget that experience. And I think America is realizing the importance of the things that we share, the similarities, and of course, you’re going to have detractors, and you’re going to have that faction of people that don’t want us to be together and want us to be divisive. But we outnumber them, and we know that if you know the Lord, at the beginning of the Bible, it says: “In the beginning God created” and we know at the end that Jesus wins. So I’m excited about the collaborative opportunities here in America.
LANDESS:
So you have adult children, but you have taught in middle school and you, I’m assuming that you would again like to continue teaching?
ADAMS:
I would like to continue teaching and actually work here at The University of Texas at Tyler. I would love to be a professor here to be able to use what I learned here from this great institution. And I just think it would be an opportunity to be able to share what I’ve learned, because I want to inspire other minorities to get a graduate degree.
LANDESS:
Are you hopeful that the world that the kids that you want to be able to teach, that they’re going to inherit, is going to be a good one long after we’re all gone?
ADAMS:
I do, and if you think about everything that we’ve experienced, from civil war to world wars, we as a country have risen to the occasion, and we’ve united and we’ve been able to be a powerful force in this world, and I don’t think that’s going to change. Sure, there are going to be challenges, but if we stay unified and we remember our mission and we stay passionate about democracy, I think we can’t help but have a win-win opportunity.
LANDESS:
Any final thoughts on Black History Month that you’d like to share?
ADAMS:
Just that I think that it’s not necessary, because I think that as a great melting pot, we all, as Americans, have a place in this great country. But I just think that it’s an opportunity to celebrate our differences and to learn about different cultures, and I’m just thankful to have a participation as our foundation, as leaders of tomorrow, to get a part in that.
LANDESS:
Thanks for listening as UT Tyler Radio Connects with graduate student Pamela Adams. To share, listen again or for a transcript of this interview, visit our website UTTylerRadio.org. To be notified about future episodes, subscribe to “UT Tyler Radio Connects” on your favorite podcast platform. For UT Tyler Radio News, I’m Mike Landess.
(Transcripts are automatically generated and may contain phonetic spellings and other spelling and punctuation errors. Grammar errors contained in the original recording are not typically corrected.)
